Understanding India - Neil deVotta

History of India

2600 BCE – Harappan civilization

1900 BCE – Advent of Aryans

First major empire (4^th century BCE – Mahapadma Nanda/ Magadha) à Alexander à Chandragupta Maurya (btw 324 and 313 BC) à Asoka (268 BCE) à 500 yrs of instability with various rulers like Indogreeks, Shakas, Kushanas à Chandra Gupta (320 CE) à Chandra Gupta II/Vikramaditya/Fa Hsien à Harshavardhana/Kanauj/Huan Tsang (At the same time Cholas, Hoysalas, Kakatiyas, Yadavas in the south)

Medieval India

712 CE. Arab outposts in Sindh à 1000 CE Mahmud Ghazni/ Somnath (1026) à Muhammad Ghauri 1175 (fight with Prithvirraj Chauhan) à Qutb-ud-din Aibak 1206 (Delhi Sultanate/Slave Dynasty) à Iltutmish à Raziya à Balban à Khlaji, Tughlaqs, Sayyids, Lodis (all Delhi Sultanate. At the same time in south, Vijayanagar)

Mughals: Babur (1526, defeated Ibrahim Lodi, Battle of Panipat I à Humayun à Sher Shah Suri (1540) à Akbar (1556, Battle of Panipat II) à Prince Salim/Jehangir (Guru Arjan of Sikhs put to death) à Shah Jahan à Dara Shikoh à Aurangazeb (1659)

British India’s emergence: Nawab of Bengal X Robert Clive (1757, Battle of Plassey) à Battle of Buxar 1764 à Won over Marathas, Mysore Tipu Sultan (1799 Battle of Seringapatnam, with the help of Nawab of Hyderabad),  Charles Napier’s capture of Sind in 1842 (“Peccavi” – I have sinned)

Nationalist Moment

Bengal (Mritunjaya Vidyalankara’s Rajbali, Raja ram mohan roy) à 1857 revolt à 1885 Congress party born à GANDHI!!!

Nehru, 1946 – “The dominant impulse in India under British rule was that of fear, pervasive, oppressive and strangling fear…It was against this all pervading fear that Gandhi’s quiet and determined voice was raised. Be not afraid… So suddenly as it were, the black pall of fear was lifted from the people’s shoulders, not wholly, of course, but to an amazing degree. The Indian people did not become more truthful than they were, nor did they change their essential nature overnight; nevertheless a sea change was visible as the need for falsehood and furtive behaviors lessened. It was a psychological change, almost as if some expert in psychoanalytical method had probed deep into the patient’s past, found out the origins of his complexes, exposed them to his view and thus rid him of that burden”

There were two visions of India – Gandhi’s and Nehru’s. Gandhi’s India was one Gandhi thought which could draw from her deep wells of spirituality. Whatever his failures, he rescued rural life from condescension it was subjected to by other forms of nationalism and gave it its rightful place as an essential part of Modern India. Gandhi is almost unique among 20^th century leaders in eschewing all forms of political violence. His radical insistence on nonviolence will remain a haunting reminder of the moral imperfections of other political ideologies. Nehru’s India is a more forward looking one, and it was this vision that triumphed after 1947. But now, how far Nehru’s India will endure remains to be seen. But if the history of Indian nationalism has taught us one thing, it is this: the story of Modern India is the story of Indians constantly struggling to discover and articulate what it means to be an Indian.

Indian Politics

In a troubled land, democracy means there is hope.

Jawaharlal Nehru was the schoolmaster of parliamentary government, Indira Gandhi its truant.

India’s democratic paradox – Deepening of democracy à spread of political activism à however shallowness of social capital

Population, urbanization and environment

Examined through four conceptual lens:

a)      Population lens – the question we cannot answer is how many people can Earth support?  Gandhi’s remarks during independence “It took Britain half the resources of the world to achieve this prosperity; how many planets would a country like India require?”

b)      Poverty lens – The Brundtland Commission’s proposed solution for environmental degradation caused by the world’s poor was sustainable development. The problem, many economists feel, is that the “ecosystem people” and “ecological refugees” India’s increased productive capacity has not provided jobs or wages sufficient to offset inflation or unpredictable weather that toys with the lives of people whose survival largely depends on forces of nature.

c)       Technology lens:

d)      Economic Rationalism lens: Liberalization has not visibly improved the nation’s environment. “We are making a mistake if we ask markets to do things they were not designed to do. Markets are meant to be efficient, not sufficient, greedy, not fair. If they do something good for whales or wilderness or God or grandchildren, that’s very coincidental.