Indian Education - Fulfilling McCauley's vision of creating a nation full of non-thinkers: Part 1

Part 1 – True History missing from textbooks
How the culture of a country can be totally stripped of its innate spirit, its growth entirely staggered by confusion, by malicious intentions of its rulers and ignorant carelessness of its subjects is very evident in current day India. In order to understand this phenomenon we need to look back at our history.

Thanks to the awareness being created today by various groups such as Art of Living's teachings by SS Ravi Shankar, Swami Ramdev's "Bharat Swabhimaan" movement's speeches by Rajiv Dixit, education from my AOL teacher Rajima and others, I am now becoming aware of our immensely rich heritage and knowledge, and how years of foreign rule tried to kill it, succeeding mostly but not totally. This rich heritage which I was never told about by any teacher in any school or college, and only sometimes hinted upon by my grandmother who could not provide any detail or proof.

For 10000 years my motherland India has been the land of sages who were scientists of a different nature. They experimented with themselves - their bodies, minds and spirits, and revealed the core, deep realities of our existence. Their experiences were then documented in detail in a rich collection of scriptures. From this came everything from Ayurvedic system of medicine for the body, the number system invented by Aryabhatta, Sanskrit, the mother of all European languages, meditation techniques for being peaceful and realizing the ultimate truth about who we are, practical tips for living a peaceful, virtuous and prosperous life, various dance and music forms deeply rooted in spirituality, cuisine which was deliciously rich with spices as well as healthy for the body, and so much more… These were all made available to the masses. They were not productized and sold for a profit, because the sages knew that this knowledge should benefit the whole world because inside we are all connected as one being. If one is not benefited, everyone else is also affected in some way. Everything started and ended by offering to the whole humanity and divine and chanting for peace. Till today any cultural and religious ceremony in a Hindu gathering ends with Chanting Om Shanti…Shanti…Shanti (Peace…peace…peace) and Loka Samastha sukhino bhavantu (May all people be happy. There is no "us" and "them"). There was no institutionalized religion, instead, everyone had total freedom to experiment and worship anything or nothing - total democratic system of spirituality!

It was only in the last 2000 years that Indians started organizing themselves as one religion in the face of fierce competition and conversions. And once that started happening, the zist of the ancient philosophies also started losing its impact on the society.