Eurocentrism is often understood narrowly as the privileging of European history and knowledge systems within academia. However, its more insidious power lies not in textbooks alone, but in the everyday instincts of taste, aspiration, and self-evaluation across the Global South. Nowhere is this more visible than in the realms of language and aesthetics, where European standards continue to function as unspoken markers of intelligence, beauty, and cultural advancement.
In post-colonial societies such as India, Eurocentrism persists not as an imposed rule but as an internalised gaze.
The Architecture of Eurocentric Aesthetics
Colonialism did not merely reorganise economies and borders; it reordered perception itself. European features, lighter skin, narrower noses, and straighter hair were elevated in colonial art, literature, and later mass media as symbols of refinement and superiority. Post-colonial scholars such as Frantz Fanon argued that this aesthetic hierarchy produced a psychological rupture, wherein colonised peoples learned to see themselves through the eyes of the coloniser.
In India, this manifests most starkly in colourism. Fairness creams, matrimonial advertisements, and cinema have long reinforced the idea that lighter skin equates to desirability and social mobility. Sociologists and cultural critics have pointed out that this obsession is not merely indigenous prejudice but a colonial inheritance, intensified by British racial hierarchies that explicitly linked whiteness with governance, rationality, and modernity. Even as political independence was achieved, aesthetic independence was deferred.
The globalisation of Western media has only updated this dynamic. Instagram influencers, fashion houses, and beauty brands replicate European facial symmetry and body norms, exporting them worldwide under the guise of “global” beauty. The result is a homogenised aesthetic landscape in which deviation from Eurocentric norms is framed as local, ethnic, or niche, never as universal.
Language, Sophistication and Worth
If aesthetics shape how bodies are valued, language shapes how minds are judged. English, particularly British or American English, occupies a peculiar position in India. It is officially neutral, functionally useful, and socially decisive. Fluency in English often determines access to elite education, employment, and even credibility. Accents closer to British or American norms are subconsciously associated with intelligence and professionalism, while regional accents are mocked or dismissed.
Linguists and cultural commentators have observed that this is not simply about communication efficiency. Rather, English operates as a cultural capital. To speak English “well” is to signal proximity to Western modernity, while vernacular languages are framed as emotional, traditional, or backward. This creates a linguistic hierarchy where knowledge articulated in English is taken more seriously than the same ideas expressed in Hindi, Tamil, or Bengali.
The irony is that India is one of the most linguistically sophisticated societies in the world, with centuries-old literary traditions across dozens of languages. Yet eurocentrism renders these traditions supplementary, while positioning Western theory and English discourse as intellectually central.
The Myth of Cultural Advancement
Eurocentrism survives by equating Westernisation with progress. Development is imagined as resemblance: modern cities must look European, institutions must operate on Western models, and success must be legible to Western audiences. In essence, advancement is directly linked to westernization. Cultural theorists have critiqued this as a false universalism in which European historical trajectories are treated as the default endpoint for all societies.
In India, this logic is visible in urban planning, corporate culture, and even personal aspiration. Western lifestyles are not merely admired; they are treated as evidence of having “made it.” Meanwhile, indigenous practices are selectively romanticised or discarded altogether. This produces a cultural schizophrenia, pride in heritage paired with a deep anxiety about appearing insufficiently modern.
Internalised Eurocentrism
Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Eurocentrism is that it no longer requires enforcement. It is reproduced voluntarily, through consumer choices, educational priorities, and social validation. Cultural commentators have noted that decolonisation failed not because political freedom was incomplete, but because mental decolonisation was never seriously pursued.
To challenge Eurocentrism is not to reject Western ideas wholesale, but to dismantle their monopoly on legitimacy. It requires recognising that beauty, intelligence, and progress are not universal templates handed down from Europe, but plural concepts shaped by history, geography, and power.
Conclusion
Eurocentrism in the Global South, and particularly in India, operates less as an external force and more as an inherited instinct. It lives in accents that are corrected, skin tones that are lightened, and aspirations that lean westward by default. Until societies confront this internalised hierarchy, post-colonial freedom remains incomplete, politically achieved, but culturally deferred.
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