“India, not just a nation but a civilization” exhorted Ambassador Pavan K Varma during an

interactive session with experts at VIF on the background of his best seller book ‘Being Indian’.
The ambassador to Bhutan, Mr Varma made an earnest attempt to explicate his point of what
this nation actually is. He, during his elaborate session, discussed the consequences of
colonization in India. In his own words “colonialism is not about the physical subjugation of a
people but of their minds”. He expressed his pain by adding that “Those who have never been
colonized cannot really know what it does to the soul of a people. Those who have been are
often not fully aware of — or are unwilling to accept — the degree to which they have been
compromised”. And he states that he expresses and understands this without any acrimony to
the colonizers (the British).

He started deciphering the rich, cultural civilization of our mother country in a lucid manner. He
started with the ‘Natyashastra’ written by Bharata, an exemplary compilation of 6,000 Sanskrit
‘shlokas’ – which not only is a treatise on various dance forms but also an account of adoration
of aesthetic beauty. He reminded about Nalanda, a world renowned university of yesteryears,
which attracted students from Turkey to Japan, during a period when systematic education was
alien to most of the world.

Considering these historical facts, he asked – “where are we today?”

He made an analysis of the condition of the various streams of our national life and the
analyses may be briefed as below.

Education – We are giving so much emphasis to professional courses but, unfortunately, the
least to subjects of humanities or social sciences.

Language – A big chunk of Indian population is well versed with the language of communication
– English, but most of them are far from knowing the language of their culture – the mother
tongue. We are so much obsessed with westernization. We are familiar with the Booker Prize
winning authors (which again is an English award) or some other prominent awards conferred
by the West. But hardly have we been familiar with someone who writes in our mother tongue.
The author describes his personal experience that he knew a ‘Jnanpith’ award winner who
could not sell over 900 copies of his book even after bagging this national award. Our media
don’t make an attempt to review these works. Cultural language or what is called as the
mother tongue is truly a window to know original history, literature, songs or – shortly and
sweetly - to know the ‘smell of our soil’.

Classical music - We have become the biggest devotees of the so called popular music (pop,
jazz etc.) and behave antagonistically to classical and traditional music. The author makes it
clear that he is not an enemy of western music, but tries to convey that a mature civilization
should have to accept both.

Cinema – We project our film industry, the Bollywood, as our brand ambassador or soft power.
But can we disagree that 70 per cent of them are copied from Hollywood or may be ‘inspired’
from English films, as popularly said.

Literature – When Aravinda Adiga bagged the booker prize the Indian media celebrated it with
grandeur, but no one was interested to publish reviews of its literary importance. Mr. Varma
recalled an incident of a French author winning some award and the entire media dedicating a
significant amount of their news space for the reviews.

Fine arts – In an art show in 2008, the cost of total number of Indian arts sold were equivalent
to one Chinese painting.

The erudite speaker tried to speculate the course of the Indian soul and posed the question
whether we are aware of it. He exhorted that in this era of globalization we are educated but
not culturally developed. So the question of the hour is – being having a rich culture and
heritage why people of India prefer to mimic the westerners? “If we remained in derivative
legacy (from British) then our future will be a caricature and mimicry of westerners.”

He affirmed that all what that has happened to India because of losing the power of original
thought. We have to be original if we have to carry forward the legacy of a great civilization.

The director of Vivekananda International Foundation, Shri Ajit Doval introduced the speaker as
one among the rare breed of those civil servants who think originally and doesnot take
everything for granted. He made a point that we are such a civilization which sometimes
displayed the greatest of its civilisational qualities and some other times stooped down to
levels when materialism overtook our thinking and judgment. We often forget what our
civilisational strengths are, what we stand for and our relevance in the world. The Director
opined that state building and nation are building are two different aspects and we cannot
forget our past which include Shivaji, Vikramaditya and many others if we have to decide a take
our nation through a glorious course in the future.

The thought provoking talk was followed by an interaction in which experts like Mr.Sushant
Sareen, Brig. Vinod Anand (retd), Lt. Gen Nirbhay Sharma, Shri. Mukul Kanitkar etc. had their
own opinions as well as queries to put forward.