Busting Indian History Myths

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 04-27-2007, 02:49 AM by acharya.)

This thread is to discuss the Myths and Facts about Indian history which keeps circulating again and again.

One exmaple of fiction created is like this
QUOTEGupta empire was predominantly a northern-India entity. The mauryan empire was a lot bigger but at no point did it hold complete sway over modern-day India. During Asoka's reign, the empire reached its zenith and contracted soo after. At its zenith, the extreme south remained "free" of Mauryan rule. Some historians have claimed that there was an arrangement of suzerainty over these kingdoms. Its possible...but if you look at the Mauryan empire as a stable governed entity, the south remained out of that forced union - primarily by resisting it succesfully. The reason why Tamil and Telugu flourished as literary rivals of Sanskrit was likely because of this (?)

The input may have occured as recently as a few hundred years ago..

Actually, the first inputs occurred during the time of the Bactrian Greek outposts, some via inter-marriage during the Buddhist era, and some via migration of the Gandhara populace towards India during the Islamic invasion.

Smaller contributions - especially in the Deccan region - came from Roman and Arab trading outposts, the Jewish refugees, and the Portuguese.

The final contribution, of course, came from the British and the French.

Generations of attempt at maintaining "bloodline purity" kept the dominant and recessive alleles in Chromosome 15 and Chromosome 19 ( B-1 and G-1 variants ) in proper proportions, and you see the subsections of the population with blue-gray and green eyes, - mostly in Pakistan/Afghanistan and in the Konkan/Malabar western coastal areas.

No surprises there.

Lastly, the Mauryan empire used Prakrit, Pali and Sanskrit. Most of the offcial edicts that we find preserved are in pali and prakrit. Sanskrit, it appears was largely the domain of Brahmins - used in religious rites rather than governance. Sanskrit flourished during Gupta period but like I mentioned earlier, the south was not part of Gupta empire.


QUOTEWhat a throw away crappy statement again a stupid generalization what was I wrong in? Post proof not how you understand it kind of lazy cop out.

Oh bosss you cant even read a map.. Show me where it says the Mauryan kingdom did not reach the deccan and stay there. Hell there influence was up to Sri Lanka.

the edicts were in Pali because that was the lingua franca; Sanskrit was the coordinating language between noblemen priests etc.

Brahmana's were also ministers in addition to priests.

Tamil could have flourished even if the land was under Mauyran control. Remember Indians were not blood thirsty savages and killing destroying local civilian culture was no no.
You have read everything the other way around.

The Gupta empire claimed suzerainty but not necessarily by force over much of south. That has often been the model of Indian empires (large or small) coordination for administration rather than rigid central control.

------------------

Another one about grey eyes myth
QUOTERe. the idea/statement: "Varna/Jati was fluid but the brits created the caste system in its rigid format".
The population of the Indian sub-continent was (and remains) genetically segregated along the lines of caste/Varna/Jati - whatever the accurate term and concept may be. The word "caste" may not be an accurate translation of varna/jati and British can certainly be accused of using the existing segregation to their extreme advantage but its vacuous to claim that british created the caste system. The divisions within Hindu society that, in its extreme form, were displayed along the lines of of untouchability existed long before the arrival of british. Such divisions invariably led to a society that was quite keen on preserving blood lines - a thesis that is reasonably well-supported by genetic analysis of representative Indian population in India.

About eye color, the gene OCA2 on chromosome 15 exhibits a high frequency of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) - leading to a spectrum of eye colors. The small Indian population with blue/green eyes, very likely received a genetic input from a population distinct from the early inhabitants of the sub-continent who appeared to have migrated along the coast from Africa. The input may have occured as recently as a few hundred years ago. The simplest possible explanation is presence of british population in the area during that time. One would have to analyze Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA for a more accurate theory to explain the eye color. For the longest time I thought that Aishwariya Rai wore contact lenses - it turns out thats not true.

QUOTEThe input may have occured as recently as a few hundred years ago..

Actually, the first inputs occurred during the time of the Bactrian Greek outposts, some via inter-marriage during the Buddhist era, and some via migration of the Gandhara populace towards India during the Islamic invasion.

Smaller contributions - especially in the Deccan region - came from Roman and Arab trading outposts, the Jewish refugees, and the Portuguese.

The final contribution, of course, came from the British and the French.

Generations of attempt at maintaining "bloodline purity" kept the dominant and recessive alleles in Chromosome 15 and Chromosome 19 ( B-1 and G-1 variants ) in proper proportions, and you see the subsections of the population with blue-gray and green eyes, - mostly in Pakistan/Afghanistan and in the Konkan/Malabar western coastal areas.

No surprises there.

**acharya** · 04-27-2007, 02:44 AM

QUOTEWrong. Sanskrit was never the language of governance across the length and breadth of India. Mughals never really held sway over the entire landmass of India. In 1600, when Mughal empire was at its zenith, large parts of southern India remained largely free of Mughal dominance. That is the reason why one can still find so many beautiful temples built more than a thousand years ago. The landmass controlled by Mughals was impressive because it contained all of present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh within it. When you superimpose it upon present-day India, only half of India was under Mughal governance. Additionally, in Rajasthan, for example, Mughals relied on local Rajput kings to deliver the tax revenue without too much hindrance into their governance. Neither sanskrit nor urdu was used in such enclaves even during the Mughal era.

ramana · 04-27-2007, 11:26 PM

From andhracafe.com

QUOTEHomeÂ Politics
'Rajiv struck deal with RSS on Ayodhya'Â 
Updated:Â 04-26-2007Â Â Email this Page

Nagpur, April 25 Late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had struck a 'secret deal' with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1989 for the Hindu organisation's support to the Congress in exchange for creation of Ram temple in Ayodhya, a former Congress MP said Wednesday.

Banwarilal Purohit, former Congress MP, told reporters here that it was during the crucial meeting between the then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and the then union minister Bhanu Prakash Singh (an emissary of Rajiv Gandhi) that the former prime minister's proposal of 'shilanyas' (laying of foundation stone) for the temple was discussed and the deal was struck.

Purohit said he was revealing the long-guarded secret that he had kept private so far 'in the national interest' as Rajiv's son Rahul was 'twisting and turning' the historical facts and misleading the people during his ongoing election campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

The former MP was referring to Rahul's recent statement that the Babri mosque would not have fallen (in 1992 when late Narasimha Rao was prime minister) if someone from the Gandhi family had been at the helm of the Indian government.

Purohit, who was the only Congress MP to have participated in the 1992 'kar seva' at Ayodhya during which the Babri mosque was demolished, later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and won the next parliamentary election (in 1996) on its ticket.

Claiming that Rajiv Gandhi wanted the Ram temple to be constructed at the 'birthplace' of the revered Hindu deity after facilitating its shilanyas there, Purohit regretted that the former prime minister later buckled under pressure from some Muslim leaders who warned him of alienation of Muslim voters from the Congress.

Giving a detailed account of the role he played in the process of finding a solution to the vexed Babri mosque issue at the behest of Rajiv Gandhi, Purohit said the former prime minister told him to ask Deoras whether he would assure Sangh's support to the Congress if the government allowed the temple foundation stone to be laid.

'When I told Rajivji that my meeting with Deoras at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur would not remain secret since I belonged to the city, he decided to send Bhanu Prakash Singh to Nagpur and instructed the then home minister Buta Singh to make the necessary arrangements,' Purohit added.

The former MP further said he had arranged the meeting between the RSS chief and Singh at the residence of a senior RSS functionary Babasaheb Talatule.

Purohit, who claimed he was asked to ensure that the RSS chief and Singh came to an agreement on starting the temple construction work, said Deoras promised RSS help to the Congress in the elections if the Rajiv Gandhi government facilitated the laying of foundation stone of the temple.

The next round of talks, scheduled to take place between Deoras and Buta Singh in Delhi, could not materialise owing to the RSS chief's ill health, Purohit said, adding the then RSS secretary general Rajendra Singh (who subsequently succeeded Deoras as the chief) took part in the Delhi meeting with the then home minister.

04-28-2007, 12:48 AM

It is true; Ashok Singhal was and is Congressi. When NDA was in power, every month Ashok, Girjai Maharaj, Togadia etc were announcing Shilanas date. Since UPA came into power they are sitting quiet, once in a while they make noise. They even kept their mouth shut when over 25 sadhus were assassinated in UP by you know who.
Now what deal they had made or just blind loyalty towards Congress is so great that they are ready to sacrifice Ram Temple.

Bharatvarsh · 04-28-2007, 06:12 PM

QUOTEThe reason why Tamil and Telugu flourished as literary rivals of Sanskrit was likely because of this (?)
The idiot don't even know that at the time of the Mauryan empire there was no full fledged Telugu yet, the first full fledged Telugu inscription is from the Renati Cholas about 6th century, plus even the earliest Sangam literature does have some Sanskrit influence, so how could this idiot claim that they were "rivals", half baked scholarship is more dangerous than full fledged ignorance as this one amply demonstrates.

Plus a considerable part of Telugu vocabulary is derived from Sanskrit, this process accelerated under the Vijayanagara empire, so much so that in time most of the Sanskrit derived words came to be considered as part of pure Telugu.

ramana · 04-29-2007, 06:18 AM

Is there a good history of the Telugu Speaking people? I think they are the most under rated people of South India.

04-29-2007, 08:52 AM

QUOTE(ramana @ Apr 29 2007, 06:18 AM)Is there a good history of the Telugu Speaking people? I think they are the most under rated people of South India.
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Will take a stab at one aspect - mainly from my scratch pads, notes etc....

The original home of Satavahanas, is the region corresponding to the Bellary and Adoni Talukas of Bellary District. The small district lying at the foothills of the Srisaila hill corresponding to the Nandyala, Nandikotkur, and Markapur talukas of Kurnool district was known in ancient times by the names of Kanna Vishaya, Kannadu and Karnatasima.--- Kanna (Telugu) = Karna (Sanskrit). --Karna (abb. of Satakarna) kings, appear to have orginally inhabited this area.

It is also evident, that the tract of the country comprising the Bellary and Adoni Talukas of the Bellary district ( 1937), was the home of Satavahanas and is not far from Nandikotkur (Kurnool Taluka only separated the two areas) is the home of Satakarnis.

And the Kurnool, Pathikonda, Dronachalam, Nandyala, Nandikotkur, and Markapur Talukas of the Kurnool District, and the Bellary and Adoni Talukas of Bellary district formed the cradle land of the Andhra kings. River Andirika (Hundri) originates in the hilly region of Pattikonda and Dronachallam Talukas of Kurnool District, flows through Kurnool Taluka and falls into Tungabhadra near Kurnool.

The name of the river means a river that flows in the land of the Andhras. And naturally the tracts around this area bear the names of Satavahanas and Satakarnis. This Andhra country gradually extended to its South and East.

Andhrapatha or the country of Andhras extended along banks of rivers Krishna and Tungabhadra, from the Bay Of Bengal to Parigi in the Hindupur Taluka of the
Anantapur District, and the Satavahini Rashtra and Kanna Vishaya, the original home of Satavahana and the Satakarni kings, were included in it. Satakarni kings
ruled the whole of Dakshinapatha (Deccan) for nearly four and a half centuries, perhaps by reducing to subjection all the kindred tribes inhabiting the territory corresponding to the present Telugu and kannada states/countries, before undertaking the conquest of far distant lands in the north. The reduction of the Andhra tribes and their unification into a nation under a single monarch must have preceded the establishment of the Mauryan empire in Northern India.

(Incidentally) the Andhras and the Karnatakas appear to have remained a single, united people during Asoka's time.

Andhra Satavahana kings, apart from being lords of Dakshinapatha, associated themselves with the imperial Magadhan rulers, in the North. Srimuka (simuka) who
was in the service of of the last prince of Kanva dynasty, Susarma, rose to powerful positions, and ultimately commander of the imperial Magadhan forces, and deposed the king and usurped the Magadhan throne.

As per Indian Sources the Andhra dynasty ruled for 506 years, from 833 B.C. to 327 B.C., Chandraguptha of the Guptha dynasty, who was in the service of imperial Andhra dynasty, put to death the last of the Andhra prince Chandrasri, and Puloman III , in the year 327 B.C. This Guptha Dynasty ruled till 82 B.C. Samudra Guptha son of Chandra Guptha ascended the throne in 320 B.C. and ruled for 51 years, till 269 B.C.

It was during his rule that Alexander came to India, got defeated and had to return and die on the return route. It was not during Maurya Chandra Guptha - 1200 years earlier as our eminent (biblical) historians wants us to believe

The age of Satavahanas is highly important in the evolution of cultural, religious, linguistic, and national evolution of Bharat.

But our historians are far too busy with revolutions and rubbish to study, research and write an authentic account - of Bharat.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-01-2007, 07:36 AM by Husky.)

2 consecutive posts related to the following material that Acharya pasted into his
Post #1:
QUOTEThe divisions within Hindu society that, in its extreme form, were displayed along the lines of of untouchability existed long before the arrival of british. Such divisions invariably led to a society that was quite keen on preserving blood lines - a thesis that is reasonably well-supported by genetic analysis of representative Indian population in India.A thesis? Make that a hypothesis.

About this:
In Hinduism it has nothing to do with 'blood purity', that matter is only ever brought up when christos are embarassed about the obsession with 'racial purity' amongst themselves - a highly important aspect of the Syrian christian communities in India. Whenever that is brought up, everyone invariably accuses it of being another left-over Hindu trait when in fact it is specific to Syrian christianity. See Example 1 posts 81-84 of the Thomas In India? History Of Christianism In India thread.
There's a difference between endogamy on one hand, and "racial purity" as exhibited by Syrian christians on the other.

Certain Dharmic tribes have long insisted on endogamy, like the next Example below. Many people all over the world do that. Many African communities have done the same. But this is not racism, it merely has to do with belief in continuation and constancy (of localised community). And also, it's not due to some 'caste system' either, for the simple fact that remote tribes have not come into the orbit of urban centres to become part of mainstream society and structure yet. Therefore, that they observe endogamy merely goes to show that this is indeed a natural phenomenon among humans and has nothing to do with "divisions in Hindu society" that "led to a society that was quite keen on preserving blood lines" (as in the quoteblock above). Because the genetic analysis of the Dharmic tribe in the following example would show they have been endogamous too and not 'because the evil mainstream Hindoos made them'.

Example 2:
Many groups in India have long been endogamous, and in their local beliefs they do stress endogamy as being the way in which salvation is effected in their community. Such as those that the 19th/early 20th missionaries classified as 'non-Hindu animists':
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti.../chr/sarna.html
The Sarna: a case study in natural religion
Ethnocentrism and endogamy
QUOTEThe Mundas maintain their tribal identity by prohibiting intermarriage with other tribes: "The tribals of Chotanagpur are an endogamous tribe. They usually do not marry outside the tribal community, because to them the tribe is sacred. The way to salvation is the tribe." (p.43)QUOTETribal endogamy explains the Hindu caste system. As Vedic society, an advanced and differentiated society characterized by class (varna) hierarchy, expanded from the Northwest into India's interior, it absorbed ever more tribes but allowed them their distinctive traditions and first of all their defining tradition, viz. their endogamy. This way, endogamous self-contained units or tribes became endogamous segments of Hindu society, or castes.And here the missionaries map out why these Dharmics - the Sarna Mundas - are supposedly not Sanatani:
QUOTEChristian apologists in India have invested heavily in the proposition that tribals, unlike Hindus, are monotheists, almost-Christians who only need to learn of Jesus: "Sarna spirituality is marked by a strong belief in one God. A careful study of their religious beliefs and ceremonies shows that they believe in a Supreme Being whom they call Singbonga which literally means Sun God." (p.46) <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /> Never did understand missionary logic.

About that second excerpt on the Sarna above:
India long ago found a way of getting various tribal communities to come together and live in the same society without treading on each other's traditions - by not enforcing intermarriage where it was not welcome. Each community (in most pre-globalisation countries) has its own special rules on marriage, with tribal communities being more conservative than urban ones in this respect.

It never occurs to the ignorants or modern psecular 'Hindus' that tribes might have sought to remain endogamous (seeking continuation of their regional community identity) and that it was not something that Hindu urban communities enforced on each other. Instead, Hindus developed a society that worked together. In fact, in India, it was the societal consent to preserve individual tribal identities (by respecting their endogamy) that made it possible to get more and more communities to form a larger population or get them into an existing large population. After long periods of time, eventually new community identities formed, and more complex rules of intermarriage developed. Sometimes certain restrictions on endogamy fell away as larger blocks of community were formed.

The biggest threat to any tribe is dissolving into another (larger one?) by intermarriage, and their identity being wiped out forever.
It is a myth that tribes breed enmity. Inter-community interactions act as symbiosis, how else would people learn to get on with unknown peoples. (The alternative is to be like the Roman Empire: enforcing assimilation into the empire on Gauls, Jews, Thracians, Germans, British Celts and others. But having said that, the Romans intermarried quite freely in general.)
Whether all the world being one tribe would or would not be the ideal situation is a moot thesis even at this stage. The fact is, there has always been in the past - and there continues to be today - many populations in the world who wish to remain distinct. Urban populations are more likely to intermarry because of increased contact and familiarity with other communities, and other such reasons. But remote peoples (like many tribes in Indonesia) often wish to keep their identity intact, you can't enforce assimilation on them.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-30-2007, 08:38 PM by Husky.)

Continued from post 8:

Example 3:
South Indian Christians, Purity/Impurity, and the Caste System: Death Ritual in a Tamil Roman Catholic Community, David Mosse, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 2, No. 3. (Sep., 1996), pp. 461-483.
QUOTEIn Alapuram, Hindus and Christians share a common caste discourse in which notions of purity and impurity are one, though not the most important, idiom. In particular, considerations of purity are not significant for ranking in everyday life. The restrictions on inter-dining and other exchanges between Christians of different castes are not interpreted in terms of Brahmanical values of relative purity With regard to purity-related restrictions, the ritual practice of upper-caste Christians falls well short of the standards of their Hindu co-caste members, but they do not thereby lose any social status. Indeed, high-caste Hindus and Christians do not claim caste status in terms of 'blood purity' or other qualities of bodily substance, any more than Untouchable castes view their low status as the consequence of ritual pollution (cf McGilvray 1982; Stirrat 1982).(Alapuram is a pseudonym that author employed for the Indian village he observed.)
Now, this lets Hindus off the hook. And in this case, it let's the catholic christians in this particular Tamil village off the hook too. But likely not those in Example 4 below.

Example 4
A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: Religious Leadership and Social Conflict among the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu, S. B. Kaufmann, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2. (1981), pp. 203-234.
QUOTEthe Paravas are all Roman Catholics rather than Hindus. They were converted to Christianity in the 1530s and 1540s by missionaries under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese ecclesiastical hierarchy (the 'Padroado') based in Goa. Under these evangelists the Paravas' Roman Catholic rites and doctrines came to reinforce their Hindu caste structure.QUOTEMany of these reports to the jati thalavan describe sanctions against adulterers and other offenders accused of defaming the jati and threatening its ritual and moral 'substance'. It is striking that these communications stress protection of the collective 'blood purity' of the caste, and that they use much the same language employed in describing the 'moral community' of Hindu castes in the south.91 In a typical case, caste notables from Kollam Sinnakadai appealed to the jati thalavan to support them in a decision against two illegitimate children born to a Parava woman and her non-Parava lover.92 The children had been denied standing as authentic Paravas and were accordingly barred from caste feasts and church rites, but the village notables were under pressure from dissidents allied to the Jesuits to extend caste rights to the family. The village notables described the proposed recognition as a grave threat to the 'blood' and moral status of the group as a whole. The growing mobility of labourers and traders made this problem of purity increasingly troubling, as in the case of a labourer from Punnayakayal who had seduced a local girl and then evaded the priest's order to marry her by leaving the village to find work in Tuticorin.Once again, western anthropologists have to resort to comparison with age-old Hindu communities to explain why christians should choose to continue endogamy and jati system. I don't know why this community continues being endogamous even after they converted.
But it's odd to read 'blood purity' into Hindu communities where it was just plain-and-simple endogamy. (Unlike in the Syrian christian case of Example 1 where it's based on racial superiority of one Syrian christian community over another).
Can't speak for the converted christian community, the Paravas, of this Example 4; nor for any ideas they might/might not have about 'blood purity'. If they are continuing on from their Hindu behaviour, then they might merely want to (1) maintain their unique community identity, (2) not wish to lose people to other groups, (3) nor gain unfamiliar characters with unfamiliar (which might even turn out to be unacceptable) traditions, customs and habits - that is, gain people who can't be assimilated.
On the other hand, since the Paravas have been christian since the 16th century, they could very well have developed some new ideas of their own as to why they should remain endogamous. Maybe they have thought up some christian reasons for it now, and now share the same motives as the Syrian christians and their converts.

Now coming back to the lame statement in the starting quoteblock, where the writer is accusing Hinduism in India of having the same reasons as the syrian christians:
QUOTESuch divisions invariably led to a society that was quite keen on preserving blood lines - a thesis that is reasonably well-supported by genetic analysis of representative Indian population in IndiaThe person who wrote the above is evidently unaware that Acharyas and Sages can accept students who then become their spiritual offspring: they get their Acharya's gotram. This happened since ancient times. I think such are the occasions the colonial Brits noted which Dharampal cited (see final excerpt below).
Such offspring have never been regarded less than any biological kind - and in cases where the biological child is a dismal failure, the adopted one is always the better regarded of the two. This is precisely because Hindu Teachers stress the spiritual aspect more than the material. And from the student's perspective too: Mata Pita Guru Devam, where the Teacher comes after Father and before God in the parental sequence/sequence of profound formative individuals.

http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...topic=1068&st=0
Also at
http://www.vigilonline.com/reference/colum....asp?col_id=182
QUOTEIndeed, given the desperate manner in which the British vilified theÂ Brahmin, it is worth examining what so annoyed them. As early as 1871-72, Sir John Campbell objected to Brahmins facilitating upward mobility: "the Brahmans are always ready to receive all who will submit to them. The process ofÂ manufacturing Rajputs from ambitious aborigines (tribals) goes on before our eyes."

Sir Alfred Lyall was unhappy that "more persons in India become every year Brahmanists than all the converts to all the other religions in India put together... these teachers address themselves to every one without distinction of caste or of creed; they preach to low-caste men and to the aboriginal tribes. In fact, they succeed largely in those ranks of the population which would lean towards Christianity and Mohammedanism if they were not drawn into Brahmanism." So much for the British public denunciation of the exclusion practiced by Brahmins!Now this did not happen in the Syrian christian case even when different Hindu communities were converted, because the convert communities were not 'good enough' to be included in the 'superior syrian christian bloodline'.

**acharya** · 05-04-2007, 11:25 PM

Why India is a Nation - Sankrant Sanu.

www.sulekha.com/blogs/oldcolumn.aspx?cid=305879

Posting in full, longish article...
Introduction

One of the oft-repeated urban myths that sometimes pops-up in conversation even among many educated, well meaning Indians is that India as a nation is a British creation. The argument goes roughly as follows â India is an artificial entity. There are only a few periods in history when it was unified under the same political entity. It was only the British that created the idea of India as a single nation and unified it into a political state. A related assumption, in our minds, is that the developed Western countries have a comparatively far greater continuity of nationhood, and legitimacy as states, than India.

This urban myth is not accidental. It was deliberately taught in the British established system of education. John Strachey, writing in `India: Its Administration and Progress' in 1888, said âThis is the first and most essential thing to remember about India â that there is not and never was an India, possessing â¦ any sort of unity, physical, political, social or religious; no Indian nation.â

To teach this self-serving colonial narrative obviously suited the British policy of divide and rule. That it still inanely survives means that it is worth setting to rest.

In this essay, we establish that Strachey's colonial narrative is demonstrably false. Not only is India a coherent nation but, in fact, there are few countries on the planet that are more legitimate nation-states than India. That some of us don't see this clearly only reflects how we have accepted the colonial myths as well as failed to study the history of the rest of the world.

The Modern States and Their Origins

The concept of nation-states, i.e. that the aspirations of the people that constitute a nation are best served by a common political entity is considered a relatively recent idea in Europe from the 18th century. Nationalism led to the formation of nation-states and modern countries. This development was followed up with a gradual hardening of state boundaries with the passport and visa regime that followed it.

Note that the concept of nationhood is based on the idea shared by a set of people that they constitute a nation. This idea or feeling may be based on common ties of a people based on their culture, common descent, language, religion or other such attributes. The state constitutes a group of people inhabiting a specific territory and living according to a common legal and political authority.

The modern nation-state, as it exists today, is a new development for the entire world, and not just for India. Mediaeval Europe, for instance, was divided politically into many small principalities, the boundaries and sovereignties of which changed frequently. Many of the countries as we know them today got established in the 19th and 20th century, and the boundaries of these changed throughout the 20th century â in the two World Wars, border disputes and the turmoil in Eastern Europe.

The United Kingdom was not really united till the act of Union in 1702 when England (including Wales) and Scotland came together. Even then they retained different laws and (even more crucially in European nationhood) retained separate national Churches. In 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed. In 1922, Ireland broke off as an independent country resulting in the present political formation â the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Thus the UK in its present political state, if that is the criteria to be used, is not even a hundred years old.

Across the Atlantic, the picture is even more stark. In 1700, the British colonies were spread barely over the area that comprises the few North Eastern States, less than 10% of the current geographical areas. The diverse Native American tribes that inhabited the area of the present day United States could not be said to have comprised a nation, and even if they did, the current United States neither considers itself as a continuity of the native culture, nor are its people primarily descendents of the natives. Even in 1776, when America declared itself a separate state from the British, its area was a small fraction of the area it has today, mainly constituting the states on the East Coast. Only in 1845 did Texas and California, among its largest states, become part of it as a result of a war with Mexico. Washington State gained statehood in 1889, Hawaii in 1900. Thus the United States in its present political and geographic conception is barely 100 years old as a state and, at the maximum limit, as a political entity is about 250 years, with many annexations and a civil war in between. No state or kingdom existed on its boundaries before that in history.

If you take Mexico, the story is better, but not much. While it has greater continuity from pre-colonial times than the United States because of the Aztec Empire that existed for about a hundred years before the Spanish Conquest, the Aztec never controlled all of present day Mexico. No other conception of nation-hood, such as shared religious beliefs, united the other areas of Mexico with the Aztec ones. Furthermore, while present day Mexicans take pride in their Aztec heritage and use symbols from the Aztec nation on their flag, they have largely lost any direct cultural continuity of either language or religious beliefs from pre-colonial times. Spanish has very nearly wiped out the native languages and 95% of Mexicans are now Christians and described as `Hispanic'. i.e. of the Spanish culture.

Similarly, Africa and South America mostly constitute of state boundaries carved up by colonial rule. The present boundaries of the African states were largely carved out by treaties among the European nations between 1884 and 1899 in meetings held in Europe with no African representation into the process! While there had been some kingdoms like Ghana and Mali in earlier times that were politically united, the boundaries of current African countries rarely map to the territories of historical kingdoms.

In short, if we take the legitimacy of current nation-states on the basis of centuries of common continuous political rule over the same geographical boundary and inhabited by the same people, then practically no country on the planet meets this criteria. Simply put, shifting nature of political kingdoms and their boundaries over the centuries legitimize virtually no country in its present form.

To understand nationhood then as it is supports the modern nation-state, we thus must search the roots of nationhood first and foremost in the conception of nationhood, i.e. did a particular set of people, within a particular geography, imagine of themselves a common socio-cultural geographical heritage that comprised them as a nation?

Understanding Indian Nationhood
Geography

The first element of Indian nationhood draws from its unique geography. India is one of the few countries that can be located on a physical map of the world, even when no political boundaries are drawn. It is worth taking a deep breath and looking at the map below, reflecting on the significance of this geography before we go further.

Fig 1: India's geographical unity

The Indian peninsula and vast plains are bounded by the ocean on three sides and the land stretches to the highest peaks of the Himalayas in the north. The vast sweep of the land ends in the East with the mountainous border with Burma. In the West, just past the Indus, the mountains come downwards towards the ocean again forming a natural boundary.

Early civilizations all developed on the banks of great river systems â Egypt on the Nile, Mesopotamia on the Tigris and Euphrates, the Chinese on the Yangste Kiang. Thus civilization developed on the great river systems of the Indus and the Gangetic plain â one of the richest river-soil-climate systems in the world; and on the Narmada and Cauvery. And because of the ease of access in this land throughout the ages, there was an enormous interchange of thought and ideas, people and customs, and there developed a culture that is distinctly Indian, and at the same time incredibly diverse.

The culture's distinctive nature evolved precisely because the unique geography facilitated it. The large mountains and bodies of water separated it from surrounding cultures to give it its distinctiveness. The low barriers to movement within this land mass ensured an ease of access to build a coherent whole. This ensured that the exchanges that took place within this large separated petri dish were much deeper and longer lasting than those that took place with those from without. Hence was created a unique and diverse civilization.

Political Unity

Among the earliest political consolidations, even by the dates of present colonial scholarship, was under the Mauryas from the 6th century BC to the 3rd century BC, when most of India was under their rule.

After the Mauryas, there was repeated political consolidation of large parts of India, even when all of it was not under a single rule. The Kanishkas consolidated the north from the Hindu Kush Mountains to Bihar and south to Gujarat and Central India. The Satavahana Empire, considered to be founded by high officials of the Mauryas, consolidated the south and central parts.

The Gupta Empire again politically consolidated the area from Afghanistan to Assam and south to the Narmada, possibly exerting political control even further down south. Samudragupta led an expedition all the way down to Kanchipuram in present Tamil Nadu. While the southern areas were not formally part of the Empire, they were quite likely de-facto vassal states, paying tribute to the Emperor. The only other major comparable empires in the world of this size at the time were the Chinese and the Roman.

Note that it would be a thousand years after the Mauryan Empire was established and even much after the Gupta Empire that the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century AD would first move into the region that would later be called England. It would be nearly five hundred more years before the territory of England would be consolidated as an independent political entity. Only much later would there be attempts at unity of `Great Britain'. The `United Kingdom' that includes Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as we mentioned earlier, is only a recent political artifact.

After the Gupta Empire, the Chalukya-Chola dynasty consolidated most of India in the south, leading expeditions even up to the north of the Ganges river.

Later on, much of India would be consolidated again under the Mughals, and after the Mughal empire disintegrated, by the British.

So while the British were the last power, before the current state of India, to administratively consolidate its territory (as well as to divide it up as they left), they were by no means the first ones to do so.

Even when multiple kingdoms existed, these kingdoms were not like the countries of today with a passport and visa regime needed to cross and all kinds of regulations on movement of goods and people. A continued exchange of ideas, people, goods and scholarship took place throughout the sub-continent, largely unmindful of the boundaries of kingdoms.

Furthermore, the territorial boundaries of India were largely maintained. There were few, if any, times before the British came when large parts of India were consolidated into kingdoms that were centered outside it. There were no significant long-lasting kingdoms, for instance, that ruled from Persia to the Ganges plain, or from Burma to Bengal, or from China or Tibet to Delhi. There was a separateness and integrity to this land, unlike European countries or even Europe as a whole. For centuries, the Romans consolidated north Africa and southern Europe into one contiguous centrally ruled empire, as did the Ottomans after them. Central Asia became part of one external empire or another.

Even in the case of the British, when all of India became part of a larger empire centered outside it for the first time, it was clear that it was distinct from Burma, for instance, even though they were contiguous land areas ruled by the British. And thus the freedom movements in Burma and India were separate. Burma and India did not become one after their respective independence, nor was there any call by Indian or Burmese nationalists to do so.

Thus there was an idea of India that made it be regarded as a separate and whole, even through political change and shifting boundaries of internal kingdoms.

The Idea of India

This then becomes our second question â is the idea of India as a unit a new idea brought by the British or did it exist long before the British came? Did the people of this vast land recognize that they were linked together? Did they share a common story of their civilization, of their Indian-ness, their Bharatiyata? Remarkably, the idea of India, as Bharatavarsha or Aryavrata, appears to have been alive for thousands of years in our stories, thousands of years before there was an America or a Great Britain or a Mexico or France.

From the Manusmriti, we learn of the land of Aryavrata stretching from the Himalayas and Vindhyas all the way to the eastern and western oceans. Without the idea of Bharata, there could have been no epic called the Maha-Bharata that engaged kings throughout this land of Bharata. The story of Mahabharata shows a remarkable degree of pan-Indian context and inter-relationships, from Gandhari, the wife of Drithrashtra who came from Gandhara, (spelled as Kandahar in present-day Afghanistan), Draupadi from Panchala (present day Jammu and Kashmir), all the way to Arjun meeting and marrying the Naga princess Uloopi on a visit to Manipur in the east (from where he gets the `Mani' or Gem). Interestingly, Arjuna is said to have gone on a pilgrimage to the holy places of the east when this happens, showing the current North-East was very much linked in this. Finally, Krishna himself is from Mathura and Vrindavana (in UP) though his kingdom itself is in Dwarka (Gujarat).

Similarly, the story of Ramayana draws the north-south linkage from Ayodhya all the way down to Rameshwaram, at the tip of which is finally the land of Lanka. Note that it is not, for this particular thesis, important that the stories are historically accurate. What we are interested in rather is whether the idea of India or Bharatavarsha or Aryavrata as a culturally linked entity existed in the minds of the story-tellers and ultimately in the minds of the people to whom these stories were sacred. And these stories were then taken and told and retold in all the languages of the people of this great civilization, till the stories themselves established a linkage among us and to the sacred geography they celebrated. This sacred geography is what makes northerners flock to Tirupati and southerners to the Kumbha Mela.

And the diffusion of these common ideas was certainly not only from the north to south. The great Bhakti movement started in the 6th and 7th centuries AD had its roots in the south in the Tamil and Kannada languages. Even while the boundaries of kingdoms changed, enormous cultural and religious unity continued to take place across India. It started off with the Alvars and the Nayanars (Tamil, 7th to 10th century AD), Kamban (Tamil, 11th century), Basava (Kannada, 12th century) and moved on to Chaitanya Mahaprabu (Bengali, 15th century), Ramananda (15th century, born in Allahabad of south India parentage, guru of Kabir, 15th century), Raskhan (16th century), Surdas (Braj, 16th century), Mirabia (Rajasthan, 16th century), Tulsidas (Avadhi, 16th century), Nanak (Punjabi, 16th century) and Tukaram (Marathi, 17th century), among the many. All these together weaved a garland across the land that spoke again of our common truths, our common cultural heritage.

The Bhakti movement retold our ancient stories in the language of the common people, in Marathi and Bengali, in Avadhi (present day UP) and Bhojpuri (present day Bihar), in Gujarati and Punjabi and in Rajasthani. We can marvel at the cultural unity in India, where while the Bhakti poets initiated the great movement for devotion to Shiva in the south, the erudite philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism was being developed coevally in the north. Or that Kamban in the south was the first poet to take the story of Rama to the major regional languages, and Tulsidas, much closer to Ayodhya, came centuries later. Or that the great Krishna bhakta Chaitanya was celebrating his devotion to the King of Dwarka in Bengal while Tukaram sang praises of Lord Vithal in the west. An immense body of pan-Indian worship revolved around the triad of Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti in their various forms â whether as Rama, Krishna, Sri Venkateshwara, Sri Dakshinamurti, Jagdamba, Durga Mata or Kali. These common stories were told and retold without the mandate of any central church and seeped through the pores of the land of Bharata, forging a shared bond, unlike any other seen on the planet.

It was this idea of civilizational unity and sacred geography of India that inspired Shankaracharya to not only enunciate the mysteries of the Vedanta but to go around setting up mathas circumscribing the land of India in a large diamond shape. While sage Agasthya crossed the Vindhya and came down south, Shankracharya was born in the village of Kalady in Kerala and traveled in the opposite direction for the establishment of dharma. If this land was not linked in philosophical and cultural exchanges, and there was no notion of a unified nation, why then did Shankracharya embark on his countrywide digvijay yatra? What prompted him to establish centers spreading light for the four quadrants of this land â Dwarka in the west (in Gujarat), Puri in the east (in Orissa), Shringeri in the south (Karnataka) and Badrinath (Uttaranchal) in the north? He is then said to have gone to Srinagar (the abode of `Sri' or the Shakti) in Kashmir, which still celebrates this in the name of Shankaracharya Hill. What better demonstration that the idea of the cultural unity of the land was alive more than a thousand years ago?

And yet, these stories are not taught to us in our schools in India. We learn instead, in our colonial schools, that the British created India and gave us a link language, as if we were not talking to each other for thousands of years, traveling, telling and retelling stories before the British came. How else did these ideas travel so rapidly through the landmass of India, and how did Shankracharya circumscribe India, debating, talking and setting up institutions all within his short lifespan of 32 years?

Fig 2: Ideas of India: Shankaracharya and Shakti

These ideas of our unity have permeated all our diverse darshanas. We have talked about Bhakti and Vedanta and the epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. But this idea of unity was not limited to particular schools. They were equally present in the tantric schools that exerted a tremendous influence on popular worship. Thus we have the legend of Shakti, whose body was considered to be cut up by Shiva and landed in 51 places throughout the landmass of India, and which is now the site of the Shakti Peetham temples. The body of Shakti, or so the story goes, fell all the way from Neelayadakshi Kovil in Tamil Nadu to Vaishno Devi in Jammu, from Pavagadh in Gujarat to the Kamakshi temple in Assam and 47 other places.

Why would the story conceive of these pieces of Shakti sanctifying and falling precisely all over the landmass of India, rather than all of them falling in Tamil Nadu or Assam or Himachal (or alternately, Yunan (Greece) or China, or some supposed `Aryan homeland' in Central Asia) unless someone had a conception of the unity of the land and civilization of Bharatavarsha? Whether these stories are actual or symbolic, represent real events or myths, it is clear from them that the idea of India existed in the minds of those that told these stories and those that listened. Together, all these stories wove and bound us together, along with migration, marriages and exchange of ideas into a culture unique in the story of mankind. A nation that was uniquely bound together in myriads of ways, yet not cast into a mono-conceptual homogeneity of language, worship, belief or practice by the diktat of a centralized church, intolerant of diversity.

And this unity as nation has been with us far before the idea of America existed. Far before the Franks had moved into northern France and the Visigoths into Spain, before the Christian Church was established and Islam was born. They have been there before Great Britain existed, before the Saxons had moved into Britannia. They have been there while empires have fallen, from when Rome was a tiny village to when it ruled an empire that rose and collapsed.

Thus the Arabs and Persians already had a conception of Hind far before the Mughal Empire was established. If we suggest that their conception of Hind was derived only from their contact with Sindh in western India, why would the British, when they landed in Bengal, form the East India Company, unless the conception of the land of India (a term derived from the original Hind) was shared by the natives and the British? They used this name much before they had managed to politically hold sway over much of India, and before they educated us that no India existed before their arrival. Why would the Portuguese celebrate the discovery of a sea-route to India when Vasco de Gama had landed in Calicut in the south, if India was a creation of the British Empire?

The answer is obvious. Because the conception of India, a civilization based in the Indian sub-continent, predates the rise and fall of these empires. True, that large parts of India were under unified political rule only during certain periods of time (though these several hundreds of years are still enormous by the scale of existence of most other countries throughout the globe) such as under the Mauryas or the Mughals. But those facts serve to hide rather than reveal the truth till we understand the history of the rest of the world and realize the historic social, political and religious unity of this land. We are not merely a country; we are a civilizational country, among very few other countries on the planet.

Some Other Civilizational Countries

While we occupy the rarefied space of countries that have as much legitimacy and continuity as civilizations, it is worth examining a few others civilizations that have lasted. The country of Greece is one such country. However, Greece as a contemporary state was established in the 19th century, coughed up by the Ottoman Empire as it was breathing its last. Over the centuries, Greece has not existed as an independent political entity, having been absorbed by the Roman Empire and assimilated into the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Ironically, the rise of contemporary Greek nationalism can be traced to the late 18th century, when Greek students studying in Europe came to realize that their civilization was actually highly regarded in western Europe. This resurgent pride about the ancient Greek civilization formed the basis of the movement to establish the modern Greek state even though there was no political continuity between the two entities.

If the continuity of political unification is the criteria that is used to define the legitimacy of a country, then Greece is far less legitimate than India, and other countries around the globe are even less so. The boundaries of the contemporary Greek state do not match with the original Greek Empire. Furthermore, even ancient Greece constituted of politically independent city-states, united more by the feeling that they belonged to the same culture, rather than having political unity. So clearly the measure of political unification, even when it did hold true for large parts of India over the ages, is not the relevant criteria, but the idea of a shared culture and civilization.

The only other continuous civilizations that come close to India as legitimate nations are nation-civilizations like Egypt, Iran and China. But Egypt, though old, having been assimilated in various empires and conquered first by Christianity and then by Islam, hardly retains much contact with its ancient traditions, languages or indigenous religion. Similarly Iran, the inheritor of the Persian empire which reached its peak in the 6th century BC, was assimilated into other empires and finally conquered by Islamic Arabs â it retains little of its Zoroastrian roots, though it retains its pre-Islamic language, albeit in Arab script. China is the other civilizational nation that can claim to have a legitimacy and continuity similar to India. However, for most of its history, Chinese civilization developed and concentrated in the western plains. Consolidated rule, either political, social or religious/ideological over the entire vast area that present-day China occupies is relatively recent. Indian Buddhism obviously had a huge influence on China. Interestingly, despite communism and the Cultural Revolution, Chinese intellectuals have sought to link the roots of present day communist ideology with the teachings of Confucius.

So there we have it. India is one of the few nations of the world with a continuity of civilization and an ancient conception of nationhood. In its religious, civilizational, cultural and linguistic continuity, it truly stands alone. This continuity was fostered by its unique geography and its resilient religious traditions. Unlike any other country on the planet, it retained these traditions despite both Islamic and Christian conquest, when most countries lost theirs and were completely converted when losing to even one of these crusading systems. The Persians fell, the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Babylon were lost, the Celtic religion largely vanished, and the mighty Aztecs were vanquished, destroyed and completely Christianized. Yet Bharata stands. It stands in our stories, our languages, our pluralism and our unity. And as long as we remember these stories, keep our languages and worship the sacred land of our ancestors, Bharata will stand. It is only if we forget these truths that Bharata will cease to be. That is precisely why the British tried to hard to make us forget them.

Purva-paksha: the opposing side

Indian scholarly traditions often presented opposing viewpoints with the thesis. Here are some objections that may arise.

Objection #1

What you are calling the Indian civilization is actually the Sanskritic civilization of the Aryans who were invaders.

There are many theories about migrations of people into the Indian sub-continent. Some contend that a tribe of people called the Aryans migrated from somewhere in the Middle East or Central Asia. Others contend that no such migration took place and the Aryans were original inhabitants of the Sindhu (or Sindhu-Sarswati) region. Still others hold that `Aryan' was never an ethnic term but the word `Arya' in Sanskrit basically means a noble person.

In any case, practically all countries that exist today were settled by migrants. The Saxons, the Franks and the Visigoths were all migrants to western European countries such as present day England, France and Spain. North America was recently settled (or more accurately, usurped) by migrants. Even the Native Americans in North and South America are considered to have migrated from Asia 30,000 years ago. At some point in history, it may be that all people came from Africa. Clearly, using this criterion, all nations of today are illegitimate.

So the validity or lack thereof of a particular Aryan migration theory, even assuming such a migration ever actually took place, does not concern us. Suffice to say, that even those that subscribe to the theory of an invasion or migration place the date no later than 1500 BC. By contrast, the Saxon reached present-day England in only the 5th or 6th century AD, about 2000 years after the hypothetical Aryan migration -- yet England is considered an Anglo-Saxon country and no one wastes a whole lot of energy arguing otherwise or creating political factions representing the `pre-Saxon' people. That a hypothetical Aryan invasion 3500 years ago is still relevant to our politics shows the absurd divisions created in our minds by colonial theories, intended to keep us fighting amongst ourselves on artificial boundaries.

So, regardless of whether there were such a people as Aryans or whether they came from the outside, our interest is in the fact that the people who have inhabited India over the last 3000 or more years formed both a conception of Indian nationhood and a distinct civilizational continuity.

Our hymns sing glories of the Himalayas, not of the Caucuses. Our stories talk of the Vindhyachal not a mountain in the Central Asia. We sing of the Ganga and the Cauvery, not the Amu Darya. Thus for thousands of years the people who have lived in India have celebrated its sacred geography. Regardless of their origins in pre-history, our ancestral people made the land of India their home and wove stories around its features.

Objection #2

Isn't India simply like all of Europe, sharing some common history and religious ideas but no more?

Parts of Europe came under the rule of the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. None of these Empires held sway over all of what is the territory of Europe today. Rather, their areas of control were largely around the Mediterranean Sea â parts of southern Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. There has also been some uniformity of religion in Europe imposed by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. But, there has been no empire of Europe. Eastern, western and Scandinavian Europe have had substantially different histories and cultural, linguistic and ethnic origins.

There is a more significant difference. The land of India has been thought of and considered a sacred whole by the people of India in a way that is simply not true of Europe.

As the Shankracharya of Kanchi said recently, for thousands of years, Indians throughout the land have woken up in the morning and sang a hymn celebrating the holy rivers of Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Godavari, Sindu, Saraswati and Cauvery as part of nitya kriya, or daily worship.

gange ca yamune caiva, godAvari sarasvati
narmade sindho kAveri, jale'sminn sannidhiM kuru

Thus our hymns and religious stories not only share common themes, heroes and deities, they also uniquely link us to this particular land in a way Christian stories do not link to the land of Europe. There are no hymns that Europeans sang that spoke of the land from the Urals to Scandinavia or from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean as one. No one sang devotional songs listing all the major rivers of Europe, east to west. The idea of Europe is like another continent, like Africa or Americas â with some shared geography and history but no historic conception of the integrated whole as a unity that was recognized among all the common people.

Thus there have been no religious stories of Europe linked to its particular boundaries and capturing the common fealty of the people, unlike the story of Shakti being dispersed over the land of India in peethams that millions of people visit, or the sage who set up mathas in the four quadrants of the land, or who wrote the Mahabharata, or who wrote of the land of Bharatvarsha and Aryavrata. So there is a unity to India, an Indian nationhood that is far greater than any shared similarities between Europe.

Objection #3

If the British hadn't been here, wouldn't we be a bunch of fighting kingdoms?

The British certainly contributed to the political re-unification of the land, just as the Mughals had done before that. But they re-unified politically an existing civilization entity. This entity had existed long before they came, had been politically re-united in the past and will exist long after they have gone.

The British experience is part of who we are today, so they certainly added to our civilization. But the British also divided and partitioned us, not only physically but also mentally. They also impoverished us and planted many seeds of divisive scholarship that cut us from our roots and our sense of nationhood.

There are many entities today who would see us become a bunch of fighting states, all the easier for political, religious and economic conquest. But a division of India is like cutting a human body. We are already bleeding from the cuts inflicted 50 years ago. Eternal vigilance is the price of our freedom. Telling our common stories, the core of our nationhood.

Objection #4

You are excluding Islamic contributions and Indian Muslims from your definition

This essay is about finding the historic roots of the Indian civilization and defining who we are as people and as a nation. We have had many migrants and invaders. While Islam has contributed to the Indian civilization, our roots are much older than when Prophet Mohammad first appeared in Arabia in the 6th century AD, so our civilization cannot be defined by Islam. Alexander the Greek came to our shores, so did the Kushans and Mongols and Persians and Turks. All of them added their contributions to our civilization as we did to theirs. The Mughal Empire helped in our political re-unification. But none of them define who we are.

We had the great Chinese civilization towards the north and the Persian civilization towards our west. Each of them influenced us as we influenced them. But because the Chinese came under Buddhist influence from India does not mean that they cease to be the Chinese civilization, an entity with a distinct cultural flavor and history from India.

Similarly, the Persians and the Turks came in many waves and contributed to Indian culture, even as we did to theirs. This does not mean that our civilization suddenly became Persian or Turkish. Some of these people settled in India, some of them brought a new religion called Islam and converted some of the existing people. All those who ultimately accept India as their homeland are accepted as Indians, for we have been a welcoming land. It would be a strange case indeed if conversion to Islam led people to deny the roots of their civilization. Do the Persians cease to be Persians, now that they are Muslims?

Islam does not define nationhood. If it did, the entire region from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan would be one country. Iran and Iraq would be one large Islamic country, rather than separate entities based on Persian and Babylonian civilizational roots. Indonesia and Malaysia would be one country.

Thus the civilizational roots of India belong to all Indians, Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Indonesian Muslims don't trace their civilizational roots from Arabia, but from the Indonesian culture developed over the centuries. As Saeed Naqvi writes, the Ramayana ballet is performed in Indonesia by â150 namaz-saying Muslims under the shadow of Yog Jakarta's magnificent temples for the past 27 years without a breakâ -- Indonesians can apparently celebrate their civilizational roots without conflict of their being Muslims. There is no reason that Muslim Indians feel any differently unless led by the creation of fear or sustained demagoguery to believe otherwise.

Objection #5

Indian Muslims are Arabs, Persians and Turks, not originally Indian

Some Indian Muslims are descendents of Persian, Turks and others. Many more are descendents of people who have been in India for thousands of years. In the Indian Muslim caste system, the invaders were considered higher castes than the natives and tracing one's `foreign' status often yielded greater prestige, leading more people to identify themselves thus. As late as the early 20th century, some Indian Muslims continued to identify themselves as `Hindu Mussalmans' (as they might have been called) to census takers marking the civilizational, rather than religious (in a separative sense) meaning of the term Hindu.

In either case, it is somewhat irrelevant. Even the Persians and Turks who settled here in numbers came here far before America, for instance, existed as a country. The Indian civilization has assimilated many people into its bosom and there is no reason that the descendents of the Persians or Turks who migrated to India can be considered any less Indian as result.

Objection #6

You say that Islam is not the basis of nationhood, yet Pakistan is founded on the very premise. Your geographical conception of India includes present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. Do you want to create an 'Akhand Bharat' and re-unite India by force?

Pakistan is an entity with no civilization basis. In an attempt to create one, Pakistani history textbooks teach that Pakistan was established by Babur as `Mughlistan'. However, Babur was a Turk of Mongol descent and the majority of people that live in Pakistan today are certainly not descendents of Turks or Mongols. Pakistan's crisis of identity emerges primarily from the rejection of their ancient civilizational roots in the name of `religion'. Till they can reconcile to their roots, they will remain a rootless nation, preserved per force by the state apparatus as long as it lasts.

The idea of Bharata certainly goes from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Sindh to Manipur. However, the idea of re-uniting Pakistan or Bangladesh to India is unviable at this point in history. The best one can hope for is that the people of Pakistan and Bangladesh themselves become aware at some point of their deep civilization roots that have been taken away from them in the name of religion.

Objection #7

India is not a `Hindu rashtra', you are trying to make India into a Hindu rashtra.

The interest of this essay is in establishing what is true, not in any political flavor of the day. In the multi-century big picture, particular political movements or systems of government will come and go, but the history of our civilizational roots still needs to be understood and articulated.

Our reading of history certainly does not support Hindu rashtra as a religious concept that means it is only for those people who are currently called `Hindus' as a religious term. Classically, Hindu has been a civilizational, not a religious term, nor is it exclusive. `Hinduism' is different from Abrahmic religion in this regard.

Surprising enough, even the article in Encarta on nationhood recognizes that:

âIndia is a nation in which the Hindu religion served as the cohesive traditional element in uniting peoples of various races, religions and languages.â

Has Encarta been saffronized? Or is it merely stating the obvious, albeit in a westernized framework? That there is no India without what has been called `Hinduism'. This by no mean implies that all the people have to `convert to a religion' called Hinduism to be Indians. It also doesn't imply that those who worship Allah or Christ as a religious idea are inherently lesser citizens or disloyal. Rather, it is simply recognition of the civilizational heritage that links us together as a nation.

In contemporary times, the civilizational term Hindu has been replaced by the term Indians. The roots of the Indian civilization, when the concept of the land of Bharata or Aryavrata was articulated and absorbed by the people of this land, are thousands of years old. Even though much of what constitutes these roots is now classified as `Hinduism', which is unfortunate and limiting, the wide diversity of our civilizational beliefs and quest for knowledge and understanding cannot be confined to a religious dogma or belief system -- it belongs to all Indians. Furthermore, pluralism is a basic principle of Hindu thought, which leaves plenty of room for other beliefs in the framework of mutual respect â as long as these beliefs are not directed at destroying the roots of the very civilization that holds them.

Certainly, those that are called `Jains' today have stories that refer to Krishna, the `Sikh' Guru Granth Sahib has hundreds of mentions of `Rama' and many Muslims are quite happy to acknowledge their roots in the Indian civilization. Hundreds of Indian Muslim poets have celebrated their civilizational roots â Abdul Rahim Khan-e-khan wrote poems in praise of Rama, in Sanskrit; Justice Ismail of Chennai was the leading authority on Kamban Ramayana; Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote powerful revolutionary poetry in Bengali replete with references to Kali. In recent times, the script for the entire Mahabharta epic was written by Masoom Raza Rahi; and who can ignore the inspiration that our Gita-reading president Abdul Kalam from Rameswaram is providing to the nation.

Similarly, Indian Christians can be both Indian and Christian without denying their cultural roots. Says Fr Michael Rosario, who teaches Indology at St Pius: "As an Indian priest, Indian spirituality is my heritage and culture." Fr Michael Gonsalves goes a step further: "We must substitute the Old Testament of the Bible with Indian history, scriptures and arts. For us, the Holy Land should be India; the sacred river the Ganges; the sacred mountain the Himalayas, the heroes of the past not Moses, or David, but Sri Ram or Krishna."

All these people have had no trouble in reconciling their reverence to Allah or Jesus without denying the civilizational heritage that binds us together.

The converse of this is also true â that the way to break us apart is to systematically deny and denigrate our civilizational roots. This is exactly the tactic the British used.

Thus the evangelical Baptists preaching in the North East have over the last few decades told the Nagas that they don't really belong with the Indian civilization â despite the fact that they have a place in our stories as far back as the Mahabharata, when Arjun goes on a pilgrimage to the holy places of the east and marries the Naga princess Uloopi. Similarly do Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and the other states in the North East.

The situation in Kashmir, spurred on by Pakistan, is a surviving artifact of the two-nation theory even while Kashmir has always been a significant part of the Indian story, its religion and philosophy. The Khalistani separatist movement is also the outcome of decades of colonial scholarship that continues till today to prove that Sikhs are completely different from the `caste-ridden' Hindus and emphasizes the separateness rather than the common roots. While the Khalsa panth was clearly established as a separate path, the teachings of Guru Nanak can be placed very precisely in the Bhakti tradition while keeping to the idea of a Nirguna Brahma. Guru Granth Sahib is liberally saturated in the philosophical and religious streams of Indian dharma, yet contemporary scholars continuing the colonial tradition often fail to educate people about this. The root of all movements to break India are ultimately found in denying the religious and cultural unity of the Indian people â whether it be found in movements inspired by colonial scholarship, communism, pan-Islamism or evangelical Christianity.

Objection #8

I am not religious, but am a patriotic secular Indian. Why is all this relevant today? I am uncomfortable with the idea of religion defining our nation â we are a secular country.

The idea of being `religious' is ultimately a western idea. In the Indian tradition, there were atheistic and materialistic schools of thought, like Charvaka, all of which get lumped under `Hinduism'. Obviously, if we take the Abrahmic idea of religion, atheistic religion is absurd â you can't really be a 'Christian atheist' or a `Muslim atheist' â not so long ago you would be hung for heresy. Hinduism is a colonial term for the rich banquet of the dharmic traditions that cannot be combined under the framework of religion. Indian civilization is a much broader concept than narrow restrictive dogmas that define religions.

A secular state is a system of government. We have embraced secularism precisely because of our long civilizational history of accepting plurality of thought and worship. This is how it must remain. However, secularism does not define nationhood in any way. There are plenty of secular states. What is unique about us is that we are Indians with a history of civilization rooted in our religious and cultural ideas. That is why we are a nation today, not because of secularism. If false notions of secularism prevent us from understanding the roots of our nationhood, we will all be the lesser for it.

But to get back to the question, nations are born, but are also made. If we fail to understand our common civilization, we will ultimately fall prey to those that seek to destroy us â by convincing us that we have none, that India is a British construction and so on. The effect of this will not only be a separation from the Indian state, but from the Indian tradition. To see the devastating effects of this, consider that we are still paying the price of our first partition based on accepting colonial ideas and still struggling with its wounds.

If India gets split up into different countries, we will all lose â there will be more wars, more armies, and all the lines we draw will be artificial and straight across our hearts.

Every child in America in a public school recites an oath of allegiance every morning in front of the American flag. They obviously take their nationhood seriously, even as they are a young nation. While we are old as a civilization, we are young as a country. Our education is based on colonial scholarship. Nationhood is ultimately a feeling of being one people. To strengthen this feeling and being resilient to divisive propaganda, we need to see that every child in India is educated about why we are a nation, lest we forget why we are together.

**acharya** · 05-04-2007, 11:27 PM

The Colonial Legacy - Myths and Popular Beliefs

The Colonial Legacy - Myths and Popular Beliefs
http://india_resource.tripod.com/colonial.html

The Colonial Legacy - Myths and Popular Beliefs
While few educated South Asians would deny that British Colonial rule was detrimental to the interests of the common people of the sub-continent - several harbor an illusion that the British weren't all bad. Didn't they, perhaps, educate us - build us modern cities, build us irrigation canals - protect our ancient monuments - etc. etc. And then, there are some who might even say that their record was actually superior to that of independent India's! Perhaps, it is time that the colonial record be retrieved from the archives and re-examined - so that those of us who weren't alive during the freedom movement can learn to distinguish between the myths and the reality.

Literacy and Education

Several Indians are deeply concerned about why literacy rates in India are still so low. So in the last year, I have been making a point of asking English-speaking Indians to guess what India's literacy rate in the colonial period might have been. These were Indians who went to school in the sixties and seventies (only two decades after independence) - and I was amazed to hear their fairly confident guesses. Most guessed the number to be between 30% and 40%. When I suggested that their guess was on the high side - they offered 25% to 35%. No one was prepared to believe that literacy in British India in 1911 was only 6%, in 1931 it was 8%, and by 1947 it had crawled to 11%! That fifty years of freedom had allowed the nation to quintuple it's literacy rate was something that almost seemed unfathomable to them. Perhaps - the British had concentrated on higher education ....? But in 1935, only 4 in 10,000 were enrolled in universities or higher educational institutes. In a nation of then over 350 million people only 16,000 books (no circulation figures) were published in that year (i.e. 1 per 20,000).

Urban Development

It is undoubtedly true that the British built modern cities with modern conveniences for their administrative officers. But it should be noted that these were exclusive zones not intended for the "natives" to enjoy. Consider that in 1911, 69 per cent of Bombay's population lived in one-room tenements (as against 6 per cent in London in the same year). The 1931 census revealed that the figure had increased to 74 per cent - with one-third living more than 5 to a room. The same was true of Karachi and Ahmedabad. After the Second World War, 13 per cent of Bombay's population slept on the streets. As for sanitation, 10-15 tenements typically shared one water tap!

Yet, in 1757 (the year of the Plassey defeat), Clive of the East India Company had observed of Murshidabad in Bengal: "This city is as extensive, populous and rich as the city of London..." (so quoted in the Indian Industrial Commission Report of 1916-1Cool. Dacca was even more famous as a manufacturing town, it's muslin a source of many legends and it's weavers had an international reputation that was unmatched in the medieval world. But in 1840 it was reported by Sir Charles Trevelyan to a parliamentary enquiry that Dacca's population had fallen from 150,000 to 20,000. Montgomery Martin - an early historian of the British Empire observed that Surat and Murshidabad had suffered a similiar fate. (This phenomenon was to be replicated all over India - particularly in Awadh (modern U.P) and other areas that had offered the most heroic resistance to the British during the revolt of 1857.)

The percentage of population dependant on agriculture and pastoral pursuits actually rose to 73% in 1921 from 61% in 1891. (Reliable figures for earlier periods are not available.)

In 1854, Sir Arthur Cotton writing in "Public Works in India" noted: "Public works have been almost entirely neglected throughout India... The motto hitherto has been: 'Do nothing, have nothing done, let nobody do anything....." Adding that the Company was unconcerned if people died of famine, or if they lacked roads and water.

Nothing can be more revealing than the remark by John Bright in the House of Commons on June 24, 1858, "The single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has spent in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions."

Irrigation and Agricultural Development

There is another popular belief about British rule: 'The British modernized Indian agriculture by building canals'. But the actual record reveals a somewhat different story. " The roads and tanks and canals," noted an observer in 1838 (G. Thompson, "India and the Colonies," 1838), ''which Hindu or Mussulman Governments constructed for the service of the nations and the good of the country have been suffered to fall into dilapidation; and now the want of the means of irrigation causes famines." Montgomery Martin, in his standard work "The Indian Empire", in 1858, noted that the old East India Company "omitted not only to initiate improvements, but even to keep in repair the old works upon which the revenue depended."

The Report of the Bengal Irrigation Department Committee in 1930 reads: "In every district the Khals (canals) which carry the internal boat traffic become from time to time blocked up with silt. Its Khals and rivers are the roads end highways of Eastern Bengal, and it is impossible to overestimate the importance to the economic life of this part of the province of maintaining these in proper navigable order ....... " "As regards the revival or maintenance of minor routes, ... practically nothing has been done, with the result that, in some parts of the Province at least, channels have been silted up, navigation has become limited to a few months in the year, and crops can only be marketed when the Khals rise high enough in the monsoon to make transport possible".

Sir William Willcock, a distinguished hydraulic engineer, whose name was associated with irrigation enterprises in Egypt and Mesopotamia had made an investigation of conditions in Bengal. He had discovered that innumerable small destructive rivers of the delta region, constantly changing their course, were originally canals which under the English regime were allowed to escape from their channels and run wild. Formerly these canals distributed the flood waters of the Ganges and provided for proper drainage of the land, undoubtedly accounting for that prosperity of Bengal which lured the rapacious East India merchants there in the early days of the eighteenth century.. He wrote" Not only was nothing done to utilize and improve the original canal system, but railway embankments were subsequently thrown up, entirely destroying it. Some areas, cut off from the supply of loam-bearing Ganges water, have gradually become sterile and unproductive, others improperly drained, show an advanced degree of water-logging, with the inevitable accompaniment of malaria. Nor has any attempt been made to construct proper embankments for the Gauges in its low course, to prevent the enormous erosion by which villages and groves and cultivated fields are swallowed up each year."

"Sir William Willcock severely criticizes the modern administrators and officials, who, with every opportunity to call in expert technical assistance, have hitherto done nothing to remedy this disastrous situation, from decade to decade." Thus wrote G. Emerson in "Voiceless Millions," in 1931 quoting the views of Sir William Willcock in his "Lectures on the Ancient System of Irrigation in Bengal and its Application to Modern Problems" (Calcutta University Readership Lectures, University of Calcutta, 1930)

Modern Medicine and Life Expectancy

Even some serious critics of colonial rule grudgingly grant that the British brought modern medicine to India. Yet - all the statistical indicators show that access to modern medicine was severely restricted. A 1938 report by the ILO (International Labor Office) on "Industrial Labor in India" revealed that life expectancy in India was barely 25 years in 1921 (compared to 55 for England) and had actually fallen to 23 in 1931! In his recently published "Late Victorian Holocausts" Mike Davis reports that life expectancy fell by 20% between 1872 and 1921.

In 1934, there was one hospital bed for 3800 people in British India and this figure included hospital beds reserved for the British rulers. (In that same year, in the Soviet Union, there were ten times as many.) Infant mortality in Bombay was 255 per thousand in 1928. (In the same year, it was less than half that in Moscow.)

Poverty and Population Growth

Several Indians when confronted with such data from the colonial period argue that the British should not be specially targeted because India's problems of poverty pre-date colonial rule, and in any case, were exacerbated by rapid population growth. Of course, no one who makes the first point is able to offer any substantive proof that such conditions prevailed long before the British arrived, and to counter such an argument would be difficult in the absence of reliable and comparable statistical data from earlier centuries. But some readers may find the anecdotal evidence intriguing. In any case, the population growth data is available and is quite remarkable in what it reveals.

Between 1870 and 1910, India's population grew at an average rate of 19%. England and Wales' population grew three times as fast - by 58%! Average population growth in Europe was 45%. Between 1921-40, the population in India grew faster at 21% but was still less than the 24% growth of population in the US!

In 1941, the density of population in India was roughly 250 per square mile almost a third of England's 700 per square mile. Although Bengal was much more densely inhabited at almost 780 per square mile - that was only about 10% more than England. Yet, there was much more poverty in British India than in England and an unprecedented number of famines were recorded during the period of British rule.

In the first half of the 19th century, there were seven famines leading to a million and a half deaths. In the second half, there were 24 famines (18 between 1876 and 1900) causing over 20 million deaths (as per official records). W. Digby, noted in "Prosperous British India" in 1901 that "stated roughly, famines and scarcities have been four times as numerous, during the last thirty years of the 19th century as they were one hundred years ago, and four times as widespread." In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis points out that here were 31(thirty one) serious famines in 120 years of British rule compared to 17(seventeen) in the 2000 years before British rule.

Not surprising, since the export of food grains had increased by a factor of four just prior to that period. And export of other agricultural raw materials had also increased in similar proportions. Land that once produced grain for local consumption was now taken over by by former slave-owners from N. America who were permitted to set up plantations for the cultivation of lucrative cash crops exclusively for export. Particularly galling is how the British colonial rulers continued to export foodgrains from India to Britain even during famine years.

Annual British Government reports repeatedly published data that showed 70-80% of Indians were living on the margin of subsistence. That two-thirds were undernourished, and in Bengal, nearly four-fifths were undernourished.

Contrast this data with the following accounts of Indian life prior to colonization:-

" ....even in the smallest villages rice, flour, butter, milk, beans and other vegetables, sugar and sweetmeats can be procured in abundance .... Tavernier writing in the 17th century in his "Travels in India".

Manouchi - the Venetian who became chief physician to Aurangzeb (also in the 17th century) wrote: "Bengal is of all the kingdoms of the Moghul, best known in France..... We may venture to say it is not inferior in anything to Egypt - and that it even exceeds that kingdom in its products of silks, cottons, sugar, and indigo. All things are in great plenty here, fruits, pulse, grain, muslins, cloths of gold and silk..."

The French traveller, Bernier also described 17th century Bengal in a similiar vein: "The knowledge I have acquired of Bengal in two visits inclines me to believe that it is richer than Egypt. It exports in abundance cottons and silks, rice, sugar and butter. It produces amply for it's own consumption of wheat, vegetables, grains, fowls, ducks and geese. It has immense herds of pigs and flocks of sheep and goats. Fish of every kind it has in profusion. From Rajmahal to the sea is an endless number of canals, cut in bygone ages from the Ganges by immense labour for navigation and irrigation."

The poverty of British India stood in stark contrast to these eye witness reports and has to be ascribed to the pitiful wages that working people in India received in that period. A 1927-28 report noted that "all but the most highly skilled workmen in India receive wages which are barely sufficient to feed and clothe them. Everywhere will be seen overcrowding, dirt and squalid misery..."

This in spite of the fact that in 1922 - an 11 hour day was the norm (as opposed to an 8 hour day in the Soviet Union.) In 1934, it had been reduced to 10 hours (whereas in the Soviet Union, the 7 hour day had been legislated as early as in 1927) What was worse, there were no enforced restrictions on the use of child labour and the Whitley Report found children as young as five - working a 12 hour day.

Ancient Monuments

Perhaps the least known aspect of the colonial legacy is the early British attitude towards India's historic monuments and the extend of vandalism that took place. Instead, there is this pervasive myth of the Britisher as an unbiased "protector of the nation's historic legacy".

R.Nath in his 'History of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture' records that scores of gardens, tombs and palaces that once adorned the suburbs of Sikandra at Agra were sold out or auctioned. "Relics of the glorious age of the Mughals were either destroyed or converted beyond recognition..". "Out of 270 beautiful monuments which existed at Agra alone, before its capture by Lake in 1803, hardly 40 have survived".

In the same vein, David Carroll (in 'Taj Mahal') observes: " The forts in Agra and Delhi were commandeered at the beginning of the nineteenth century and turned into military garrisons. Marble reliefs were torn down, gardens were trampled, and lines of ugly barracks, still standing today, were installed in their stead. In the Delhi fort, the Hall of Public Audience was made into an arsenal and the arches of the outer colonnades were bricked over or replaced with rectangular wooden windows."

The Mughal fort at Allahabad (one of Akbar's favorite) experienced a fate far worse. Virtually nothing of architectural significance is to be seen in the barracks that now make up the fort. The Deccan fort at Ahmednagar was also converted into barracks. Now, only its outer walls can hint at its former magnificence.

Shockingly, even the Taj Mahal was not spared. David Carroll reports: "..By the nineteenth century, its grounds were a favorite trysting place for young Englishmen and their ladies. Open-air balls were held on the marble terrace in front of the main door, and there, beneath Shah Jahan"s lotus dome, brass bands um-pah-pahed and lords and ladies danced the quadrille. The minarets became a popular site for suicide leaps, and the mosques on either side of the Taj were rented out as bungalows to honeymooners. The gardens of the Taj were especially popular for open-air frolics....."

"At an earlier date, when picnic parties were held in the garden of the Taj, related Lord Curzon, a governor general in the early twentieth century, "it was not an uncommon thing for the revellers to arm themselves with hammer and chisel, with which they wiled away the afternoon by chipping out fragments of agate and carnelian from the cenotaphs of the Emperor and his lamented Queen." The Taj became a place where one could drink in private, and its parks were often strewn with the figures of inebriated British soldiers..."

Lord William Bentinck, (governor general of Bengal 1828-33, and later first governor general of all India), went so far as to announce plans to demolish the best Mogul monuments in Agra and Delhi and remove their marble facades. These were to be shipped to London, where they would be broken up and sold to members of the British aristocracy. Several of Shahjahan's pavilions in the Red Fort at Delhi were indeed stripped to the brick, and the marble was shipped off to England (part of this shipment included pieces for King George IV himself). Plans to dismantle the Taj Mahal were in place, and wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds. Just as the demolition work was to begin, news from London indicated that the first auction had not been a success, and that all further sales were cancelled -- it would not be worth the money to tear down the Taj Mahal.

Thus the Taj Mahal was spared, and so too, was the reputation of the British as "Protectors of India's Historic Legacy" ! That innumerable other monuments were destroyed, or left to rack and ruin is a story that has yet to get beyond the specialists in the field.

India and the Industrial Revolution

Perhaps the most important aspect of colonial rule was the transfer of wealth from India to Britain. In his pioneering book, India Today, Rajni Palme Dutt conclusively demonstrates how vital this was to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Several patents that had remained unfunded suddenly found industrial sponsors once the taxes from India started rolling in. Without capital from India, British banks would have found it impossible to fund the modernization of Britain that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In addition, the scientific basis of the industrial revolution was not a uniquely European contribution. Several civilizations had been adding to the world's scientific database - especially the civilizations of Asia, (including those of the Indian sub-continent). Without that aggregate of scientific knowledge the scientists of Britain and Europe would have found it impossible to make the rapid strides they made during the period of the Industrial revolution. Moreover, several of these patents, particularly those concerned with the textile industry relied on pre-industrial techniques perfected in the sub-continent. (In fact, many of the earliest textile machines in Britain were unable to match the complexity and finesse of the spinning and weaving machines of Dacca.)

Some euro-centric authors have attempted to deny any such linkage. They have tried to assert that not only was the Industrial Revolution a uniquely British/European event - that colonization and the the phenomenal transfer of wealth that took place was merely incidental to it's fruition. But the words of Lord Curzon still ring loud and clear. The Viceroy of British India in 1894 was quite unequivocal, "India is the pivot of our Empire .... If the Empire loses any other part of its Dominion we can survive, but if we lose India the sun of our Empire will have set."

Lord Curzon knew fully well, the value and importance of the Indian colony. It was the transfer of wealth through unprecedented levels of taxation on Indians of virtually all classes that funded the great "Industrial Revolution" and laid the ground for "modernization" in Britain. As early as 1812, an East India Company Report had stated "The importance of that immense empire to this country is rather to be estimated by the great annual addition it makes to the wealth and capital of the Kingdom....."

Unfair Trade

Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have been unfair - but it may be noteworthy to see how unfair. In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%! As a result, British imports of cotton manufactures into India increased by a factor of 50, and Indian exports dropped to one-fourth! A similiar trend was noted in silk goods, woollens, iron, pottery, glassware and paper. As a result, millions of ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners, weavers, potters, smelters and smiths were rendered jobless and had to become landless agricultural workers.

Colonial Beneficiaries

Another aspect of colonial rule that has remained hidden from popular perception is that Britain was not the only beneficiary of colonial rule. British trade regulations even as they discriminated against Indian business interests created a favorable trading environment for other imperial powers. By 1939, only 25% of Indian imports came from Britain. 25% came from Japan, the US and Germany. In 1942-3, Canada and Australia contributed another 8%. In the period immediately before independence, Britain ruled as much on behalf of it's imperial allies as it did in it's own interest. The process of "globalization" was already taking shape. But none of this growth trickled down to India. In the last half of 19th century, India's income fell by 50%. In the 190 years prior to independence, the Indian economy was literally stagnant - it experienced zero growth. (Mike Davis: Late Victorian Holocausts)

Those who wish India well might do well to re-read this history so the nation isn't brought to the abyss once again, (and so soon after being liberated from the yoke of colonial rule). While some Indians may wax nostalgic for the return of their former overlords, and some may be ambivalent about colonial rule, most of us relish our freedom and wish to perfect it - not gift it away again.

References: Statistics and data for the colonial period taken from Rajni-Palme Dutt's India Today (Indian Edition published in 1947); also see N.K. Sinha's Economic History of Bengal (Published in Calcutta, 1956); and "Late Victorian Holocausts" by Mike Davis

Bibliography: (For further research into this area)

M. M. Ahluwalia, Freedom Struggle in India,
Shah, Khambata: The Wealth and Taxable Capacity of India
G. Emerson, Voiceless India
W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times
Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decline
J. R. Seeley, Expansion of England
H. H. Wilson, History of British India
D. H Buchanan, Development of Capitalist Enterprise in India
L. C. A Knowles: Economic Development of the Overseas Empire
L. H. Jenks: The Migration of British Capital

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-05-2007, 11:45 AM by Husky.)

QUOTEThe diverse Native American tribes that inhabited the area of the present day United States could not be said to have comprised a nation, and even if they did, the current United States neither considers itself as a continuity of the native culture, nor are its people primarily descendents of the natives.Small addition to this. It's true that the diverse N American native Americans did not comprise *a* nation: they comprised a union of united nations. That's where the European settler Americans got the idea from to model the United States on.

The native Americans formed various communities called Nations in English (in Canada, the native Canadian communities are called First Nations). But the nations together formed a united whole and had a set of agreed interactions that they were all aware of. They were also connected by a common thread of traditions - though some traditions were community specific, others were shared by all the Nations.

So in that sense, the N America of the native Americans was indeed a single whole. (Not commenting about the settlers here. Their version of America was created afterwards, which Sankrant Sanu's article explains.)
With the creation of Canada and America as separate countries, N America's native American Nations (communities) were separated from each other in a manner they had never known before.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 05-05-2007, 08:36 PM by dhu.)

QUOTE<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEThe diverse Native American tribes that inhabited the area of the present day United States could not be said to have comprised a nation, and even if they did, the current United States neither considers itself as a continuity of the native culture, nor are its people primarily descendents of the natives.Small addition to this. It's true that the diverse N American native Americans did not comprise *a* nation: they comprised a union of united nations. That's where the European settler Americans got the idea from to model the United States on.</div>

False Arguments. Even at the height of colonialism, the western nations never comprised one nation.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-06-2007, 10:42 AM by Husky.)

Dhu, I thoroughly agree with your position. My post 12 was only in defense of native Americans - that is, in recognition of their statehood.

My reference to the United States was to indicate that when this was finally formed (very late, as you say), it had got the idea of 'united' from N Americas' native Americans. I read this somewhere - here. (Naturally, this does not mean that US or Canadian nationhood can in any way be extended backwards in time to that of the native peoples of the continent. The two were entirely separate.)

ADDED link in the text labeled 'here'.

**acharya** · 01-30-2008, 11:25 PM

Where Do Indian Muslims Go From Here?

This articles contains a good pack of lies & half-truths.

From Moghul emperor Akbar to Bahadur Shah Zafar - the hero of Indiaâs first war of independence, to Maulana Azad - the pre-eminent freedom fighter, to President APJ Abdul Kalam â the creator of Indiaâs missile program and beyond, there is an illustrious unending string of Muslims who contributed substantially in the building of the Indian nation over the centuries.

The Past
In the 600 years that Muslims were in power in India most Muslim kings were moderates who held power by forming alliances of Muslims and Hindus. During the 300 year long Moghul empire it was a political alliance of Moghuls and Rajput Hindus that held power in North India. Together, they spent decades to extend their hold into South India waging continual wars against the Bahmani sultans, the Golkunda dynasty, the Qutubshahi dynasty - all of whom were Muslims.

Most Muslim rulers and their noblemen in India forsook the ethos of the West Asian nations of their origin and integrated themselves with the culture and soil of India to create the Indo-Islamic civilization. Much as in ancient times the Aryans of central Asia integrated themselves with the same Indian soil to develop the Hindu civilization.

Indian Muslims are justifiably proud of their Indo-Islamic heritage. It is a genuinely Indian civilization that the people of India belonging to different religions created by merging the culture of the Muslim immigrants from West Asia with that of the Hindus of India.

At the dawn of independence while a sizeable number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan, about 60 million at that time chose to stay in India. Without a doubt these people rejected the two nation theory(rejected because it was difficult to move, not that they did not want to go), considered the formation of Pakistan a disaster for the Muslims and India, and believed in the secular and diverse milieu of India.

It can not be forgotten that a majority of Muslims in the provinces that remained in India supported Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Valabbahi Patel and Maulana Azad in their opposition to the partitioning of India.

The Present
However soon after independence in 1947 Muslims in India found themselves the victims of the backlash of the formation of Pakistan, an action that they had opposed strongly. They found themselves excluded from the mainstream and suspect in their nationalism, in the midst of people with whom they had grown up as youngsters. (If you goto a Madrassa but not to nearby govt. school, then what can anyone do)

Today the overwhelming majority of Indiaâs Muslims consider being Indian as important as being Muslim. (I am yet to find a IM, who will unequivocally put nation first and religion second and then you complain about being found wanted in nationalism) A majority of them are people who were born after independence and for whom stories of Indiaâs partition is something that they heard from their parents. Of their own free will Muslims vote for secular parties rather than for Muslim parties and candidates, who are not secular.

The result of the last election indicates that of the about thirty Muslim members of the Indian parliament, all of whom stood from constituencies with sizeable Muslim population, only three are from Muslim parties. Muslims in India never associate with any separatists or anti-national elements. As for the Kashmir problem, it is not a Hindu-Muslim problem. It is the result of years of mismanagement by successive governments in New Delhi and Srinagar, that allowed the festering impoverishment and deprivation of Kashmiris to acquire an anti-national color.

The Despair
In-spite of their being 140 million strong and their overwhelming festering impoverishment, Muslims in India have no leadership worth its name, no coherent direction and no roadmap to break out of their sixty year old state- of- siege. (that is the result of Madrassa training) The number of Indian Muslims living below poverty level has remained at 55 percent for decades, compared to the 35 percent national average. Similarly 45 percent of the Muslim community continues to be illiterate compared to 36 percent for all Indians; 55 percent of Muslim women are illiterate compared to 40 percent for all Indian women.

The blight and squalor of Muslim townships in Indiaâs many cities reflects the contempt with which successive federal and state governments have treated the Muslim community for decades. The very acute shortage of schools, medical clinics, parks, paved roads, sanitation facilities and the large number of unemployed youth in Muslim localities is a gnawing reality. (as if these are not a problem in Hindu villages) In most Muslim high schools there are either no libraries and laboratories, or they are in shambles. Despite many surveys, commissions and recommendations that successive federal and state governments have promulgated, the very poor condition of the basic civic infrastructure in Muslim townships flies in the face of the impressive modernized infrastructure in the rest of the country.

For sixty years now Muslim Dalits and Muslim OBCs, (I thought everyone is equal in Islam, isn't that the reason given why Hindu SCs converted to Islam) despite their impoverishment and despair, have been excluded from the purview of the governmentâs affirmative action plan while Hindu and Buddhist Dalits and OBCs have benefitted immensely from such plans.

For decades a variety of political parties, e.g. Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and others that proclaim themselves as sympathetic to Muslims, have continued to exploit the Muslim community for their votes with empty and meaningless promises that have remained unfulfilled, even though waves of elections have come and gone. While these parties have given tickets to Muslim candidates for parliament and state assemblies, and some of them have won, these powerless Muslim representatives in the political infrastructure have no voice in bringing development to the Muslim townships. Over a decade ago these parties proclaimed repeatedly in UP and Bihar that Urdu â the mother tongue of Muslims in those states â will be the second language. But after more than a decade hardly any Urdu teachers have been hired for the numerous schools, and Urdu with which their heritage is directly linked continues to die.

In such circumstances it is indeed strange that some political parties and politicians often campaign on the theme that successive governments have appeased Muslims. (Muslim community has long been appeased by granting special privilidges to them in constitution, separate laws, special status in Kashmir etc etc., forthcoming - 15% budget in the next 5 yr plan) This misleading propaganda has so charged the atmosphere that today every legitimate Muslim grievance, be it an appeal for financial relief for victims of communal violence, or basic infrastructure uplift, or better schools or preservation of Urdu, or protection of mosques and shrines, or freedom to retain their Muslim identity, is advertised by the obscurantist political forces as Muslimsâ attempt to seek special privileges.

The Future
After waiting for sixty years to have political parties and others lobby for them and help resolve their problems, today the future of the Muslim community lies in taking a bold lead and seeking the active help of the majority Hindu community and the power structure. They need to calmly persuade majority Hindus that their backwardness is a national Indian problem just like the backwardness of the lower caste Hindus, and that it is not a problem of just the Muslim community.

If the Muslims are trying to retain their Indo-Islamic identity then so are all major ethnic groups in India. Punjabi Hindus have very different social practices than Tamil Hindus; Bengali Hindus have totally different social practices than the Gujarati Hindus; UP/Bihar Hindus have completely different cultural practices than the Andhra Pradesh Hindus. So why should mainstream India interpret the attempts of the Indian Muslims to retain their distinct identity as lack of integration and nationalism? Why not lend a helping hand to help break their state-of-siege?

Kaleem Kawaja is past President of Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM), Washington DC

QUOTE

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEMost Muslim rulers and their noblemen in India forsook the ethos of the West Asian nations of their origin and integrated themselves with the culture and soil of India to create the Indo-Islamic civilization. Much as in ancient times the Aryans of central Asia integrated themselves with the same Indian soil to develop the Hindu civilization. 

The "Aryans of central Asia" business is a lie. That "history" has now been rubbished. Note that if Mr Kallem Kawaja can quote history that is convenient to his viewpoint, why be concerned but "injustices" being done to Muslims using similarly distorted history

QUOTEIndian Muslims are justifiably proud of their Indo-Islamic heritage.

No Doubt No doubt.
But most Hindus too are justifiably proud of their Indic heritage.

QUOTEIt can not be forgotten that a majority of Muslims in the provinces that remained in India supported Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Valabbahi Patel and Maulana Azad in their opposition to the partitioning of India. 

Sir. The Muslim majority provinces voted for the Muslim league. Some of those provinces still remain very backward.

QUOTEHowever soon after independence in 1947 Muslims in India found themselves the victims of the backlash of the formation of Pakistan, an action that they had opposed strongly. They found themselves excluded from the mainstream and suspect in their nationalism, in the midst of people with whom they had grown up as youngsters.

True. But look at the Hindu viewpoint. The Hindu could survive ONLY if he chose India. The Muslim in 1947 was free to choose to live in India or Pakistan. And for years it was not clear to Hindus whether a given Muslim would choose this nation or that. The Hindu was restricted, not the Muslim. The Hindu was restricted from living or visiting what had been part of his land. The Muslim was given rights in india and would be welcome in Pakistan.

QUOTEAs for the Kashmir problem, it is not a Hindu-Muslim problem. It is the result of years of mismanagement by successive governments in New Delhi and Srinagar, that allowed the festering impoverishment and deprivation of Kashmiris to acquire an anti-national color. 

Maybe correct sir. Maybe correct. But there is a Hindu viewpoint too. "Years of mismanagement" includes the ethnic cleansing of Hindu pandits by Muslims, so it's a little lie to say that there was no Hindu-Muslim problem there. Another little lie is the complaint that partition made Indian Muslims suspect in an earlier paragraph, and quietly forgetting that Pakistanis, who, for Hindus were "people with whom they had grown up as youngsters." made every effort to portray Kashmir as a Hindu Muslim problem. How can an Indian Muslim conveniently deny that there was no "Hindu-Muslim problem" in Kashmir?

QUOTEMuslims in India have no leadership worth its name, no coherent direction and no roadmap to break out of their sixty year old state- of- siege.

It is another lie to say that Muslims do not have leaders. When Muslims do not have leaders they go to the ulema and follow what the ulema say. That is part of the problem. There are plenty of Hindu leaders to follow. One has to learn to trust at least some of them. They are telling Muslims what to do, but Muslims do not follow them. Tell the truth sir, are Muslims taught, or are they not taught to distrust non Muslims?

QUOTE55 percent of Muslim women are illiterate compared to 40 percent for all Indian women.

Social workers that I speak to tell me that Muslims refuse to send their girls to school. Muslims may want slamic schools for them. If Muslims want to stay apart, why complain about Hindus. Hindus are begging for Muslims to join, not remain separate. Muslims choose not to join and choose to whine and whine and whine and complain.

QUOTEFor sixty years now Muslim Dalits and Muslim OBCs, despite their impoverishment and despair, have been excluded from the purview of the governmentâs affirmative action plan

But sir - this is confusing. You say "Muslim Dalits and Muslim OBCs". But "dalits" and "OBCs" are HHindu problem are they not? castes are for Hindus not Muslims? Are you conveniently now asking for case because it is beneficial to do that.

From a Hindu viewpoint, Muslims in 1947 asked for a separate country because that was convenient. Now you are asking for a new definition that makes caste a Muslim feature. That sounds like a convenient ploy. Doesn't everyone want an advantage?

QUOTEIf the Muslims are trying to retain their Indo-Islamic identity then so are all major ethnic groups in India. Punjabi Hindus have very different social practices than Tamil Hindus; Bengali Hindus have totally different social practices than the Gujarati Hindus; UP/Bihar Hindus have completely different cultural practices than the Andhra Pradesh Hindus. So why should mainstream India interpret the attempts of the Indian Muslims to retain their distinct identity as lack of integration and nationalism? Why not lend a helping hand to help break their state-of-siege?

Yes, yes yes Sir. But you forget that all these Punjabi, Tamil and UP/Bihar Hindus - with all their differences, share in Indic culture. Can Muslims show that they share that Indic culture too? After all that indic culture has been dissed, criticized and trashed. Pakistan has tried to reject it, and you too are denying it by pretending that all these Hindus are different. Yes they are different - but the link is Indic culture boss. It has survived and will thrive. Why do you choose to deny that it is present?

And don't forget that dalits and OBCs - a group you now claim includes Muslims are ALSO Indic culture. Why deny it in one area and beg to join it in another?
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Bharatvarsh · (This post was last modified: 01-31-2008, 12:30 AM by Bharatvarsh.)

QUOTESir. The Muslim majority provinces voted for the Muslim league. Some of those provinces still remain very backward.
This is incorrect, it was actually in the Muslim majority provinces that Jinnah had the least support, particularly in NWFP and Sindh (refer to the results of the 1946 provincial elections for this).

So the actual reality is that Indian Muslims were the biggest supporters of partition and it is an outright lie to claim that they opposed partition, many of them stayed back with the intention of one day reclaiming all of Bharat (Maulana Azad was of this school) or because the assholes didn't want to leave behind their property.

Kawaja is a typical IM indulging in their typical whitewashing of their deeds and at the same time writing nonsense about Hindus and Hindu culture and check the comments to see much better whitewashing by his fellow momin's, all "patriotic Indian Muslims" i guess.

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