Rewriting history or decolonizing Eurocentric history

In popular as well as academic historiography the achievements of non-Europeans are hardly ever recognized or celebrated. This writing of history where Europe is always kept at the centre of every development – social, economical, political or technical – is known as Eurocentrism. This leads to the assumption of Europe’s history as the universal timeline, such as the Renaissance. 

Everyone knows the Renaissance. The era of rebirth, humanism, art, Da Vinci, and also, the era funded and fueled by the East through trade and stolen “discoveries”. Paper, the compass, mathematical concepts, they all came from outside Europe. The thing is, the academic pen and paper was in the hands of the Christendom (churches of West Europe), and because of that, we have all heard of names such as Shakespeare or Pythagoras. They’re innovative, key historical figures, and in my opinion, complete knockoffs of their Eastern counterparts. 

All parts of the East have done wonderful things for the world which the West have “discovered”, but the focus of this will shift to India, as a retort to the extensive and growing online hate towards the country. The funniest part is how in the Alexander the Great and Porus story, which is taught worldwide, Alexander is great, and King Purushottam is apparently porous.

Comparison with Europeans

The “Shakespeare” of India, Kalidasa, who wrote Abhignyanashakuntalam, existed 1,200 years before the man who dramatized two lovers dying repetitively, which is, Romeo and Juliet. If anything, Shakespeare is the Kalidasa of Europe.

Another key figure of the Indian Golden Age, Aryabhata, is often called the Copernicus of India. Even though the former proposed the Earth rotates on its axis and accurately calculated the solar calendar 1,000 years before the guy with the bob-cut published his heliocentric theory.

Sushruta, often ignored by western textbooks, was performing rhinoplasty and cataract surgery while most of Europe was still collecting stone and metal.

Ahmedabad is labeled the Manchester of the East for its extensive textile mills, even though India was the global leader in the textile industry for over a millennium. Perhaps you haven’t heard of… the Birthplace Of Cotton.

The Pythagorean Theorem, world famous for ruining middle school, is actually an appropriated version of the mathematical principles recorded in the Baudhayana Shulba Sutras centuries before Pythagoras was even born.

Samudragupta is known as Napoleon Bonaparte of India. Samudragupta, also known as Maharajadhiraja and Kaviraja, who never lost a war, cannot be compared to Napoleon, a genius in his own right, who was swarmed by rabbits.

Why does Eurocentrism exist? 

Well, for 3 centuries nonstop, the British, Spanish and French, sucked the life out of  most of the globe and taught their own history as “The History Of The World” and everyone else’s as local folklore. Eurocentrism makes us believe there is only a single way for a country to develop or be civilized, ignoring the tapestry of history it ripped apart while invading everyone. 

I doubt there is a permanent cure to Eurocentrism, but what modern historians can do is diversify literature, philosophy, because Shakespeare and Aristotle aren’t the only ones out there. We should use accurate maps, correct chronologies, and quite literally for the world’s sake, not use the Mercator Projection map.  

There has recently been a surge of poverty tourism in India, as well as Westerners misunderstanding and misinterpreting the nation’s various cultures. It should be understood that India is not only a developing nation, but a recovering one. Saying it is developing, is implying that India is behind. News flash, it wasn’t. 

Poverty tourism is the modern sequel to the Eurocentric bias. When a hateful person from Staten Island will see photos of slums in Mumbai, they will feel justified about their disgust towards India, ignoring the fact that struggle is a global phenomenon, not Indian folklore. Westerners often say online that Indians are “stealing” their jobs, but have they ever stopped and wondered why the Indian got the job and they didn’t? 

When the West looks at India’s economic rise, tech and infrastructure today, they frame it as a “surprising miracle”. Why? It is due to the “developing” label, it tricks people into thinking India is lagging far behind and discovered technology and mathematics last week.

How to counter Eurocentric History?

Eurocentrism, and let’s be honest, textbooks, teach us that India was uncivilized up until the Brits brought railroads and newspapers, without touching on the de-industrialization of India. It should be taught that while the British did give us tea and cricket, India was roughly 25% of the global GDP, and after the British burned jewels off its walls, the country bled to a struggling 4%. Institutions of education should teach multiple histories in one timeline. 

It is taught in every international relations program in the world, that global diplomacy started in Europe with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, but it should be also mentioned that Kautilya’s Arthashastra mapped out intelligence networks and foreign diplomacy before their cherished Machiavelli ever picked up a pen. This isn’t adding Indian names to the syllabus to be nice; it is to point out the fatuity of the West lecturing India about diplomacy when India cracked the code centuries before them. 

Teach the Renaissance alongside the Vijayanagara or the Gupta Empires, show that while the great Leonardo Da Vinci was sketching “flying machines”, Southern India was perfecting the wootz-steel the world was desperately craving. Instead of the previously mentioned Mercator Projection map, which exaggerates the landmass of Europe, the Gall-Peters or the AuthaGraph maps should be mandated in schools, as they show the actual size of Europe compared to larger areas like South America. 

Greek epics like Odyssey or Iliad are taught as sophisticated studies in literature, while you can find the Ramayana or Mahabharata at the back in the “religion” section, even though the latter dwarf Greek epics, both in size and philosophical complexity. Bhima is not the Hercules of India, he does not need a Greek stamp on his passport to be understood, teach Bhima as India’s own representative of loyalty and strength. 

This isn’t rewriting history as an act of revenge, it’s a plea for every history and legacy to be understood and valued, even though the colonial motherland has been running on the layout set by the East a thousand years ago.

(Arha Pathak is a student researcher based in Pune, Maharashtra. Her work focuses on decolonizing Eurocentric views and exploring South Asian history.)

(The ideas & opinions expressed are personal to the author and do not represent the Heritage Times & its ideology.)