When Science Served Empire: Darwin, Race, and Colonial Control

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Jan 10, 2026, 8:11:13 AM (4 days ago) Jan 10
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When Science Served Empire: Darwin, Race, and Colonial Control
https://youtu.be/xlpclt0jxEk


Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution emerged during the peak of British imperial dominance and was quickly appropriated to serve colonial ideology. While Darwin himself speculated—without verifiable experimental evidence—that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors, colonial interpreters weaponized this idea to promote white supremacy. Apes were racially caricatured as black or dark-skinned, while Europeans were presented as the most “evolved” form of humanity. From this false premise arose the dangerous conclusion that white-skinned British people were biologically advanced, while black and brown populations were naturally inferior and destined to serve them. This racial hierarchy, falsely projected as scientific truth, was used to justify imperial domination under the banner of “survival of the fittest,” suggesting that only the British race was fit to rule and flourish while others were meant to be ruled.

The most tragic dimension of this history is that many scientists from colonized regions—particularly those with brown and dark skin—became devoted defenders of this very theory that was originally used to degrade their own civilizations. Educated entirely within colonial and post-colonial Western frameworks, they inherited Darwinism as unquestionable truth, without being taught its historical, political, and racial motivations. As a result, any serious philosophical or scientific challenge to evolutionary materialism is often met not with open inquiry, but with emotional resistance or intellectual dismissal. This is not because such challenges lack merit, but because many scientists are unaware of how and why the theory was first promoted—as a cultural weapon as much as a biological hypothesis. What is defended today as “neutral science” is often an unexamined inheritance of colonial ideology.

The British colonial administration also systematically dismantled India’s indigenous Gurukul education system, which had cultivated philosophy, logic, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and spiritual wisdom for millennia. Through punitive taxation, institutional neglect, and deliberate de-legitimization, Gurukul education was branded as primitive and irrelevant. In contrast, colonial education—designed to create obedient clerks and administrators for the empire—was rewarded with social status and employment. Gradually, Indians were conditioned to believe that serving British interests was progress, while serving Lord Hari and living according to dharmic principles was backward superstition. Intellectual colonization succeeded where brute force alone could not.

Tragically, this mindset survived long after political independence. Independent India continued to adopt the same colonial education framework with little critical reassessment, perpetuating theories and assumptions that were originally crafted to legitimize European dominance. Even today, many Indian students subconsciously equate success with Western validation, aspiring to serve foreign systems rather than strengthen indigenous intellectual and spiritual traditions. This reveals that colonial rule has ended geographically, but not psychologically. True decolonization requires rejecting racially motivated pseudo-science, re-examining imposed narratives, and restoring confidence in India’s own civilizational wisdom—allowing genuine science and spiritual insight to coexist without colonial bias.

Darwinism critique, colonial science, evolution and race, white supremacy and science, British imperialism, intellectual colonialism, psychology of colonization, Gurukul education, Indian philosophy, Vedanta vs materialism, history of science, decolonizing knowledge

#Darwinism #ColonialScience #WhiteSupremacy #IntellectualColonialism #DecolonizeKnowledge #HistoryOfScience #Vedanta #PsychologicalSlavery #TruthBeyondEmpire

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