Understanding Colonialism as an educational project;
What education essentially does? It modifies one's experience(s) by introducing certain frameworks for description.
What education essentially does? It modifies one's experience(s) by introducing certain frameworks for description.
These frameworks either form new experiences or introduce modifications in such a way that the earlier experiences are no longer accessible to the subject that is experiencing.
The early experience of a child, as shaped by his immediate environment, is no longer accessible.
The early experience of a child, as shaped by his immediate environment, is no longer accessible.
In a way similar to the educational process, colonialism comes between the colonized and his experience of the world.
However, what distinguishes education from colonialism is the nature of the framework that intervenes between experience and its articulation.
However, what distinguishes education from colonialism is the nature of the framework that intervenes between experience and its articulation.
In the educational process, the framework is justified and justifiable on cognitive grounds alone.
But colonialism, through the use of force, violence, and deceit, prevents the colonized from accessing their own experience of the world.
But colonialism, through the use of force, violence, and deceit, prevents the colonized from accessing their own experience of the world.
Colonial consciousness, once imbibed, actively filters and articulates the experiences of the world.
This then generates a set of psychological attitudes and feelings (Memmi, 2003); the feeling of shame about their own culture; the conviction that they are backward, etc.
This then generates a set of psychological attitudes and feelings (Memmi, 2003); the feeling of shame about their own culture; the conviction that they are backward, etc.
Soon the colonial consciousness takes an appearance of a ‘scientific’ theory, adorned with plausible-looking ‘explanations’ surrounded by the fact of colonization itself.
~ Reconceptualizing India Studies, SN Balagangadhara, Oxford University Press
~ Reconceptualizing India Studies, SN Balagangadhara, Oxford University Press
Much of Indological work can be categorized as such;
First, let your presuppositions direct the framing of a description & then collect the data to confirm them.
This is what logicians call petitio principii; the fallacy of assuming the truth of what one wants to prove.
First, let your presuppositions direct the framing of a description & then collect the data to confirm them.
This is what logicians call petitio principii; the fallacy of assuming the truth of what one wants to prove.
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