Clash of civilizations

[Guest]

Methinks you have a point, acharya. Let us take for example the popular shibboleth that it was the caste system that contributed to the defeat of the Indians against Islamic invaders. If this is the case then it does not explain why large parts of Asia (Central asia, Iraq, Syria, Persia)were conquered within the space of a few decades after the death of Mohammad. There was no caste system in the Tigris euphrates valley or in Egypt. While, much of Asia was part of a greater Indic civilization, it was not necessarily Vedic(there were various other faiths prevalent like Zoroastrianism) and much of it had been over run by the Huns prior to the advent of Islam. If the caste system was primarily responsible for the defeat of the Indians, then it does not explain why it took 560 years after the death of Mohammad to strike at the heart of India, whereas it took only 2 decades for many civilizations like the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian to be obliterated from the face of this earth. If indeed the caste system is to be blamed for the eventual defeat to the Islamic invaders after 560 years , by the same token it must be given credit for holding off the invader (who made repeated attempts) for 560 years which was a lot longer than the Persian empire took to disappear. So let us be careful when we make blanket statements that the caste system was responsible for the defeat of the Indians against the Islamic invader.



Again the reason why Indians do not make the analysis relative to other events on the planet is ignorance pure and simple or as acharya says they

"do not have any narrative on other lands and civilizations; Hindus are not able to differentate 'us vs them' like other religions"

.



One can of course speculate on the reasons for the blandness with which the Hindu says resignedly 'it is the caste system, or some other weakness or we are like this only,but the fact remains that the Indian is woefully ignorant about events in neighboring civilizations like the Chinese.