Indocentrism

Indocentrism is any ethnocentric[1] perspective that regards India to be central or unique relative to other countries and holds that the "host" culture i.e. of India, is superior to others.[1]

Viewpoint

According to Indologist Michael Witzel, there is a recent tendency of indigenously minded revisionism and rewriting of India's history and archeology in scholarly publications, media, the Internet and government publications. This Indocentric rewriting includes claims that the first human civilization in the world formed in India in c. 10,000 BC, that there is an uninterrupted continuity of the Indian civilization from 7500 BC to present, and that Indo-European speaking Europe was populated by the immigrant people from the Indo-Gangetic Plain.[2]

Responses of other countries

Sri Lanka

Much of Sri Lanka's early history has been described as having an Indocentric bias.[3] This Indocentric bias in understanding Sri Lankan history led to a trend of Sri Lankan historians breaking away from the Indocentric bias in Sri Lankan history and instead focusing on Sri Lanka's historical and cultural links with Southeast Asia, which the country had close ties to.[3] One of the most famous historians to break the Indocentric view of Sri Lankan history was Senarath Paranavithana who focused on Sri Lanka's connection with the Malay Peninsula and the rest of the Malay Archipelago.[3][4] He established the "Malaya theory", claiming Sri Lanka's history with Kalinga was with the Kalingga Kingdom of Central Java, Indonesia and not with the Kalinga kingdom of eastern India.[3][4]

See also

References
  1. Persram, Nalini (2007). Postcolonialism and political theory. Lexington Books. p. 201. ISBN 978-0-7391-1667-8. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
  2. Fagan, Garrett G. (2006). "Rama's realm: Indocentric rewritings of early South Asian archaeology and history". Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public. Routledge. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-415-30592-1.
  3. Mendis, V.L.B (1985). Foreign Relations of Sri Lanka: Earliest Times to 1965. Tisara Prakasakayo. pp. 113–14.
  4. Sirisena, W. M. (January 1978). Sri Lanka and South-East Asia: Political, Religious and Cultural Relations from A.D. C. 1000 to C. 1500. p. 4-6. ISBN 9004056602.


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