Bharatiya Chitta Manas and Kala

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Bharatiya Chitta Manas and Kala (1993) is, in a way, the final work of Sri Dharampal, though later he did author a few other books based on his archival studies. In this small, but seminal book, he reflects on the peculiarities of the Indian consciousness, the Indian sense of time and on the civilisational essence of being an Indian. The book thus lays down the philosophical perspective from which his corpus needs to be read.

DHARAMPAL (1922-2006) authored several books that sought to present different aspects of the Indian society and polity from an Indian perspective. These rigorously documented books disrupted the scholarly consensus about the backwardness and dis-functionality of pre-British India and presented the picture of a society that in fact was highly sophisticated and advanced in its political ideas and arrangements and in its sciences, technologies and education systems. These works are of abiding interest and importance.
In the Dharampal Classics Series, we present his major works in their original authentic version and in an aesthetically rich format. The Series is being brought out by the Centre for Policy Studies, a research institute with which Sri Dharampal was associated for several years, and Rashtrotthana Parishat, an organisation that had the good fortune to host Dharampalji at Bengaluru on several occasions and to introduce him and his work to the Kannada readers.

INDIA IS ONCE AGAIN at the crossroads. The people of India, through their precipitate action at Ayodhya, have once again reminded the ruling elite of India that they do not particularly relish the persistent insults to their civilisational sensibilities offered by most of the public spaces and almost all of the organised public activity in India. And. India must pay heed to that reminder.
It is unfortunate that after the successful culmination of a freedom struggle, that Mahatma Gandhi had moulded entirely around the Indian ways of thought and action, the leaders of Independent India quickly discarded those ways and went about organising the polity of free India in ways that had nothing to do with Indian civilisational consciousness and its varied expressions. The leaders, in fact, chose to continue with the organisational structures created by the foreign rulers, and retain the status quo in all spheres of public life. They behaved as if nothing had changed, as if the people of India had not won a great war to free themselves of the alien rulers, and as if the successful culmination of the freedom struggle meant nothing except the 'transfer of the levers of the established state apparatus from the British to the newly emerging Indian elite.
Independence of India thus became merely a matter of a change of guard at the British palaces in Delhi and the collectorates and courts in the districts. It was a matter entirely to be settled between the British and their successors among the Indian elite. The people of India, having forced the British out, were to have no further say in the public affairs of India, and their sensibilities and sensitivities were to be of no consequence in framing the polity of free India.

RASTROTTHANA SAHITYA, in collaboration with the Centre for Policy Studies, takes pleasure in offering to the public the DHARAMPAL CLASSICS SERIES, in commemoration of the birth centenary of Sri Dharampal (19.2.1922 24.10.2006). Dharampal's seminal and outstanding research work gave a new thrust to the endeavours aimed at freeing India from the oppressive colonial hangover. They also provided much needed signposts for properly understanding the character of our civilisation. For this reason, Sri Dharampal's research works will remain relevant and worth revisiting for many more decades.
From the mid-1980s onwards, Sri Dharampal came to be closely associated with Rashtrotthana Parishat. During the last two decades of his life, he was kind enough to stay at Rashtrotthana whenever he visited Bengaluru.
In October 1987, Sri Dharampal delivered a series of three lectures at the Parishat presenting the highlights of his research till then. Rashtrotthana Sahitya had the honour of publishing these lectures in Kannada under the title Bharata Jagruti in early 1989. In 1996, we also published the Kannada version of Dharampal's Bharatiya Chitta Mänas and Kāla, translated from Hindi.
The approaching birth centenary of Sri Dharampal has provided us an occasion to undertake the task of disseminating the thoughts, insights and painstaking research bequeathed by him. We deeply cherish this historic opportunity and look forward to a warm response from readers across the country and from abroad.