History Avengers: India At A Crossroads
By
Waheeduddin Ahmed, New Age Islam
12 January
2023
My Centrepiece In This Discussion Is The
History Of India, The Expanse Of Which Is As It Is Told In Epics Such As Ramayana,
Extracted From Archaeology Such As Mohenjo-Daro, Discerned From The
Socio-Religious Classics Such As The Vedas, Witnessed By Travellers Such As Megasthenes,
Fa-Hien, Al-Biruni, And Vasco De Gama, Penned By Modern Historians Such As Elphinstone,
Will Durant, Bhandarkar, Majumdar Or By Those Contemporary Indian History
Writers, Who Are Revisiting History With A View To Weaponise It To Support
Their Political Agenda.
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History is
someone’s narration of the events of the past, relative to a group of people at
a geographically identifiable expanse of land on earth. Recent history,
however, may be a reflection, supported by evidence, rather than a narration.
In either case, the subjective element in “observation” is never absent. In
other words, history as a subject of education is neither fact nor fiction and
certainly not a foundation on which to build the edifice of a nation’s
aspirations.
My centrepiece
in this discussion is the history of India, the expanse of which is as it is
told in epics such as Ramayana, extracted from archaeology such as
Mohenjo-Daro, discerned from the socio-religious classics such as the Vedas,
witnessed by travellers such as Megasthenes, Fa-Hien, Al-Biruni, and Vasco de
Gama, penned by modern historians such as Elphinstone, Will Durant, Bhandarkar,
Majumdar or by those contemporary Indian history writers, who are revisiting
history with a view to weaponise it to support their political agenda.
The common
man sees history only that is highlighted and what is taught in schools from
written textbooks. What other source of information could there possibly be?
So, when the consciousness of history lights up in mind, one sees the beginning
as the first battle of Panipat between Alexander, the invader and Porus, the
defender and from then on, a series of invading armies: Arabs along the Makran
coast, the Central Asians pouring through the Khyber Pass and later, the sea
faring Europeans landing on the Malabar and Coromandel coast, spring up on the
screen. The fire of nationalistic and religious sensitivities is kindled and
the emotions of victimhood and anger against the vicious invader flares. The
specifics remain out of sight and are rendered irrelevant. For instance, the
invasion of Sindh by Mohammad Bin Qasim in the year 708 AD was caused by an
attack on and looting of eight Arab ships by the pirates: the Sea Hawks of
Debal and the imprisonment of many Sri Lankan Muslim men and women and the
refusal of the raja of Sindh: Dahir to intervene. The fact that the battles
were fought between Raja Dahir on one side and Arabs, Jats and Medes of India
on the other side is shrouded by wilful concealment. Likewise, the specifics of
engagements for other conflicts, if mentioned objectively, alter their
portrayals. One may look at history from a worm’s-eye-view or from a
bird’s-eye-view. The two pictures will tell two different stories.
It must be
kept in mind that the dynamics of human civilizations have two vectors: one
arrow points inward and the other outward. The population moves according to
the pressure differential (social and economic) between two sites. Take the
Indian subcontinent for instance. It is a triangular piece of land surrounded
by oceans on three sides and mighty Himalayas in the north, which are almost
unsurpassable; there are a couple of passes on the northwestern side. The
subcontinent is nurtured by several rivers, which are divine. The Rigveda
speaks of Septa Sindhva (seven rivers), not including the rivers in South
India. This makes the Indian subcontinent, an island of unprecedented riches,
the envy of all the contemporary civilizations. Civilizations like this are
sedentary civilizations. In the east there was and still is the equally well-developed
Chinese civilization, which is also sedentary. Beyond the Hindukush mountains
in the northwest, are vast open acres of barren lands and steppes, inhabited by
nomadic people, with a hardened lifestyle, always ready to move on the
horseback.
Since they
are not bound to the land, nor to the riches, houses, farms and civic
responsibility, they can muster enormous manpower and ride off at short notice.
The sedentary people cannot be mobilized that easily and therefore suffer
defeat when attacked by hordes of invaders. Thus, history has, time and again,
repeated itself in India, when Indians were assailed from Central Asia under
high pressure. Religion or belief system plays but a small part in such
dynamics. Aryans (the present majority population in India), Scythians,
Hephthalites, Kidarites (collectively called as Huns), the Iranians, the Turks,
the Mongols and the Mughals; they all moved into India with ease, with the wind
of history at their back. On the other hand, look at the map and see why
movement in the other direction could not have happened. Much as the physical
barriers were prohibitive, movement from sedentary community, settled on the
banks of great rivers, into nomadic wilderness did not make sense because the
reason for conquest is always either settlement or loot.
Killings,
slaughter, pillage, slavery; they are all historical byproducts of conquests,
which are historically perpetrated by the victors on the vanquished. (The
latest examples are the two world wars of the Twentieth century). Genghis Khan
was no more wicked than Asoka in Kalinga. Hitler was no more evil than the
White Man in Americas. No side was more murderous than the other in the Punjab
of 1947. Indonesia (1967), Sabra and Shatila (1982) and Srebrenica (1995) are
other examples. Kindness, compassion, viciousness, wickedness is all in the
human DNA. Each trait can come to the fore when incited, superposed on the
rest. There is a duality of good and bad in human nature, each manifesting
itself independently, suppressing the opposite when measured.
An increasingly popular narrative in the Indian
media today is that Muslims in general and Muslim rulers in particular
committed atrocities on Hindus, destroyed their institutions and demolished
their temples, when they ruled India in the pre-modern period.
This
allegation can neither be confirmed nor refuted categorically since no data
exists. It will not be logical to say that none of this happened. However, the
scale and the magnitude of the “catastrophe” that is imagined is false. Why? Take
an aerial view of the country today. What do you see? You see millions of
temples, masjids, churches and Gurudwaras, some side by side.
Where you
see the Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar, there you also see the magnificent Kashi,
Badrinath, Kameswaram, Meenakshi, Golden and thousands of other big and small
temples, all built before independence. Where you see minarets and domes, you
also see Shikharas, with perfect symmetry and mathematical perfection,
rising above the Mandapas (the inner sanctums of temples). Also,
scattered among them, you see pagodas and churches. Who has painted this unique
and incomparable beauty of diversity on the canvas of geography? Where was the
iconoclasm that was supposedly innate to the Islamic rule? After all, seven
centuries was a long enough period to repaint the canvas!
Somnath may
have been looted and the gold and silver taken out of India by Mahmood of
Ghazni, but thousands of others stand tall magnificently, without a brick
missing. The same for masjids. The Babri Masjid was notoriously sacked and
demolished by hate mongers, but hundreds and thousands stand deep in the
thicket of Hindu-Muslim populations, with adhan sounding from each one five
times a day, all without a murmur from non-Muslims, at least as it was in the
pre-Hindutva period.
I grew up
in India until the age of Twenty-eight, some of which I spent under Muslim rule
and the rest in independent India. I never witnessed any masjid or temple
demolished, although there were disputations and distances between Hindus and
Muslims. There was segmented habitation and prejudicial behavior. Was it
abnormal between two subcultures in the perspective of universal behavior? I
think not, because the default position in such matters ranges from
indifference to reservation until the ice is broken by friendly initiatives.
Hands do not meet until someone extends one.
India today
is fifth largest economy in the world and if the present growth rate is
maintained, it is destined to become the most populous country in the world and
the second or third largest economy. This did not happen overnight. The
foundation was laid by Jawahar Lal Nehru and his team during the early years of
independence. The infrastructure, inherited from the British, was expanded with
generous aid from both the Eastern and the Western bloc, made possible by
thoughtful foreign and domestic policies. The emphasis was on heavy industries
rather than on consumer goods. People’s lifestyle was at first, austere as
required by “the Socialist pattern of society”. It endured. The planning
commission was created, headed by Professor Mahalanobis. Higher education was
expanded by creating the University Grants Commission, which was headed by Dr.
Deshmukh. Several highly prestigious technical colleges were established such
as IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), in different cities in different
regions of the country. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research with
specific research centers all over the country, was expanded and strengthened.
(I myself worked in one of such institutions). Its first Indian director
general was Dr. S. S. Bhatnagar. So, when Narsimha Rao, the ninth prime
minister of India took over in 1991 and appointed Manmohan Singh as finance
minister to liberalize the economy, he had a robust foundation to build upon.
The rest is history.
I left
India in 1961 and have lived in Europe and America since. When I read and hear
about the present political, moral and intellectual ethos in the country of my
origin, I fail to recognize it. How can all that I saw and felt then, change so
dramatically? That intellectualism, that scientific inquisitiveness, that
artistic creativeness, that philosophical Peripatetics, those scholars, those
poets, those mystics --- where have they all gone? Have they been exiled like in
Germany of the 1930s? Are the universities and the institutes of technology
producing computer dummies, no better than programmed robots? The head of
government, his ministers talk as though they were coming straight from the
local akharas and have never seen the face of a teacher. I mentioned Germany of
the Thirties. When I go back to edit my remark, I find to my horror that I
cannot. This is exactly what had happened to Germany, with her great
intellectual minds, made barren during the Nazi rule.
Today, the
prime agenda of the ruling BJP party, together with its mother organization
RSS, is to exact revenge from the Muslim citizens, whom they consider to be the
vestiges of their “shameful past”. First, in that “shameful” past, India was
the richest country in the world, with the GDP, one quarter of the rest of the
world. This had motivated all the seafaring nations of Europe to take to the
high seas trying to reach the Indian shores. This had incentivized Columbus to
sail west and discover the New World, whose GDP is now at the top. This had
prompted the Portuguese to build ships large enough to circumnavigate the
continent of Africa. This had set the Dutch on the path to sail to the East
Indies and profit profusely from the spice trade. This was how shameful it was
to be living in Hindustan and being called a Hindu. The purely Hindu Hindustan
would have been an interesting country, but I submit, the multi religious and
multicultural triangle beneath the Himalayas was a gem that glittered to the
envy of the world.
Second, the
Modi clique is standing on the shoulders of giants, who gave India this
stature, including Gandhi and Nehru and are determined to demolish their
pedestals. This will not endear. Gandhi, Nehru and a plethora of intellectuals
and visionaries were the heralders of enlightenment in Indian society, whereas
what we see today are the demons of darkness who are casting their shadows on
the brightness that was set to illuminate the landscape. Modi and his partners
represent ignorance, not education, which must be the hallmark of Indian
society. So, India today is standing at a crossroads. One way leads to a
glorious future, which is only a few steps away and the other to ignominy.
Which one will the nation choose?
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