Indian Armies through the ages - Page 7

Archer · 01-29-2007, 23:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay

I totally agree, I was further discussing it to the present day scenario. As I said even to this date, people convert not becoz of casteism but for economic fruits.

Yup- convert for rice is a method mentioned in a book I am reading now, but dang, enough on all the colonial jazz already..

Quote:

Thats weird. IIRC my text book mentioned about Jiziya and how hindus were forced to pay it. I know its the local state govt that decides on state and matriculation syllabus, but its kinda weird that there is so much distortion from state to state.

My state board (and that of two neighbouring ones) ripped off the NCERT Text word to word, so even that was that bloody silly at that point of time..some of it is directly contradictory from class 8th to 10th..

Quote:

Hmm, never knew that. As you said, its always raze to ground in the South. Thats one main reason why the temples still stand but not the ancient forts/palaces. But one cannot generally blanket that whole of India was following this practice. I know Cheras, Cholas, Pandiyas, Pallavas, Chalukyas, Kalabras did razed cities to ground. Im not sure about the rulers in the deccan plateau, but I do believe that it was the same case untill the deccan came under Mysore dynasty.

Thats the thing..temples or certain areas were spared..but in the "total war" scenario which the turko-mongols/ turks followed, the religious places were the first to go, and the entire city/ populace would be converted or sold into slavery (for profit)...the Arabs did that to begin with, in sindh, but decided to settle into a profitable jiziya kind of existence..

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Makes sense. But I thought Elephant cavalry was also used for siege warfare, no?

Elephants were used for sieging under the Mughals...prior to that they'd act as static defenses behind which the infantry could retreat if routed, and they would form the vanguard for the shock effect..but against solid stone/ earthenwork fortifications, they were vulnerable..against cavalry, they were obsolete!

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Actually I had other doubts on this, how fortified were our ancient empires?

Varied heavily! Generally fortifications became de jure in the medieval age as the frequency of raids became more, because the city's and the ruling clans had to have some sort of protection, as everyone was now fair game. The Rajputs were masters of fort warfare, they would raid, retire, raid, retire. Ranthambore was iirc built in 994 AD. Most of the others extant today are again from the medieval era..the Marathas also picked up the tactic, they would actually have a core group of light cavalry to raid the heavy Mughal baggage trains and harass them to no end, whilst their women and children would be in an ally's fort! Again, its more of the fact that earlier cities (prior to external invasions), were defended and had a complex defensive arrangment and even walls and gates, but were not fortified in the classical sense- ie built on a hard to approach hilltop or corner, with heavy fortifications. In the south too, most forts are from the medieval era, and act as strongholds where the rulers could retire to when the chips were down.

Archer · 01-29-2007, 23:21 PM

This is Kautilya's view on fortifications:

Project South Asia

kams · 01-29-2007, 23:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archer

This is Kautilya's view on fortifications:

Project South Asia

Take a look at Strategic Means to Capture a Fortress

Archer · 01-29-2007, 23:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kams

Take a look at Strategic Means to Capture a Fortress

In that portion, this is all there is about siege methodologies:

Quote:

Having well guarded his camp, transports, supplies and also the roads of communication, and having dug up a ditch and raised a rampart round his camp, he may vitiate the water in the ditches round the enemy's fort, or empty the ditches of their water or fill them with water if empty, and then he may assail the rampart and the parapets by making use of underground tunnels and iron rods. If the ditch (dváram) is very deep, he may fill it up with soil. If it is defended by a number of men, he may destroy it by means of machines. Horse soldiers may force their passage through the gate into the fort and smite the enemy. Now and then in the midst of tumult, he may offer terms to the enemy by taking recourse to one, two, three, or all of the strategic means.

Rest if we see, is all about indirect methods.

Archer · 01-30-2007, 00:06 AM

I have Ospreys Medieval Siege Weapons, Byzantium, Islamic World and India, AD 476-1526

That states:

Quote:

Earlier historians have tended to interpret references to terrifying siege weapons in early Indian epics too literally, leading some to claim that gunpowder was invented there. In reality, India remained backward in siege technology, despite pre-Islamic India's sophistication in mathematics, metallurgy and chemistry. Perhaps this was because of Hindu and Buddhist armies conducted warfare governed by religious taboos which inhibited the use of fire for religious purposes.

The epics of course are the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which cannot be transcribed literally without more evidence. Then again, the author misses the obvious, it was not taboos against fire which prevented siege weaponry, but taboos against extended siege warfare. After all, if your armies meet in the field as standard and decide the battle, why bother sieging the city or decimating the inhabitants.

He goes on to say:

Quote:

Further afield, in southern India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaya, and other parts of south east Asia influenced by Indian civlization,siege engines were rarely recorded, despite the fact that field fortifications and strongly entrenched features were a dominant feature of war in these regions

If we see Kautilyas treatise above, it again refers to field encampments for the army and rulers.

The author states that Indian "yantraprasana" , stones thrown by machines, could be hurled by mangonels, and the "rods to throw stones" mentioned in other Indian sources could possibly be only staff slings.

In contrast, as he mentions, the Byzantines and the Moslems were choc a bloc with siege engine development of multiple types and city taking was a key focus of any military activity. By the time the Arabs attacked Sindh, they already had a good handle on siege technolgy, and the Turks, Turko-Mongols were better still.

Archer · 01-30-2007, 00:19 AM

This is about the textbooks, and relates to what I remember from my own NCERT texts- didnt know Thapar had here hand in it, figures!

Quote:

A Review of

Romila Thapar’s ‘Ancient India, A Textbook of History for Middle Schools’

NCERT: New Delhi (1987)

by Vishal Agarwal

25 November 2002

___________________________

Opening Remarks -
This review deals with the withdrawn NCERT textbook on history for Std. VI authored1 by the eminent historian Romila Thapar.

When the text of the first edition of the book (published in 1966) is compared with its current edition (July 1987, reprinted 13 times till January 2000), we do not find any significant differences between the two. The changes are primarily cosmetic – sentences added here and there, a word or two changed, and so on. Some errors are corrected here, a subtle shift in emphasis made elsewhere, and so on. This means that in 34 years (1966 – 2000), Thapar does not see the need to revise completely her understanding as well as her presentation of history of ancient India to middle level school children of India.

As indicated in the ‘Foreword’ of this first edition of the book, we find that the Chief Editor is S. Gopal, whereas the other editors of the series are Romila Thapar, S. Nurul Hasan2 and Satish Chandra. Nurul Hasan is dead, S. Gopal passed away a few months ago, and Thapar, Gopal and Chandra have continued to be authors or editors for NCERT even 35 years later. It appears that India has not produced better or equally good historians who could write history texts for school children, in all these 3½ decades! The hegemony of this small group of Marxist historians (or their fellow travelers) in producing school texts for impressionable schoolchildren in India all these years is quite alarming.

Unless stated otherwise, this review pertains to the 1987 edition of the textbook that continued to be in use till 2001. A few references will however be made to the 1966 edition for various reasons.

Chapter 0: The Study of Indian History –
The introductory chapter alone in the current edition is quite different from the 1966 edition. It stresses the current trends in historiography of ancient India – such as a greater emphasis on the lives of common men rather than on aristocrats and kings alone in older texts of history. It discusses how history of ancient periods is reconstructed, the various sources of information for the same, and how civilization in ancient India could have begun. The chapter as such, makes very dry reading for a 6th Std. student, because there are so few illustrations.3 Study aids such as well-demarcated sections with section headings are missing in this chapter. A significant omission from the chapter is a map of India, which could have greatly facilitated the understanding of the essay type text.

The book makes no attempt to relate the present with the past, even though the author remarks (page 1) that one of the reasons for studying history is to understand our present.

Chapter I: Early Man –
The chapter opens with a remark of questionable accuracy -

“It took almost 300,000 years for man to change from a food-gatherer to a food-producer.” (page 9)

As even the Marxist historian Irfan Habib’s recent book points out,4 the Homo erectus had probably started gathering food 700,00 to 500,00 years ago, or even earlier. Since the Neolithic revolution involving large-scale production of food occurred less about 10,000 years before present, it is reasonable to suggest that man took 500,000 years or perhaps a longer time to switch from food-gathering to food-producing, and not a mere 300,000 years as the textbook teaches.

The chapter again makes very boring reading, due to the paucity of illustrations. The text differs from the 1966 edition only in a few sentences here and there. The only significant addition, in my opinion, is a section on the standard anthropological explanation for the rise of religious beliefs in primitive human societies.

Chapter II: Man Takes to City Life -
Chapter II of the book deals with the Harappan culture.

In her 1966 edition, Thapar had made an erroneous remark –

“The earliest city to be discovered in India was Mohenjo-daro on the river Indus in Sind. Further up the Indus valley another ancient city was excavated and this was Harappa near the modern Montgomery.” [THAPAR 1966:30].

This has fortunately been corrected in the latest edition to read [THAPAR 1987:24] –

“The earliest city to be discovered in India was Harappa in Punjab (Presently in Pakistan). Further down in the Indus valley another ancient city was excavated and this was Mohenjo-Daro in Sind.”

The present edition however still states the wrong reason for calling the Indus Valley Civilization as ‘Harappa culture’ –

“The archaeologists called the civilization of these ancient cities the Indus Valley Civilization, because both of these cites and other sites sharing the same culture were found in the Indus valley. But for the last forty years archaeologists have been digging in other parts of northern and western India and have found more cities that resemble those of the Indus valley. Therefore the Indus Valley Civilization is now also called the Harappa culture since the pattern of living in these resembles that of Harappa….” (page 24).

The correct reason for calling the Indus Valley Civilization alternately as the Harappan Culture or Harappan Civilization is the accepted model of naming archaeological cultures after the names of the sites where they are discovered or first identified.5 In other words, the Indus Valley Civilization is alternately referred to as Harappan Civilization because Harappa was first site belonging to the culture that was discovered.

The paragraph ends with a meaningless statement (page 24) –

“It is also called the Indus Civilization because it spread over areas beyond the Indus valley”.

Perhaps, Thapar intended to provide a rationale for distinguishing the term ‘Indus Civilization’ from the ‘Indus Valley Civilization’. The name ‘Indus Civilization’ was actually the title of the book on Mature Harappan Civilization (with its fully developed urban character), written by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and first published in 1953 when the dense concentration of Harappan sites along the Hakra-Ghaggar plains and in Gujarat was not appreciated yet. In fact, there is a contemporary view that the name of this civilization should be changed to ‘Indus-Sarasvati Civilization’ or something similar. This view is dismissed by Marxist historians in India as a Hindutva fantasy, but its logic is nevertheless accepted by apolitical, sober American scholars such as Jane McIntosh6 –

“…Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer – although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Sarswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be seen as an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied.”

Listing the civilizations contemporaneous with the Indus Civilization, Thapar remarks (page 26) –

“In the region now called Iraq, there was the Sumerian Civilization.”

The nomenclature is wrong, and needs to be corrected as follows - Mespotamia comprises two parts – the northern part called Assyria, and the southern called Babylonia. The latter itself is subdivided into a northern region called Akkad and the southern remainder known as Sumer. Babylonia is normally taken to mean the flood plain of Tigris and Euphrates.7 In other words, ‘in the region now called Iraq’, only one of the civilizations was Sumer.8

On the storage of surplus food in the Harappan Civilization, she writes (page 26) –

“More grain was grown that was actually eaten by the people in the villages. This extra or surplus grain was taken to the cities to feed the people of the towns and was stored in large granaries or buildings specially made for storing grain.”

Later, in page 27 as well, Thapar speculates the existence of the granary at Harappa. She remarks –

“In the citadel at Harappa, the most impressive buildings were the granaries.”

While Thapar devotes several sentences to a hypothetical description of how grain was transported in boats along the river, the identification of certain structures at Harappa, Lothal etc., as granaries is purely speculative and tentative.9

The chapter contains a few pointless statements, which would bore the reader by their flatness. For instance, in discussing the construction of Harappan homes, THAPAR [page 29] says –

“The roofs were flat. There were few windows but plenty of doors which were probably made of wood. The kitchen had a fire-place …..”

The monotonous discussion could have been made a lot more lively and memorable by relating it to modern housing patterns in India. As an example of this approach, let me cite an analogous passage describing Harappan houses10 –

“Despite the differences in size, the housing in the major Indus settlements was generally of a high standard, suggesting that even the least important individuals led a comfortable existence. There were many features that were common to all or most of the houses. Often, especially in the larger houses, a small janitor’s room faced directly on to the house doorway so that the visitor was first confronted and checked out by a doorkeeper. Once within the house, the visitor would turn immediately left or right into a passage that led into the courtyard, the center of the household, as it is in modern India.”

“A stair led from the courtyard to the upper part of the house – generally one and in some cases two upper stories. The stair probably continued upward to give access to the roof. Constructed of wooden beams covered by matting and plaster, the roof provided an additional space for the family to sit, talk, and sleep, as they do today….In some settlements, namely Kalibangan, Banawali and Lothal, the houses also included a room set apart as a domestic shrine, a feature also common in modern Indian homes, although such shrines have not been found at Mohenjo Daro.”

“Houses of any size at Mohenjo Daro would also have a private well, sturdily constructed of wedge-shaped baked bricks – those without a well of their own, however, were well served by the public water supply…Other cities were less generously provided with wells but also had an excellent drinking water supply in the form of reservoirs and cisterns. The area immediately inside the walls of the great settlement at Dholavira was taken up by enormous reservoirs that covered around a fifth of the enclosed area of the settlement. Water played an important – indeed a vital part in the life of the Indus people, and their management and use of the domestic and urban water supply were way ahead of those of any other civilization of their time. Not for another 2,000- odd years were hydraulic engineers of this caliber to reemerge, with the Romans in the Old World and Chavin in the New.”

“One of the most impressive rooms of the Indus house was the bathroom…Bathing would have followed the custom that still holds today, of pouring water over oneself with a small pot – but in some house-holds there was the refinement of a “shower”: a small stair along one side of the bathroom allowed another person to ascend and pour a steady stream of water over the bather. The bathroom floor, constructed of stone or sawn baked bricks, allowed the water to flow off into the efficient drainage system that served the city; via pottery drainpipes or drainage chutes..Wastewater was collected into small open drains in the lanes and from there flowed into the main drainage system. This ran along the main streets hygienically covered by bricks or stone slabs. At intervals there were inspection covers so that the free flow of the drains could be checked and maintained.”

Understandably, the description above might have been too long for a Std. VI textbook. Nevertheless, the repeated references to the similarity of the Harappan dwellings to modern Indian homes, and how the drainage system in the Harappan cities was well ahead of its times, makes the reading more interesting for students. On the other hand, Thapar’s book is replete with such dry passages which make for a tedious reading, and are difficult for the student to retain in his mind, or relate to his own immediate society and environment.

And on the fall of Harappan culture, she says [1966:40] –

“The Harappa culture lasted for about a thousand years. By 1500 B.C., when the Aryans began to arrive in India, the Harappa culture had collapsed. Why did this happen? The cities may have been destroyed by floods, which came regularly; or there may have been an epidemic or some terrible disease which killed the people. The climate also began to change and the region became more and more dry and like a desert. Or else the cities may have been attacked and were unable to defend themselves.”

The Aryan Migration Theory that Thapar alludes to is also contested. In fact, prominent archaeologists, anthropologists as well as Indologists now dismiss any large-scale migration of the ‘Aryans’ into India. Not only is the concept derived from nineteenth century theories of ‘races’, it is based on the assumption that languages spread only by migration of peoples speaking them, as Thapar seems to hold.11

There is no description of various Chalcolithic cultures in the interior of India before she jumps straight to the Aryans.

It is a real pity that Thapar did not revise her book between 1987 and 2000, because the chapter could have greatly benefited from the reports on excavations at several new Harappan sites within India (such as Kunal, Malvan, Surkotada, Dholavira etc.). A prominent omission is the fact that the greatest concentration of these sites is found along the Ghaggar-Hakra river basin, identified by most archaeologists and non-Marxist historians today with the Vedic Sarasvati. Moreover, there is hardly any attempt in this chapter to correlate features of the Harappan culture with the present Indian culture.

Chapter III: Life in the Vedic Age -
It would be interesting to read Romila Thapar’s presentation of the Vedic Aryans, in Chapter III, titled “Life in the Vedic Age”, since historiography of this era has become highly politicized in India.

The very first paragraph of the chapter in the 1966 edition gave misleading information –

“Aryans came from outside India, from north-eastern Iran and the region around the Caspian Sea. Those that came to India are called Indo-Aryans to distinguish them from the other Aryans who went to various parts of western Asia and Europe.” [THAPAR 1966:43].

Fortunately, this has been modified in the present edition (page 37) as –

“It was during this period that a people speaking an Indo-Aryan language (which is the basis of Vedic Sanskrit) emerged in north-western India. We do not know where they came from; perhaps they came from north-eastern Iran or the region near the Caspian Sea or Central Asia.”

The central idea, that there were migrations of Indo-Aryan speakers into India from the North West remains, despite the absence of evidence for any such migration around 1500 BCE. Thapar then discusses the fact that the concept of race as applied to Aryans has been called into question, and so on. However, the entire description of Vedic peoples in her chapter is nothing but a euphemistic version of the colonial-racist Aryan Invasion Theory, showing how the ‘Aryans’ subjugated the ‘indigenous Dasas and Dasyus’.12

Thapar continues (page 37)–

“They are called ‘Indo-Aryans’ to distinguish them from others who spoke various Aryan languages and went to western Asia and Europe.”

The statement is pointless, because the use of the word ‘Aryan’ to denote speakers of Indo-European tongues other than Indo-Aryan has been given up several decades ago. In fact, it is now held by scholars of historical linguistics that the ‘Indo-Iranians’ split into ‘Iranians’ and ‘Indo-Aryans’. Moreover, Thapar is completely wrong in asserting that there were no Indo-Aryans in Europe or in western Asia.13 Trubachev has recently written a book on the Indo-Aryans in Ukraine.14

As for Indo-Aryan in western Asia, certain words which clearly belong to some Indo-Aryan dialect, are attested in archaeology even before the chariot driving manual. Even with regard to the Hittite texts, it should be noted that although they were written between the 16th and the 14th centuries BCE by and large, it appears that some of them are copies of the originals that were written between 17th and 16th centuries BCE.15

Indo-Aryan names are also found in a tablet dating from the Agade dynastic period (2300 –2100 BCE). HARMATTA reconstructs two of the names in the table as ‘Arisen’ and as ‘Somasen’.16

Even R. S. SHARMA, another Marxist historian like herself, has accepted the presence of Indo-Aryans in western Asia in the third millennium BCE.17

Therefore, Thapar’s explanation of the term ‘Indo-Aryans’ is wrong.

Romila Thapar continues (page 38) –

“The Aryans at first settled in the Punjab. Gradually they moved south-eastwards into the region just north of Delhi. There used to be a river flowing nearby called Sarasvati but the water of this river has now dried up. Here they remained for many years, and here they prepared the collection of hymns known as the Veda. In the same region is the plain of Kurukshetra where, it is believed, the great battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas was fought. Sometime later, the Aryans moved still further eastwards into the Ganga valley, clearing the thick forests as they went along.”

The mention of Sarasvati as a river along whose banks the Aryans dwelt is very noteworthy. Currently, Thapar’s colleagues like Irfan Habib and R S Sharma brand anyone who mentions this river in north India as ‘Communal’, ‘Hindu fascist’ and ‘anti-Dravidian’!

Thapar equates the Painted Grey Ware Culture with the Vedic Age (page 38), and also adds (page 39)18 –

“Our knowledge of the Aryans is not based, as it is in the case of the Harappa people, mostly on digging up their habitation sites. We know about the Aryans from the hymns and the poems and stories which they composed and which were recited and passed on from generation to generation until they were finally written down. We call this “literary evidence,” and it provides the clues to their history. But recently digging in certain places such as Hastinapur and Atranji-Khera (in western Uttar Pradesh) has also supplied further information about their culture.”

It is clear that the association of Hastinapur and Atranji-Khera with the Aryans was apparently accepted by Thapar herself in 1960’s and right up to 1987 at least, on the basis of excavation reports by archaeologists like B. B. Lal. However, subsequent to the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, Thapar has taken a somersault and she spares no efforts to lampoon B. B. Lal for searching for Aryans in archaeological records. Ever since Lal has taken the stand that the Babri mosque did stand atop a pre-existing temple, the entire gang of ‘Secular’ historians has been maligning him to no avail. Thapar’s criticism of Lal should be seen in this context as a subtle, politically motivated attempt to link Lal with the so-called Upper Caste Hindu fantasies of being superior ‘Aryans’.19 In other words, considering that Thapar herself linked the PGW culture at Hastinapur and Atranji-Khera with the Aryans earlier, even in school textbooks, it is hypocritical and and dishonest on her part to criticize B. B. Lal now on that score.20

The sole reason for equating the PGW with late Aryans is the assumption that the late Vedic literature is contemporary with this ware, dated archaeologically in the first half of the first millennium BC. Archaeologists however find nothing particularly ‘Aryan’ about PGW. If PGW represents the Indo-Aryans then, according to accepted theories, similar or antecedent/precursor types of pottery should be located west of the Ganga-Yamuna region on the Iranian Plateau. But, B. K. THAPAR21 has noted the absence of any PGW antecedent types of pottery anywhere along the route supposedly taken by the Aryans, and he has outlined the chronological problems associated with accounts. Similarly, Dilip CHAKRABARTI points out22 that the traits of PGW indicates an eastern, rather than a western origin –

“The Painted Grey Ware culture, thus, with its traits of rice cultivation and the use of domestic pig and buffalo seems to suggest a culture distinctly eastern in bias and not a western one as its suggested Aryan authorship would indicate.”

Jim SHAFFER23 states some additional objections against relating PGW with late Aryans. According to Shireen RATNAGAR, it is even debatable if the PGW constitutes a ‘culture’.24

We see here how the failure to revise textbooks in a timely and regular manner has resulted in teaching of outdated theories to students.

Thapar obviously does not fail to mention that Vedic Aryans ate beef, even in her brief discussion on their foot habits (pp. 40-41)–

“The cow held pride of place among the animals because the Aryans were dependent on the produce of the cow. In fact, for special guests beef was served as a mark of honour (although in later centuries, brahmanas were forbidden to eat beef).”

The assertion that only Brahmins were forbidden to eat beef, and not other sections of the Indian society seems to be politically motivated, because it promotes anti-Brahminism, and would tend to discredit any modern day anti-cow-slaughter movements in India as ‘Brahminical’. Thapar has obviously not offered any proof that other sections of the Indian society, the Kshatriyas and Vaishyas for instance, were allowed to eat beef in ‘later centuries’.

And then, Thapar perpetuates this Aryan fantasy of their love for horses (Page 41) –

“The horse is an animal which was not native to India and was brought in by the Aryans from Iran and Central Asia. The horse was used largely for drawing chariots. Chariot racing was a favourite amusement. The chariot-maker was a respected member of the society.”

The notion that the horse was brought to India only by the Aryans has been controverted by archaeology. Remains of horses have been found in several Harappan sites and have been identified as such by competent zoologists at Kuntasi,25 Shikarpur,26 Malvan27 etc.

The statement that the chariot maker was a respectable member of the Vedic society is inaccurate, because by the later Vedic age, his ‘twice-born’ status was certainly brought into question. Clearly, Thapar has confounded the early Vedic Age (i.e., the time of Rigveda) with the later Vedic age.28

The assertion that chariot racing was a favorite amusement of the Aryans, is also questionable, despite the fact that many antiquated books mention it. In fact, the impression one gets on reading the mention of chariots in the Vedas is that it was reserved for gods, for the elites and for ritual and military purposes. Its use for recreational chariot races was rather rare.29

The author then proceeds to describe the Aryan invasion in a fully blown manner for impressionable young students (page 41)–

“The Aryans and the Dasyus – The Aryans, when they settled in various parts of north India, were hostile to the indigenous people whom they referred to as ‘Dasas’ and ‘Dasyus’. The Dasas and Dasyus did not worship the same gods as the Aryans and spoke a language which was different from Vedic Sanskrit. Some Dasa chiefs were treated with great respect, but many of the Dasa people were enslaved so that eventually the word ‘dasa’ came to mean slave. The Dasas who were enslaved had to do the most difficult and lowly work and were not treated kindly. But the Aryans also mixed with local people and married into local families. The word ‘Aryan’ came to refer to any person who was respected.”

In reality, the Vedic texts do not offer any evidence that the Aryans30 were migrants or invaders in India, nor do they suggest or state that the Dasas were indigenous Indians. Such an inference can be drawn only from the prior assumption of the Aryan Invasion Theory.

There is also no evidence that the Dasa were the native Indians who were enslaved, and forced to do all the menial work. The use of the word ‘slave’ to describe them in the Rigvedic context is most unfortunate, as it creates the impression the economy in the Vedic Age was based on production by enslaved people. Rather, at best, the impression one gets from the Vedic texts is one of dasas being domestic servants. Many Indologists also equate Dasas with earlier Indo-Aryan migrants in India and Iran, or with the old Iranians.

The statement that the Dasas spoke a language that was different from the Vedic Aryans, is also based on tendentious and erroneous interpretations of Rigveda.31

Thapar’s description is therefore crude and draws too much on antiquated colonial-racist theories.

It would be interesting to reproduce here the parallel passages of the earlier edition of her book -

“The Aryans and the Dasyus When the Aryans first arrived in India, they had to fight for land with the people already living in India. These people were called the Dasyus or Dasas. The Aryans were fair-skinned and the Dasyus are described as being dark-skinned with flat noses. The Dasyus did not worship the same gods as the Aryans. They spoke a language which the Aryans did not understand, because the latter spoke Sanskrit. The Aryans who fought and defeated the Dasyus did not treat them kindly and enslaved many of them. The Dasyus had to work for the Aryans and were made to do the most difficult and lowly work. The Aryans made it a rule that no Aryan could marry a Dasyu.” [THAPAR 1966:48].

The differences between the two versions are too obvious to be repeated here.

According to this older edition of the textbook, the Aryans even practiced apartheid –

“Society The Aryans and the Dasyus lived in separate parts of the same village and in the beginning they were not allowed to mix with one another. The Aryans were also divided amongst themselves into three classes. The most powerful people were the king and his warriors who were also called kshatriyas. Equally important were the priests or brahmans; and then came the craftsmen and cultivators or vaishyas. There was in addition a fourth group called the shudras. This consisted of Dasyus and those Aryans who had mixed with the Dasyus and married Dasyus; so they were looked down upon…” [THAPAR 1966:48].

In the current edition, the last sentence is presented in the following edited version (page 42) –

“This consisted of Dasyus and those Aryans who were looked down upon”.

Although this version is more correct, it still relies on the twin equations of ‘Aryans = foreigners’ and ‘Dasyus = indigenous Indians’.32

Every possible opportunity is availed of by Thapar to ridicule or mock Vedic learning. For instance, she picks up 1 out of more than 1000 hymns in Rigveda, and then misinterprets it (page 42)–

“…Young boys stayed with the priests who taught them how to recite the hymns of the Vedas. There is an amusing description of the pupils in one of the hymns. It is said that the pupils repeating the lesson after the teacher sound like frogs croaking before the coming of the rains.”

The view that Rigveda VII.103, alluded to by Thapar above, is somehow ‘amusing’ is refuted by current scholarship, which sees a fairly serious rain-charm here.33 In fact, no derision of Veda reciting Brahmins is implied in this hymn at all.34

It is unfortunate that as a specialist in ancient Indian history, Thapar is ignorant of the language of the original texts (such as the Vedas) or even of significant secondary literature on them.

The description of the Vedic religion is quite reductionist (page 43-44) and might well have been taken from a Christian Missionary propaganda booklet. There is no attempt to related Vedic religion with modern Hindu religious practices, an omission which contributes to dullness of reading the chapter.

Chapter IV- India: From 600 B.C. to 400 B.C. -
The fourth chapter deals with the rise of the Kingdom of Magadha. Unfortunately, here also we see no description of culture and civilization in Peninsular India and the focus is still the Ganga valley.

Contrasting Vedic religion with Buddhism and Jainism, Thapar (page 57) says –

“Buddhism and Jainism had followers among the craftsmen, traders, peasants and untouchables, because they felt that these religions were not difficult to practice. The brahmans on the other hand had made their religion difficult to practice because of the many ceremonies and rituals…..”

The statement has a subtle bias against the Brahmin community. It could have been ignored as a statement of a historical fact, but alarmingly, the subtle bias appears so often in the text that the student can scarcely miss her emphasis on the Brahminical hegemony. Thus, the Brahmins are mentioned as recorders of laws that promoted casteism and discrimination against lower castes (page 53), they bestowed divine right to rule upon kings only if they submitted to Brahminical ceremonies (page 50), their influence was great because they were king’s advisors and without them the king could not rule (page 50), the king collected taxes for various reasons among with the support of Brahmins is mentioned (page 50), as priests they became messengers between gods and men, and ‘so were naturally powerful’ (page 43), the Brahmins became more important than other castes, and the kshatriyas in particular, by ‘making religion very important’ (page 42), only the Brahmins were forbidden to eat beef in later ages (pages 40-41) and so on.35

It is surprising that there is hardly any worthwhile discussion of Upanishadic doctrines in the book although much space is devoted to Jainism and Buddhism. One would expect that after frequent criticisms of Vedic ritual in subtle and not so subtle ways in her textbook,36 Thapar would have dwelt upon the advantages or the positive aspects of Upanishadic thought. However, any positive presentation of any aspect of Hinduism and Hindu spirituality as such has no place in Indian ‘secularism’, and therefore the omission is not surprising.

Chapter V – The Mauryan Empire:

While discussing the Ashokan edicts, a subtle bias is created in the minds of students by stating that while Prakrit was spoken by the common people, whereas Sanskrit was spoken by the educated upper classes (page 62) where there is actually no need to say so. Thapar’s own ideological and political slant becomes obvious when one notices how she fails to mention that the Buddhists and Jains themselves composed their texts in Sanskrit in later times, even when she could have done so later in Chapter VI.

Rather, in Chapter VIII of the textbook, Thapar does not fail to mention that -

“The Vedic religious texts were in Sanskrit which only the priests and the few who were educated could understand…..Writers such as Dandin wrote in Sanskrit, since they were writing for the court circles and the upper castes.” (page 114)

She never asks how many Buddhists and Jains continued to understand Pali and Prakrit in later centuries, or how many Muslims in India understood Arabic, the language of Koran. This constant linkage of Sanskrit with ‘upper castes’ and ‘Brahmins’ is designed to create hatred against the beautiful language in the impressionable minds of students.

The lengthy description of the rule and policies of Ashoka is inspiring. After all, he along with Emperor Akbar, are the two greatest royal heroes of the ‘secular’ historians. No Hindu ruler even comes close to them in greatness.

Chapter VI: India from 200 B.C. to A.D. 300 –

The chapter has a misleading statement towards its beginning (page 71)–

“India, South of the Vindhya mountain and the Narmada river was known in ancient times as Daksinapatha; now it is called the Deccan. South of the Deccan is the land of the Dravidian speaking people.”

The statement is false because there are crores of speakers of Dravidian languages (Kannanda and Telugu) even on the Deccan plateau. Anyway, it is still an improvement over what she wrote in the first edition, where she seemed to subscribe to the Aryan-Dravidian binary with regard to Indian culture and population. For instance, she said [THAPAR 1966:83] –

“India south of the Vindhya mountains and the Narmada river was known in ancient times as Dakshinapatha; now it is called the Deccan. South of the Deccan is the land of the Dravids or Tamils. Form ancient times these lands were the homes of Indian peoples of non-Aryan origins….”

On page 78, she makes an anachronistic statement –

“The southeast region came to be the land of the Tamils, because Tamil was the language spoken there”.

In reality, Tamil and Malayalam did not become two separate languages till the end of the first millennium A.D., so that even the southwest region was very well a part of the ‘land of Tamils’ in the period of time under discussion.

On page 83, Thapar unnecessarily pays credence to the legend that Christianity arrived in India in the first century A.D. As a historian, she should have been a little more skeptical because competent scholars reject this legend and place the arrival of Christianity into India at least 3 centuries later. Apparently, excessive skepticism must be practiced by secular historians when Hinduism is discussed, but the standards can be relaxed a little for other faiths.

Chapter 7: The Age of the Guptas -

The 1966 edition of the textbook mentioned that the Gupta period has been referred to sometimes as the “Golden Age” because this period saw great achievements of Indian culture [1966:101]. The present edition however omits the phrase, consistent with Marxist historiography of D. D. Kosambi, D. N. Jha and other Marxist historians who find all kinds of pedantic reasons for downgrading the evaluation of this period, and reject the term ‘Golden Age’.

Unlike Jha, Thapar does not discuss in detail why the period should not be termed as the ‘Golden Age’, since this very phrase is missing in the text. Rather, she summarizes some of the reasons against this nomenclature (page 103, last para) that are found in Jha’s books on ancient India.37 An obvious but unstated reason that prevents Thapar et al from labeling the Gupta Age as the Golden Age is their phobia of Hindu pride and Hindu Nationalism. These historians think that they could promote Hindu fundamentalism in India even by remotely alluding to the greatness and glory of any period of Indian history that could be linked with Hinduism.

Nor surprisingly, Thapar now includes the following ‘disclaimer’ type statement in her textbook, a statement that was absent in the first edition of the book38 -

“In the Gupta period, Hinduism became a powerful religion. The word ‘Hindu’ was however not used until a later time by the Arabs when they referred to the people of Hind, i.e., India. The Hindus were worshippers of Shiva, Shakti and Vishnu. Since the worship of Shiva and Vishnu became very popular at this time, we refer to it as Hinduism even during the Gupta period.”

Thapar is wrong in sating that the word ‘Hindu’ was used first by Arabs. It was first used by the Persians, and is used to refer to people of India in the inscriptions of the Persian Emperor Darius I as early as 6th century B.C.E.39 Cognates of ‘Hindu’ and ‘India’ also occur in Chinese and Greek writings several centuries before Arabs used the words.

One wonders why Thapar is so extra- cautious here to point out the anachronistic usage of the word ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ by her, when her entire textbook is so full of such anachronistic terms? Was the ‘Kashmir valley’ termed as such in prehistoric times (pg. 12)? Did ‘India’ exist as an entity (religious, cultural or political) in pre-Harappan times (pg. 13)? Is there any evidence for the existence of ‘Jainism’ and ‘Buddhism’ before 400 B.C. (chapter 4) more than there is evidence for the existence of ‘Hinduism’ in the Gupta Age? Did the Kushanas arrive from the ‘Chinese Turkestan’ (pg. 85)40 in the first century A.D.? Did Zoroaster really preach ‘Zoroastrianism’ (pg. 111) in ‘Iran’, ‘sometime before 600 B.C., as the textbook claims?

My point is that the ancient past is necessarily described with the help of modern terms and names, and this is obviously the case with Thapar’s textbook also. However, the selective manner in which Thapar makes a special case of the late nature of the word ‘Hinduism’ clearly indicates that she wishes to indoctrinate the Hindu students that their faith is not as old as they believe it to be and that their religion as such did not exist as such before the Gupta Age.

It is really amusing to see how Thapar and other Marxist historians first accept the hegemony of Protestant Christian terminology in defining religious ‘isms’ and then proceed to declare that the religion ‘Hinduism’ did not exist till recent centuries. From an orthodox Hindu perspective, one could assert even today that the Semitic religions are nothing more than ‘panthas’ or sects in relation to Sanatana Dharma. So why impose Western and Eurocentric concepts on Indian students? One could argue that the very category ‘religion’ is inappropriate to describe the sacred traditions of India and China, just as the category ‘dharma’ may not apply to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Chapter VIII: The Age of Smaller Kingdoms –
Thapar states (page 111) that Zoroaster preached sometime before 600 B.C., a date that is clearly rejected by most Indologists and Iranists. Most now settle for 900 BCE or even a few centuries earlier.

Chapter IX: India and the World -
The 9th chapter, which is the last one in the book, has a 3 page long section on Islam which summarizes the historical evolution of the religion as well as its religious tenets. This was totally unnecessary as it does not have much of a bearing on ancient Indian history. It will be noted that while long sections in the book have been devoted to Buddhism, Jainism and Islam, the references to Hinduism are perfunctory or incidental. There is absolutely no meaningful description of doctrines of the Upanishads, the Gita, the Darshanas, or of the rise of Vedanta. There is not even a mention of Adi-Shankaracharya, who lived in the period covered by the text. Or even a brief summary of the contents of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, except a statement that they are records of battles between Aryan chieftains41 and that they were redacted in the Gupta period.

Thapar presents the advent of Islam to Indiar singularly as an enriching experiencing. The destruction brought by Islamic armies is totally blacked out. In fact, the advent of Islam to India is balanced with the advent of Buddhism/Hinduism in South East Asia in the following words (page 125) –

“The Arabs not only introduced Islam but also a number of new cultural influences to India, which were to grow and develop in later centuries. Thus, on one side, India was exporting its culture and, on the other side, it was importing a new culture.”

Need I even comment on this false equation?

Closing Remarks –

I would like to end this review with the confession that as a sixth grade student in 1981-82, I too read an earlier version of the textbook at school, because it was mandatory reading. I was a good student, and have a clear recollection that I had found the text boring, verbose, tedious and also difficult to relate to my surroundings. There was practically nothing in the text that enthused me to study more on the subject. The story in the text was quite detached, dispassionate to the extent that it was dejecting, and demotivating. The prose was stilted, and dense. There was just too much material that a student of Std. VI could grasp and retain. When I read the textbook as a much mature person today, I can articulate my impressions much better, and add a critique of the text as well.

When the two editions (1966 and 1987/2000) of the textbook are compared, as I have done here in a partial manner, one is simply amazed to see how similar they are, as if NCERT history is more sanatana than Hinduism. The instances of errors (not all of which are listed in this review) are more in the first edition, but a considerable number continued to exist in the 1987 edition that continued to be used at least till 2000.

The textbooks have a very subtle slant against Brahmins, Hinduism, Sanskrit, Vedas and Hindu Philosophy and religion as such. The bias, which is certainly related to the author’s Marxist affiliations, appears in the form of

A selective overemphasis of certain aspects of ancient India (such as Brahminical hegemony, or the elitist status of Sanskrit),
Misrepresentation of certain facts or blatant errors (notably in the treatment of Vedic Aryans), suppression of inconvenient facts (such as the devastation brought by Islamic armies),
A one sided presentation (such as excessive dwelling on the negative aspects alone of Vedic ritual)
A lack of discussion on aspects of Hinduism (such as Upanishadic philosophy, or the themes of Ramayana and Mahabharata), other than the sectarian worship of Vishnu and Shiva.42

There is no significant attempt in the textbook to relate India’s past with our present. The illustrations in the book are too few, to begin with. They are not chosen judiciously (some instances are pointed out by me in notes on earlier chapters) and are often not referred to directly in the text as such.

These remarks of mine should be considered in the context of the recent controversy over the recall of the old NCERT history textbooks by the NDA government, and their replacement by texts written by a different set of authors. Naturally, the particular set of historians (Thapar, Satish Chandra, Bipin Chandra etc.) whose hegemony lasting over than 3 decades has been terminated thereby, are quite upset and have launched a secular Jihad against the Government of India. In this political controversy however, an important question that needs to be considered is this – “How are the new textbooks?”

As soon as the new textbooks were released by the NCERT, the old authors predictably went on an error finding spree and a media blitzkrieg with the help of their younger Marxist cohorts like D. N. Jha and K. Shrimali, and Communist institutions like SAHMAT. They did manage to find a few errors. Unfortunately for them, the NCERT Director Mr. J. S. Rajput promptly offered to correct them.43 As I have noted in review above, Thapar’s book has not been free of errors either. In fact, many errors continued to occur all through 34 years (1966-2000). So, we must ask the students how the new textbooks fare, with regard to readability, presentation of the material, the volume of facts presented and so on. In this regard, I will merely reproduce an assessment of the new textbooks that appeared on the Internet soon after they were released –

Friends,

I borrowed from a friend of mine, two of the new textbooks released by NCERT - "India and the World," Social Sciences Textbook for Class VI and "Contemporary India" for class IX The best part is that I didn't fall asleep while browsing through them! (which was the distinguishing feature of many of the works of our eminent historians).

Thanks mainly to the lively and copious illustrations throughout the books and the straightforward and simple manner in which concepts have been explained.

Glancing through them it will not be difficult to understand why there is such a hue and cry about these new textbooks. Many are busy right now picking as many errors as they can from these textbooks (see for example the recent article in Hindustan Times). There are errors of course, I myself found two significant errors. But who has written a book without having to make a list of errata later?

I am confident that students will welcome these books whole-heartedly, provided our politicians and eminent historians stop sitting over them.

I will leave it to the reader to read the new textbooks, compare them with the old ones, and form his own independent opinion.

Romila Thapar ‘revised’ the textbook assigned to her in 1987 with only a few minor, primarily cosmetic44 changes to the 1966 edition.45 This ‘revised’ textbook, already outdated in 1987, was then allowed to continue in thousands of schools without any further revision for at least 14 more years, till the year 2001.

The task of imparting quality education to intermediate school children is a very important building block in the creation of any progressive nation. It is a very important responsibility vested with the authors of these study materials. Textbooks should be revised and updated periodically and regularly, at least once every five years. The revisions should be guided by advances in the field of study concerned, not by one’s political affiliations. The fact that Romila Thapar has failed to revise textbooks authored by her in a timely fashion,46 and has continued to brainwash generations of impressionable school students with slanted versions of history is a serious dereliction of duty. Writing textbooks for school children in one’s country is a privilege, a privilege that Thapar has abused severely to promote her own political agendas, and to indulge in a subtle hate-mongering against Hindus and their faith.

One hopes therefore, that at the present political dispensation will take the task of educating Indian school- children more seriously, and the new authors will revise their own textbooks more frequently, and keep them free of ideological slants and political propaganda.

Tronic · 01-30-2007, 01:39 AM

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Originally Posted by Archer

Tronic, it is the Left intelligentsia which has ensured the survival of the caste system...they see everything in terms of oppressed castes rebelling against the Bourgeoisie upper class...so the latter have to be supported in their "fight", which means the caste system will endure..

yeh, can't argue with that... Castism survives on due to the lefty parties... agreed...

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I agree..but this is a difference of perception. See when the average hindu talks of hindu-sikh ties, he feels proud and is reiterating the latter to be "related" to him and hence a positive thing. Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that it appears to dilute the religious identity of those who are accosted in this manner...for instance jains also have the same issues you raised, and some object to being called hindus...others say what the heck and ignore it. I really dont claim to be an expert on the RSS, but when they keep pointing to sikhism and reinforcing these ties, I dont think they mean to portray sikhism as hinduism, its more of a locally born religion with ties to hinduism thing which is a big deal for them, if you recall they made a big deal out of/took offense to some texts calling the sikh gurus brigands even before it became a political issue...well, it varies from person to person, but if sikhs were to (say) come up with such ties with hinduism, i would take it in stride and be ok with it..nothing really sinister about it. As long as one is not asked to renounce your religion and convert, I think this much give and take is reasonable and we can take it in stride. After all, I would be honored to go to a langar and/or read the guru granth sahib, or listen to someone state how hindus and sikhs are tied together, and how punjabi families had the elder son as a sikh, whilst the rest were hindu...I know many sindhi hindus who worship / respect the sikh gurus, but are hindus ...so it is indeed true that sikhism and hinduism - depending upon region to region, and community to community, have strong ties of interrelationship..

Yaar, it is not about Hindu-Sikh ties, everyone knows they already exist... infact, more Hindus visit the Golden Temple everyday then Sikhs... no one questions Hindu-Sikh ties, these are common knowledge... but the RSS is crossing limits... now the RSS has a seperate branch in Punjab known as Rashtriya Sikh Sangat; and are actively propagating propaganda against other religious groups like Christians and especially Muslims... and the RSS does not recognize Sikhism as a seperate religion/identity; their official stance is that Sikhism is merely a component of Hinduism... the main goal of the RSS is basically to brainwash Punjab's youth and use them for their own dirty political deeds... no different then how the Khalistanis brainwashed Punjab's youth in the late 70s and early 80s... RSS simply wants to grow in power, and are mis-using Sikhism as a tool to expand their power in Punjab... resentment against the RSS runs strong here, and I just fear that the RSS will cause some deep problems in the future... Sikh chauvinist organisations are already threatening to use violence if RSS keeps up their antics; and trust me dude, this time, those organizations will get plenty of support from Punjab's population, in contrast to what the Khalistanis got... its like what you said earlier, when pressures like this build up, they result in rioting to relieve that pressure, now I just prey it does not come to that, but that is the path the RSS is treading right now... Sikhs are proud to have a special identity, infact, the major pinacle of early Sikhism, was that it was neither Hindu nor Islam, it was a seperate religion created primarily for the purpose to end Hindu-Muslim enemity, and build peace in India... this Sikh identity grew even more during Guru Gobind Singh's reign, when tens of thousands of Sikhs went to their deaths smiling, against the Mughals, simply to preserve their identity ... and that is why the RSS is crossing the line when it rejects the identity of Sikhism...

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Conversion is another thing altogether, and becomes contentious- this is what evangelicals and zakir naik types dont understand, they cannot take the diversity of faiths thing and religious tolerance...

Zakir Naik types are an evil upon this world which we must fight, or else they will and have already spread their evil ideology like a cancer... truly the Devil's messengers... they all need to be assasinated...

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I may go to a church and pray, or even visit a mosque with my muslim friends, but would be somewhat offended - if they were to take it as proof of their religion being better than mine, and then try to make me renounce my religion and convert to theirs..

Yeah, true, it happens, all I can say is those people are loosers... I have known people who act like that....

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Again, why are the Mughals or the Sultanates the "Indian muslim"? The Indian Muslim should be the Ibrahim Gardi and the Hakim Khan Suri and or the Idris Hassan Latif or the Abdul Kalam..

Well, true... and that is why 'Mughals' and Sultanates' are prime terms to use... but once the word 'Muslims' is used instead of Mughals, and in a sentence, 'Muslim atrocities against India' rather then 'Mughal atrocities against India', muslims in general will obviously become the evil aliens... If I as a Sikh can see that, I am sure, muslims would not be lacking the feeling...

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By ignoring what Islamists did in the name of Islam, we are ignoring the need for religious reform and to take the wind out of the Islamists sails..nobody will then quote approvingly of the kind of Sultanates approvingly, or let Islamist rhetoric slide.

And I think that this is where you are dead wrong... no one can conduct those reforms or take the wind out of the radical Islamists sails but Muslims themselves... just like, no one could've took the wind out of Sikh extremism then Sikhs themselves... same holds true for muslims... I will tell you this, that although most Sikhs in Punjab despise the Khalistanis, their are also strong feelings of resentment about what the Sikhs suffered during the Delhi riots... if there is one issue, then that is the issue where most Sikhs; extremists and moderates alike; unite on the idea that the Sikhs during the anti-Sikh riots have still not got justice!!! it goes to show, that outsiders should not interfere in another's internal problems... the Muslims have to sort themselves out, if they have the strenght to or not, is entirely upto them... the moment they see outsiders interfering, they will infact grow the tendency to unite, the moderates and extremists, rather then fight off against one another and finish the extremists off...

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Lastly, I dunno about Punjab state board, but NCERT texts and state board texts in three northern states were definitely marxist lite in terms of agit-prop.

I don't know about certain state texts, but I have studied from NCERT texts also... I don't think they were commie biased.... maybe it depends on state boards... Karnataka and WB had commie governments so those two states probably have lefty books.... although, they must be applauded for what they did with the literacy rate which if i'm not wrong is around 99% in those states?

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Again, you misunderstand how coalition govts work...if the leftists "give" you the economy, you have to defer to them on "culture", end result is manufactured history and casteism persists...its a sad state of affairs..

I agree with you on castism... though, I myself believe that as long as the economy is fully capitalist, then I wouldn't mind commies taking a poke at all religions... remember all the good things, forget all the bad things... sure, why not?

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Then draw a line in the sand and show that the "True muslims" were those who sought integration and didnt wage religious war...there is always a way to present the most unpalatable facts in a somewhat correct manner, but negating the fact itself is a very dangerous thing..

Mughals commited atrocities against India, and the Mughals happened to be Muslim rulers... that, you can call a fact....

Muslims commited atrocities against India... not entirely true...

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...elephant in the room is an idiom. it means a topic which nobody wants to discuss...in this case, the elephant in the room is the issue of islamic record in the subcontinent, which should be discussed - in a mature manner- so as to learn the proper lessons from it, and prevent it from being "hidden", till it erupts in riots and untold grievances..the other use of the idiom is to refer to the untold fear of offending the everyday muslim...an assumption which leads Govt after Govt to mollycoddle the AIMPLB, the deoband, the shahabuddins- basically the hardline islamists, the very people who are making the IM community fanatic, and should be sidelined...but out of fear for their reaction, and the obsessive fear that by merely discussing the record of islamists, we will be offending every muslim, we are merely pandering to the hardliners who live on this fear!

Again, I do not see the point in making everything Islamic atrocities and such... this just gives states like Kashmir more reason to pull away with the reason; "see, we never got along in the past, and seems like you're still quite upset about past events; so why should we not go our seperate ways?"

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..the key is to replace caste with economic backwardness...if applied uniformly, it will be a non discriminatory move, but some amount of political backlash will be there...after all, who wants to give up freebies!

Very true... financial status should determine poor, not caste...

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tronic, sikhism is an exception, guess why? because you maintain oral and written records of the period which are protected as religious scripture - unfortunately, now imagine what would happen if i decided, for the sake of communal harmony, that the martyrdom of the gurus, ahad to be stricken from the record, without asking you? since it would make the sikhs "angry" against the muslims and the muslims would be offended! now see whats happened- in contrast, the hindus & other communities have not maintained such unified records and a strong sense of oral and written history has been dismissed as communal because of the reasons discussed before! see the difference? who made these choices for the rest of india?

No, not true... the Gurus obtained martydom fighting against the Mughals, the war was not against Muslims... infact, even the Guru Granth Sahib talks about several Muslims fighting alongside the Gurus against the Mughals... That is contrary to the Muslim vs. non-Muslim fight which you are saying should be the main theme...

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secondly, the differences in terms of classes- are not borne out by actual events...in riots, everyone participates. in fact, the lower classes are the ones who get hurt the most, are the most violent. the difference is that muslims in india are already in the lower most strata - as mentioned, at partition, the rich and middle class emigrated to pak, and hence they area valid target for islamists and the mullah. so the state must intervene and ensure the tablighi jamaat and others are kept out, come what may...every quasi secular muslim state maintains a close watch over the mullahs...but india doesnt!

Yes, Mullahs have to be checked, and social uplifting of Muslims will only benefit India...

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the thing is that the religious parties wouldntexist but for the commies...just consider...till the 90's, was the BJP even a national force? would the akalis be as powerful unless the congress was not historically weak in the punjab? these are issues which have always raised a head- every reaction has a counter reaction, and unfortunately, the issue of minority pandering (in terms of IMs) became an electoral issue which the BJP was able to exploit...and the congress bears good responsibility for its votebank politics- in UP / cowbelt, the Congress defined the term and invented the method...as far back as the 80's in the north, i remember congress corporators going around assiduously picking up minority criminals...n effect screwing the muslim community over themselves...

Ok, agreed, but that does not make religious parties alright... we should be trying to hit the centre balance....

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...which is exactly my point, the whole bloody education issue is political. the class warfare stuff when i had it dripped left politics. even today, two state board texts in the north are full f the stuff...my point is that if we make sure that (say) BJP idealogues dont write the texts, neither should the marxists!

yeah, true... but it will take a while to reverse 50+ years of the Soviet shadow... I think Pakistan is similar except that they have been Islamicized for 50+ years where we have been Socialized... and both cannot change overnight... but what must be considered is that just to reverse on the socialist policies, we shouldn't forget about the religious extremists and end up turning like Pakistan... sure, the socialists must be backtracked, but we should at the same time be making sure that Religious extremists are not making pathways to replace the Socialists...

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01-29-2007, 23:21 PM	#92 (permalink)
Archer *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 10-13-03 Posts: 2,888	This is Kautilya's view on fortifications: Project South Asia