History for peace and wellbeing of entire world.Loka samastha sukhino bhavanthu

History –Introductory chapter


History like politics is an activity for free men and women in a free society .It gives us a sense of a world family.By understanding the past ,we become free from its dead hand.In history ,as in science ,understanding be careful unprejudiced scrutiny of evidence and formation of balanced judgement in the light of that evidence is important.In fact,as Michael Stanford’s introduction to his book (A companion to study of history .Blackwell.Oxford 1994 )1 every man/woman is his/her own historian.
Historiography is the writing of history.One or more of the three aspects of history writing,including descriptive,historical and analytical descriptive historiography is what historians normally do and describe as standard methods and procedures.Historical historiography traces the ways in which history is written in the 2500 years since Herodotus.Analytical or critical historiography discusses the concepts and philosophical problems arising from the writing of history.Here there is some overlap of historians and philosophers thinking.History is the experience of human life extended over time.It is not the past alone.It has everything to do with the present and for the formation of a better future.When we sauy that history is a unity ,it is like a family.The deeds of the family and the records of those deeds are both history.It is the nature of the recorded deeds that shape future deeds.Hence unity is a continuous interweaving of these two strands.-deeds and records.And the oral traditions in history also has to be taken into account for this purpose.
What is the use and misuse of history?
Can we avoid history?
Can we learn from history?
How did prehistorical and historical people act and what was the cause of their actions and their effects?
How do our actions acquire meaning?Analysis of actions include the understanding that actions may be due to total or partial ignorance or due to misguided passions.It is also helpful to distinguish actions from behaviour.Action embody intention.Behaviour does not.The 5 parts of action analysed are
1.Intention
2.assessment of present state of affairs
3.The means we adopt to solve problems
4.Drive or will that prompt us to act.
5The context of action (social,physical,cultural)
Awareness of our ancestors actions,recorded,unrecorded oral transmitted ,and their reasons ,and analysis of that is what we call a national memory (Ref 1 .page 26)and India has such a deep long archetypal memory embedded in its psyche which is very important for any histriographer /historian and philosopher.The cultural context of a nation include its languages ,technology,arts ,religious,spiritual traditions,philosophy,attitudes and beliefs,skills,habits,customs,explanatory systems,and the like included in the social inheritance of individuals living in the society.Symbols and the meanings of themin social ,physical,cultural contexts involve detailed study of these.The historical significance of these are traced along two axes.Horizontal (contemporary)and vertical(preceding and succeeding).There may be different meanings and different consequences for each context ,and one has to analyse them ,critically find out,methods of avoiding physical failures ,human failures etc for a better future.In finding out the consequences and why they happened ,and explaing them ,Murphy’s law(law of unintentional consequences)also has to be applied.

Use of history

1.Learning from mistakes and avoiding them for better future
2.Aiming to preserve the values of the past
3.Aiming to avoid the superstitions of the past
4.use of history as inspiration for progress

Abuse of history

1People perpetuate superstitions of history
2.Tyranny of theory .Subordinating history to a mere theory .For example Hegel.He dismissed all nonhistoric people and thus the intrinsic human value
3.Tyranny of politics.History subordinates to political power.An example is the whig history written by Lord Macaulay.(PP 44-45 Ref 1)
4.Male prejudice that women are inferior and their history is insignificant
5.Danger of prejudices and dictatorial regimes which creates history to sit its needs
To avoid this Stanford suggests that history should be reassessed,critically analysed and rewritten by every generation .
We ar e concerned with the past because history is an outlook of the world with 3 sections.1.Personal outlook 2.public outlook 3 social sciences and history as a help for social science and vice versa
A old photograph may release a flood of memories which may be personal or national.It need not be a memory of a single individual.The memory of an individual ,of parents ,grandparents,all ancestors,which then becomes a memory of the nation or an archetypal memory of an entire community or of the world itself is to be treated in this way.Geneological research ,sense of continuity of generations,of genes is scientific as well as historical.A historical unit is a sequence of events that is intelligible in itself.When this happens personal/archetypal memories become historicity –one is a player in and a specttor of that drama of continuous events.It is in this way,private attitudes become public attitudes in history.Then it becomes a more impersonal honest approach.It becomes more rational,unbiased ,objective,scientific.
The bridges that connect past with present are the evidences.They are of four different categories
1.Natural evidence
The rock is viewed by geologists ,archeologists and historical geographers in different ways.The other natural evidences are the climate,sea,ways of the fishes and migratory birds etc.Rocks are natural evidence for geologists,fossils are for paleontologists,past landscapes and how humans changed them is natural evidence for historical geographers .
2.Artificial. The manmade change in the climate and environment with transformations on it
a tilled field,a cleared forest,a bridged river,a quillpen,a flute,a house or a city,a ship or a raft,all these are included and many more.Whatever is manmade has a history of development of the technique and of the procurement of materials and effort and intellectual growth of humans at that period..
3.Communicative evidence
songs,music,musical notations,mathematical symbols,meters,cave and rock paintings,art ,architecture,inscriptions,weapons,temples ,literary works ,and written documents of law,science,art etc.These are not mere communications of day to day life alone but sometimes of high abstract levels of intelligence even.For example when we find the mathematical formula for an octagon in a cave painting like that of Thovarikai,it tells us that the cavemen were having a very high abstract sense of mathematics.So also musical instruments and musical notations as we find in Saamaveda .
4.Processive evidences are usually overlooked.It is the evidence of the process of growth.A community with lawabiding habits ,relations,living traditions,lifestyles ,knowledge systems incorporated in ones life.These things are to be observed and analysed and understood in a subtle way.
Documents may be altered in course of time.Work of arts destroyed.The processive evidence of a prolonged past ,a ancient culture may survive even after the documents are destroyed.And this survival for thousands of years before the lifestyle was formwed and written down,and even after they were destroyed and altered by power politicas is what is called processive evidence.India is rich in this .
Spoken word and oral historical traditions
What we know of the Pelopponnesian war comes from Thucydides who either saw them or heard it from eyewitness as he records.Mahabharatha also was a war orally described by Sanjaya to King Dhritharashtra .But we teach our students that Peloponnesian war is History and Mahabharatha war is a myth.Entire Mahabharatha and Ramayana are oral traditions communicated over generations before it was finally written down.Veda,other science ,arts and scriptures of India share this character.If one goes through Bhagvan Das’ Pranavavaada 2one will get an idea of this oral tradition and the memory and scholarship it requires to be a bard like that.
The subaltern history of marginalized people ,and women are all in oral traditions only.Hence to ignore such memoirs and negate them historical status simply because they were not written down would be denying the evidence of history of oral and marginalized traditions.The aim of metahistory ,to use Hayden White’s term ,is to single out the terms and codes and conventions of historiography ,with the implicit message that these too have their history .Similarly narrative history is considered part of the same cultural matrix.The social reconstruction of history depends upon all such considerations(Hayden White .Introduction to history and memory in European Romanticism.ed Carolyn springer.Stanford literature review vol 6 .No 1 spring 1989 :12)3.According to Stephan Bann (The invention of history .Essays on the representation of the past .Manchester uty press 1990.)Law ,medicine and theology are siblings of history (pp 12-32)4.A dictionary of 1654 AD lists 4 professions as being medicine ,jurisprudence,theology and philosophy.As an Indian woman practicing western medicine and Indian Dharma (jurisprudence is better termed Dharma in India)and spiritual traditions ,and comparative philosophy of west and east ,I find this very interesting.When I write Indian history all these facts have been of help to me.Thanks to the siblings of history ,I am equipped with a scientific order of events,historical analysis,political thoughts and social sciences ,not to mention anything about the research methods of medical science.Lenin was fond of repeating the term “To cure the society of its ills”.History is able to cure the society’s ills “without having studied medicine”,to borrow from his vocabulary.But if one has learned medicine and then study history to cure the ills of society,it should be doubly effective,I presume.
Comparisons between historiography and medicine have their own historical locations in the ancient world.Polibius compared historians practice to that of a doctor ,both being specialists coleting signs,interpreting them,arranging them in chronological order.Thucydides had kinship with Hippocratus .He was a historian of Pathos,as opposed to Herodotus ,a historian of ethos.The connection between Thucydidius and presentday historian is that between an ancient medical writer and a modern medical researcher,a continuity exists between them.
Hence my endeavour as a Pathologist ,and a woman who touches the pathos and ethos of society ,to study history is a continuation of what ancient scholars have been doing .Moreover,history of women is not given much importance .They are mothers,sisters,wives,companions,concubines,secretaries,teachers,doctors,professionals,and traditionally playing supportive roles and secondary roles in society.This is not for Indian women alone.But all women.Indian women were better of in this regard when we compare the ancient history of Grrece ,Rome and Europe.Pat barrs book The memsabs,the women of Victorian India(Socker and warburg London 1976)5gives a beautiful account of British Memsahibs of India in Victorian era.The sociopolitical and spiritual history of India gives more importance to women in the premedieval and medieval periods.

Concept of Evidence
Evidence is the ground for belief,that which tends to prove or disprove any conclusion.And hence not an absolute proof.Indian darsana call it Pramaana.If something is evident or obvious to our senses and mind,we will not ask for evidence to prove it.The propositions that are not themselves evident only need to be supported by evidence.Historical and medical judgements/diagnosis are considered conclusive when all the arguments are carefully weighed.In Lord Acton’s inaugural lecture at Cambridge 1895,(In Acton 1960 pp 33)6.there is a story of two London doctors who could not make up their mind on a particular diagnosis.The Head of the family insisted that they make a diagnosis,They said,he can find at least 50 doctors who would give a diagnosis,but we two cannot give a diagnosis.The question here is whether the evidence is adequate for a conclusion to be drawn from it,and who is the best qualified to draw the conclusions.The best should naturally possess the technical extertise on the subject ,but also the practical wisdom in human affairs and human nature from wide experience and unfortunately the two are only rarely found in the same person.
Four questions about evidence
1.What sort of problem require evidence for its solution
2 what sort of evidence is appropriate to a particular problem
3.what weight of evidence is adequate for a decision
4 When it must be adequate for history,law,religion,and science or to all.
Traditionally there is a diference between being and becoming as shown below

Being science knowledge certainty philosophy
Becoming opinion probability Appears to be Rhetoric

By 17th century Europe /western philosophy began to search for evidence to prove their problems.In India ,proving problems with Pramaana(evidence)was as ancient as the period of the 6 darsanas.With Pramaana they experimentd and analysed every Prameya(subject)and only after prolonged discussions on them came to conclusions.Therefore,every branch of Indian art,science and history has this researchoriented approach.But the language used is not familiar to modern day Indians after the introduction of the Western type of education

Nature of historical evidence

Need not always be from the same country,as in the case of India.We have to consider the evidences from other parts of the world as well.From summer,Akkadia,Babylon,the Scythian world,China,Japan,Far east ,and Americas,and from Europe and their concepts about this part of the world and then we can read in between the lines.Why all these different parts of the world had a common interest in the same geographical piece of land spanning over several thousands of years continuously and why they wanted to reach here,why the wanted to find the sea route to this particular part,and all such questions if answered systematically and properly we will find the real nature of India in ancient times.And then try to understand the history of India written by the Indians(ancient Indians)in Sanskrit and in your regional languages,and try to add up the regional variations in our particular state /territory ,we will reach a near possible solution by direct and circumstantial evidence and comparison of the various traditions and chronologies.To understand Indias present economic condition,I think it is important to understand its ancient economic conditions/history and the sociopolitical system which made it possible and then reorient our economic policies accordingly for betterment of our own future.

The traditional economy of India was charecterised by (An economic history of India from precolonial times to 1986 by Dietmer Rothermund Croom Helm Ltd 1988)”appropriate technology”geared to smallscale production in family units of peasants /artisans/forest food gatherers etc.Land and labour as factors of production were abundant in this system(Now we lack both ,not because the extant of land has decreased but because of lack of planning).The third factor was capital to substitute when there was a need ,like a floods/famine etc and the means of how this was collected by the state as trade and as tributes from the neighbouring kings etc.The revenue was always kept minimum by such sources and for this the overseas trade was a great innovative method ,though risky.
The agriculture ,construction of wells,tanks,irrigation canals (local)were done by local people and this did not produce capital accumulation(hoarding)and concentration of ownership of the means of production.Tools and implements were made locally and easily available and of low cost to the agriculturist.The rains and the rivers and the irrigation systems made the land very fertile.The tools in some areas were distributed by the state(center/king)as aloan to those who lack it.Arms and luxury goods manufactured for special uses by the artisans could fetch more money to them.Even if merchants and victorious warlords(kings)amassed wealth ,they were having a law of dharma which made it being distributed for the needy as gifts,donations or as construction works which will fetch jobs and money to people.The donations to temples were the revenew for the state to run the system.This system ensured that the wealth amassed by individuals is lost as quickly as gained so that wealth does not accumulate and lead to inflations.
Agricultural land was not a commodity to sell or to buy and make residences as we do now.Whoever cleared and tilled a piece of land can keep the land as his,because the land was for production of food/or cashcrops .There were no landowners in this system.The entire land is Gods.The king and the temple priest is only just another employee doing his share of work for God ,in Gods name and getting the wages for that function.The revenew collectors or landlords were not landowners but those who were entrusted by King to collect the revenew and they had no rights of proprietorship over the land.The land was thus owned by a God (temple of locality)and the revenew was theraajabhogha to that deity.In the medieval period a king could control only a circle in 100 kms around the capital for direct taxation.The distant parts paid tribute directly to the king.And Aswamedha were conducted when there is delay in getting such tributes or when there is some great need for funds.It was more of a display of power to get funds rather than real battle.It was a ritual sovereignty with local autonomy to the subject.Traderoutes and trade centers had to pay special tributes as rajabhogha or tax.There was control of trade and traderoute by the state .Money circulated in tradecenters and in pilgrimage centers.Barter system for materials was used by majority of transactions and the coinage that circulated was controlled and no inflation was allowed.
Till Islamic rule in North India tax collection was done by local headsmen.From that time taxcollectors on horseback were established.A new garrison of cavalry came up,treasury of tax collector increased due to fear of whipping but this crushed the local autonomy.The taxcollectors demanded revenew in cash/jewels and they were all strangers with no local routes(unlike the local chieftain)from Turk/Afghan –warriors of the conquering part.Each commander was thus making a dynasty and the rulers/kings had to keep a military force just to keep them under control.This is how the military feudalism developed in North India according to Dietmer Rothmund.

Long distance trade and fragmented markets helped a political unification and integrated market economy.Those merchants /high officers/princes/Meenava/Phanis were the most honest people selected so that the trade secrets are kept for economic benefit of nation and used them for common good and not for selfish motives.That is how the Yogins (Samudrapaalayogin as they were called )and Brahmakshathra of the Agnikula became the protectors of the land and searoutes of India.The credits were based on personal relations ,not on impersonal legal systems.We must understand how much of loyalty,intelligence,educational awareness and nationalism is needed to have such a wide system to be devised and implemented with successs for over 10000 years continuously and also how it was broken by a negative move of just a few selfish individuals so that India was reduced to what it is now.
As an example of mismanagement and inflation of silver rupee ,in 1591-1639 circulation of Spanish silver and silver coins (imported)trebled in India and the Mughal public utilization of money was an additional factor to this spurt of inflation. 60-70 million Rupees in Akbers treasury was spent by Jehanghir alone in 1605.In 1627 when Jehanghir died ShahJahan tried to replenish the treasury at least by 5 million Rs per year.In 1595-1637 the high revenue lead to increased pricehikes in India for the first time in the history of India.Auranghazebs enormous war expeditions added to the new spurt of inflations.Tensions increased and the rebellious peasants took to guns .This appropriate technology cold not be checked by Mughals.The peasants were not against religion of rulers but to the military feudalism and policy of the Mughals.And it was controlled by another military feudation ,by the bourgeois servant of the East India company.
When we are going through inflations at present ,if the political rulers and the people of India understand and remember this history ,and act accordingly we would be able to control our activities and improve our economy.It is human actions which cause inflation .
Maritime trade
In the second chapter of his book Dietmer Rothermund tells us that the south Indian states were participants of the conomic status of the nation without touching the land revenue system ,and the kings made their major income from trade using all resources and routes(land/Sea),arts/artisans and sciences and even the peasants were allowed to partake in it in an autonomous manner.The surplus of their needs could fetch them things/currency through the sea/land trades.Therefore everyone were participants of the trade guilds or sangha .According to hin
M the change occurred only in and around 1000 AD in this situation of the south Indian trade.(pp 8)This was due to the simultaneous rise of powerful local corporate enterprises and empires which destroyed the unity of the national trade and became competitive between these chieftains and each merchant guild in each locality were advising their lord how to do imperial expansion over kings of weak powers .Gulf of Mannar was the monopoly of pearl trade first by Pandya,then Chera and later Chola.Diplomacy was backed up by strong military intervention to get new markets (for example the Chola expansion of empire.)The trade was generally peaceful even in this background and agriculture was not destroyed and hence famines were prevented.During this period the merchants became supporters of any corporate structure not only of India but also of China,Rome and other powerful foreign traders and this has started from the time of early Christian era but became prominent after Kerala lost its Perumal rule in AD 825.It was this that lead to the entry of Europen corporate structures like Portuguese and English east India company .The power of India was based on its ample supply of rice,food,cashcrops in hills,ivory,wood,tea,sugar,spices and navarathna and the splendid and rich ancient culture which was so much in demand in the western world,all of which were lacking in the west.The merchant guilds played with this at stake and it was they who brought the foreign powers here ,disclosing the secrets of searoute which the Phoenicians had kept a secret for several centuries and unless we understand this we will never be able to discover a second chance of getting into traps.The Gulf of Mannar as Ramayana points out is full of pearls and corals and under the sea is a mountain of gold and the Nalasethu marks the central geodesic line to mark the area, and economically this is a place which might yield so much wealth to the company that is given the right to do digging and destroying the sea there and the treasures also will go to them.The question is only who will get the tender to do it.And from the present conditions prevailing in India it is not very difficult to guess what will happen once the project is allowed .The landbased conquerors (Mughals/Delhi sultanate)introduced military feudalism and lead to demise of old corporate empires with strong agrarian economy to back up the trade .The strong empires disappeared ,and the many weak powers offered the free trade zone for west which was not controlled by a strong seapower which could take the united leadership of the whole nation.This happened in Kerala with rupture of Perumal rule.The rise to power of Zamorin (not a royal king but a warrior turned ruler)and of Kunjalimarikkar as his Perumpidakumutharayan was a classical example of this situation.The shipowners supported and raised to power ambitious local chieftains .The example given is that of Sultan Honovans father ,a shipowner and a sea pirate (Ibn Batuta)who subdued all Malabar coastal rulers ,established a port not far from the empire of Vijayanagara.King Harihara was given a tribute by him so that he didn’t or could not destroy him.So when in 15th century the Portuguese entered there was virtually no seapower at all,and they knew all the trade tricks,horse trade and pepper trade and the other powers soon followed.
In page 17 of the book we find that the military success of East India company was not over Indian rulers and not due to their technological superiority either (all their weapons were with the Indian ruling class also)but better organization and discipline and unity were the secrtes of the success.Thus India became a dependent agrarian state under the foreign rule.Plunder of this rich agrarian state contributed to the industrial revolution in Europe .The trade networks,the rapid turnover of goods,knowledge from India on various subjects and a readily available home market (Europe)made the British benefit from the influx of Indian wealth.(pp 19 ibid)But the east India company did nothing to stimulate economy in India.Simply collected the wealth as tribute ,as a very strong military feudal overlord.The earlier military feudal overlords(Mughals and sultans)were spending the tributes they collected in India itself .They didn’t transfer it to their homeland.They became part of India and spent and lived here as Indians.But the company transferred the wealth to their country ,and to their personal family wealth (It was not part of British Govt).The Indian economy totally collapsed under the regime of East India company and its colleagues the Portuguese ,French and Dutch.
Then the Indian peasants were asked to give more revenues ,with this demand they became more and more indebted and more and more poor.When famines/floods/m
Natural calamities came there were no one to support,since the old system of autonomous administration of local bodies under able organization of a central control was totally lost.The export /import relations had all been changed drastically so that the localkings could not raise the funds needed ,nor do the temple trusties provide help as their wealth also was plundered and they were namesake in administration.
Then came the 1847 crisis and 1850 drastic price rise in India.The 1857 mutiny was actually a repercussion of that.And this led to the 1858 proclamation of queen Victoria and the loss of control of the company.But even after the company left,the parameters they had established prevailed.In 19th century the British Indian administrators as a step to political unification of India introduced English as the universal medium of communication .This was definitely a good step.We have gained so much with English language learning.But the British administers of the time did a terrible mistake also ,they did not allow the older language of unification of the country to be learned in schools so that the history ,the culture and ancient knowledge of India became alien to Indians but ,known to the European community through the many translations made by scholars into English.It could have been ideal if both the languages were taught in schools (The Sanskrit,Local language and English –a trilingual method would have been the best possible thing)but this did not occur to the administers and it was an unfortunate event for Indians as a whole .
When the administration made railways for transportation of goods (by 1900 about 25000 miles of land covered at high cost)nothing was spent on irrigation .The demand for steel,engines,wagons,and coal was met from Britain by import while much of it could have been produced in India itself.Between 1865-1941 seven hundred engines were made in India.12000 engines were came from Britain .There was increase in food prices and lack of food.At the same time the peasants were not allowed any decrease in revenew.9When I quote these facts ,I simply want the readers to think and understand in free India also almost similar conditions exists even today .The agricultural front is neglected and revenue and loan interests of farmers increase day by day )Whatever can be swadeshi goods are not purchased ,and people are crazy to get foreign goods .
In page 35 of his book ,is the explanation of how the freight rates of Indian railways prevented regional integration in India.The freight rates were high in 1885.But with 3 different categories of rebates
1.Over long distances
2.Tour from big ports
3.That did not need to be transferred from one line to another.East India railway to Great Indian peninsular railway.
Short distances within the interior had no rebates and therefore it encouraged linkage with world markets and worked against the regional integration within Indian states and farmers .The whole harvest was for export .The farmer has to ask for credit in cash or kind to feed his family and livestock.The agricultural products to Europe including opium,indigo,raw cotton and tea ,and industrial products in exchange to India (like textiles/silver)fetching a double income to the British.
The basic problem of Indian Industrialisation at this stage was its endemic lack of capital.
The economic conflicts in postwar period
With the stagnation at high price levels the rice yield per acre in 1920 was very low.In South India there was expansion of cashcrop (groundnuts).Labour troubles in cotton industry ,and a combination of discriminating protectin and imperial preferences in steel industry .(steel protection act 1924)In 1930 descriminating protection oftextiles cotton also came.Gandhi’s substance of independence(Eleven point programme of 1930 in which Birla was interested too ) and articulation of national interests and his swadeshi movements has to be understood under these basic problems of economy of India at that period.FICCI(1927,Federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry with Birla as spokesperson had the same 11 point programme)
Till 1920 a great deal of sugar was produced in India and in that year one million hectares of sugarcane was converted to villagemade gur.With consequences of the great depression the imported white sugar from Java became cheaper.The homemade ones were not purchased anymore.The farmers naturally suffered.The burden of debts was increasing day by day.In 1942 Burma,the largest riceproducing area was lost to India.This caused food crisis and Bengal famine and rations were introduced for the first time.In 1943 Bombay and in January 1944 Calcutta also was in the ration list.By February 1944 rationing was introduced in 104 cities of India.Next year 400 towns and cities joined.In 1945 about 42 million urban common men and women were living only on rations.In 1947 India had 900 towns with 152 million inhabitants depending on rationed foodgrains for subsistence.This was the nation which we received from the foreign yoke to put back to its original state of plenty.We should understand that
1.India which was the richest food producer and exporter for over 6000 years with a wellorganised system that persisted so long under the dharma of a rule which was purely Indian in nature,was reduced to a poor nation with no food,no cultural ties,no organized centralized unified language system of its own to unite the people ,and a begging undisciplined lot within a very short period.
2.The major problem was Indias rapid dynamic industrialisation and a static agriculture.If both were looked into with same importance and if the old land revenew systems protected ,with a selfrespect in ones own country’s methods and ancient historical ties ,this would not have happened.
3.Even in postindependent India ,we are still doing the same mistakes committed by the foreign rule.They had an excuse ,that they were foreigners and they didn’t understand our system or our language or our economic equations .But we don’t have that excuse.If we fail ,it is our own ignorance and our own fault.These points I stress ,because study of history is not to find fault,but to understand both our strengths and weaknesses and utilize the strengths for innovative methods for benefit of the entire nation.
Life has a sense of purpose.It has reasons,directions and a change should imply progress.And if we want to follow a path of progress we have to understand our own mistakes and change .This decision should come from within ourselves.A society which does not do selfanalysis and change is destined to go back into ruins.The lesson from history is to make us sit up and plan for a better future for next generations and o progress together and in a unified way.This is what I intend with this book.Understanding the complexity of life itself is understanding resolution of its conflicts (not creating conflicts).Indian philosophy had a strong base of such a sense of unity and search for trut and dharmic living and even the most uneducated tribesmen of India had this quality.Marek Kohn(A reason for everything .Natural selection and English imagination .Faber and Faber Ltd 2004 pp76)quotes a sentence of Wallace about the sandals of India :The Santaals of India have as pure a love of truth as the most moral among civilized men “.Kohn also notices that mathematics,sense of humour and music are the high faculties confined to only a very small percentage of population even among civilized educated men and we Indians should be aware that these three faculties were distinguishing features of Indian culture from time immemorial.

Ithihaasa of India

The 3 major Ithihaasa of India are stories of men (not of celestial beings).And if we neglect these as mere myths we will loose the golden chance of knowing how people (our ancestors )lived,thought and loved and fought in those times.A story has a shared meaning between the narrator and the listener.(A writer/reader)We participate in the basic human instinct to play and tell stories about that play (which is called Leelaacharitha).According to Brown (1990 Quoted by Childrens stories inplay therapy .Ann Cattanach Jessica Kingsley 1997)storytelling is one of the crowing achievements of human development .Though it looks like a play it has a form of social interpretation.It has two modes of thoughts
1.The narrative with concern for human conditions
2.Paradigmatic logicoscientific with consistency ,noncontradictions,and believable historical accounts.
Stories link the exceptional with the ordinary.Viability of any culture inheres in its capacity for resolving conflicts ,for exploring differences and renegotiating meanings.And such stories in cultural perspective are important for the children and adults of a people.Narrative is sequenced in time and convey a meaning.We come to know of ourselves through construction of an extended self(Neisser 1988)According to Bronfenbrenner(1979 Ecology of Human development Cambridge .Mass Harward uty press.)the ecological environmentof every growing child has a nesting arrangement of concentric structures ,contained within the other.These structures are micro,meso,exo and macrosystems.The marosystem is the nation/country and the world as a whole while the innermost microsystem is the home and primary school,and in between are all the other environments which we experience from school to profession and other social structures.The macrosystem and its environment and its history we het from the ancient stories of that culture and if we deny that to children ,they become unaware of the culture of their own ancestors and loose the selfrespect which every child needs for healthy development of mind and intellect.We have to operate simultaneously at all levels as good participants of society useful to ourselves and to the nation and the worlds and for that every nation respects its own traditional stories/Ithihaasa .Indian subcontinent has a rich past and we should be proud of that ecological environment of macrostructure around us and for this a history based on ancient history and chronology is needed for us.That purpose also is fulfilled by this story or history of India from prehistoric times ,I do hope.

When I speak of Indian nationalism ,a few intellectuals at least might think that it is Hindu religious nationalism.I don’t know whether they understand the implication of that.First ,they are agreeing to the fact that if India needs a nationalism,as its historical ancient pastit has to be Indian,whether called Hindu or not.
Second ,they are equating the word Hindu with the semitic religious groups Christian and Islam (which are religions in the name of individuals).Whereas Hindu is a cuture that was present in a region from Sindhu or ocean to Himalayas and is a geographic entity /a culture proper.
Third ,they are also assuming that by denying that traditional culture of India they can achieve secularism and nationalism in India ,which I doubt very much from historic experiences itself.Nationalism is a soft concept ,emerging as a ideological formation ,a means by which social groups make sense of and operate within their social context for the benefit of all .Discourse of Indian nationalism from 1925 had a discourse of modernity and the Indians were debating the strengths and weaknesses of their system in the new colonial atmosphere and by selfanalysis trying to correct the weaknesses .It was not an anticolonial nationalism but a distinctive politically influential ideology.And for its growth communalism was the very antithesis .Communalism and individual selfish motives were a threat to the newly emerging nationalism.The composite universalist nationalism of anticolonial freedom movement with the conception of a nationstate constituted through individual citizenship was at the center of the Indian nationalism.But it never wanted to be violent.From 1920 onwards communal riots became systematic feature in North India the parameters of debate being secularism,national integration,right of minorities,nature of national identity.(It is surprising that our leaders have failed to find solutions to some of these isssues and have worsened it by their careless projects and words).The moderates accepted cultural pluralism and equality among different religions within nation,while radicals saw nation as a community of co-religionists.
Defining communalism ,it is antagonism to another community whether religious,linguistic ,or castebased or genderbased.In modern India we find all these types of communalisms and thus the failure of our leaders in finding out a solution to the problems is selfevident.The antagonism to what is other than itself is a form of selfishness (which was considered as detrimental to nation in the statesmanship of Ramayana/Mahabharatha /and before that the vedic period)which was always objected to by Indian philosophy and lifestyles.The Indian nationalism(Or Hindu nationalism as it is now called by many)is an ideology that seeks to understand (or imagine/construct)a nation as a community of Indians on a basis of Indian culture –The culture of the homeland and this concept was developed by the middleclass Indians ,educated in western style in British India.This imagined /constructed community as anation had a discursive framework that aligns the social cultural political economic interests of this nation,that is India..The universalism of Indian nationalism and its ideology is that all individuals ,all communities living in British India within a framework of ethnicity is seen as a nation.It had an ethnic nationalism and a universalist nationalism as India always practiced from ancient times.Communalism was notits ideology .It was a historical condition which was precipitated later on by mismanagement by leaders and ignorance of administrators and public alike.The 1857 revolt was against the East India company and its trade and commerce policies in India and its power politics tactics here and both Hindus/Muslims were part of it and Bahadur Shaw was accepted as the leader and the Hindu leaders supported him.This itself shows the beginning was not communal .So ,the factors that made it communal by 1920 has to be analysed if we want to remove communal feelings from our intellectual and media circles and from politicians .
In 1858 by Govt of India Act transfer of power to the crown from the company happened.The court of directors replaced by secretory of states to India.(A minister within the British cabinet)Lord Derby when he proclaimed a ssecretory of state that the subjects can practice their religion as legal right as subjects of the British queen ,actually made the 1857 riot /rebellion a religious battle between Christian Britain /and Hindu/Muslim India which was far from truth.
According to John Zavos(The emergence of Hindu nationalism in India .oxford India paperbacks 2000)the massive conversion sof 19th century missionaries and the practice of converting the caste elder so that entire group get converted en bloc as a mass movement and increase in Christian population from 1871-1901 and predominance of low caste converts was eroding the Indian culture from base upwards and the ducated Indians realized that the vulnerability of their culture was due to oppression of certain low castes and it needs immeadiate reformations.And the reformation movements of Brahmasamaj,Aryasamaj,RamakrishnaMission,were in those lines.The horizontal and vertical approaches of cow protection movements and Shudhi movement were as a reformation within the community’s practices not aimed at others.Sarvajanik sabha of Poona(1870)and Indian association of Bengal(1876)by Surendranatha banerjee were closely watched by British Govt thinking that they were threats to their rule.But the educted middleclass had no intention to rise against the British Raj,but the agenda was to unify all Indian races and people upon the basis of common political interests and aspirations and to cultivate a feeling of national unity .Pattern of Banerjees lecture tours from Bengal to Lahore was later adopted by Indian national congress.In Maharashtra Thilak reached out to the common man .In 1894 when he turned his attention to the old Ganapathi festival in Poona to mobiles support in thebasis of collective identity and introduced singing parties(Melaas)to deliver messages it had a subaltern element to enter even the humblest villages .(from urban mainstream elite educated circles)..But the imperialists viewed it suspiciously and thought that it was areactionary politics of an unethical and powerhungry appeal to popular superstitions (Valentine Chirol-imperialist).Thilaks appeal for donations to have a shivaji memorial through his Kesari (Marathi journal)collected Rs 15000,of which 80% came from contributions below Rs 1 ,from common people,and there were 60000 contributors.This prompted the paisa fund to teach people to utilize manpower and money for national objectives ,and fundraising was yoked to raising of national consciousness.It was by such contributions to the sangha/Guilds /Temple the early revenew of India was colleted ans there was nothing unethical in it for India.It was an individual commitment to nation either as service/or as products of labour/or in cash however small it is.Support from both elite and nonelite circles was coming.It was alegitimate representation of the people .(The later Sarvodaya movement in which every house gives one handful of rice to feed the poor came from the same principle.And in Kerala V.M.Nair and his colleagues adopted this tactics to build up a national language daily ,Mathrubhoomi in its formative periods.)

Everyone knows that Hindu is not an Indian word.It was a foreign toungue –a corrupted word for Sindhu ,a geographical area by the Persians .Naturally no one in India thoughtthemselves as Hindoos ,till after 1871-81 census .This term as a religion was introduced and sustained as a political movement by Britishers out of their ignorance of religion.They were familiar only with the semitic religions and their warring nature between each other.In India only poltical powers/rulers do wars . And they are controlled by spiritual Gurus who stop wars.And no one calls it by the name of a particular person.
The column of the enumerator in 1881 census contained a column Religion-Just as we have such a column in our school entry forms at present.The enumerators ,since the people didn’t know to what religion they belonged answered they have no religion and the column was filled up by enumerators by names of certain sects/gothra/clan/even professional groups and that lead to the multiple religions /castes in India(Census of India 1881 vol 1 .pp 17)Then Drysdala ,a provincial census superintendent grouped them under a title Hindooo and thus a list with 30 castes ,4 sects,8 devotional groups ,and 5 groups categorized as others was made.Mr Kitts the census superintendent of Berar complained of vagueness of the term Hindoo.His remark that the hilltribes (the Aranyalog Hindoos)do not know their religion and they are korkus by caste deserves mention.The words of a man of this tribe is quoted in Census of India 1881 pp 17).”I am a korku.But I do not know what my religion is called .Call it what you please.I worship Mahadev,Hanuman,Bairam Bai,Chand and Sooraj and Bhagvath who is the author my religion”Were his words.So religion of the Indians was the problem of the British Christian state who wanted to make a census and to get a religious majority,not of the elite or nonelite Indian native.
Kitts exasperation at the inability of hilltribes to define their religion or even how it should be defined (call it what you please)indicates the uncertainty with which those two categories were applied.(A blurred boundary between Hinduism and Animism)In 1901 census reiteration of same problem was seen.Central province superintendent R.V.Russel said the rural people of Seoni district did not know whetherthey are vaishnava,saiva,saktha,and their knowledge is as much as that of the man in the moon.Russells statement that Hindooism is a type of animism or a historic residue of the most primitive human race and that now they are backward but were a superior race during the vedic period is noteworthy.He located the narrative form of religion in vedic antiquity practiced in his time by great religious centers while the majority of population were following semiprimitive animism.So he grouped all people who are Mahadeo worshippers(whether they worship other deities or not)as Hindoo and all others as tribal with the name of the tribe in the column of religion(pp 95 J Zavos).This uncertainty of the British enumerators and superintendents of census made exacerbated by the modern Govt of India is what we are finding all around.The words of the uneducated Korku and the reforms of the educated elite middleclass to bring India under the single ethnic community was complimentary,but this fragmentation into constructed religious groups by the uninformed census officers undermined it.
The ignorance of the British about Indian systems
Ignorance of people about what is happening around
And the ignorance of a minority of rich bigoted orthodox people who called themselves the Hindoos ,when the census column asked for it .
All these had contributed to the separatisms we find around us today.
When Indians were trying to bring about reform movements and awareness programmes among themselves the census ,a political determinant by quantifying caste/religion inevitably placed emphasis on numerical size as a means of achieving political importance and thus division of Indians on various factors(religion/caste/language/economy/professional status/gender etc)was done not by religion or religious reformers in the initial stages ,but by political powers .Even now the majority vote system is the major single factor which determines the separatism of religions and castes.The introduction of Minto –Morley reforms confirms the communal principle in this way.They wanted to limit the majority of Indians by saying that the low castes are not Hindoos,but even the high castes didn’t know that they were Hindoos and such a word never existed among people 150 years ago.The majority union had been a threat to numerical opinion polls which the colonial power wanted and the religious separatism evoked by the census was a threat to Indian nationalism.The horizontal reorganization making ties between all groups /all languages/all urban and rural people of all professions /gothra was appositive feature of tradition.And widow remarriage,prohibition of child marriage,female infanticides ,oppression of depressed castes etc were social reforms within Indians and not religious.But the colonial inadequacy to distinguish between the two was a great factor.In dian nationalist had to approach in two ways
1.Study and propagation of the intellectual and spiritual texts of the tradition
2.Social reformations on the degenerate practices of the contemporary society.
When both are done ,the state interference occurred because of their suspicion of the movement as sociopolitical and religious against their power and religion.
In 1875 publication of Slavery by Jothirao Phule of Mali caste (the caste to which Ambedkar also belonged)said that Adisoodra is the original kshathriya of previous ages under the legendary king Mahabali ,and that they became downtrodden by the Arya race.The shudraa and adishudra as descendents of golden age of Bali,and Vaamana as an Aryan oppressor was theoretical .But the practical things he said were that all should get access to education and the practice of drinking liquor and meateating is the reason for downfall of the low castes and they should avoid that.The importance of this practical point was forgotten soon,but the theory which is almost amounting to myth is still perpetuated by political groups.From 1882 onwards he shifted his interest from Brahmin/antibrahmin issue to rural poor/educated urban divides.In 1889 congress at Allahabad he actually undermined the cause of nationalist saying that the congress is only a body of handful of upper castes and educated urban elites and is not the whole nation.Between 1880-1890 cow protection as a horizontal organization in Bhojpuri/Nagpur area (according to Catherine Prior)became a cause for tension and struggle because of the British Govts involvement in it as a sign of Hindooism,as they called it.If we look at it,all spiritual traditions including Budhism,Jainism and also the reformers like Phule representing the Mali tribes were for it and it had nothing to be called Hinduism.It was an economic symbol for an agrarian and cattlerearing ethnic community like India and not religious at all,and at the same time it was a symbol of nonviolence of the Indian people as such.
Similarly the vertical organization of Shudhi created a theoretical space for purification rites for any individual who has become an outcaste due to various reasons .The Aryasamaj shudhi first started for people returning from Britain as outcastes ,(for having eaten meat)gave space for all castes to be given a chance of purification if they so desire.But the Government started to talk about its legality of actions like selling,slaughtering,eating ,conveying dead carcass in public space and protecting cow (state descriptions of legality)and the magistrate of Mirzapur during the Id issued a highly religious statement and in 1881 in Bahawalpur riots and destruction of Hindu temples by Muslims happened.
Cow protection aimed at education of proper animal husbandry,economic benefits of an agrarian cattlerearing nation by protection of cattle,became a symbol of Hindu –Muslim riots by just a judgement from the political power .concerned with legality of certain things.Similarly when several chamar,rahtia Sikhs,ods,meghs,and untouchables of Punjab,Kashmere,and U.P were given dwija status by the shudhi rite of Aryasamaj to unify the ethnic Indians the majority opinion poll oriented Govt sectors were worried and interfered .The following points were slowly emerging out as a unification formula
1.Transformation of established structures
2.eradication of oppression
3unification of India as nation
4.maintainance of ethnic consciousness
5 cow as symbol of earth,word/knowledge,agrarian economy and economy of India as a nation..
When these emerged in 19th century India it also evoked fear and suspicion in the hearts of those in power (British)and the separatist movements also set in indirectly and directly.The 20th century India saw its fruits during partition,formation of the republic,and even now as highly tense political and religious problems of our young nation.This is why I narrate the circumstances under which these emerged.
Every one is part and parcel of what happens to a nation.We as voters,and as lawgivers,people who judge and govern the country and teach the younger generation who has to do justice to themselves and to the nation has to know how everything happened ,we have to think collectively as a nation to sort out problems and to manage the crisis we face as nationalistic problems.For this history is important.Not for increasing enmity between groups or for violent revolutions,but for thoughtful meaningful solutions to problems and for the betterment of society,nation and the earth we live in.My history of India deals with ancient India and its cultural/economic connections and seatrade with such an objective.If this can instill a little bit of unity among the warring sociopolitical groups,and religious communities and between warring genders I will be happy .Unite and rule ,we survive.Divide and rule,we fall.This fact should be remembered by both the governed and the governing people of India.This practical advaitha through History of ancient India ,I dedicate to all people of India and to the entire human race because the motto is ultimately Loka samastha sukhino bhavanthu .




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