Eurocentrism

Eurocentrism as the term for an ideology was coined by Samir Amin in the 1970s

Eurocentrism (also "Western-centrism") is a worldview centered on and biased towards Western civilization. The exact scope of centrism varies from the entire Western world to only Europe or even just Western Europe (especially during the Cold War). When applied to history, it may refer to an apologetic stance towards European colonialism and other forms of imperialism.

Quotes

• This is why the mainstream Western academics does not teach Abhinavagupta, Aryabhata, Bharata, Bhartrihari, Shankara, Kalidasa, Kapila, Kautilya, Nagarjuna, Panini, Patanjali and Ramanuja, among many other Indian greats on par with the great Greek thinkers. This violates the principle that the classical thinkers of all civilizations ought to be incorporated into curricula based solely on their merit and current relevance.
  • Rajiv Malhotra: Indras' Net, p. 263

• I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education. [...] It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England.
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Minute on Indian Education (2 February 1835) in The Great Indian Education Debate, Lynn Zastoupil and Martin Moir, London: Curzon, 1999 p. 165

• Better understanding of the Asian mind ‑ Indian and Chinese ‑ had one further consequence which needs emphasis. It had been almost a dogma of European thought that everything of value arose in the regions that touched the Aegean Sea. Religion, philosophy, art and even science, it was claimed, originated in this area. In fact, for all civilization a Greek origin was postulated. A persistence in this belief was responsible in the early years of Oriental research for the futile attempts made to date events in Asia, especially Indian history, to periods where they could be conveniently adjusted to developments in Greece. That belief in a monopoly of wisdom for the Greeks had to be reluctantly abandoned, as a result of increased knowledge of Asian civilizations. The liberalization of the European mind consequent upon the recognition of the fact that all nations have contributed towards the growth of human civilization, is a gain of considerable significance.
  • Panikkar, K. M. (1953). Asia and Western Dominance, a survey of the Vasco da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498-1945, by K.M. Panikkar. London: G. Allen and Unwin.

• Wherever there was the least similarity between Indian and foreign ideas, Indians were taken to be the borrowers. The Epics were supposed to be indebted to Homer’s works, Indian drama, mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy were derived from the Greeks, and even Krishna cult was derived from Christ. The very poor evidence on which such theses were boldly enunciated, even by learned scholars, demonstrated a prejudiced mind rather than bad logical deduction or inference.
  • R.C. Majumdar, ‘Nationalist Historians’, in Philips, ed., Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, 418. quoted from E. Sreedharan - A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000.