(Sainiput)
History in the context of a particular country or nation is the chronological record of its affairs/events through the ages. The best friends of the developing human societies on planet earth are history and science, and so in India . While history sums up the past progress along with its pitfalls, science provides where withal for further development. However, every thing said and done, both history and science in India are jinxed. The main culprit for this sorry state of affairs, is the blind faith in what is called God with a large number of religions and religious sects each striving for supremacy over others. Another contradiction is the difference between the words and deeds of those who claim to be the followers of ‘God’ and various religions.
Suffice it to say, the ancient people of this country called Hindostan through ages had made a lot of progress in various walks of life. The problem is, there was no tradition of recording history in chronological manner. As a result, the past could not be preserved. The way of recording history here was to interweave it in the folklore in verse form, which is easy to remember, but without doubt, is not dependable. The classic examples are Ramayana and Mahabharta written in verse and glorifying various characters to the extent of describing them as personifications of so-called God, which cannot be put under scrutiny without annoying the ‘believers’.
Raj Tarangini written in 12th century by Kalhan is in the Hindostani tradition of writing history in poetry. It has over 8000 Shalokas written in the tradition of a Kavya about the kings of Kashmir . To some extent it qualifies the writer as the first historian of India , though after its discovery in early 19th century the British and Indian scholars had taken full one century to debate whether it was a book of history or poetry. Raj Tarangini is composed of anecdotes. It begins with Kalhan praising the gods and seeking blessings. Then he seeks the indulgence of his readers for what he has to say, which all is essentially in accordance with the established tradition of those times. After these formalities, he gives a detailed description of the topographical layout of Kashmir ; its geological history, various rivers, lakes and mountains. Some of the information is taken from personal observations while the legends and folk-tales are the basis for the other. The kings of Kashmir are traced from Gonanda who was a contemporary of Yudhishtara of Mahabharat. Those kings who were merely mentioned in legends without any corroborative evidence are mentioned as 'lost kings'. It roundly criticizes the kings and other social elite when they are unfair to the people, do not perform their duties adequately and indulge in cheating. It also gives detailed description of intrigues, deception and many other things about kings and queens.
Otherwise, two Chinese travellers who wandered through the Hindostan of yore; Fa-hien (399 - 414 AD) and Huen-tsang (629 - 645 AD), prepared the most authentic records on its ancient culture. A British Civil Service Officer, Anderson , compiled the modern history of the country, through his diary. Widely accepted as true with exceptions here and there, the history of India , batter to call it a subcontinent rather than a country, is ‘extraordinary’ and intimately tied to its geography. A meeting ground between the East and the West, India has always been an invader’s paradise, while at the same time its natural isolation and compromising religions allowed it to adapt to and absorb, many of the peoples who penetrated it by force or otherwise. In short, India has always been simply too big, too complicated, and culturally too subtle to let any one empire dominate it for long.
True to the haphazard ambiance of India , the discovery of its most ancient civilization literally took place by accident, when British engineers in the mid-AD 1800’s, constructing a railway line between Karachi and Punjab , found kiln-baked bricks. This discovery was treated at that time as little more than a curiosity. But archaeologists later revisited the site in the 1920’s and determined that the bricks were more than 5000 years old. Soon there after, two important cities were discovered: Harappa on the river Ravi in Punjab , and Moenjo Daro on the river Indus in Sindh.
The civilization that laid the bricks, one of the world’s oldest, came to be known among historians as the Indus Valley Civilization. It had a written language and was highly sophisticated. On its zenith by the year 3000 BC, it had originated in the south and moved north, building complex, mathematically planned cities. Some of these were almost three miles in diameter and each contained as many as 30,000 residents. These ancient cities had granaries and citadels. The houses constructed with standard burnt bricks were arranged in squares, along roads intersecting at right angles. The houses varied in size but were all based on the same plan - a small courtyard surrounded by rooms with entrances in side alleys, often multistoried with no windows opening out to the street. The houses had bathrooms, and the drains flowing out were connected to covered sewers leading to soak-pits. This unique sewage system is among the most impressive achievements of the Indus people and sets them apart from all other ancient civilizations. Moenjo Daro was connected to the sea through a mile-long canal and trading ships sailed as far as Mesopotamia . At its height, this civilization stretched approximately across 1500 kilometers, from Indus river valley to Lothal in Gujarat . Though it existed at the same time as the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumer , it far outlasted them.
The Harappa culture in the Indus Valley declined by about 1750 BC, and the stage was set for a second and more continuous urbanization in the Ganges Valley . That was accomplished by the first known invaders of India . As per accepted history, these invaders began pouring in from the north in about 1500 BC and referred to themselves as ‘Arya’ usually anglicized as ‘Aryan’ meaning 'superior'. The Aryans brought with them strong cultural traditions that miraculously still remain in force. Though warriors and conquerors, they lived alongside Indus , introducing family based professions resulting in the caste system and establishing the basis of the Indian religions. They inhabited the northern regions for about 700 years, and moved further south and east, on the line developing iron tools and weapons. They eventually settled in the Ganges valley and built large kingdoms throughout much of northern India . They spoke and wrote a language called Sanskrit, which was used in the first documentation of Vedas. The earliest literary source that sheds light on India 's past is Rig Veda. Though it is difficult to date this work with any accuracy on the basis of tradition and ambiguous astronomical information contained in its hymns, yet the Rig Veda was most likely composed between 1,500 and 1,000 BC.
The second great invasion into India occurred around 500 BC, when the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius, pushing their empire eastward, conquered the ever-prized Indus Valley . Compared to the Aryans, the Persian influence was marginal, perhaps because they were only able to occupy the region for a relatively brief period of about 150 years. The Persians were in turn conquered by the Greeks under Alexander , who swept as far as the Beas River , where he defeated king Porus heading an army led by 200 elephants in 326 BC. The tireless, charismatic conqueror wanted to extend his empire even further eastward, but his exhausted troops refused to continue. Alexander returned home, leaving garrisons behind to keep the trade routes open.
While the Persians and Greeks subdued the Indus Valley and the northwest, Aryan-based kingdoms continued developing in the Ganges Valley where the ruler of Magadh was able to subdue sixteen other polities. Around this time Brahmanism preaching the ‘gospel’ of Vedas had spread its tentacles in the Ganges Valley , in the process putting in place the wretched caste system. Out of the resultant sufferings of the common man, Buddhism and Jainism emerged as popular protestant movements to pose a serious challenge to Brahmanic orthodoxy.
To be precise, in the 5th century BC, Siddhartha Gautama founded the religion of Buddhism, a profoundly influential work of human thought still espoused by much of the world.
As the overextended Hellenistic (Greek) sphere declined, a king known as Chander Gupt Maurya (reign - 322 - 298 B.C.) ousted the oppressive ruler of Magadh and conquered his way well into Afghanistan . This was the beginning of one of India ’s greatest dynasties, the Maurya. Under the great king Ashoka (268-231 BC), the Mauryan Empire conquered nearly the entire subcontinent, extending itself as far south as Mysore . When Ashoka conquered Orissa (then known as Kalinga), his army shed so much blood that the repentant king gave up warfare forever and converted to Buddhism. Proving to be as tireless a missionary as he had been a conqueror, Ashoka spread Buddhism to much of central Asia . His rule marked the height of the Maurya Empire, which collapsed only 100 years after his death.
After the fall of the Maurya dynasty, the regions it had conquered fragmented into a mosaic of kingdoms and smaller dynasties. For the next four hundred years, India remained politically disunited and weak. It was repeatedly raided and plundered by foreigners. The Greeks returned briefly in 150 BC and conquered the Punjab , and by this time Buddhism was becoming so influential that the Greek king Menander forsook the Hellenistic pantheon and became a Buddhist himself. The local kingdoms enjoyed relative autonomy, occasionally fighting (and often losing to) invaders from the north and China , who seemed to come and go like the monsoons. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans never made it to India , preferring to expand westwards instead.
Stability was restored in the Ganges Valley with Chander Gupt II (reign – 380 – 412 AD) finally defeating Sakas and founding the Gupta dynasty, which conquered and consolidated the entire north and extended as far south as the Vindhya Mountains. The accomplishments of Chander Gupt II in war and peace were glorious enough for him to claim the title of Vikramaditya. Fa-hien, a Chinese traveler (399 - 414 AD) has left an interesting account of India of those days. This age of peace and prosperity witnessed an unprecedented flowering of art, literature and the sciences. Kalidas, the famous Sanskrit poet and dramatist, author of Abhijnana Shankuntalam , Kumarsambhavam and Meghadutam is believed to have adorned the Gupta court. Mathematician Aryabhatta and astronomer Varahmihir lived during this period. The dazzling wall paintings of the Ajanta caves too are traced back to this era. This period also saw the beginning of Hindu temple architecture.
In the twilight of the Gupta Empire with the setting in of decay, powerful feudal governors in the provinces declared their independence. Trade and commerce suffered and social evils crept in. There was only a brief afterglow in the time of Harshavardhan (reign - 604 - 647 A.D.) - of Kannauj - who himself was an accomplished writer, and encouraged eminent dramatists like Bana. Another Chinese traveler Huen-tsang who visited India (629 - 645 AD) during the rule of Harshavardhan has given an account of the changes that had taken place in the lives of the Indian people under Gupta dynasty.
Further down south ( Deccan ), the Cholas ruled over what today are the districts of Thanjavur and Tiruchirapally. In the 2nd Century B.C. a Chola prince conquered Sri Lanka . The Pandyas ruled around present day Tirunelvelli and Madurai . A Pandyan king sent an ambassador to the court of the Roman emperor Augustus in first Century BC. The territory under the Cheras was what constitutes the present day central and northern Kerala.
Pallavas of Kanchi rose to prominence in the 4th Century AD and ruled unchallenged for about four hundred years. The Nayanar and Alvar saint poets belong to this period. The gemlike shore temples at Mahabalipuram also date back to this period.
The Cholas overthrew the Pallavas in the 9th Century AD and regained political primacy in South India . The exquisitely crafted bronze Natraja (Dancing Shiva) introduces the world to the glory of the Cholas. The tide of political fortunes turned once again in the 13th Century to make the Pandyas dominant. Their kingdom became a great centre of international trade. Art , literature and culture flourished under their patronage. The 15th Century saw the decline of the Pandyas.
When the Guptas diminished, an age of about half a dozen thriving and separate kingdoms ensued in and about the Ganges Valley , when some of the most incredible temples in India were constructed in Bhubaneshwar, Konarak, and Khajurajo. That was time of relative stability, and caste-based cultural and religious developments went on until the dawn of the Muslim era. In fact, the period following the death of Harshavardhan is known as the Rajput period. The word Rajput connotes the scion of a royal family and this royalty claimed descent from the Sun (Suryavanshi) or the Moon (Chandravanshi).
Meanwhile Arab traders had visited the western coast of India since 712 AD, but it was not until 1001 AD that the Muslim world began to make itself keenly felt. In that year, Arab armies led by Mahmud of Ghazni swept down the Khyber Pass like a storm. They raided just about every other year for 26 years straight. They returned home each time, leaving behind them ruined cities, decimated armies, and probably a very edgy native population. Then they more or less vanished behind the mountains again for nearly 150 years, and India once again went on its way.
The Rajput era was also an era of chivalry and feudalism. Family feuds and strong notions of personal pride often exacerbated conflicts. As the Rajputs weakened each other by constant fighting, Muslims all along knew that Hindostan, ‘the golden sparrow’ with all its riches was vulnerable enough to plunder. This allured them to embark on victorious campaigns using duplicity and deceit wherever military strength failed against Rajputs. One of them, Mohammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan, the Tomar ruler of Delhi, in the battle of Tarai in 1192 and left the Indian territories in the charge of his deputy, Qutubudin (reign - 1206 - 1210), who had started life as a slave. This is the reason that the dynasty founded by him is known as the Slave Dynasty. It was he who built the towering Qutub Minar in Delhi . Raziya, the daughter of his successor AIatmash (reign - 1210 - 1236), was quite an exception for that age. She sat on the throne of Dilli for a short while (1236 - 1239). Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids and Lodhis followed in the footsteps of the 'Slaves'. This period is known as the Sultanate. Only a few rulers distinguished themselves in statecraft. Allauddin Khilji (reign - 1296 - 1316) was a distinguished commander and an able administrator. He is remembered for market reforms and price control measures. Also, he is infamous for his infatuation with Rani Padmini of Chittor. Muhammad Bin Tughlaq (reign - 1324 - 1351) was a visionary who was misunderstood by almost everyone who came in contact with him. However, judging him more sympathetically, modern historians have given due credit for the unusual 'vision' in his alleged whimsical decisions notably shifting of the imperial capital to Daulatabad in the Deccan as the site was more central to India. Lodhis were, by comparison, quite mild and are only known for the majestic Lodhi tombs set in beautifully landscaped gardens. The Sultanate introduced, in the sub continent, the Islamic concepts of society and governance, and thus prepared the ground for an encounter between two important world civilizations, thereby setting in force systematic conversions of Hindus to Islam.
Islamic India fragmented after the brutal devastation Timur Lang left in Dilli, and it was every Muslim strongman for himself. This changed in 1527, when the Mongol (corrupted to Mughal) monarch Babur came to power in Dilli. Babur was a complicated ruler from Kabul who also loved poetry, gardening, and books. He even wrote cultural treatises on the Hindus he conquered, and took notes on local flora and fauna. Afghan princes in India had asked for his help in 1526, and after conquering the Punjab he took Dilli and quickly asserted his own claim over them. This was the foundation of the Mughal Dynasty, whose six emperors stand out as the most influential of all the Muslim rulers in India .
Babur died in 1530, leaving behind a harried and ineffective son, Himayun. Himayun’s own son, Akbar , became the greatest Mughal ruler of all. Akbar was more warrior than scholar, and extended the empire as far south as the Krishna River . He tolerated local religions and married a Hindu princess, establishing a tradition of cultural acceptance that contributed greatly to the success of the Mughal rule. In 1605, Akbar ’s son Jahangir succeeded him in 1605, and passed the expanding empire on to his own son Shah Jahan in 1627.
Though, Shah Jahan spent much of his time subduing Hindu kingdoms in the south, yet he left behind the colossal monuments of the Mughal Empire, including Taj Mahal, Jama Masjid and Red Fort. Shah Jahan ’s campaigns in the south and his flare for extravagant architecture necessitated increased taxes, which distressed his subjects. Under this scenario his son Aurungzebe imprisoned him, and killing his own brothers in a cloak and dagger war of succession, grabbed the throne of Dilli in 1658.
In his bid to create a tailor-made Islamic nation out of ‘Hindostan’, Aurungzebe set forth to eradicate indigenous religious traditions, nurtured by Hinduism. The purpose was two-pronged: One, to claim the ‘heavenly benefits’ on the ‘day of judgment’ as an unflinching propagator of the religion of Hazrat Mohammad; Two, to have homogeneous Muslim ‘parja’ which could be easy to rule through ‘fatwah’ and other such Islamic gimmicks. However, his doctrine of intolerance prompted fierce local resistance. Though he expanded the Mughal Empire to include nearly the entire subcontinent, he could never totally subdue ‘Hindostan’. One notable source of opposition was the Marathas of the Deccan , who resisted him until his death in 1707. Out of the Marathas arose the legendary figure of Shivaji, a symbol of Hindu resistance and nationalism. In the land of the Punjab , Gobind Singh , the 10th Guru of ‘ Nanak Panthi ’ Sikhs, founded an army of ‘Saint Soldiers’ called ‘ Khalsa Panth ’ in 1999. Born out of the steadfast resistance of Hindus to their forcible conversion to Islam by the successive Muslim rulers of Dilli, the ‘ Khalsa Panth ’ became a force to reckon with in due course.
Aurungzebe’s three sons disputed over succession, and the downfall of Mughal Empire began, just as the Europeans were beginning to flex their own imperialistic muscles.
The contenders for political supremacy in the 17th and 18th Centuries included besides the Marathas, the Sikhs in Punjab and Hyder Ali (reign - 1721 - 1782) in Mysore . Hyder Ali 's son and successor Tipu Sultan (reign - 1782 - 1799) allied himself with the French against the British and strove to introduce the latest technical knowledge from Europe .
To perceptive Indians of Tipu's generation it was becoming clear that Medieval Indian society and polity would have to meet the challenge of Europe by casting itself in its mould. Beset by fratricidal feuds and petty bickerings, India had remained indifferent to the advent of Europeans but now the time of reckoning could not be delayed.
The Mughals were great patrons of the arts. Many emperors and princes - Akbar and Dara Shikoh (Shah Jahan's son) being the most prominent - were deeply concerned with problems of metaphysics, while some others were writers of considerable talent. Babur penned Babur Nama, a moving memoir wherein he documented the Indian scene with great objectivity. Jahangir too left behind an eminently readable memoir - Tuzuke Jahangiri . Babur and Humayun did not get enough time to undertake construction of imposing buildings but their successors displayed a great penchant for architecture. Akbar commissioned the building of Fatehpur Sikri where an exquisite blending of elements and motifs from both the Islamic and the Hindu architectural styles is seen. Jahangir was a connoisseur of paintings and gardens. The beautifully landscaped gardens, Shalimar Bagh and Nishat Bagh , in Lahore and Srinagar , stand testimony. Shah Jahan was a prolific builder as already stated.
Impressive progress was made in the spheres of music, painting and literature. The Mughal miniatures influenced and spawned schools of art in the princely states of Kota , Bundi and Kishangarh in Rajasthan and Kangra, Basoli, and Guler in Himachal Pradesh . The themes of these exquisite landscapes and portraits deal with the love of Radha and Krishna , the changing cycle of seasons and the Ragas of Indian classical music. The survival of the native genius of Barahmasa and the Ragmalika - series of paintings through the vicissitudes of political history since the days of Ajanta is evidence.
While the court chroniclers concentrated on the genre of biography, the compositions of the saint poets laid the foundation of modern Indian literature in vernacular. Poetry that was sensitive to the aspirations of the masses was penned not only in Hindi, but also in Marathi, Gujarati and Tamil. Jayasi, Namdev, Tukaram, Narsi Mehta, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu , Thyagraja are only some of the illustrious names. Many regional languages, such as Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali had by the 17th Century, acquired a distinct identity and could boast of a large body of literature. The languages that are spoken today in most parts of India are the ones that evolved and grew to maturity during the Mughal period.
Bahadurshah Zafar - last of the Mughals - was a passionate lover of poetry and eminent Urdu poets Ghalib and Zauk graced his court. Mir preceded them by a few decades. Also a great churning of ideas during Mughal period gave rise to the Bhakti movement - a powerful social upsurge for reform - spearheaded by poet-saints. The ripples caused by verses sung by wandering minstrels carried the stimulating message across the land and engendered what can only be termed a national resurgence.
Kabir - the sharp-tongued weaver from Benaras - delighted in exposing the hypocrisy of orthodox Hindus and Muslims alike. He wrote eloquently against idolatry, caste prejudice and articulated abstract metaphysical concepts in witty, memorable poetic phrases that were easy to grasp by the man on the street. The use of folk idiom blending many dialects made him exceptionally accessible for the masses.
Tulsidas retold the story of Rama, the virtuous Prince of Ayodhya, as a moral discourse to instill ethical values in private and public life. His narrative poem Ramcharitmanas soon acquired the status of a sacred book and continues to be regarded as a useful encapsulation of traditional wisdom. Another remarkable name is that of Mira - a princess from Rajasthan who walked out of the palace to express her love for the cowherd God Krishna. She asserted the right of a woman to choose her way of life in a strait jacketed feudal society.
Raskhan was a Muslim devotee of Krishna .
Ravidas – a downtrodden – wrote in a touching satire against the inequality of humans created by the Brahmanical caste system.
The ten Sikh Gurus from Nanak to Gobind Singh (contemporaries of Mughals) created and nurtured a master piece of cosmic poetry in Guru Granth Sahib preaching equality of humankind and freedom of belief, which created ‘saint soldiers’ dedicated to justice and fair play, out of the downtrodden.
Inspired by search for a sea route under temptation of the lucrative trade in spices of Malabar, a Portuguese Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut , on the western coast of the Indian peninsula, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 AD. This marked the beginning of the European era in Indian history and by the first decade of the 16th century the Portuguese established their colony in Goa , though their territorial and commercial hold remained limited.
Subsequently, driven by different reasons, a large number of European travellers - Italian, British, French and Dutch - visited India . Some were traders, some adventurers, and quite a few were fired by the ‘missionary zeal’ to find converts to Christianity. Among them was a French doctor Francois Bernier , who enjoyed the confidence of princes and nobles and was in a uniquely privileged position to observe the functioning of the Mughal court, whose account is a valuable source of information for historians. The travelogues of Francois Bernier and others further fired European interest in India , with Britain , France , Netherlands and Denmark floating East India Companies. Chartered as trading companies by their respective governments, their primary commercial interest was in Indian silks, cotton, indigo etc.
During the late 16th and the 17th centuries, these companies fiercely competed with each other. Through a combination of outright combat and deft alliances with local princes, the East India Company of Britain gained control of all European trade in India by 1769. The military campaigns of Robert Clive and the administrative enterprise of Warren Hastings contributed significantly to this achievement. In 1784, after financial scandals in the Company alarmed the British politicians, the Crown assumed half-control of the Company, beginning the transfer of power to royal hands, thus imposing British Raj on India .
The British administered India until 1947 and brought about many changes in the social, political and the economic life of the country. Most Indians who came in their contact could not perceive the strategic threat posed by the East India Company. The British from the beginning followed a policy of divide and rule. Beginning from Bengal , diplomacy and deceit were used to gain control of revenue collection, which gave them effective control of administration. The Marathas, the Sikhs and the rulers of Mysore could never unite to confront the foreign enemy and fell one by one. By the onset of the 19th century there was no local power that could cope with their onslaught.
Once the British had consolidated their power, commercial exploitation of the natural resources and native labour became ruthless. It is true that there were a few benevolent Governor Generals who initiated social reforms and tried to render the administration more efficient and responsive, but they were exceptions. By the middle of the 19th Century arrogant exploitation of the people had tried the patience of the Indians to the limit. To serve their own purpose, the British set up educational institutions that imparted western education and established a vast network of railroads and telegraph lines. This united the country in an unprecedented manner. The Indians, exposed to western ideas of responsible and representative government, began to yearn for liberty and equality. There were many who looked back to the nation's glorious past and strove to rekindle the sentiment of patriotism. Foremost among them were Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar . The 19th Century is often referred to as the age of national resurgence in India .
The flash point was reached in 1857 when the British introduced a new rifle and cartridge in the British Indian Army. The bullet offended the religious sentiments of both, Hindu and Muslim soldiers, as it allegedly contained pork and beef tallow, the former sacred to Hindus and the later unclean to Muslims. Protest of the soldiers at Meerut turned into a rebellion, which soon spread like wild fire all over north India with the rebels proclaiming ‘the last Mughal’ Bahadurshah Zafar as the sovereign ruler of the country as well as their leader. As the things stood for the British during those months of turmoil, with the rebellion brewing in Meerut in the north, Kanpur in the east and Jhansi in the south, a threat from the west could well have sealed their fate in Delhi . But that was not to be, and the Sikhs expounding ‘ Khalsa Panth ’ militarily helped the British to triumph crushing the yearlong rebellion. In the process, the British subdued and ‘arrested’ Bahadurshah Zafar , the leader of ‘freedom fighters’, thus gaining control of the seat of power in Delhi . That prompted the British Government to seize total control of all British interests in India in 1858, finally establishing a seamless imperialism in the name of British Raj.
Well, the question is generally asked as to why the Sikhs acted in the way they did, by siding with the British in crushing the ‘Indian Mutiny’ seen by some ‘historians’ as ‘India’s First War of Independence’. But, the fact remains that Sikhism originally began as a sect in the ‘Bhakti Movement’ of ‘Hindu India’. Its originator, Nanak , preached the freedom of belief and practice and had strong enough moral courage to openly condemn the invasion of ‘Hindostan’ by Babur , in so much as to call him a ‘tyrant’, for which Babur also imprisoned him for some time. There is also no denying the fact that Muslim invaders had come to plunder the ‘Golden Sparrow of Hindostan’ with a sword in one hand and ‘Quran’ in the other. The saga of forcible conversions of defenceless Indians to Islam by successive Muslim rulers including Babur ’s Mughal Dynasty is no fairy-tale either. Who does not know that Sikhism was born out of the dogged opposition of Hindus to their forcible conversion to Islam? The torture and killings of 5th Sikh Guru ( Arjan Dev ) in Lahore and 9th ( Tegh Bhadur ) in Chandni Chowk of Delhi by the Mughal rulers for opposing conversion to Islam are just authentic history, nobody can deny. The bricking alive of two teenaged sons of the 10th Guru (Gobind Singh) for refusing to convert, and the death of his mother in the same cause at Sarhind is the barbarity having no parallel in the history. Getting boiled alive, cutting of all body joints from fingertips onward, cutting of the scull with a cobbler’s blade, death by getting mounted on a ‘charkhari’, seeing own children being killed and receiving their body parts in the ‘jholi’ are some modes of punishment which the Sikhs underwent for opposing forcible conversions to Islam. How the heart of the infant son of Banda Singh Bahadur was taken out and thrust in Banda’s mouth while he was being tortured to death by tying him to the foot of an elephant in the streets of Delhi ? In view of all this, it was but natural for the Sikhs to burn with the desire of revenge. As such the ‘Dilli Durbar’ and its Muslim rulers had become a symbol of oppression loathed by the Sikhs, which they longed to turn into smithereens at any given opportunity. So, when the opportunity came calling, the Sikhs acted in the way they did, ensuring end of the tyrannical Muslim rule in the country. Had the Sikhs not done what they did, in getting Bahadurshah Zafar ousted from the Red Fort and his sons killed by siding with the British in 1857, there would surely have been Pakistan all over the present day Secular India instead of being confined to what now Pakistan is.
Originally claiming to be interested in trade only, the British Raj steadily expanded its influence until the Indian princes ruled in name only.
How a tiny island nation, thousands of miles away, came to administer a huge territory of 300 million people is one of history’s great spectacles. A seemingly impossible task, it was accomplished through a highly effective and organized system called ‘Raj’. Coercive treaties and agreements were signed with the native princes in an atmosphere of deceit and skulduggery called diplomacy, and the British gradually increased their role in local affairs. The Raj helped build infrastructure and trained ‘natives’ for its own military, though in theory they were for India ’s own defence.
Demise of the Raj was partially a result of its remarkable success. It had gained control of the country by viewing it as a source of profit. Infrastructure had been developed, administration established, and an entire structure of governance created. India had become a profitable venture, and the British were loath to allow the Indian population any power in a system that they viewed as their own accomplishment. The Indians didn’t appreciate this much, and as the 20th century dawned there were increasing movements towards self-rule.
Along with the desire for independence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims had also been developing over the years. The Muslims had always been the ruling class though in minority. The prospect of an exclusively Hindu government resulting from ‘one person one vote’ in free India made them wary of independence. So inclined to mistrust Hindu rule as they were to resist the Raj, Muslims’ participation in the freedom struggle was not wholehearted barring few exceptions. In 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came onto the scene, calling for unity between the two groups in an astonishing display of leadership that eventually led the country to independence.
The profound impact Gandhi had on India and his ability to gain independence through a totally non-violent mass movement made him one of the most remarkable leaders the world has ever known. He led by example, wearing homespun clothes to weaken the British textile industry and orchestrating a march to the sea, where demonstrators proceeded to make their own salt in protest against the British monopoly. Indians gave him the name Mahatma (Great Soul).
In the face of the ever-increasing resistance from the Indians, the British ultimately left India in 1947. Independence came at great cost. While Gandhi was leading a largely Hindu movement, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was fronting a Muslim one through a group called the Muslim League. Jinnah advocated the division of India into two separate states: Muslim and Hindu, and he was able to achieve his goal. When the British left, they created the separate state of Pakistan (including present Bangladesh ), and violence erupted when stranded Muslim and Hindu minorities fled in opposite directions. Within a few weeks, half a million people died in the course of the greatest migration of human beings in the world history. The aging Gandhi vowed to fast until the violence stopped, which it did when his health was seriously threatened.
India ’s history since independence has been marked by disunity and intermittent periods of virtual chaos. In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. Gandhi ’s right-hand man, Jawarhalal Nehru , became India ’s first Prime Minister. Nehru was a mixture of success and failure in steering the troubled nation through a period of infant democracy. His biggest blunders were the “Diplomatic sycophancy on Kashmir ” and “Chinese debacle” besides his failure to nourish a visionary leader to take his place. Also he did not nip the evil of corruption in the bud, which has developed in to an all powerful monster presently engulfing the whole nation.
However the so-called ‘peace loving’ rule of Nehru was contrasted by the rule of Lal Bahadur Shastri , who fought Pakistan after it invaded two regions of India . No doubt Shastri is credited with doing for India in as many months what Nehru could not do in equal number of years. Shastri died in 1966 after remaining only 20 months in power, and he was succeeded by Nehru ’s daughter, Indira Gandhi .
With the name Gandhi (though no relation to the Mahatma), Indira was a powerful and unchallenged leader, and opposition remained negligible until she abused her position. As her election to the Parliament was invalidated by the court for using questionable means and the rising opposition began to threaten her power, she called a state of emergency and tried to ‘reform’ the nation, by making some economic and political changes despite her dirty tactics. Her most unpopular policy was ‘forced sterilization’, and she was eventually replaced in 1977 by Morarji Desai of the Janata Party, following the stunning defeat of her party, Congress (Indira). She won back power in 1979, but was later assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards including her favourite Beant Singh . Her son Rajiv Gandhi, became Prime minister riding the sympathy wave following her killing, but ultimately failed to find favour with the teeming millions despite posing as a ‘visionary leader’ and all that. VP Singh and Chander Shekhar became Prime Ministers for short durations with Congress (I)’s support but fell to Rajiv Gandhi’s political skulduggery, before Rajiv was assassinated by LTTE in 1991 while campaigning for Lok Sabha polls. Narsimaha Rao and HD Devegauda ruled the country carrying Congress Party flag but both proved to be mere fledglings ultimately yielding to a conglomerate of 23 political parties led by Atal Behari Vajpayee of Bharti Janata Party in 1999. Vajpayee had to waste the 5-year term in appeasing the ever-demanding conglomerate and in the process abandoned the very agenda of his own party, which proved to be his Waterloo in 2004. That gave a chance to Congress Party led by Rajiv Gandhi ’s wife of Italian origin, Sonia Gandhi , to stage a come back. Sonia Gandhi formed the Government with the support of 60-strong leftist group in the Lok Sabha and installed a real visionary Sikh, Manmohan Singh , as Prime Minister.
Although India ’s political climate remains divisive, the country has attained apparent stability in recent years. No doubt, today India seems poised to realize its potential as an international economic power.
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Declaration:-- I am more or less inclined to believe this history of India as true. I have gleaned it thankfully from various sources including the ‘net’. My own brush with post-independence India while serving with a national security agency for three and a half turmoilful decades has also something to do with it. Sincere suggestions if any aimed at improving the rhetoric are welcome please.
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