Whenever I feel the lack of criticism and reflection among Indians, I find myself relishing the writings of Ashis Nandy and Pankaj Mishra. The two writers, Ashis Nandy in particular, seem to retain the social psychological framework that the pre-independence India had developed under the British rule. To both of these writers, much similar to the likes of R. Tagore, it is impossible to view the colonial experience as one of master vs slave or white vs black. Though what Marxism and Gandhism did was to create a British strawman to attribute India's social problems to, these writers attempt to delineate the problems in Indian psyche while history continued in the British times.
The so called struggle for independence was not of any critical importance to Indians until the 1920s when the economic problems started to appear in the empire. Indians had assimilated or rather internalized the violence which Western troops and discriminatory rule had unleashed to them. In the early 20th century, the Indian elites, Bengalis in particular, felt part of the British literary and intellectual tradition and were eager to contribute to it. Their feelings towards the empire were not of hatred but rather of awe.
Ashis Nandy, in his essay titled "The Savage Freud", describes an Indian psychologist named Girindrasekhar Bose, who corresponded with Freud over a period of twenty years and attempted to explain Oedipal theories in the Indian context. A modern interpretation of these writing shows Indian mind under the colonial rule in great detail. More than anything though, it shows the discontinuities of modern India. In Bose's mind or that of other Indian scientists (some of them Nobel laureates) there was no disconnection between puranic fables and modern science. The Marxist ideals that became vogue in India had no space for superstition. Rationality had to shun tradition much the way it did in the West. This particular aspect seems rather un-Indian but the modern India chose to adopt a Western style nationalism over traditional framework which the early 20th century Indian intellectuals were working on. The conflict with tradition however, still continues in India, much the way it does in the rural hinterlands of the West.
After independence, the Bengali elites were to feel the wrath of the general public. However, the incomplete revolution of India granted them sufficient privileges in the post-independence India - often allowing them to study and move abroad and continue with life as they had envisioned.
The social problems in India therefore largely remain untouched. What British established in India might have had some benign consequences as far as rise of a middle class was concerned. But apart from a microscopic elite, this class was not as big to have created an major impact on Indian society. The Nehruvian class that developed in the post-independence world took Marxism and nationalism far more seriously than inane Hindu stories - often committing the same prejudice against Indian frame of mind that the colonial masters were once blamed for.
Understanding of social problems and their historical roots seems a rather unknown institution in India of today. The elites which commented on India have long departed and what flourishes in India in name of social institutions, much like in all parts of world affected by post-war instabilities, are a conglomerate of institutions that track the US. The past is too unknowable and the present requires imitations of the West. For the most part, India still depends on Western commentary for its own self-image.