‘India…a bundle of contradictions…’!

 

‘India…a bundle of contradictions…’!  

This is the concluding part of my last article Decoding The Discovery of India. Nehru’s ‘jumble of ideas’ find expression in this classic work. What he discovered is the epitome of Indian civilizational heritage. Some more selected topics from The Discovery of India are discussed to understand what India meant to Nehru, who had a tryst with her destiny.

 

Development of a Common Culture

 

The Mughal rulers put themselves in line with the genius of the nation and tried to work for a common nationality and synthesis of the various elements in the country.  The impact of the invaders from the North-West and of Islam on India had been very considerable. The idea of the brotherhood of Islam and of the theoretical equality of its adherents made a powerful appeal, especially to the lower caste Hindus, who were discriminated and denied equal treatment, resulting in many conversions, particularly in Bengal.  In Kashmir, conversion to Islam had resulted in 95 per cent of the population becoming Moslems, though they retained many of their old Hindu customs. In the later part of the 19^th century, large numbers of these people wanted to return en bloc to Hinduism, but the pundits of Banaras had refused to countenance any such change of faith. 

 

The position of women deteriorated. The custom of seclusion of women- had intensified among the Moslem women. This spread among the upper classes all over the North and in Bengal, but the South and West of India escaped the degrading custom.  Because the great majority of Moslem in India were converts from Hinduism, Hindus and Moslems developed numerous common traits, habits, ways of living and artistic tastes, especially in Northern India, in music, painting, architecture, food, clothes, and common traditions, joining each other’s festivals and celebrations, and speaking the same language, and lived in more or less the same way.  The seclusion of women prevented the development of social life. This applied even more to Moslems inter se for purdah among them was stricter. 

 

During the Mughal period large numbers of Hindus wrote books in Persian which was the official court language, some of them becoming classics. And at the same time Moslem scholars translated Sanskrit books into Persian and wrote in Hindi. Akbar’s success was astonishing, for he created a sense of oneness among the diverse elements of North and Central India. According to Nehru, “There was the barrier of a ruling class, mainly of foreign origin, and there were the barriers of religion and caste, a proselytizing religion opposed to the static but highly resistant system. These barriers did not disappear, but in spite of them that feeling of oneness grew.” It was an attachment to the structure he had built.  Akbar’s successors, Jehangir and Shah Jehan, accepted that structure and functioned within its framework. Their reigns were successful because they continued on the lines so firmly laid down by Akbar.

  

Aurangzeb puts the Clock Back

 

The last of the ‘Grand Mughals’, Aurungzeb, tried to put back the clock, and in this attempt stopped it and broke it up.  He was opposed to the structure built by Akbar and followed by his successors. He began to function more as a Moslem than an Indian ruler. And “The work of Akbar, and to some extent by his successors, was undone and the various forces that had been kept in check by Akbar’s policy broke loose and challenged that empire.”  Aurungzeb succeeded to the throne of the Mughals after a civil war, having imprisoned his own father. Only an Akbar might have understood the situation and controlled the new forces that were rising. And “Aurungzeb, far from understanding the present, failed even to appreciate the immediate past... A bigot … he was no lover of art or literature. He infuriated the great majority of his subjects by imposing the old hated jeziya poll-tax on the Hindus and destroying many of their temples.”    He offended the proud Rajputs who had been the props and pillars of the Mughal Empire.  In the North he roused the Sikhs, who, from being a peaceful sect representing some kind of synthesis of Hindu and Islamic ideas, were converted by repression and persecution; in the west coast of India, he angered the warlike Marathas, just when a brilliant captain had risen amongst them.    

 

Triumph of the British

 

The 100 years that followed the death of Aurungzeb in 1707 saw a complicated and many-sided struggle for mastery over India.  The Mogul Empire rapidly fell to pieces and the imperial viceroys and governors began to function as semi-independent rulers.  The Marathas looked upon the Nizam of Hyderabad as one of their subordinate chieftains paying tribute to them.  The Nizam took refuge under the protecting wings of the growing power of the British East India Company and survived as a state because of this vassalage.

 

During the 18^th century, the real protagonists for power in India were four: “two of these were Indian and two foreign.  The Indians were the Marathas and Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan in the South; the foreigners were the British and the French. Of these… the Marathas were destined to establish their supremacy over India as a whole and to be the successors of the Mughal Empire.”  Their troops were at the very gates of Delhi in 1737 and there was no power strong enough to oppose them.

 

Just then, in 1739, a new eruption took place in the North-West and Nadir Shah of Persia swept down to Delhi, killing and plundering, and carrying off enormous treasure including the famous Peacock Throne. The Marathas had in no way been weakened by Nadir Shah and they continued to spread in the Punjab. However, in 1761, they met with a crushing defeat at Panipat from an Afghan invader Ahmed Shah Durrani-who ruled Afghanistan then. The Maratha dominions were divided into a number of independent states, prominent among them were Schindhia of Gwalior, Holkar of Indore, and the Gaekwar of Baroda.

 

In Bengal, Robert Clive, by promoting treason and forgery had won the battle of Plassey in 1757, marking the beginning of the British Empire in India. In South India, the struggle between the English and the French ended in the triumph of the British, and the French were almost eliminated from India. Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan were formidable adversaries who inflicted a sever defeat on the British and came near to breaking the power of the East India Company.  Haider Ali- a remarkable ruler and one of the notable figures of Indian history- tried to organize a joint effort to drive the British out and, for this purpose, sent enjoys to the Marathas, the Nizam, and Shuja-ud-Dowla of Oudh. But they refused to join him.

 

As the 18^th century approached its end, there were only two powers that counted- the Marathas and the British. Tipu Sultan of Mysore was finally defeated by the British in 1799, due to the treachery of Nizam and the refusal of Marathas to side him in his battle against the British. That left the field for the final contest for supremacy between the Marathas and the East India Company. Because of rivalry amongst the Martha chieftains, they fought and were defeated separately by the British.  By 1808 the Maratha power was totally crushed and the great chiefs that represented it in Central India submitted and accepted the overlordship of the East India Company.  Thus, a foreign trading Company became the unchallenged sovereign power of India, governing the country directly or through puppet and subsidiary princes. What a disgrace!

 

A cultural unity amidst diversity

 

In the Epilogue to the book, Nehru asks himself: “The discovery of India- what have I discovered”? And then answers: “It was presumptuous of me to imagine that I could unveil her and find out what she is to-day and what she was in the long past. To-day she is four hundred million separate individual men and women, each differing from the other, each living in a private universe of thought and feeling. If this is so in the present, how much more difficult is it to grasp that multitudinous past of innumerable successions of human beings.” Yet, something has bound them together and binds them still.  

 

He paid her an eloquent tribute that moves us: “India is a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads. Overwhelmed again and again, her spirit was never conquered, and to-day when she appears to be the plaything of a proud conqueror, she remains unsubdued and unconquered.  About her there is the elusive quality of a legend of long ago, some enchantment seems to have held her mind. She is a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive.” So enamored by this narration of India by Pandit Nehru that I would begin my first year foundation course class by quoting the passage; paraphrase it and take two-three lectures to make the students to understand and appreciate the religious, cultural and ethnic and linguistic diversity of India and be proud of their inheritance.

 

Nehru continues eulogizing India: “From age to age she has produced great men and women, carrying on the old tradition and yet ever adapting it to changing times.” He was saddened that “to-day she swings between a blind adherence to her old customs and a slavish imitation of foreign ways.” A true culture derives its inspiration from every corner of the world but it is home-grown and has to be based on the wide mass of the people. And “We are citizens of no mean country and we are proud of the land of our birth, of our people, our culture and traditions. That pride should not be for a romanticized past to which we want to cling; nor should it encourage exclusiveness.”