The Staff Academy of the Joshi Bedekar College, Thane, invited Lok Raj Sangathan to make a presentation on Legacy of Eurocentrism in the Indian Subcontinent in their monthly gathering on 20 July 2007. The meeting was presided over by the College Principal Dr. Shakuntala Singh, Chairperson of the Academy, Ms. Shailaja Nair and two members of Lok Raj Sangathan, Dr. Sanjeewani and Dr. Bharat. The meeting was attended by all the teachers and many non-teaching staff members.

The main presentation was made by Dr. Bharat who talked at length on the achievements of Indian science and technology in pre-colonial India. Through examples from Indus valley civilization to the beginning of the British rule, he illustrated how the Indians had world-class achievements in the fields of civil engineering, metallurgy, architecture, medicine, mathematics and astronomy, languages, shipping and trade, philosophy and statecraft. He argued that the such level of accomplishments were impossible without having a broad education system and an environment that encouraged innovation and experimentation. He then provided some statistics of the extent of education through traditional gurukuls, madarsas and pathshalas, as found out by Dharampal from British sources. It has been documented that these traditional schools existed in every village and it has been estimated that one third of the population was literate in pre-colonial India. The speaker contrasted this with data for the early twentieth century when literacy figures had come down to less than one-tenth!

Dr. Bharat then proceeded to show how the British destroyed the Indian industry and scholarship due to their greed and because they wanted to impose a Eurocentric view on Indian society. The racist views of Macaulay and others clearly establish the British disregard for Indian knowledge and achievements. The implementation of British policy resulted in mass scale destruction of productive forces and destruction of intellectual wealth of India. British education inculcated a sense of contempt for our history and culture, a self hatred, and produced flunkies who readily believed whatever the British wrote and had no courage to challenge what was patently false or incongruous. The speaker concluded by saying the challenge in front of the intellectuals was to free all scholarship concerning the developments in the subcontinent from the biased formulations and distortions of colonially influenced authors. He said that the task taken up by the numerous uprisings to overthrow the colonial regime, including the great ghadar of 1857, continues today in the form of the struggle to eliminate the influence of the Eurocentric colonial legacy. Ghadar Jari Hai …

A very lively discussion ensued after the presentation with the participants expressing their indignation and anger at the way British colonial influence continues to this day in the affairs of the state. There was also discussion about how the British colonial regime divided the Indian society and even encouraged backward practices such as sati.
Dr. Sanjeewani highlighted the fact that continuation of the British institutions has left our people totally powerless in being able to influence what happens in our country. She informed the audience about the efforts made by Lok Raj Sangathan in advancing the cause of the empowerment of the people and by the Ghadar Jari Hai… Abhiyan to draw lessons from our past to build a bright future for our people and invited all the participants to join in these efforts. The new magazine “Ghadar Jari Hai …” was made available and the participants eagerly bought the magazine with several participants buying multiple copies for their friends as well.