Category india

Anil Seal: ‘Congress high command demanded Partition, not Jinnah’ – Udit Hinduja

VOI

Dr. Anil Seal

“If you did not have Partition, you would have to give the Muslim-majority provinces a degree of provincial autonomy.” – Dr. Anil Seal.

In a tightly packed conference room at the India International Center, the blame for India’s Partition in 1947 was placed firmly in the hands of the Indian National Congress.

“It was Congress who said they wanted Partition,” said Anil Seal, founder of the Cambridge School of Indian History, at a speaker session Between the Crown & Congress: Rethinking the Politics of Late Colonial India on 24 February, co-hosted by Caucus: The Discussion Forum, Hindu College. “Why? If you did not have Partition, you would have to give the Muslim-majority provinces a degree of provincial autonomy.”

The silence in the room was palpable after Seal’s declaration. He was met with stares and frowns from the audience, some of whom asked whether Muhammad Ali Jinnah was at least partly to blame.  

Holding court at the centre of a long table, Seal started off with a solemn, passionate speech on the cruel rise of imperialism in India, before transitioning to the national movements that were inherited from it. 

“Every country has to have an enemy,” said Seal. “Jinnah didn’t even know the Quran. I remember as a child, him coming to our house saying he had a bad day and needed a glass of whiskey.” 

Imperialism and politics

Anil Seal, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, initially downplayed the impact of imperialism before proceeding to analyse its mechanisms.

He claimed there was one thing in common between the apologists and critics of imperialism—they both exaggerate its omnipotence. 

“Imperialism’s power to do bad, we’ve all heard about. Steal, rob, loot, rape—yes,” said Seal. “But to fundamentally reshape society—no.”  

He went on to explain how the British Empire, formed for “profit, power and prestige”, thrived in India. 

“The rule or dominance of the alien few over the indigenous many depends on the collaboration with people in whose interests it is to work with the British Raj,” said Seal. 

He was referring to princely states, prominent businessmen and landowners of the time, who decided to align with the British for their self-interest. 

Even neutrality, the keeping quiet of the many, helped solidify Britain’s chokehold on the Indian subcontinent.   

“If all of you, during the freedom movement, stood together and I said “spit”, you could have drowned the 3,000 British ruling India in a sea of phlegm,” said Seal, soliciting laughs from the audience. 

“There are more British running Cambridge University’s student body of 12,000 today than those governing colonial India in the 1900s,” he said, underscoring this point. 

Hindu College students, many of whom were Indian Administrative Services (IAS) aspirants, furiously took down notes as Seal expounded on just how the British maintained the neutrality of India’s population. 

First, they kept places localised and unconnected. “They didn’t rock the boat,” said Seal. “They left people sitting on their own thrones, whipping their own dogs.” 

And finally, to extract power and profit, the British could not govern a hundred different localities. Instead, they strengthened the chain of command from the district level, through provinces all the way back to their homeland. 

“That is why the British built all these roads, railways and telegraphs. Not for the benefit of the people, but to strengthen the centralised state,” said Seal,  emphatically slapping the table to drive home his point. 

Partition propaganda 

The British Empire’s decline, spread over nearly half a century, was caused by both international forces and internal pressure. 

During this time, pushback from national movements picked up, and India’s political movement employed a dual strategy, according to Seal.

“Agitation and constitutionalism are often put as choices. But they were two tactical sides to the same coin,” he said, before adding that non-cooperation, civil disobedience and the “Quit India” movement were not opposing forces to constitutional politics.

However, according to Seal, Indian politics until Independence and even after, have not been mass movements.

“The idea that Britain was driven out of India by mass movements is wrong,” he commented. “We are still waiting for a mass movement that energises the base of the pyramid.”

His focus shifted briefly to contemporary India, where he commented that even the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and INDIA are a khichdi (mixture) of many different elements. To him, the broader an alliance’s base, the weaker its ideology becomes.

But it was the big question of the night—who was responsible for the Partition—that elicited an emotional response from Seal. He questioned whether the horrors, bloodshed, loss of lives and property could have been avoided.

“I am going against all the present things you are fed in films, propaganda,” said Seal. He also joked with the audience that they all may have to accompany him to jail for being “anti-national”.

“It was not what Jinnah had spent his life fighting for,” said Seal, absolving Jinnah of responsibility for the Partition. “It wasn’t even the Brits in the end game.”

According to him, Britain was bankrupt at this time. “Mountbatten was ready to lay anything on the table, including his wife, to get out of India quickly.”

It was the Congress high command who demanded Partition, afraid of the power from Muslim-dominated states that would challenge the central government, he insisted.

“The great prize for which every nationalist movement has been fighting is to inherit the one real legacy of imperial rule—the mechanism of a centralised state,” said Seal, arguing that this is what the Congress wanted, and what the BJP is striving for today.

He said it suits India’s political and national narrative to blame the Partition on Jinnah, which has fueled animosity toward Pakistan to this day.

“Change it. Challenge it. Look at the truth”, said Seal. – The Print, 3 March 2025

› Udit Hinduja is a journalist in New Delhi.

Nehru, Mountbatten, and Jinnah sign deed of Partition of India in 1947.

Shiva lingams are not phallic symbols – Nanditha Krishna

VOI

Shiva lingams found in Harappa.

From being a small aniconic object that transcended popular representations of the divine, the lingam’s depiction has grown—but not as a phallic object, as described by Western Indologists. – Dr. Nanditha Krishna

Among the several domed conical stones found along the Indus Valley, two objects stand out—a small tapered cone seated on a round base and a dome-shaped cylinder on a flat base with a protrusion on one side. From being a small aniconic object that transcended popular representations of the divine as a superman, the lingam’s depiction has grown—but not as a phallic object, as described by Western Indologists. These depictions included simple cylindrical objects or pillars with carvings of Shiva’s face. It’s a Harappan legacy bequeathed to the Indian civilisation. The Rig Veda does not mention the lingam or even Shiva.

Lingam means sign or symbol—an abstract representation of Shiva. It’s fitted into the disc-shaped base called yoni, which means the source or womb. Together, the lingam and yoni represent the eternal process of creation and resurgence.

The Shwetashvatara Upanishad calls the lingam a symbol that establishes the existence of Brahman, one beyond any characteristics. The Linga Purana adds, “Shiva is without a symbol, without colour, taste or smell, beyond word or touch, without quality—motionless and changeless.”

As for the legend of their providence, there are four kinds: swayambhu (self-manifested), deivika (created by gods), arsha (created by rishis) and manusha (man-made). Among the swayambhu lingams are the frozen ice lingam at Amarnath and the naturally-formed rock lingam at Kedarnath. Even some triangular mountaintops are called Shiva lingam.

They are also classified by the material used or carvings. A mukha lingam generally has one, four or five faces, at times eight or more too. It’s sometimes carved with images of Shiva or of other deities. From the second century CE onwards, several lingams have been found in Mathura, with Shiva in the front or as one to the four faces around the pillar.

In Cambodia, there is a chaturmukha lingam with Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Buddha carved on the four sides. A famous panchamukha lingam in the Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal is six feet high and is five-faced: four facing the four cardinal directions and the fifth looking upwards. In the Buddhist Vajrayana Swayambhunath Temple not far from Pashupatinath, several four-faced lingams are carved with Buddhist deities on each side. So the multi-faced lingam does not represent a phallus.

The panchabhuta lingams represent the five elements of earth, water, air, fire and space. Sita is said to have made the sand lingam in Rameshwaram that’s still worshipped. There are several temples where Shiva appeared as a column of fire or jyotir lingam. Out of the original 64, 12 remain around India.

The earth lingam of Ekambareshwarar Temple in Kanchipuram is also made of sand and is bathed in oil, as water could dissolve it. The water lingam of Thiruvanaikaval in Tiruchirappalli sits on a perennial stream. The Arunachaleshwara of Tiruvannamalai sits on igneous rock, representing fire. The air lingam of Sri Kalahasti represents the wind: the flames inside flicker even when the airless garbhagriha is locked. Finally, the akasha lingam of Chidambaram is represented by empty space, his formless representation. None of these are phallic.

The earliest phallic lingam comes from the Parashurameshvara Temple at Gudimallam in Andhra Pradesh. Shiva stands before it, holding a goat in his right hand and a water pot and battle-axe in his left, on the shoulders of a gana. This lingam was probably originally situated beneath a tree. It has been dated to the 2nd century BCE, but its high degree of polish is typical of Mauryan art. The Gudimallam Shiva is probably the only surviving south Indian icon of the Mauryan period. He is a hunter, a popular form of the deity.

Hunter Kannappa Nayanar plucked out his eyes to offer them to the lingam at Sri Kalahasti, 40 km from Gudimallam, while Shiva is Kirita the hunter on the monolithic carvings at Mamallapuram, 160 km away. Lingodbhava, or Shiva emanating from the lingam, was probably inspired by the Gudimallam Shiva.

The Cholas were staunch Shaivas who built massive lingams in temples, although the smaller, original ones are also preserved and worshipped in several places. Neither of them is phallic. When a Chola king or queen died, the body was cremated and the ashes buried beneath a lingam. The temples around them were called pallipadai kovil. Many such temples were built in the 10th-12th centuries CE.

A chala or moveable lingam is worn as a pendent on a necklace by the Veerashaiva Lingayats, a tradition from Karnataka. Lingayat men and women wear an ishta lingam inside a box strung on a necklace. It is about divinity living and moving with the Lingayat devotee.

The signifier from Harappa was not phallic. And over the following millenniums, its depictions have taken various forms. Our culture is richer for this variety today. – The New Indian Express, 23 February 2025

› Dr. Nanditha Krishna is an author, historian,and environmentalist based in Chennai.

Agni lingam on Arunachala Hill at Tiruvannamalai.

See also

Sita Ram Goel: A wronged man redeemed by history – Makarand R. Paranjape

VOI

Sita Ram Goel

Goel defined the three main threats to Sanatana Dharma—political Islamism, proselytising Christianity, and anti-national Marxist-Leninism. It has taken over 40 years, without adequate credit, for his ideas to be mainstreamed. – Makarand R. Paranjape

1 – The wronged man who turned right

On October 16, 2024 India ought to be marking the 103rd birth anniversary of one of our greatest, but still least recognised, post-independence intellectuals. The one who almost single-handedly created an enormous and powerful body of work against the “history men” and “eminent historians.” But he was not even recognised as a historian. Indeed, he was never a part of the academy. He carried out his lonely crusade from outside the safety and comforts of well-funded and influential institutions. The establishment tried to erase him by what has famously come to be called “strangling by silence”.

Who was he? His name is Sita Ram Goel. It may ring a bell in the minds of some, but his huge and impressive body of work remains mostly unknown among the thinking and reading public. Today, this name is bandied about freely in right-wing circles. There are even courses being taught on him. Suddenly, we notice many champions and followers of his line of thinking. But none of them, as far as I know, has engaged with his work in depth. Most of the secondary material is informative and ideological, characterised by borrowed plumes and virtue signalling. The only volume I know on his work that makes a worthwhile contribution has not even been edited by an Indian. It is the work of the redoubtable and indefatigable Koenraad Elst. Who has also been strangulated by silence.

Indeed, “right-wing” India, despite being in power for over 15 years at the Centre and much longer in several states, is yet to produce scholars who, far from matching Goel’s competence or persistence, have even bothered to engage seriously with his oeuvre. Despite massive government, institutional, and private funding. In the meanwhile, we must be content with fiery, even incendiary, expositions such as appear frequently on web platforms like the Dharma Dispatch.

Goel was born in a Vaishnava Bania Agarwal community in the Chhara village of present-day Haryana. His own family tradition was based on the Granth Sahib of Sant Garibdas (1717-1778). But by the time he was 22, he says, “I had become a Marxist and a militant atheist. I had come to believe that Hindu scriptures should be burnt in a bonfire if India was to be saved.” He also became an Arya Samaji and, then, Gandhian before turning seriously to Marxism. Living in Calcutta, where his father worked in the jute business, such an attraction and affinity was natural.

Elst’s eponymous opening chapter, “India’s Only Communalist,” eloquently spells out the extraordinarily uncompromising and exceedingly courageous challenge that Goel posed to what was akin to India’s prevailing state religion—Nehruvian secularism. Goel called it a “perversion of India’s political parlance”, in fact, nothing short of rashtradroha, or treason. In that sense, he was India’s only true communalist. For everyone else, RSS and VHP included, were tying themselves into knots to prove how truly secular they were—and still are.

It was Goel who spelled out clearly that what went by the name of secularism was actually what Elst has termed negationism. The denial of the life-and-death civilisational, religious, spiritual—and, yes, secular— conflict between a conquering Islam and a resistant Hindu society. Nehruvian secularism, to Goel, was not only an attempt to whitewash this horrifying history of Islamic conquest, vandalism, plunder, conversion, and genocide, but it was also the continuous appeasement of a Muslim minority in India till it held the Indian state and the Hindu majority to ransom.

Despite his early commitment, Goel’s disillusionment with the Communist Party of India (CPI) was triggered by their support of the Muslim League in its demand for a Muslim state of Pakistan. Goel himself, along with his family, narrowly missed the murderous Muslim mob fury of Direct Action Day during the great Calcutta killings of August 16, 1946. Independence came exactly a year later, with Goel on the verge of joining CPI. But the Communists took a belligerent stance against the Indian government, calling for an armed revolution. Consequently, Nehru banned the CPI in 1948. In the meanwhile, Goel’s intellectual mentor and the major influence on his life, Ram Swarup, himself a rising intellectual, weaned him forever from Communism.

Goel soon turned 180 degrees into one of India’s prominent anti-Communists, actively working for the Society for the Defence of Freedom in Asia. Several of his early works warned of the dangers of Communism, both the Soviet kind and, closer home, of Red China under Mao Zedong. Ram Swarup fired the first salvos, publishing the pamphlet Let Us Fight the Communist Menace in 1948, following it up Russian Imperialism: How to Stop It (1950). Then it was Sita Ram Goel’s turn. His amazingly prolific output in the 1950s include: World Conquest in Instalments (1952); The China Debate: Whom Shall We Believe? (1953); Mind Murder in Mao-land (1953); China is Red with Peasants’ Blood (1953); Red Brother or Yellow Slave? (1953); Communist Party of China: a Study in Treason (1953); Conquest of China by Mao Tse-tung (1954); Netaji and the CPI (1955); and CPI Conspire for Civil War (1955).

The Communist threat, looming large after the occupation of Tibet, materialised in China’s invasion of India in 1962.

The war lasted barely a month. Chinese troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossed the McMahon Line on October 20. After capturing an area the size of Switzerland, some 43,000 square kilometres in Aksai Chin, they declared a ceasefire on November 21. Nehru was a broken man. He died less than two years later, on May 27, 1964, his dreams of a united Asian front against global capitalism shattered. The border standoff still continues with over 20,000 Indian and 80,000 Chinese troops massed on either side, with periodic skirmishes and casualties.

Goel was proven right; Nehru was wrong. Yet, during the Chinese aggression against India, quite ironically, established Leftists and highly placed bureaucrats, including P.N. Haksar, Nurul Hasan, I.K. Gujral, called for Goel’s arrest. During the 1950s, Goel wrote over 35 books, of which 18 were in Hindi. He also translated six books. He stood for elections from the Khajuraho constituency as an independent candidate in the 1957 Lok Sabha elections—but lost. He then embarked upon a publishing programme upon the suggestion of Eknath Ranade of RSS. However, according to Elst, RSS refused to sell or promote his books after the initial encouragement.

In 1957, Goel moved to Delhi, taking up employment with the Indian Cooperative Union (ICU) started by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. But Goel’s attack on Communists, both of the Chinese and Soviet Union varieties, had made him many enemies.

Goel, instead, trained his guns on Nehru, whose deep Communist sympathies and miscalculations had cost India so dear. He had been criticising Nehru in a series in the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, under the pseudonym Ekaki (Alone). In 1963, he published these with the provocative title, In Defence of Comrade Krishna Menon. Why? Because V.K. Krishna Menon, as defence minister, had not only presided over India’s debacle but had also been an avowed Communist and Nehru favourite. In supposedly defending him, Goel traced the malaise back to Nehru himself, as a confirmed Fabian Socialist and consistent supporter of Leftist regimes across the world. As a result of this open attack, Goel lost his job in the state-funded ICU.

Jobless and free to pursue his own interests full-time, Goel went into publishing himself. In 1963, he started Biblia Impex, a book publication, distribution and import-export business. Apart from his own and Ram Swarup’s books, he also published Dharampal’s Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century and The Beautiful Tree. Later, in 1981, Goel also founded Voice of India (VOI), a non-profit publishing house, dedicated to the defence of Hindu society. VOI still continues with his grandson, Aditya Goel, at its helm. It has published over hundred titles in the ideological defence of Hindu society. – Open Magazine, 11 October 2024

Dhwaja

2 – The unsung scholar extraordinaire

The threat of Communism’s taking over India receded after the hugely unpopular Chinese invasion. The Communist Party of India itself split into two, one section affiliated with the Soviet Union, and the other with Maoist China. Sita Ram Goel now turned his attention to the Hindu-Muslim fault line that had divided India for centuries. It was an unhealing wound that needed the nation’s urgent attention. Instead, we were in constant denial, eager to erase the fact that Hindu society had endured an existential threat under two waves of colonialism, Islamist and Western.

Hindu secularists and Leftists tried almost obsessively to blur the theological and civilisational line between the invading and colonising Islamic empires and Hindu society. They come up with all kinds of artifices and subterfuges, including mile-jule sanskriti, Ganga-Jamuni tahzeeb, aman ki asha, and so on. Commenting on Sita Ram Goel’s work, Koenraad Elst explains this almost suicidal folly: “Contrary to the fog-blowing of the secularists and their loudspeakers in Western academe, who always try to blur the lines between Hinduism and Islam, a line laid out ever so clearly by Islamic doctrine, Goel firmly stuck to the facts: Islam had waged a declared war against infidelism in India since its first naval invasion in AD 636 and continuing to the present.”

This line so openly and clearly drawn between Muslims and non-Muslims by both the precepts and practice of Islam through the ages confronts us in every conflict situation. It turned into a bloody conflagration during and after the Partition. It still simmers as an incarnadine boundary between India and its Muslim neighbours. The latter born, as we are never tired of repeating, of the same stock as the Hindus. It was Goel who first enunciated with the greatest clarity that India had been subjected to two waves of colonialism, Western, and prior to that, Islamic. His classic exposition of the latter, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (Voice of India, 1994), should be compulsory reading in every course on post-colonialism. Instead, it is erased altogether.

That is why Goel focused his energies on the breaking-India efforts of the two Abrahamic and adversarial faiths which, to him, were the greatest threats to Hindu society, Islam and Christianity. Not as religions per se but as religious and political ideologies. Christianity worked against the native populace through the well-organised and funded enterprise of conversion. The difficulty with Islam was much deeper and historical. The unresolved conflict between a conquering Islam and a resistant Hindu society led not only to India’s Partition on religious lines, but also to continuing violence, riots, appeasement, and separatism within the country.

The decisive shift in Goel’s intellectual career occurred in 1981 when he retired from his mainline book business and created the non-profit Voice of India publishing platform. His aim, as stated in an early book from that period, Hindu Society Under Siege (1981), was to define the three main threats to Sanatana Dharma—political Islamism, proselytising Christianity, and anti-national Marxist-Leninism. As Elst puts it, “The avowed objective of each of these three world-conquering movements, with their massive resources, is diagnosed as the replacement of Hinduism by their own ideology, or in effect: the destruction of Hinduism” (ibid). It has taken over 40 years, without adequate credit, for his ideas to be mainstreamed. But today they have become commonplace, on the minds and tongues of most right-wing or Hindutva intellectuals and activists. Only a few of them say them or think them through as well as he did. Worse, very few of them acknowledge—or even read—Goel’s works.

What is, however, noteworthy is how different Goel was from these latter-day crusaders in one important aspect. Though he believed that Mahatma Gandhi had misunderstood and underestimated the threat of political Islamism, Goel never denounced him as a British stooge, charlatan, father of Pakistan, let alone a paedophile. Nor, in fact, did he advocate a Savarkarite Hindutva. Goel’s position remained firmly liberal, rational, democratic, and spiritual. He never preached hatred toward or between communities, nor did he wish to demonise any group of citizens because of their religion or ethnicity. Instead, he was interested in truth-seeking and truth-telling, holding the state and the political class accountable to the first principles of the republic, not playing havoc with the future of the nation with appeasement, favouritism, or identity politics.

Readers, especially those who are quick to typecast the right-wing, would be surprised to know that he had quite a few run-ins with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates, though he was sympathetic, overall, to their role in Hindu character-building and nationalism. Though he wrote often for Organiser and Panchajanya, he often found the RSS outlook narrow-minded, not to speak of muddled. He accused them of confusion and double-speak, using the same tired and dishonest cliches about secularism and national integration which falsified both history and ground reality. Unlike them, Goel had the guts to call a spade a spade.

His astonishing output during this phase, which lasted right till the end of his days, borders on the incredible; he was an intellectual giant and his was a giant’s labour. It is not possible to engage seriously with his enormous output in these two pages, let alone do justice to it. Suffice it to say that there is enough published material by him to support several PhDs. Here is a list, drawn up by Elst, of his major writings. It does not include essays or chapters published in books edited by others or, indeed, the first Hindi translation of Taslima Nasreen’s Lajja, published in instalments in Panchajanya. I have already mentioned some of his works earlier, but a more detailed listing is salutary: Hindu Society Under Siege (1981, revised 1992); Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1982); How I Became a Hindu (1982, enlarged 1993); Defence of Hindu Society (1983, revised 1987); The Emerging National Vision (1983); History of Heroic Hindu Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders (1984); Perversion of India’s Political Parlance (1984); Saikyularizm, Rashtradroha ka Dusra Nam (1985); Papacy, Its Doctrine and History (1986); Preface to The Calcutta Quran Petition by Chandmal Chopra (a collection of texts alleging a causal connection between communal violence and the contents of the Quran; 1986, enlarged 1987, and again 1999); Muslim Separatism, Causes and Consequences (1987); Foreword to Catholic Ashrams, Adapting and Adopting Hindu Dharma (a collection of polemical writings on Christian inculturation; 1988, enlarged 1994 with new subtitle: “Sannyasins or Swindlers?”); History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1989, enlarged 1996); Hindu Temples, What Happened to Them (1990 vol 1; 1991 vol 2, enlarged 1993); Genesis and Growth of Nehruism (1993); Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Aggression (1994); Time for Stock-Taking (1997), a collection of articles critical of RSS and BJP; Preface to the reprint of Mathilda Joslyn Gage: Woman, Church and State (1997, ca. 1880), an early feminist critique of Christianity; Preface to Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998), a reprint of the official report on the missionaries’ methods of subversion and conversion (1955).

Though polemical, even provocative and pugilistic, each of these books is thoroughly researched and comprehensively argued. Very unlike today’s TV debaters and other credit-hogging activists who pretend that they have come up with “original” ideas and arguments which are already found in plenty of Goel’s writings. Without reading Goel or citing him, they repeat these ideas and arguments in a much worse and less persuasive manner. Indeed, the idea of the intellectual Kshatriya itself originates in Goel, though others now appropriate it as if they pioneered it. Thus, they end up doing injustice to Goel and a disservice to the cause that they profess to champion—performing the same U-turn manoeuvre that they condemn in others.

Mainstream academics and media, of course, continue completely to ignore Goel’s work. But Hindu organisations too, far from engaging with his massive output, also neglect to give him adequate credit. One might wonder why. In my view, the answer is simple. No one has Goel’s intellectual calibre, stamina, or capacity. In the prevailing anti-intellectual climate, politics, slogan-shouting, and ideological posturing become much easier to friend and foe alike. The skills required for reading, writing, research, exposition, analysis, and argument are sorely lacking in Indian society. Goel is a victim of this glaring deficit.

Moreover, during the heyday of his intellectual activism, there was no internet, Wikipedia, or Google Baba. Indians were so brainwashed by sarva dharma samabhava—regarding all religions equally—that they understood neither the basic texts or the intent of the two imperialistic Abrahamic faiths, Christianity and Islam. Goel acquainted a large body of naïve and mistaken members of the public with the historically verifiable theology and teleology of these proselytising faiths. Which was to exterminate Sanatana Dharma, as they had other Pagan traditions that they had encountered. Also, the naked admission of global conquest and dominance.

A posthumous Padma Award for Sita Ram Ji? That is the least we can do to honour the memory and legacy of this scholar extraordinaire. – Open Magazine, 25 October 2024

› Makarand R. Paranjape is an author, poet, a former director at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and former professor of English at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

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India played a pivotal role in the origins of gunpowder – Gautam R. Desiraju

VOI

Fireworks

The fascinating narrative of India’s ancient achievements in chemical warfare remains a compelling testament to the subcontinent’s rich heritage. The evidence strongly suggests that India played a pivotal role in the origins of gunpowder and its applications in early military science. – Gautam R. Desiraju

When and where gunpowder first appeared is not quite known, and its history is a subject of ongoing research and debate. There is evidence to suggest that substances resembling gunpowder were known and used in India by the 4th century BC, while clearer accounts emerge around the 4th century CE, it being important to note that historical records from that period are often limited or not well-preserved.

Legend has it that gunpowder was developed in China around the Tang and Song dynasties (9th to 11th century CE). Again, there is an absence of facts to this end. Gunpowder appeared in European chronicles a few centuries later and again tradition has it that the knowledge for producing this explosive went from China to Europe through the Silk Route.

Gunpowder is a 15:3:2 mixture of three solids, potassium nitrate (or nitre), charcoal and sulfur. Whosoever developed gunpowder must have had access and a working knowledge of their chemistry. China did not have two of the three material prerequisites for this discovery—sulphur and potassium nitrate—whereas India did. Notably, nitre, the major constituent, was available in the river plains of Bengal. Till recently this substance has even been referred to as Bengal nitre. As for sulphur, it should be noted that it is the only element in the Periodic Table whose name is derived from a Sanskrit word sulvere which means enemy of copper. In summary it is clear that there was adequate scientific knowledge in India to develop chemical agents for warfare.

Western scholars have held that a “gunpowder-like substance” was developed in India in the pre-Christian era while gunpowder as a specific explosive and propellant was developed in China a thousand years later. This distinction appears completely specious. What is the difference between a “gunpowder-like substance” and “gunpowder”? We are speaking here of a mixture of three simple solids all of which were freely available in ancient India 2000 years ago. What use could there have been for a “gunpowder-like substance” that was not gunpowder in ancient India if it was not as an explosive and pyrophore?

Our ancient texts paint a vivid picture of India’s chemical prowess. The Dhanurveda contains military knowledge dating back to the Vedic period, providing insights into early warfare tactics. The term mantra, as described in the Dhanurveda, suggested that it signified scientific processes rather than being just a mere incantation. The concept of guarding scientific knowledge with supernatural connotations, has echoes in the Franciscan English monk Roger Bacon, who in the 13th century CE, described gunpowder, its constitution, and its connection with alchemy with overtones more spiritual than scientific.

Kautilya mentions gunpowder in his Arthashastra (2nd century BC). The evidence for early gunpowder use in India is based on historical texts, such as the Rasaratnakara by Bhoja in 9th century CE and other ancient Indian manuscripts, which describe the use of explosive mixtures. Testimonies from eminent scholars such as Thomas Holland and R. Gustav Oppert provide further support of India’s priority in this field. Holland’s research affirmed India’s knowledge of sulfur, while Oppert highlighted India’s role in the development of firearms and gunpowder. As far back as the 13th century CE, a Mongol ambassador to India was greeted with 3,000 celebratory fireworks reminiscent of Indian firework celebrations during Deepavali and Kartika Purnima.

China has no definite evidence of using either fire weapons or chemical warfare weapons earlier than the 4th or 5th century CE. No authentic work of an earlier date claims or even hints at weapons for chemical warfare. Coupled with this fact it should be noted that from around the 2nd century BC up to the 10th century A.D, there was considerable travel exchange between China and India. This hints that whatever knowledge of firearms, pyrotechny, and chemical warfare the Chinese had in the post-Christian period might have been obtained from India.

It is also apparent that the Arabs acquired knowledge of gunpowder by the 10th century CE or so. Western scholars seem to presume that they got this knowledge from China and three explanations are given for this, namely that they got it from merchants who travelled along the Silk Roads, by observing (unspecified) military encounters in the Eurasian landmass or through cultural exchanges.

A simpler explanation as to how Arabs got the knowledge of gunpowder is that they acquired it directly from India. During the Islamic Golden Age, which spanned the 8th to the 13th century CE, there was a flourishing of intellectual and scientific activity in the Islamic world. Many Greek, Persian, and Indian texts—not Chinese texts—were translated into Arabic, and these translations often contained knowledge of various subjects, including alchemical and chemical processes. It’s possible that the concept of gunpowder and its components was introduced to the Arab world through these translated texts. According to a paper written in 1798 by M. Langlès, it is stated that “Even Arabs mention that they got gunpowder from India.” Alchemists like the famous Abu Sina were commissioned by Mohammed Ghori (10th century CE) to translate Indian scientific texts and it is reported that the former complained that the Hindus were notoriously averse to sharing their knowledge with him!

In any event, the widespread prevalence of the use of gunpowder in West Asia and Europe is confirmed by the exertions of Sultan Mehmet II who captured Constantinople in 1453 CE. It is well documented that this successful capture of what was thought to be an impregnable fortress at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, was made possible in large measure by the use of huge cannons made in Hungary. These weapons had a hoary history during the medieval period and were known for their quality and effectiveness in warfare. The famous example used by Mehmet was the Dardanelles Gun, cast in the 15th century, made of bronze and weighing around 16.8 tons, making it one of the largest cannons of its time. Since then gunpowder was an essential explosive used for the firing of guns and cannons in all manner of small and large arms in European warfare right up till World War I which saw the use of huge German guns, the so-called Paris Gun or Big Bertha.

A final example is provided from the US when a resourceful emigre entrepreneur from France named Éleuthère Irénée du Pont started a small company in Wilmington, Delaware and sold gunpowder to both sides in the American Civil War in the mid-19th century. Notably, Wilmington was located at the border of the Unionist States and the Confederacy and the logistics of his clever operation must have been uncomplicated. The Du Pont Company went on to become a major chemical manufacturing company in the world and has given us products such as nylon, neoprene, mylar and teflon right down till the mid 20th century.

The fascinating narrative of India’s ancient achievements in chemical warfare remains a compelling testament to the subcontinent’s rich heritage. The evidence strongly suggests that India played a pivotal role in the origins of gunpowder and its applications in early military science. In doing so, it adds another layer to the grand tapestry of Bharat’s remarkable contributions to the world’s knowledge and civilisation. – Firstpost, 3 December 2024

Gautam R. Desiraju is in the Indian Institute of Science and has authored a book called Bharat: India 2.0.

In the year 1780, during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, the British were defeated at the Battle of Guntur by the forces of Hyder Ali, who effectively used Mysorean rockets and rocket artillery against the closely massed British forces.

Arun Shourie: Intellectual warrior or an intellectual hit-man? – Aravindan Neelakandan

VOI

Arun Shourie

Arun Shourie, once seen as an intellectual warrior, has descended into the realm of an intellectual hit-man. Or perhaps he has always been a hit-man, merely posturing as a warrior. – Aravindan Neelakandan

Arun Shourie, the acclaimed writer and intellectual, is poised to release a new book on Veer Savarkar called The New Icon: Sarvarkar and the Facts. Judging by the pre-publication publicity, it seems clear this work intends to tarnish Savarkar’s image, portraying him in a decidedly negative light.

Shourie, with his characteristic meticulousness, will undoubtedly marshal a convincing array of ‘facts’ to support his argument. But is this a genuine attempt to re-evaluate a complex historical figure, or a calculated exercise in denigration disguised as objective analysis?

But wait, the discerning reader might interject. Wasn’t Arun Shourie a steadfast supporter of the Hindu movement for an extended period?

During the Ayodhya movement, weren’t his lectures a resounding wave across the nation? Did he not author books that critically examined the predatory conversion tactics of missionaries?

Did he not unveil the treacherous roles played by Communists during the freedom movement? Did he not expose the systemic stranglehold Marxist academics exerted over the social sciences, particularly history?

Did he not produce a comprehensive and penetrating book on the realm of fatwas? Did he not contribute to the seminal compilation by Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them  (2002)?

Following the demolition on December 6, 1992, did he not pen a remarkable article for the volume The Ayodhya Reference (1995), published by Sita Ram Goel’s Voice of India?

Was it not his book Harvesting Our Souls (2006), replete with empirical data on conversions, that emerged when the Vajpayee government faced intense scrutiny over alleged attacks on Christians and the Staines murder?

Yes, he did all that. He started aligning with the Hindu movement slowly and tentatively with his articles in The Illustrated Weekly of India when the BJP held merely two seats in the Lok Sabha and any semblance of it being in substantial numbers in the Parliament was lightyears away.

Progressively, he embraced the Hindu cause more and more boldly, remaining steadfast for decades. His contributions are irrefutable, marking a lifelong commitment.

However, it is important to acknowledge that his journey has witnessed a recent estrangement from the movement. While his past allegiance and contributions remain significant, the present situation reflects a shift in his stance.

Arun Shourie’s trajectory exposes a fundamental challenge within the Hindu political landscape: the engagement with intellectual supporters of the cause.

Foremost, there should be a distinction between an intellectual yodha and an intellectual hit-man. These are not rigid classifications, for a yodha may transition into a hit-man, and conversely, a hit-man may ascend to the status of a yodha.

Yodha or a hit-man?

Sita Ram Goel stands as an exemplar of the dharmic yodha, a warrior of the intellect who dedicated his life to the pursuit and defence of Dharma.

With unwavering resolve, he embarked on a mission to rectify historical narratives and illuminate the depths of civilizational history, forever transforming how generations of Hindus perceive their heritage.

Goel’s journey was marked by both triumphs and tribulations. Despite experiencing profound disappointments with institutions, he once held in high regard, he remained steadfast in his commitment to core Dharma. His intellectual odyssey, a transition from the confines of Communism to the expansive embrace of Hindu Dharma, serves as a testament to his intellectual integrity and unwavering pursuit of truth.

Arun Shourie is far more academically qualified, far more accomplished in worldly realm of power and popularity than Sita Ram Goel. But he is not an intellectual yodha. He is an intellectual hit-man. If his demands are not met he would simply move to the other side with bitterness and destructive zeal.

So to understand the intellectual hit-man phenomenon called Arun Shourie, the book one has to start with is a book most Hindutvaites may not want to remember. It was one of his earliest books: Hinduism: Essence and Consequence (1979).

The book is a sophisticated critique of Hinduism, blaming it for many of India’s problems. The criticism, largely from a Marxist perspective, suggests that Hindu spiritual traditions were designed to exploit people. It argues that the philosophical discourse of Hinduism was a cunning creation to extract wealth from the masses for the priestly class and rulers.

Here is a quote from the book:

We are often told that the Hindu tradition exalts man, that it raises him to the level of the Absolute Itself. But … what is exalted is a disembodied, non-corporal Atman. An abstraction is what is being equated with another abstraction. The empirical man is reviled, ridiculed. His body is abused. His desires are abused. His senses are said to be snares. His mind, his thinking faculties are said to be unruly monkeys among trees, aimless dogs wandering in empty villages. … Just as the twin aspects of the goal—its transcendental and its exclusive character—breed inertia in the oppressed as far as changing the empirical, man-made world is concerned, it rationalizes callousness in the oppressor. The call to detachment, … becomes a cover for sheer disregard for the sufferings of others, vulgar notions of karma are a handy balm for the well-off. … The entire doctrine reflects the deep schism between producers and parasites that seems to have developed as early in our society and that had millennia in which to congeal and harden. Is it at all surprising then that the operational implications of the doctrine were precisely the ones that would suit the rulers? – Hinduism: Essence and Consequence (1979)

It is important to note that Shourie emerges as an intellectual precursor to the more vehemently anti-Hindu ideologue, Kancha Illaiah. Illaiah extrapolates Shourie’s implicit assertions of producers and parasites, mapping them onto Bahujans and Brahmins respectively in a manner reminiscent of how Der Stürmer characterised Jews.

Shourie’s writings do not deter such extrapolations; rather, his depiction of Hindu spirituality as a cunningly crafted device for exploitation lends support to Illaiah’s views.

But Shourie changed.

Was it genuine or was his antennae so powerful that he understood how the political winds of India had started blowing with the nascent Ayodhya movement starting? Or was it some personal situation and power frustration with his erstwhile Leftist PUCL friends? Or sincere change of heart?

It is hard to say.

For such a momentous transformation, there appears to be no article in which Shourie has articulated a cerebral journey or the internal alchemy through which this change happened.

Considering the deep-seated animosity he displayed towards Hinduism in his book, documentation of his journey in detail, akin to the reflective accounts penned by Sita Ram Goel, would have immensely benefitted his readers.

But he never did that.

However, it’s important to differentiate Shourie from Subramanian Swamy, who also aligned with the Hindu movement during Modi’s rise but opposed the Ayodhya movement when it happened. Swamy even suggested using the military to take over the Sri Ram Janmabhumi site and hand it over to the Muslims.

In contrast, Shourie remained a steadfast supporter of the Ayodhya movement throughout its duration, standing resolutely with the cause.

Perhaps this transformation can be attributed to a singular influence: Sita Ram Goel.

Drawing from Goel’s source materials, Shourie authored The Only Fatherland (1992) a scathing critique of the Communists’ role during the freedom struggle. Goel’s influence is also evident in Shourie’s book on missionaries, which Kushwant Singh famously compared to Romans throwing Christians to lions. Shourie openly acknowledged that his book on fatwas had significant inputs from Arif Muhammad Khan.

In 1997 Shourie published another book that was totally out of sync with the general spirit of the Hindu movement but in the post-Mandal era of caste-polarisation it played to the gallery of ‘upper-castes’.

The book was on Dr. Ambedkar. Provocatively titled Worshiping False Gods (1997) the book attacks Dr. Ambedkar mostly as pro-British and a self-serving person. The book should have been actually a warning to the Hindu side. It showed the tendency of Arun Shourie to mutilate facts and disregard the contexts with the sole object of vilifying a person.

Here is an instance of Shourie’s “technology, line and fraud”. The year was 1941. The Second World War was happening. Lord Linlithgow was the Viceroy. The Secretary of State for India was Leopold Stennett Amery. Shourie writes that Ambedkar very much wanted to be part of the Viceroy’s Council. But the British knew there was a section within Congress which wanted to side with the British against Hitler. They did not want to offend that group by inducting Dr. Ambedkar. Shourie writes:

At the last minute, therefore, the Viceroy had called Ambedkar and the other aspirant, M.S. Aney, and told them that he would have to put off the expansion of his Council for the time being. Not only that, in view of what he might have to do to win cooperation of the Congress, the Viceroy had had to tell Ambedkar that he could not bind himself or his successor about the future.  – Worshiping False Gods (1997)

Shourie recounts how the British viewed Ambedkar favourably and how Ambedkar was not entirely supportive of an independent India, claiming Ambedkar’s hardships were exaggerated. He laments that these facts have been erased, culminating in Ambedkar receiving the Bharat Ratna.

In reality, caste Hindus did little to convince Ambedkar of their genuine change of heart. Congress faced resistance passing resolutions against untouchability, and temple entries were contentious. Ambedkar’s fears about orthodox elements in Congress were understandable. His biographer, Dhananjay Keer, presented a well-researched and contextual biography. Shourie, however, recycled known facts with rhetorical flourish.

Shourie’s main argument is that Dr. Ambedkar was after power and position. He claims that Ambedkar became frustrated when the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy delayed his appointment.  He writes:

A few months later when Ambedkar again did not make it to the Council, the frustration burst through. He urged his case to the Secretary of State—the dejection that was manifest flies in the face of the usual claims that Ambedkar was never keen on posts, just as the grounds on which he pleaded for the post were typical—he wanted the post not for himself but so that the Depressed Classes may be represented! – Worshiping False Gods (1997)

This perspective suggests that Dr. Ambedkar used the cause of Scheduled Communities to gain power, driven by a desire for authority and frustration when it wasn’t achieved.

But what is the truth? A fierce patriot, Ambedkar’s biographer Dhananjay Keer says the following regarding the same sequence of events:

In the last week of July 1941, the Viceroy expanded his Executive Council by including eight representative Indians and established a Defence Advisory Committee. Ambedkar was appointed, on the Defence Advisory Committee along with Jamnadas Mehta, Ramrao Deshmukh, M.C. Rajah and other well-known Indians and Indian princes. The Sikhs and the Depressed Classes resented their non-inclusion in the Executive Council. Ambedkar protested against the injustice done to the claims of the Depressed Classes. He sent a cablegram to Amery, the Secretary of State for India, informing him that the non-inclusion of their representative was regarded by them as an outrage and a breach of trust. Savarkar upheld Ambedkar’s demand and wired to the Viceroy to include Ambedkar in the Executive Council. – Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (1948)

Contrary to Shourie’s implication that Ambedkar sought power, Ambedkar was already a member of the prestigious Defence Advisory Committee. He advocated for the representation of the Depressed Classes, and Veer Savarkar proposed his name. The contrast between these factual presentations and Shourie’s rhetorical distortions is stark.

When Shourie aims to malign someone, he disregards truth and context, sensationalizing and magnifying his narrative with rhetorical flair. This trait should have been a warning to Hindutvaites, yet they chose to overlook it and promote Shourie.

As Shourie rose in prominence within Hindutva circles, he became a member of the Rajya Sabha of Parliament in 1998, representing the BJP.

Shourie’s book, Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (2004) cemented his status as a cult figure among Hindutvaites. This work masterfully combined facts and rhetoric, recharacterizing Hindu traditions he once deemed exploitative as an “inclusive religion” and “the pluralist spiritual search of our people and land”.

He now viewed the portrayal of Hinduism as “intolerant, narrow-minded, and obscurantist” as a “diabolic inversion”. To this day, the book remains a valuable resource for understanding the actions of the Marxist cabal when in power.

If Shourie’s infiltration into the Hindutva political ecosystem was largely facilitated by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, his initial stamp of approval was because of his anchoring in the work of Sita Ram Goel. That is despite Sita Ram Goel’s visceral hatred for Vajpayee, whom he unjustly and in bad taste called a “Nehruvian windbag”.

Between Vajpayee and Advani, it was the latter who was closer to Goel’s stance. However, once inside the ecosystem, Shourie clearly made himself closer to Vajpayee. It is unclear if Shourie ever used his proximity to both Vajpayee and Goel to clear any misunderstandings between them. However, it is well documented that in the aftermath of the 2002 riots, Shourie suggested to Vajpayee that he ask Advani to make Narendra Modi resign.

It was not long after the BJP’s 2004 election loss, that Arun Shourie turned his attacks on his own party, reserving his harshest criticism for Rajnath Singh. By 2009, he publicly distanced himself from the BJP and his pro-Hindu stance, claiming his loyalty was only to Vajpayee. He then lavished praise on Sonia Gandhi:

In Indian public life there is only one person that I know of who does something conspicuously on the special day for persons with handicaps, that’s Mrs Sonia Gandhi, on Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday, you will always find some photograph of her giving wheelchairs and so on. Why don’t more of us do this? This is a simple thing.

No Hindu temples, no civilizational discourse—it was Vajpayee that kept him in the BJP. Now, he finds Sonia Gandhi the most humane of Indian politicians. He labeled the BJP a “kati patang” (runaway kite), borrowing from a Bollywood movie title, and metaphorically quoted Mao Zedong about bombarding the BJP headquarters. Yet, in 2013, he returned to campaign for Modi within the elite intellectual circles he knew well and thought he was doing a great service to Modi and the BJP.

When in power, Modi did not grant him the powerful cabinet portfolio that Shourie sought, leaving him angry and frustrated. Ironically, he exhibited the same traits he accused Dr. Ambedkar of. He then targeted two revered saints of modern Hinduism, Sri Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharishi attributing their divine experiences to neuropathology, perhaps hoping to provoke Hindutvaites. But most Hindutva responses were in the form of reviews which systematically dissected the book and showed it to be an neither original nor a thorough holistic study, like the Swarajya review here.

This attempt failed. Despite his absence from social media, he claimed BJP supporters abused his disabled son online. While social media abuse is common, no respectful Hindutva handles targeted his son. Many still respect Shourie, believing Modi might have wronged him.

With his latest book aimed solely at maligning Veer Savarkar, the illusions of intellectual grandeur, integrity, and honesty that many Hindutvaites hold for Arun Shourie will hopefully be shattered.

Arun Shourie, once seen as an intellectual yodha, has descended into the realm of an intellectual hit-man. Or perhaps he has always been a hit-man, merely posturing as a yodha. Yet, Shourie serves as a caution and prayer for every intellectual—whatever his or her ideological persuasion: “Do not lead me to the Shourie fall.” – Swarajya, 18 Decemeber 2024

› Aravindan Neelakandan is an author, historian, and consulting editor at Swarajya magazine. He has degrees in psychology and economics. Most of his work appears in the Tamil language.

Sita Ram Goel & Atal Bihari Vajpayee

William Dalrymple: Admiring Indian civilisation, undermining the Hindu spirit behind it – Utpal Kumar

VOI

William Dalrymple

Scottish author William Dalrymple wants to safeguard the physical infrastructure of Indian civilsation but is working hard to tamper with its Hindu soul. – Utpal Kumar

William Dalrymple is suddenly the darling of a section of the Right. One prominent Right-wing think tank has even invited him for a talk on his new book, The Golden Road. The book highlights “how ancient India transformed the world”—a subject close to those whose heart is in the ‘Right’ place.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong in engaging in a dialogue over a book—in fact, this culture of dialogue with contrarian views should be encouraged. The problem, however, could be when this intellectual exercise leads to legitimisation of the other viewpoint without due deliberation and critical enquiry. What one fears is that The Golden Road, which has already become a bestseller soon after hitting the bookstores, might become a cover to push blatant historical lies.

At the very outset, it must be clarified that this is a good book, pushing forward India’s narrative. Dalrymple cannot claim—and he doesn’t either—that what is written in the book hasn’t been told in the past. Where the author scores is the style of his writing: A history book is better written when the author thinks like a historian but writes like a novelist. History, after all, is about stories and the lessons one can learn from them.

Dalrymple is undoubtedly a “gifted historian” who writes engaging prose. His research work for his books is almost impeccable. And one finds affinity and warmth in him for his karmabhoomi, which is India.

But, then, Dalrymple is a double-edged sword, often cutting both ways. This 59-year-old British author, born in Scotland, is an unapologetic admirer of Delhi, but his love gets confined to the era of “Djinns”; the other, non-Islamic characteristics of the city rarely get his attention. The same partisanship is evident in his writings on the Mughals, especially the late Mughals. The decadence of the late Mughals, about which Sir Jadunath Sarkar bemoans in his extensive studies and regards as among the dominant causes of the Mughal decline, is what excites Dalrymple the most.

In The Last Mughal, for instance, Dalrymple writes: “… while Zauq led a quiet and simple life, composing verse from dusk until dawn, rarely straying from the tiny courtyard where he worked, Ghalib was very proud of his reputation as a rake. Only five years before the wedding, Ghalib had been imprisoned for gambling and subsequently wore the affair—deeply embarrassing at the time—as a badge of honour. When someone once praised the poetry of the pious Sheikh Sahbai in his presence, Ghalib shot back, ‘How can Sahbai be a poet? He has never tasted wine, nor has he ever gambled; he has not been beaten with slippers by lovers, nor has he once seen the inside of a jail.’ Elsewhere in his letters he makes great play of his reputation as a ladies’ man.”

Similarly, in The Anarchy, Dalrymple writes about the unabashed loot and plunder by the East India Company. He begins this book by saying how “one of the first Indian words to enter the English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: loot”. He then takes the readers to Powis Castle, “a craggy fort” built during the 13th century in the Welsh Marches. According to him, Powis “is simply awash with loot from India, room after room of imperial plunder, extracted by the East India Company (EIC) in the 18th century”.

Yet, the same Dalrymple had made a public appeal last year asking Britain not to return the loot to India! According to him, Mughal treasures looted by the British might never be displayed if they are returned to India, which is currently run by “a Hindu nationalist government that does not display Mughal items”. (Dalrymple’s prejudiced mind stopped him from seeing what was obvious: That the wealth stolen was not Mughal’s but India’s.) He said, “You can go to Delhi and not see a display, at the moment, of Mughal art at all. But it’s there, beautifully displayed, in the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum.”

Dalrymple’s propensity to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds is evident in the narration of his 2009 book, Nine Lives, too. In one of the stories, he recounts with empathy the story of “The Dancer of Kannur”, in which Hari Das, a Dalit from Kerala, is a “part-time prison warden for 10 months of the year”, but during the Theyyam dancing season between January and March, he is “transformed into an omnipotent deity” to be worshipped even by the high-caste Brahmins. However, in the same book, his reverence for the sacred goes missing as he invokes Romila Thapar’s idea of “syndicated Hinduism” to intellectually discredit Hindu resurgence in India. Dalrymple, quite mischievously, calls it “Rama-fication of Hinduism”.

Coming to The Golden Road, Dalrymple’s new-found love for ancient India may remind one of American Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock, who not very long ago was zeroed upon by a group of wealthy non-resident Indians (NRIs) in New York, along with the top administrative leaders of Sringeri Peetham in India and representatives of Sringeri Peetham in the US, to head a newly found American university chair in the name of Adi Shankara. They had, by 2014, collected $4 million for the chair, which was to be set up at the prestigious Columbia University. There was a lot of enthusiasm and support for Pollock, as he was seen to be an ardent advocate for the revival of Sanskrit. What these people didn’t realise was that Pollock’s idea of revival was, as Rajiv Malhotra writes in The Battle for Sanskrit, “the reinvigorated study of Sanskrit as if it were the embalmed, mummified remnant of a dead culture”.

Pollock sought to revive Sanskrit studies, but wanted no association with Sanskrit language and culture. He loved Sanskrit but without its sacred cultural (Hindu) identity. In the same way, Dalrymple acknowledges India’s contribution but doesn’t seem to be quite enthusiastic about the Hindu roots of the same. He would talk with gusto about Central Asia’s Buddhist connections, but the same enthusiasm is lacking vis-à-vis Hinduism. Dalrymple’s love for India is obvious, but without its cultural/civilisational moorings. He wants to safeguard the physical infrastructure but is working hard to tamper with its soul.

Dalrymple tells the story of the great Buddhist scholar Kumarajiva (344-413 CE). Born to a Kashmiri father, probably a minister in the Takshashila royal court, and a Kuchean mother, Kumarajiva learnt Buddhism in Kashmir, but to study Vedas, he chose to go to Kashgar in the Xinjiang region. It’s pertinent to note that the land where Kumarajiva went to study Vedas was the hub of Buddhism, disputing the predominant Hindu-Buddhist conflict narrative put forward by colonial-Leftist historiography. What further manifests the Hindu-Buddhist cultural continuum in the region is that “not very far” from a monastery in Miran, as Dalrymple himself writes in The Golden Road, “some of the very earliest surviving fragments of the text of the Mahabharata have recently been dug up”.

A couple of quotes from The Golden Road should expose the real intent of the author. Dalrymple writes in the last chapter of the book, “The fate of Nalanda is much disputed: it had been in decline for centuries and archaeology shows that it was burned several times, with some of these conflagrations clearly dating to before the arrival of the Turks. Either way, the Tibetan monk Dharmaswami, who visited Nalanda in 1235, describes the Turushka soldiers prowling the ruins while he and his guru lay hidden in a deserted monastery. There is some evidence that Nalanda continued to function in a much-reduced form until the early fourteenth century, when the last Tibetan monks are described as coming to study philosophy in its ruins.”

Nalanda was “burnt several times” before the fury of Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193 AD! The ancient Indian university survived the Muslim assault to “function in a much-reduced form until the 14th century”! One, thus, gets two assessments from the above lines: That while Muslims burnt Nalanda once, Hindus had done it “several times” in the past; and also that the Muslim assault wasn’t bad enough as the university could survive for the next two centuries! How is Dalrymple’s assessment different from, say, Romila Thapar and D.N. Jha?

In the same chapter, Dalrymple provides another gem of assessment, exposing his state of mind. He writes, “During the days of Nehruvian rule in the 1950s and early 1960s, Indian school textbooks and most academic histories were written by left-leaning, Congress-supporting figures. These historians tended to underplay the violence and iconoclasm that came with the Turkish invasions, partially in the interests of what they saw as ‘nation building’ following the terrible inter-religious violence that had taken place during partition. Today, under the current right-wing BJP government, the reverse is true, and the destruction of Hindu temples is almost all that many in India seem to know of the complex but fascinating medieval period of Indo-Islamic history.”

Given this line of thinking being promoted in the book, where the Indian physical superstructure is admired but the innate Hindu spirit is denied and damned, it’s astounding to see a section of the Right getting excited with The Golden Road. Maybe the excitement is the result of intellectual haziness and laziness: No one has bothered to read between the lines and instead got excited with the book’s tagline: “How ancient India transformed the world”. Maybe the colonial hangover is still going strong in India. A British historian highlighting the “greatness” of ancient India can still be a heady moment for some of us. Maybe the more things change in Indian history, the more they remain the same.- Firstpost, 23 November 2024

› Utpal Kumar is the Opinion Editer for Firstpost and News18.

Wm. Dalrymple at St. Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford.

See also

New evidence suggests Harappan civilisation is 7,000 to 8,000 years old – Dheeraj Bengrut

VOI

Rakhigarhi Archaelogical Site, Haryana.

The evidence found in the third phase of excavations at Rakhigarhi in Haryana shows that the culture dates back 7,000 to 8,000 years.- Prof. Prabhodh Shirwalkar

Researchers from Deccan College Pune along with the central Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have established that human remains discovered at an ancient site of Rakhigarhi—a village in the Hisar district of Haryana—date back around 8,000 years. The discovery has been made during the third phase of excavations carried out by the ASI along with various teams across the country, including researchers from Deccan College Pune.

The first phase of excavations at Rakhigarhi was carried out by Dr Amarendra Nath of the Indian Archaeology Department from 1997 to 2000 during which evidence of the North Harappan culture dating back to 2500 BC was found. The second phase of excavations at Rakhi Garhi was carried out by professor Vasant Shinde from Deccan College Pune from 2006 to 2013 during which Shinde’s team collected evidence and conducted DNA tests to establish that this culture could be over 4,000 years’ old. Over the past two years, the ASI and Deccan College Pune have jointly carried out the third phase of excavations at Rakhigarhi through a team led by ASI joint director Sanjay Kumar Manjul and Deccan College Pune assistant professor Prabhodh Shirwalkar.

Shirwalkar said, “There are three parts to the Harappan culture; East Harappan, Middle Harappan, and North Harappan (Modern). The earlier two excavations found evidence of the Middle and Modern Harappan cultures dating back around 4,000 years. But now, the evidence found in the third phase of excavations shows that the culture dates back 7,000 to 8,000 years. The final report of the work is being prepared by our team.”

Shirwalkar said that the research on this will continue for many more months. “Human DNA has remained the same for 8,000 years which we have found during our research. When human traps were found here, they were thoroughly tested. Scientists have drawn conclusions based on this. A large burial ground was found here and it had human traps as well as animal traps,” Shirwalkar said.

The ASI is actively involved in excavations at the Rakhigarhi archaeological site, and the primary goal of these excavations, according to Ajay Yadav, additional director-general of the ASI, is to make the site accessible to the public. This involves exposing and conserving the structural remains for future viewing and providing amenities for visitors.

About utensils of various metals including gold and silver found during the excavation, Shirwalkar said that old silver and copper ornaments, too, have been found. “The most beautiful are the clay pots. A dinner set from that period has been found,” Shirwalkar said.

“We think that the words bedroom and kitchen are of recent origin. Whereas in Rakhigarhi, an even larger settlement of the largest ancient houses ever was found underground. A courtyard and a drainage system were also found in it. There were two to six- bedroom houses that were also available at that time. The clothing fashion of the people of that time is also known. A colourful worn piece of cloth, a shawl and skirt were also found,” he said.

“This research has found strong evidence that the Harappan civilisation is 7,000 to 8,000 years old. Scientists from the Department of Archaeology of India and Deccan College have worked together on the project. It is agreed that there was human habitation or civilisation in our country 8,000 years ago. The evidence shows that the people of that time were as advanced as they are today,” said Shirwalkar.

Earlier this year, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had highlighted Rakhigarhi in her budget speech of 2023, emphasising on the development of five iconic sites of archaeological significance, including Rakhigarhi, with on-site museums. The plan is to showcase the antiquities uncovered at Rakhigarhi, now considered the largest Harappan site spanning 350 acres, in an under-construction museum near the site. The museum is estimated to be worth ₹23 crores. – Hindustan Times, 23 December 2022

› Dheeraj Bengrut is a senior correspondent at the Hindustan Times in Pune.

Rakhigarhi Archaeological Site

Dating Indian history all over again – Nanditha Krishna

VOI

Logo of the Asiatic Society of Bengal depicting Sir William Jones (1905).

Today, science gives us advantages that William Jones lacked. But sadly, some accounts of Indian history are still stuck in outdated methods of dating – Dr. Nanditha Krishna

In 1650, Irish theologian James Ussher claimed that the world was created on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE. Ussher based his calculation on a correlation of the Christian holy writ and West Asian and Mediterranean histories.

Tragically, his unscientific dating became a basis for dating Indian history—and, for some, continues even today.

In 1783, William Jones was appointed judge at Fort William in Bengal. He studied Sanskrit, the Vedas and ancient Hindu laws. He was captivated by Indian culture and founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta. He proposed a relationship between European and Indo-Aryan languages, now known as the Indo-European languages. He suggested that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin had a common root and postulated a proto-Indo-European language uniting Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Germanic and Celtic.

Jones, a follower of Ussher, believed that “the foundation of the Indian empire (sic) was about 3,800 years” before 1790 CE, that is, between Ussher’s date of 4004 BCE and the Great Flood that Jones believed took place in 2350 BCE. He dated the Rig Veda unscientifically to 1500-1000 BCE and proposed an Aryan invasion of India, an idea that lacked any evidence.

For a long time, the West supposed India jumped from the Stone Age to the Buddha, whose date became very important for ancient Indian history. Eastern Buddhist tradition in China, Japan, Vietnam and Korea dated Siddhartha between his birth in 1026 BCE and his death in 949 BCE.

In 1821, John Davy chose the Sinhalese date of Buddha’s Nirvana as 543 BCE, when the Sinhalese system of reckoning time begins. This gave time between Jones’s date for the Vedas (1500 BCE) and the Buddha; hence it was “chosen”. Mahavira was never properly dated and was regarded merely as Buddha’s contemporary.

Alexander’s foray into Punjab in 326 BCE turned up yet another date. Jones decided that Sandrocottus, mentioned by Megasthenes as Seleucus Nicator’s Greek ambassador to Pataliputra, was Chandragupta Maurya. Why not Chandragupta I or II of the Gupta dynasty? They too ruled from Pataliputra. But that did not suit the British dating of the Vedic period, the Buddha and later Ashoka.

Jones decided that Megasthenes had visited Chandragupta Maurya’s empire, founded in 322 BCE. But we know of Chandragupta’s life only from Vishakhadatta’s Mudrarakshasa, where there are no Greeks or Megasthenes, and which was written over a thousand years later.

It is only with Ashoka’s inscriptions that scientific methodology entered Indian archaeology. James Prinsep worked at the Calcutta mint in 1819 and stayed for a while in Benares. He interpreted the three stages of Indian numismatics as punch-marked, die-struck and cast coins. But his greatest contribution was deciphering the Brahmi script.

Edicts from all over India were sent to him. The edicts mentioned a King Devanampiyadasi who filled Indian rocks and pillars with messages of dharma. Prinsep initially assumed him to be Sri Lankan.

The identification of Devanampiyadasi and Ashoka as the same person was established by the Maski and Gujarra inscriptions, which used both the names Devanampiyadasi and Ashokaraja. In his inscriptions, Ashoka also mentions Antiochus, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and Alexanderas as receivers of his message of dharma. But they lived beyond India. The names on this list, though intriguing, were ignored in the dating process.

In the early 20th century, the ruins of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were discovered by Indian archaeologists Daya Ram Sahni and Rakhal Das Banerji. Overnight, Indian civilisation went back in time from the 6th century to 3300-1300 BCE, and to 2600-1900 BCE in the ‘mature Harappan’ phase. It was spread over an area larger than the contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations.

It extended from Balochistan in the west to western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from Afghanistan in the north to Maharashtra in the south. Later, agriculture was found to have emerged in 7000 BCE in Balochistan. The dating was based on archaeology, and not 4004 BCE.

It was declared as pre-Vedic and Dravidian, but when was Vedic and what was Dravidian? It remains an enigma.

In the 19th century, the river Sarasvati, described in the Rig Veda as a ‘mighty’ one flowing from the hills to the sea, was identified with the Ghaggar-Hakra river system that now ends in the Thar desert. ISRO observed from satellite pictures that most Indus civilisation sites from Haryana and Rajasthan to Gujarat lay along its course. When the monsoons diminished, the river dried up some 4,000 years ago and the Harappan civilisation declined.

Now archaeology was used to delineate Indian history. New discoveries cropped up all over India: Arikamedu and Poompuhar in the south, Dwarka under the sea off the coast of Gujarat and so on. Mahabharata was identified with painted greyware sites dating to 1200 BCE. So the Vedas had to be much older.

Yet, students are still taught dates that are calculated from 4004 BCE. Their textbooks say that the Aryans came to India in 1500 BCE, the date of the Vedas, that the writing of the Mahabharata dates back to 500 BCE, that Chandragupta Maurya met Alexander and so on.

No effort has been made to study the dating system of Indian kings as mentioned in their inscriptions or their chronology lists. This too needs archaeological corroboration. The Buddha died in Kushinagara. His remains could be scientifically tested to find out the exact date of his death.

Today, science gives us advantages that William Jones lacked. But sadly, some accounts of history are still stuck in outdated methods of dating. – The New Indian Express, 29 September 2024

› Dr. Nanditha Krishna is an author, historian, and environmentalist based in Chennai

Ashoka's Maski inscription with 'Buddha' word in Brahmi script, 3rd century BCE.

Max Mueller distorted the Vedas to pave way for India’s Christian conversion – Priya Arora

VOI

Friedrich Max Müller (1823 – 1900)

The disdain for Vedic philosophy with which German philologist Friedrich Max Müller embarked on his translation of the Vedas is apparent: “The ancient religion of India is doomed, and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?” – Priya Arora

In 1847, the British East India Company hired a philologist, Max Mueller, to translate the Vedas specifically to make the Hindu intelligentsia dismiss them as barbaric, backward and fanciful. The hope was that the changed attitude of some influential groups will soon spread throughout Indian society, liberating it from its perceived paganism.

Mueller was not a missionary but seemed to have a religious zeal. We realise this intent in his letters. He wrote to his wife: “I feel convinced, though I shall not live to see it, that this edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what that root is, I feel sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3,000 years.” (Oxford, December 9, 1867)

Along the same lines, Mueller wrote to the theologian, Chevalier Bunsen: “India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece were at the time of St. Paul. The rotten tree has for some time had artificial supports. … For the good of this struggle, I should like to lay down my life, or at least to lend my hand to bring about this struggle. … I do not at all like to go to India as a missionary; that makes one dependent on the parsons. … I should like to live for ten years quite quietly and learn the language, try to make friends, and see whether I was fit to take part in a work, by means of which the old mischief of Indian priestcraft could be overthrown and the way opened for the entrance of simple Christian teaching.” (August 25, 1856)

The disdain for Vedic philosophy with which Mueller embarked on his translation of the Vedas is apparent: “The ancient religion of India is doomed, and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?” (Written to the Secretary of State for India, the Duke of Argyll, December 16, 1868)

“The worship of Shiva or Vishnu and the other popular deities, is of the same, nay, in many cases of a more degraded and savage character than the worship, of Jupiter, Apollo and Minerva; it belongs to a stratum of thought which is long buried beneath our feet, it may live on like the lion and the tiger but the mere air of free thought and civilised life will extinguish it.” (Westminster Lectures on Missions, December 1873)

Excerpts from Mueller’s letters express his opinion that the culture of the Aryans brought by earlier European conquest sorely needed replacement. In a communication to the Duke of Argyll, he wrote: “India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough… A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with Western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character. … A new national literature will bring with it a new national life, and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of.”

With this mindset, Mueller propounded the famous Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) in the mid-19th century, based on two main factors: racial eminence and comparative linguistics. Alleging the Vedic people’s European origin, he claimed that a band of tall, fair-skinned nomadic pastoralists from the Russian steppes, called the Aryans, crossed the Himalayas on horse-driven chariots in 1500 BC. Being a superior race, they subjugated the unsophisticated dark-skinned aboriginals, whom they pushed south of the Vindhyas to become the Dravidians.

The colonising Aryan invaders then settled in the north and civilised the land, completely eradicating the local culture. They imposed Sanskrit and the Vedic lifestyle on the natives and were responsible for all ancient Sanskrit literature.

According to Mueller, the conquering Aryan race began composing the Vedas soon after their arrival, starting with the Rig Veda, which he dated at 1200 BC. They also formed the Vedic caste system, declaring themselves the upper-caste Brahmins and the natives the lower-caste Shudras.

This hypothesis implied that Brahmins and Shudras were of different racial ancestry, and since genetic study was unknown at the time, the supposition was accepted as fact. Then, in the 1920s, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, dating back to 3000 BC, were excavated.

Although the discovery of these highly advanced urban civilisations demonstrated that the indigenous people were far from unsophisticated aboriginals as previously believed, surprisingly, it did little to cast doubt on the Aryan Invasion Theory.

Instead, the narrative was neatly amended to fit the new information suggesting that the Indus Valley inhabitants, although evolved, were the peaceful dark-skinned pre-Vedic natives. They fled south when the Aryans, who had a technological edge in the form of horse-driven chariots unknown to the locals, attacked and defeated them. As a result, the prevailing culture was entirely replaced by an imported Vedic one indicating the invaders’ superiority.

The concept of Aryan supremacy fuelled white nationalism in Europe. Hitler notably adopted the false narrative of a master race, along with a distortion of the word Arya and the holiest of Vedic symbols, the swastika. Finally, in the latter part of the 20th century, when archaeological evidence proved conclusively that no invasion had occurred, the theory was modified to a peaceful migration and then further amended to a “trickling in”.

Despite the many iterations of how the Vedic culture came to India, whether by violent invasion, peaceful migration or people trickling in, the core assertion has remained that in 1500 BC, foreigners replaced the pre-Vedic local culture and language of North India with their own. The claim that the Vedic culture was imported rather than indigenous is still touted, though it is refuted by literature, archaeology and science.

Motivating factors for AIT at inception

The thought that the language of a subjugated people was the source of most European languages, including English, was abhorrent to imperialists. In his 1650 work, The Annals of the Old Testament, Archbishop James Ussher propounded that the first day of creation was October 23, 4004 BC. Most Christian scholars firmly held this belief during the colonisation of India, and the Vedic civilisation did not fit into this.

According to the biblical timeline, a highly evolved people could not have lived thousands of years before the Earth was supposed to have come into existence. Furthermore, the ecclesiastic chronology insisted that God destroyed the whole world by a flood around 2348 BC, so the Vedic civilisation posed a considerable problem.

To tie in with biblical events, Mueller fixed the anomaly by ascribing 1500 BC for the Aryan invasion when Sanskrit and the Vedic culture ostensibly came to India. The Aryan Invasion Theory was politically convenient.

It served to divide and rule, effectively controlling the natives by justifying British colonisation with an ancient precedent. The concept of invading Aryans was fed to the Indian population through the westernisation of education, beginning with Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Indian Education Act of 1835.

While the theory had apparent advantages for the ruling power, many Indians also embraced it, as it put them on the same racial footing as their rulers. The idea that foreigners displaced native Indians had far-reaching effects.

It effectively divided the nation, with north and south Indians believing they were racially, linguistically and culturally distinct from each other. The ancient varna system’s meritocracy was also replaced with birth-based caste and Brahmin eminence based on their perceived superior Caucasian ancestry. – News18, 27 September 2024

› Excerpts from Priya Arora’s book, Rama: A Man of Dharma. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 – 1859)

Democracy in ancient India – Rakesh Goyal

VOI

Ancient Indian Bazar

The Greek writer Diodorus Siculus mentions that at the time of Alexander’s invasion (326 BCE), he mostly came across cities which practiced a democratic form of government, though some were ruled by kings. – Rakesh Goyal

The Vedic Origin

Evidence of a democratic system of government in India is originally found in the Vedas. There is distinctive evidence from Rig Veda, which mentions a thriving republican form of government in India. We may quote a few beautiful slokas from Rig Veda which were to be sung in unison at the beginning of the republican assembly: 

 “We pray for a spirit of unity; may we discuss and resolve all issues amicably, may we reflect on all matters (of state) without rancor, may we distribute all resources (of the state) to all stakeholders equitably, may we accept our share with humility.”  – Rig Veda 10:191:2

However, in the absence of any corroborating material evidence because of a pre-historic nature of this source, most Western historians tend to dismiss this foundation and instead inclined to concentrate on the Buddhist period of Indian history, which they believe has more reliable sources of corroboration. Moreover, the Buddhist period was contemporary to the Greek city states and their republics, which make it easier for them to accept. A Vedic origin indicates a time period which preceded the Greek city states by a very wide margin, telling on the Western pride in Greek civilization as the fountainhead of all modern learning.

Buddhist Records

As per Buddhist texts in Pali, politics was vigorous during the Buddhist period, 600 BCE – 200 CE. During this period, India witnessed widespread urbanization, which was almost synonymous with a republican form of government. The Buddhist scriptures in Pali provide a vivid depiction of the city state of Vaishali during 5th century BCE.

As per these sources, various warrior kings often sought to exploit this amorphous structure of the society, sometimes with a measure of success. As per Buddhist literature in Pali and Brahminical literature in Sanskrit, republican system of government was almost universal.

These ancient classics offer a complex scenario to describe the different groups that managed their own affairs. Some of these groups were probably warrior formations; others were groups with avowed economic aims; some were religious fraternities. These organizations, of whatever type, were usually designated as a gana or a sangha; while less important political structures were known by such terms as shreni (guilds).

The terms gana and sangha initially meant multitude, but gradually with the passage of time, these words come to mean a self-governing multitude by 6th century BCE. In this system, all decisions were taken by the sangha members themselves, and the governing style was stabilized by convention for such groups. The strongest of these groups functioned as sovereign governments, who were generally known as “republics.”

Various sources indicate an almost universal presence of sovereign republics in India during that time. Commenting on the authenticity of these sources, the Western historians find the Greek sources as the more credible, as the texts of those writers are more familiar to the modern Western historian.

The Greek references

While describing Alexander’s campaigns in great detail, the Anabasis of contemporary Greek Historian Arrian refers to “eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s companions and describes him coming across free and independent Indian communities at every turn.” The historian further mentions that many Indian republican states controlled much larger territories and enjoyed a broader mandate at that time, as compared to the contemporary Greek city states. Some other Greek writers writing about the exploits of Alexander refer to a people who practiced a democratic form of government but were not monarchial, though their sway encompassed a large area. They maintained a large army comprising of 60,000 infantry, 500 chariots and 6,000 cavalry. This indicates that Indian republics of late 4th century BCE were much larger than the Greek city states of that time. It seems that republicanism was at that time the standard practice in the northwestern part of India. Alexander’s historians refer to a handful of kings, but they are lavish in their praise of a large number of republics; some of them are named, while some are not.

The Greek writer Diodorus Siculus mentions that at the time of Alexander’s invasion, he mostly came across cities which practiced a democratic form of government, though some were ruled by kings. This statement assumes importance as it apparently refers to a first-person account of India by the noted Greek traveler Megasthenes. It is important to note that Greek king Seleucus Nicator deputed Megasthenes as his ambassador to the court of Indian emperor Chandragupta Maurya at around 300 BCE, i.e. hardly 20 years after the invasion of Alexander. In the course of his duties, he travelled through northern India to the Mauryan capital Patliputra, where he stayed for some time. Thus, if this statement is drawn from Megasthenes, this indicates that entire northwestern India was dominated by republics at that time, signifying almost half of Indian subcontinent.

The Testimony of the Grammarian Panini

The Indian sources scrupulously support these observations. The most important indigenous sources describing north India during that time are three: The Buddhist scriptures in Pali, which describe the state of Gangetic plains during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE; Panini’s Sanskrit classic Ashtadhyayi, which discusses entire north India, focusing on the northwest during the 5th century; and Kautilya’s Arthashastra, which got shape during the 4th century BCE, i.e., almost contemporary to Megasthenes. These three indigenous sources enable us to independently identify various ganas and sanghas, some minor, while some large and powerful.

Dwelling at length on these republican polities, Panini informs us that “the states and regions (janapadas) in north India were established in his time by the conquest of a particular area by a specified invader group, which continued to hold sway on the polity of that area.” Some of these communities (in Panini’s terms janapadins) were ruled by a king, who was of one of their own kinsmen and who was dependent on their support. However, in case of many other communities, the janapadins were organized as republics. In both these kind of states, the governance was dominated by Kshatriyas, or say, the warrior caste.

The Nature of Republics

Interestingly, the term raja is used in both the instances, which obviously denotes a king in case of the monarchy, but in a republican state, it could be someone deputed to assume sovereignty.

In republican states, it might mean that political power was confined to the heads of a handful of “royal families” (rajakulas) among the ruling elite. The leaders of these family groups were sanctified as kings. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that in some polities, the empowered group was wider. Kautilya’s Arthashastra provides such an indication. According to this treatise, there were two kinds of janapadas, one predominantly martial, i.e. those constituted by soldiers, and the other constituted by craftsmen’s guilds, or by traders guilds and agriculturalists. The first were predominantly political entities where military might was the sole criteria to define those worthy of power; on the other hand, the second group appears to be such communities where wealth earned from trade and commerce provided the impetus to the political process.

The Republican Process

The gathering of the members of a sovereign gana or sangha worked together with each other as present day members of a legislature. Both the Brahminical and Buddhist literature provide details about the working of these ancient legislatures. Panini (5th century BCE) mentions explicit terminology as regards the process of decision-making in these polities. Panini provides various terms for voting, decision making through voting, and the requirement for a quorum. Another group of terms hints that the assemblies were divided on the basis of political parties. Panini also mentions that sometimes a smaller group of selected people within a sangha were given special functions, e.g. acting as the chief functionary or probably as a select committee for some specific purpose.

Panini also indicates that these republics functioned on an egalitarian basis during the 5th century BCE, and he mentions that “there was no consideration of high and low.” Kautilya’s Arthashastra specifies that ganas were an important factor in the polity of his time.

The Decline of Republics

It is remarkable to note that for several centuries, the avarice of monarchs, even of the greatest, impacted the sovereign republics only to a limited extent, with not much effect on the internal management of guilds, or religious sanghas, or the social life in the villages. As a matter of fact, the conquerors were hardly interested in restructuring the society, or to carve out kingdoms as we visualize them today. The kings were often satisfied with the acquiescence of their neighborhood states, whether they were republics or other kings. The defeated adversaries were often let off to look after their own realm, but were asked to pay a tribute or to provide troops in support of the conquerors’ war efforts.

It is therefore interesting to note that the existence of an aggressive warlord in the neighborhood did not pose much of a problem for the republican politics. We have to look elsewhere to search for the reasons for the gradual breakdown of sanghas. Apparently, a major stimulus came from within, as the republicans themselves gradually forsake the republican ethics by the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. In some instances, some well established republics gradually transformed and subjected themselves to hereditary chieftains. In due course, these republics transformed as monarchies.

The Disintegration

If we try to explore further into the underlying causes of the disintegration of these republics, we come across instances where members of ganas themselves sought this transformation due to various reasons. Quite frequently, the impetus to transform grew out of the ongoing frustration caused by inter-gana equations among the equal and often competing polities. It can be visualized that ganas claiming certain territory as their own were obstructed by other corporate groups. In the event of any territorial disputes, which were many, there was no arbitrating force which could sort out the tangle and reconcile the differences.

In a vast country like India and the number of equal and often competing republics many, there was apparently an inchoate wish in these circumstances to seek to identify some centralized coordinating authority, which could arbitrate in case of any inter-state conflict, even by preparing to relinquish a part of their sovereignty. Such an authority could take up the challenge of safeguarding their legitimate interests and protecting the weaker ones, by arrogating to itself imperialistic pretensions.

This was perhaps the political environment of the sub-continent, which supported the emergence of the first pan-India empire in India, in the shape and form of the redoubtable Mauryan Empire (322 BCE – 185 BCE). The stage had in any case been set by Alexander’s invasion (327-326 BCE) into the north-western flank of the country. Although Alexander decided to turn back instead of facing the mighty Magadha Empire ruled at that time by the powerful Nanda Dynasty, the writing on the wall was evident for the indigenous republicans.

The Republics Transformed

Thus, we see the republics withering away gradually. The political discourse was henceforth dominated by powerful empires. Though the ganas and sanghas continued to exist in theory, but now their sovereignty was compromised, giving way to a new social order, based on hierarchy at the cost of the former egalitarian structure of the country.

However, this spirit of republicanism continued to thrive at the grassroots at village level, which were left undisturbed to their own devices in the new political order. Likewise, the economic guilds organised on a republican pattern continued to function and to thrive even during the powerful Mauryan Empire. –  Pragyata, 3 January 2017

› Rakesh Goyal is a former state civil servant who has extensive experience of writing on subjects such as Spirituality, Hinduism, Lifestyle, Handicrafts, Travel, Yoga, Ayurveda and Vedic Astrology.

Mahajanapadas ca. 500 BCE