Skip to main content
Chaptra
Cover of India, that is Bharat

India, that is Bharat

Written by J Sai Deepak

5.01 rating

519 pages, about 10 hours of reading

Chaptra reads alongside you — AI insights, chapter breakdowns and reader discussions for every book. Join free

About this book

India, That Is Bharat, the first book of a comprehensive trilogy, explores the influence of European 'colonial consciousness' (or 'coloniality'), in particular its religious and racial roots, on Bharat as the successor state to the Indic civilisation and the origins of the Indian Constitution. It lays the foundation for its sequels by covering the period between the Age of Discovery, marked by Christopher Columbus' expedition in 1492, and the reshaping of Bharat through a British-made constitution-the Government of India Act of 1919. This includes international developments leading to the founding of the League of Nations by Western powers that tangibly impacted this journey. Further, this work also traces the origins of seemingly universal constructs such as 'toleration', 'secularism' and 'humanism' to Christian political theology. Their subsequent role in subverting the indigenous Indic consciousness through a secularised and universalised Reformation, that is, constitutionalism, is examined. It also puts forth the concept of Middle Eastern coloniality, which preceded its European variant and allies with it in the context of Bharat to advance their shared antipathy towards the Indic worldview. In order to liberate Bharat's distinctive indigeneity, 'decoloniality' is presented as a civilisational imperative in the spheres of nature, religion, culture, history, education, language and, crucially, in the realm of constitutionalism.

Read it with a club

Chaptra's ideas and essays clubs — small groups reading the same books and talking as they go.

All clubs
A row of cloth-bound antique books

Books That Changed My Mind

Ideas and essays

  • 5 members
  • 4 discussions
  • Active 17h ago

Not books you enjoyed. Books that moved you off a position you'd genuinely held for years. This is a Chaptra house club — set up and moderated by us to get the conversation going. Open to everyone; jump in anywhere.

Read India, that is Bharat alongside people who are reading it too.

Chaptra Prime — paid clubs, every club feature, and unlimited reading support, for $5 a month or $60 once.

See Prime

Reading guide

Themes, characters and key ideas in India, that is Bharat, written by Chaptra AI.

A reading guide for this book hasn't been written yet. Chaptra builds one the first time a reader opens it.

Chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, character arcs and the full thematic analysis come with a free account.

Discussions

No one has started one yet

Join

No discussions yet

Be the first to start a discussion about this book!

Sign up to start the discussion

Reviews

No reviews yet

Be the first to review this book!