Riddle me this : Liberals if India accuse Indians of being “orthodox” and work in categories that emerged in Europe around 1800’s. They claim that these categories are universal and hence help people equally ( in principle ) !
Let’s take secularism as an example. 1/n
@sankrant

Secularism , the word was inserted in the constitution in the 70’s during emergency. But Indian state was obsessed with ever since the colonial elites got power in 1950. During the emergency and in the 80’s further changes like basic structure etc were added !
W/o a referendum

These ideas have not managed to achieve the desired results at all. They have resulted in more asymmetrical violence, unequal laws and de-humanisation of Hindus.
But the narrative of the victim being always the “minority” never goes away ! Why ?
Let’s look at this step by step.

A law/provision/privilege is inserted in the constitution for the “minorities” because they are a minority. There’s no other justification. The state explicitly encourages conversion to Islam & Christianity and taxes the Hindus for managing to survive as a culture ! Secularism

Now those who oppose this law/provision/privilege are either called - Savage, orthodox, backward, communal etc ! These are classic colonial tropes used by the Arab/Turkish invaders and later by the British to describe the native Hindus : inherently immoral and therefore criminals

While the state encourages conversion to Islam & Christianity through incentivisation, it manages to suppress hindu expression of culture using tropes like Majoritarianism which then we are forced to defend or you are condemned as a “Hindutva extremists” or patriarchal!

This is similar to how the church or in Islamic countries, those who hold opinions contrary to the book are either suppressed/killed or excommunicated.
This what happens when natives defend their culture. Idea is they are savage, so any defence of their culture is immoral.

because natives are inherently immoral by the Bible and Quran.
This idea of morality is then used as a theme to translate our texts and “prove” that we are immoral. When you use Semitic categories, we are all immoral in one way or another. Depends on how far one wants to take it

So Hindus demanding temples becomes “communal”, Hindus asking for education in native languages receives vitriolic criticism. As @sankrant & @ruchirsharma_1 say, a problem in 19C India is a problem of the state and the elite who served them. Not the Indian on the street.

Laws are made to not to defend & enable the aspirations and potential of the people w/o abandoning their culture but to defend “ideas” borrowed from elsewhere. We see that in how the bureaucracy, judiciary, police and governments work. A society cannot move forward like this.

There is going to be a conflict at every step of the way which the state can only resolve by
1. Decolonisation
2. Managing the natives
So far #2 has been the MO.
India survives despite all this. Indian culture has managed to breathe despite an assault of this kind !

Now let’s see how using Indian categories for governance, foreign policy etc would work. This is a simple example but we have to start somewhere -
Recently we were told that the “high traditions of soldiering” demand that we show asymmetrical respect to an enemy state ! Why ?

Because till the time we borrow ideas on how to conduct our lives, governance and deal with others we will be always be confused. That is what we don’t understand and hampers us wrt dealing with China & Pakistan. We don’t think for ourselves !

Let’s take 2 examples from Indian history -
Vishwamitra asks Shriram to Kill Tadaka immediately. Ram says she’s woman and he can’t kill. Vishwamitra says it does not matter if he wants to or not, as a prince it is his dharm to safeguard his people !
Ram obeys Vishwamitra !

Arjun on the 10 day of the war sits down surrendering his bow and wallows in self pity complaining that he would rather live on भिक्षा rather than kill his own people.
Krishna chides Arjun and asks to him discharge his स्वधर्म !

If you look at Indian stories and history, one has to apply his own mind (विवेक) in taking decisions rather than going by “one” book. There are of course rules and guidelines but that’s about it. Indian tradition encourages you to think for yourself unlike our constitution

The current categories used to study India, govern and solve problems many things that have no base and are just bad ideas.
Think for yourself what is “orthodox” and which enables free action !
@sankrant @ruchirsharma_1 @Nightmare2777