I was recently listening to a podcast by Sanjay Dixit called ‘The Jaipur Dialogues’ in which he had invited Shiv Sastry. Dr. Sastry is a retired Surgeon and is apparently the son of the founder of the famous Mysore Sandal Soap. The podcast mainly dealt with him talking about his new book about the myth of ‘Aryan Invasion Theory’. I am not going into much detail about the myth or the theory but Dr. Sastry said one thing which caught my mind’s attention. When people asked him in Q and A about what he thought about how can we educate people about the prevalent myths and Indian history in general as most of the stuff we have is from a perspective of Western Lens. Basically, how to think originally by doing research and how not to get swayed and be submissive to ideas from others (West)?
He said that one can stop seeking other’s approval if one’s truth is true only when one believes it is true.
The last sentence is pretty confusing. But what it insinuates is that we can be confident about our beliefs only when we don’t feel guilty about them. If our knowledge and research are solid, we don’t have to seek everyone’s approval because the evidence would speak of itself. Nobody is going to believe you if you don’t believe in yourself first.