The Fully Decolonised Empire: New Bharat’s ancient innovations

(“The Fully Decolonised Empire” is a sharp, satirical exploration of New Bharat’s claim to have shed its colonial mindset — even as it enthusiastically preserves, repackages, and proudly indigenises many of the Raj’s favourite governing impulses. From dissent treated as a foreign pollutant to justice reimagined through ideological proximity, the piece examines how colonial habits have survived, adapted, and now enjoy a flourishing second life under a distinctly local banner.)

Where the Raj has left the building, but its furniture remains on active duty

In this age of triumphant national reinvention, few claims are broadcast with greater zeal than the insistence that Bharat has finally shed its “colonial mindset.” One might almost believe it—were it not for the distinctly familiar aroma of colonial habits still drifting through the corridors of power. The British may have departed, but their administrative instincts have found a second, far more enthusiastic life. The Raj has exited the premises; its furniture, however, continues to serve on active duty.

Colonial Habits, Now Proudly Indigenous

If New Bharat has rejected the Raj, it has largely done so at the level of rhetoric. The governing impulses remain strikingly loyal to the handbook they supposedly spurn. Techniques once attributed to imperial overlords have now been proudly naturalised—repackaged as native genius, handcrafted for modern national use.

Dissent, Professionally Categorised

Dissent, once the lifeblood of the freedom struggle, is today treated as a suspicious import: a dubious relic of Western liberalism. Environmental activists demanding breathable air are met not with engagement but with barricades, FIRs, and sombre reminders about “public order.”

Labels are deployed with almost artisanal care. The British had “seditious elements” and “native agitators”; New Bharat boasts an “ecosystem of conspirators,” “urban naxals,” and “Soros-inspired destabilising forces.” These terms are no longer insults—they are administrative categories, minted in bulk at a secret terminological workshop, stamped, and circulated nationwide.

Decolonisation, evidently, does not preclude a well-organised registry of troublemakers.

Civilisational Housekeeping: The Culinary Edition

Dietary preferences have ascended to the level of constitutional morality. Leaders confidently advise those who struggle to meet the nation’s culinary purity standards to “reconsider their place.” Where the British offered paternalistic suggestions, New Bharat practises “civilisational housekeeping”—a tidying-up exercise where patriotism is served on a thali, accompanied by an optional chapati of conformity.

Justice, Reimagined

In this bold new order, justice has undergone a noteworthy cultural reimagining. Lynching convicts are garlanded as heroes; perpetrators of certain communal crimes receive timely reprieve owing to their “good families”; cases evaporate miraculously once the accused discovers ideological alignment with the ruling sentiment.

Ideological proximity has become the new guarantor of judicial mercy—proof, if any were needed, that justice has indeed gone indigenous.

Meanwhile, in Ladakh, a soft-spoken reformer protests peacefully for constitutional guarantees, only to be met with silence so deep it could have been drafted by the Imperial Secretariat itself.

Freedom, on Silent Mode

Citizens today enjoy full freedom of expression, provided it remains politely muted.

One may speak—so long as one does not raise one’s voice.

One may question—so long as the question does not inconvenience.

One may protest—so long as it happens indoors, ideally with the volume set to “silent.”

Freedom, in its refined and culturally appropriate form, now resembles a device with parental controls enabled.

Literary Prophylactics

In Kashmir, narrative hygiene is upheld with almost medical fastidiousness. Books are banned on grounds of ideological contamination; ideas are treated like dust—potentially harmful if allowed to accumulate.

Reading a banned book, once a harmless exercise in curiosity, is now considered an act of hazardous disloyalty. Best to mask your thoughts, and disinfect your imagination.

Past Glory as Present Excuse

Ancient science, metaphysics, and fantastical engineering feats are celebrated so vigorously that present-day governance appears optional. This is the masterstroke of New Bharat: convincing the public that surveillance, hierarchy, and suppression are not inherited colonial reflexes, but indigenous civilisational treasures.

Gandhi envisioned Swaraj as self-rule; New Bharat offers Swaraj as parental supervision—complete with warnings, filters, and terms of acceptable use.

Echoes, Repeated for Maximum Effect

Colonial habits: handcrafted, proudly local, impressively durable.

Dissent: carefully packaged, fully recyclable, internationally exportable.

Freedom: indoors, supervised, acoustically controlled.

A nation loudly declaring liberation from colonial psychology while quietly enshrining colonial practices as cultural inheritance—this, perhaps, is the grand paradox of decolonisation. If this is freedom from the Raj, then long live the New Empire: defiantly local, culturally sanitised, and increasingly indistinguishable from the old one.

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(Disclaimer: This essay is satire. Any resemblance to real policies, political habits, or administrative reflexes is entirely coincidental — though readers may draw their own conclusions. No officials, bureaucrats, or ideological ecosystems were harmed in its making.) (Views are personal.)

(The writer is a retired officer of the Indian Information Service and a former Editor-in-Charge of DD News and AIR News (Akashvani), India’s national broadcaster. He has also served as an international media consultant with UNICEF Nigeria and contributes regularly to various publications.)