Religion and Education in The poem A Different History by Sujata Bhatt

The poem A Different History was written by Sujata Bhatt, and is about how the culture, language and identities of the colonisers have affected India’s values, culture, religion and spirituality. The first stanza focuses on respect for religion and education, and on India’s culture, whereas the second stanza emphasises how the language and the colonisers destroy this culture and values. This poem also focuses on the fact that language plays a crucial part in establishing national identity, linking people of the same nation together through common history, and a shared culture (which language is a part of). The poem contains various literary techniques, and explores multiple themes, the main one being the significance of language.

In the first stanza, the poem depicts India’s culture as spiritual and religion-orientated, and its attitude to books and knowledge sacred and respectful. In the opening line of the poem, “Great Pan”, the Roman god of nature and fertility, is mentioned in order to introduce us to India’s beliefs in multiple deities and to set the scene for the natural/spiritual theme of the first stanza. In Indian culture, spirituality and religion are much more prominent than Western countries, and Bhatt emphasised this by the line “Here, the gods roam freely”, where the use of the word “here” suggests that this is not the case in other countries. Also, the poem tells us that in India, animals are considered close to heaven, and the gods are said to take every shape/form, hence “[the gods are] disguised as snakes or monkeys; every tree is sacred and it is a sin to be rude to a book”, as the gods are present in both living and inanimate objects. Everything has a spiritual connection, and therefore to harm an object means...

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...poet explores the significance of language in this poem by using India as an example. The significance of language as an art and a weapon, as a medium of sharing culture and identity is portrayed in this poem in many ways, mainly by describing India’s spiritual culture and values, and the negative effect that removing India’s language has on its culture, history and on removing its national identity, in combination with using descriptive language as well as literary techniques, to convey the overall message of the poem better. I believe that the significance of language is explored in depth in A Beautiful History, and that this poem captures the impact that language has on culture in an interesting way with a historical touch of seriousness, and provides a wide ground for further deliberation about its significance.

Works Cited

A Different History - Sujata Bhatt