Many postcolonial societies are experiencing a deep and persistent crisis in how truth is understood, evaluated, and institutionalized. Public discourse increasingly reflects rigid ideological commitments, selective narrative construction, and a gradual erosion of indigenous knowledge traditions. These developments do not merely distort individual debates; they reshape the underlying structures through which societies interpret reality. This paper introduces the Integrated Basket of Perspectives (IBP) Framework as a civilizational model for truth-seeking that moves beyond the limitations of ideological thinking. Instead of privileging a single dominant lens, the IBP Framework proposes that truth emerges through the disciplined coexistence and interaction of multiple perspectives, each illuminating different dimensions of reality. Through a comparative analysis of Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Nehru, the paper demonstrates how colonial modernity contributed to a progressive narrowing of India’s intellectual horizons. This process, conceptualized as Macaulay Syndrome, describes the internalization of colonial categories as default standards of judgment, often at the expense of civilizational continuity. The paper then applies the IBP Framework to historiography and contemporary policy, showing how plural evaluation can resist ideological capture while maintaining analytical rigor. The central argument is that civilizations weaken not only through political or economic loss, but through contraction in their modes of knowing. Societies decline when a single interpretive lens monopolizes truth. They endure when plurality is consciously structured and sustained.