Redefining a mindset

A mature approach to decolonisation requires reforming institutions without rejecting their foundations blindly

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PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA Modi's call for a national pledge to cast off a "colonial mindset" within the next decade will strike a chord with many who believe the time has come for Indians to assert not just political freedom but cognitive freedom: to question inherited assumptions, value our rootedness, and chart our future with more self-confidence. Delivering the Sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture on Monday, Modi urged citizens to "put the locks on" the Western mindset embedded in India since 1835 through Thomas Macaulay's project of reshaping Indian thought by dismantling indigenous knowledge systems and enforcing colonial education. The impulse behind the PM's appeal is understandable. India must certainly examine the institutional and intellectual legacies it inherited and decide which ones deserve to remain, which need reform, and which ought to be discarded.