Thursday, April 22, 2010

A Brief History Of India



Violence has always been a part of human history, and the history of India like that of any other country is no different.

It's full of massacres,and blood-shed over few men's hunger for power and conquest.

The Aryans settled down in the Ganges plane and lived there in what we may call 'relative peace', keeping in mind what followed over the centuries.

As rest of the Indian history is full of invasions and conquests.

First the Persians and the Greeks, then Alexander. Followed by the Maurya period. Which reached a peaceful state under the rule of Asoka as he was deeply influenced by Buddhism. And then for a long time there were Hindu dynasties ruling most of the Indian subcontinent.
Even though the Hindu rule had it's own fundamental flaws in form of religiously defined social structure of castes, absence of other major religious groups in the Indian sub-continent allowed for a comparatively peaceful existence.

But the things that shaped the future we see today took place once the Moguls arrived in India. Because this was the first time that Hinduism met Islam.
This marked the birth of hatred between Hindus and Muslims. But the common Hindu and Muslim people had nothing to do with the invasions. It was the will of the Mogul rulers that brought about the bitterness between the two communities.

Hindus blindly began hating Islam and those who followed it, the story on the Muslim side was no different. Yet again we see, that it was not about religion at all, instead it was about a few powerful men and their will to conquer more land and attain more power.
Religion as always was used to manipulate the minds of the common people through the dirty politics of the rich, fueled by sick and perverted hunger for more power.

And one of the last rulers of this country were the English, and the damage they did to this country is still in a state of dis-repair. As the others before them, colonial raj was driven by need for power, profit, and control over the world.
They came here under the pretext of The East India Company and stayed here for over two centuries.

Their infamous divide and rule policies are well known to the world. They kept the caste system in India prevalent by issuing government policies based on caste system and religion, thus forcing people to feel kinship only with people belonging to their own social group and class, and in doing so alienating themselves from the people belonging to other castes.

While the English lived in royal fashion through out the British raj, famines in India, often attributed to failed government policies, were some of the worst ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–78, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.

It's really hard to believe that the shrewd bureaucratic minds behind the British raj, who had successfully colonized many countries under their rule that lasted for centuries, failed to come up with fitting government policies to keep the people of India alive let alone happy.

To me these famines seem to have been systematically created by the British rule in order to reduce the population and keep it in check and in turn reduce the resistance of the Indian people against the raj.
Systematic plans for reduction of human population in order to perpetuate the state of affairs, are still a part of the hidden global policies of the elite. Hence, to me it only goes on to make more sense that this has been happening for a long time.

Besides, aren't famines determined by the forces of nature? Don't famine occur due to natural phenomenon like crop-failure? Since when do government policies create famines, unless they are deliberately meant to do so?

After such racial and biased rule over India for years, when the time came for the English to leave India, they didn't do so without delivering the final blow to the Indian people.

The partition.

After forcefully thrusting the caste and religion driven identity over the Indian people through these cunning policies, the British further widened the gulf between the two major religious groups in India i.e., (Hindus and Muslims) by creating the congress party which was primarily a Hindu party.
This created a feeling of insecurity amongst the Muslim population of the country, who felt that their interests would not be addressed by this Hindu majority party. Thus Muslim league came into existence.
It was the clash between these two parties that led to the partition of India.
And if one were to believe the enormous amounts of evidence that is present, it is clear that most of the violence around the time of partition, was systematically engineered by the two parties on both sides.
Party workers instigated and took active part in the gruesome rapes and killings, and they in turn were funded by the two parties.

After the borders were announced, millions of people sought to rejoin their new country, convinced they could no longer live together. Nine million Hindus left Pakistan and six million Muslims left India. A million refugees crossed the borders on foot, forming human columns over dozens of miles long, in rags, exhausted, starved, crushed by sorrow. Others, leaving in trains, never arrived. Witnesses described “death trains” filled with mutilated cadavers, the train wheels dripping blood. There were between 150,000 and a million deaths in a few months.
The British showed least interest in trying to prevent the riots. Most of the British soldiers had been called back to the UK due to the losses incurred by the English during the World War II. And the two newly formed countries were in complete disorder and were in no shape to deal with the riots.
Thousands of Sikh women got killed by their own family members in the name of honor killing. Some figures say that around 75000 women (Muslim,Sikh and Hindu) were raped and murdered. Their breasts slit off by angry men.
Mother India just like Mother earth raped over and over again by her own sons. Her screams are long gone now. All hopes for any help have faded away.
Now she lies there with a bruised body and spirit, being raped by each one of her children one by one. Each one fighting to get some more action.
And like any mother, all she wanted was to see her children live in peace with one another sharing what ever she had to offer.
But like wild beasts we snatch at her, everyone trying to have a go before the other and get their hands full with as much as possible.

The hateful incidents of the partition created differences between Hindus and Muslims that are still as fresh even after more than 50 years. But the horrors of partition were hidden from the new generation under the false pretext of Independence.

I feel that 15th of August every year should be mourned rather than celebrated.

Besides, keep in mind that before partition Hindus and Muslims fought against the British raj together for years, when you think about how the politics of a few power hungry men mercilessly manipulates the fate of the rest.


The way events have unfolded over the centuries in the past and what they have led to in today's world is a rather sad and paradoxical state of things when we understand that we are suppose to be the "Intelligent ones". Yet we cause more blood-shed than any other species on earth.
I see no sign of intelligence in all that's happened, and in what's happening now.

The will of a few men has always decided fate of the rest of the unsuspecting people, and it has resulted in disasters of epic proportions every single time.

Don't you find it appalling that every single significant page in our human history is marked by nothing but bloodshed?

Why don't we ever read about two groups of people meeting and being elated at the same? Why don't we rejoice and understand the bigger picture! Why do we always feel threatened by another group. If you think about it that's what wild animals do too. Lions see another pack of lions coming into their territory and their only intuition is to attack and save their land and their resources for themselves. Do you see the similarity here with what we do?

And so I ask again! Where is the intelligence part of it?