Thread by @shobweet

10 excerpts from the final section on 'constitution' from the book #IndiaThatIsBharat by
@jsaideepak that I found worth sharing. Hope it interests you to go ahead and read it.

Sir Thomas Munro - "We should look on India not as a temporary possession, but as one which is to be maintained permanently until the natives shall in some future age have abandoned most of their superstitions and prejudices" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"The purpose of the proposed politico-legal framework of the Montfort Report was to co-opt the native into the coloniser's worldview" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"The preparation of a constitutional framework for Bharat in 1918-19 must be viewed in the larger context of framing and enforcing national constitutions to universalise European coloniality and Christian universalisms" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"At least until 1919, the standard of civilisation, which emanates from Christian European coloniality, was in vogue and directly impacted Bharat's organisation as a political entity" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"The Chinese Empire, the Siamese Kingdom and the Japanese Empire, all had to transition to being 'nation-states' in order for them to be accepted by international society" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"a government with an avowedly Christian character was and remains fundamentally incapable of being neutral and impartial in matters of religion, much less in relation to the 'false religion' of the 'heathen native'" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"the transfer of territories and govt of British India to the Crown marked the beginning of a direct Christian 'civilising' phase for Bharat, which was partially held back until then due to the mercantile pragmatism of the Company" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"to limit the study of the history of Bharat's Constitution to the Constituent Assembly and its cogitations would be a truncated analysis. It is important to examine onto-epistemology and theology (OET) framework within which the Assembly operated, consciously or unconsciously"

"The 1858 Proclamation of religious neutrality by Queen Victoria provided an optically convenient veneer to the evangelical and civilising tendencies of the colonial administration" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak

"Hopefully, someday transformative constitutionalism will acquire a decolonial hue in Bharat, thereby strengthening indigenity, instead of shaming and silencing it through the unending and secularised Protestant project of 'reform'" #IndiaThatisBharat by @jsaideepak