Colonization is Everywhere

By Rupande Mehta

Our lives are rooted in colonization. We are so out of touch with ourselves and our roots that we have come to assume that the colonized world order is the norm. Most of those who have discerned the failings of the system bear the risk of potentially of losing everything that is dear to us. Despite this, some continue to raise hell unabated.

The shackles of colonization are strong, mighty, and seemingly impossible to break. After all, most of us live in colonized countries or are descendants of setter colonialists. If you continue to work within the systems without interrogating them, you are enabling settler colonialism. Working in the system is inescapable given the need for survival, but interrogating it is not.

I was confronted by much wrangling and heartache when I admitted to myself that I have played a part in enabling settler colonialism: I moved from India to the US, a country established by rich, white men to promulgate their own profits and make more money. I work for a Fortune 500 company that steadfastly upholds the beliefs of the land in which it was created, and I live on land whose true inhabitants, the Lenape, were violently and forcefully evacuated.

Now that I’ve had this realization, the real question is: What will I do about it?

I say all this, so that you the reader can answer this question for yourself: Are you entangled in the massive colonization web or are able to think, govern and speak for your thoughts and actions without fear or favor?

It is to decolonize. It is also true that “decolonization” has now become everyone’s favorite word to hate. Like it or not though, it is a tool for introspect that is forcing many, myself included, to microscopically look at our lives and examine how we have been thoroughly brainwashed by this enormous enterprise of earning material wealth.

I grew up in India, a country ravaged by the British Raj – colonialists who filled up their coffers with wealth from the rich land – who had no intention of settling there.  The main difference between India and the US is that wealthy, white Europeans came to the US and settled, setting up their own governance mechanism and overthrowing the European colonizers, but in India, Empire wanted to preserve itself and avoid any room for its dismantling, and focused on exploitation of all resources, human and otherwise.

When I was young, I was presented with options – get an education with good grades or get married. I was encouraged to come to the US so I could learn, get a job, and make money. I was encouraged to think for myself but when I did, someone always got angry with me – don’t talk back, don’t talk down, don’t ask so many questions, don’t question faith. This is a lot like colonization: Children might need “discipline,” but nothing justifies establishing and practicing power over and authority where anything that does not comply with its ideals or is even remotely questioned is squashed. It seeks to provide security in its obvious nature. Except that sense of security is false.

I came to the US, thinking of it as the land of the free and the home of the brave. After several years, I realized the irony of that saying, but I’ve realized when you say things out loud and continue repeating them, they are somehow accepted as the truth. No one is free here – we are all chained to something, be it our jobs, the fear of losing everything we’ve worked so hard for or our “independence.” It’s like looking through a prism and noticing that our lives are multifaceted and varied but, there shines no color on them. I dutifully joined the race to get a good GPA, a good job and make…money. Get married, buy a house, have a child, and pressure her with joining the same rat race we are all thrown into. Many of us aren’t even lucky enough to ask the question I’ve been pondering on, let alone think of ways to untie ourselves.

The system has found ways to divorce us from our sense of community, and this is self-serving, because it knows that by prioritizing individualism, there’s little room for us to work together to liberate ourselves. Decolonization works when you are part of the whole, when you strive to fight against the systems that oppress. This is not to mean that it is hypocritical to work within the system: It is only because we work within the capitalist system that we can see its flaws. We’ve consistently been taught to value White people over people of color, material wealth – money, money, money – at all costs over the natural wealth of the planet, exploit, defend, fight for your “right” to make it and attain power. Anything less makes you someone who is not worthy and somehow incapable of “attaining your purpose in life.”

I know I am not alone in this awakening either. So many of us, especially for some folks after the events of October 7, have started asking ourselves the question of where do WE go from here? We’ve seen helpless people being bombed out of their homes, lost limbs, lost lives, lost dear ones only to continue carrying their load with faith, patience and hope that the rest of us will mobilize to help them. While a small majority of us understand their plight and cannot fathom their suffering, so many of us continue to enable the perpetrators: wealthy, white Europeans who came to Palestine – terra nullis – with the idea of settling, i.e., on an empty land with very few inhabitants.

It's time to pause and reflect. Seriously, this is enough. We need to return to our roots, our ancestral wisdom, our collective knowledge, our community. Go back to the teachings of those who live in harmony with the land, because the damage happening to our world right now – in environmental and human loss – leaves us with no other option. We should introspect on the systems that brought us to this point. Indigenous communities have been stewards of the earth for tens of thousands of years, but it’s only in the last 400 years that destruction has escalated at breakneck speed. Everything about this points to our systemic failings. We must learn the real history of our land, and see the destruction and devastation that we have wrought upon throughout the world.

Once we learn, we will hopefully see there is no choice but to speak up.

Rupande Mehta is an Indian immigrant, a professional working for a Fortune 500 company, an activist for causes related to violence against women, environment, and social justice. In 2020, Rupande ran for State Senate in New Jersey’s 25th district and received the most votes ever received by a Democrat for that seat. She is a member of the Emerge New Jersey cabinet, an organization that recruits, trains, and provides a network to Democratic women who run for office. Her first book Trihayani: the Untold Story of Draupadi was released in 2022. In 2023, Rupande launched a podcast, Kalpvraksh (@kalp_vraksh on Instagram), focused on change makers with real solutions for our planet. Rupande is an avid reader and a Pelotoner. She can be found @rupee80 on Instagram.