As you read along will understand that the title of the blog has nothing to do with the blog…anyway I didn’t get a better one… so its going to be that way.
Ask me “what is the best thing to happen to India?” and I will say the East India Company! Or the British Rule.
Surprised! So will be millions on Indians who read this. I am a patriotic Indian, not that I favor the west over Indian culture. Not that I favor western life style over Indian, but the truth will always remain the truth, if you all manage to read on you will understand what I mean. Just to make sure you understand, lets keep culture, religion and life style out of this. I am an Indian speaking my mind about India as a whole.
Image Schools create!
Many subjects, little minds,
What’s in print is always true!
History is what? Is just another subject, too,
What you infer is left to you.
Who said it? I said it, it might not rhyme but its true. Since my fifth grade to my tenth the subject history was like an anti British subject. No denying that there were many other topics thought in the subject, like Harappa and Mohenjodaro, Indus valley civilization, The Aryans, Vijaynagara, Moguls, Shivaji etc. but this were like one or two chapters in a book of twenty the rest dealt whit how the British invaded India and how the Indians won back the freedom. When a child grows up, no doubt he/she forgets the rest of the history, we only remembers the British chapter.
More over the image created by this teaching, portraits the British as villains. There is no denying that India wasn’t sailing rough seas under the British rule and we needed independence. But would we be requiring independence if the English never invaded India? Might be from the Moguls, but neither was their rule any great.
The books teach us many things and that’s the reason why we believe what’s in print is true. We study for exams, that’s what we are thought for. Our parents want us to get good marks so they tell us to study, the school teaches us to study and we as kids study.
But in all this we never learn. Now that I can think for myself, now that my parents don’t tell me what’s good and what‘s bad, now that the school does not decide what I should read and study, I have started to think for myself. To look beyond the rainbow, and now, is when I am admiring its beauty.
India has a rich history, no denying it. The problem with we Indians is that we have stuck to the past so firmly that we don’t want to change. We talk about our glorious past, don’t work on the present because it needs a lot of efforts and work, so be stubborn on change and literally screw (you may say spoil but I like the word screw) our future. I am not advocating the west, whatever’s good we have to learn. Learn, change and move forward.
You talk to the older generation here and ask them, where do we as a country stand today? No matter where the conversation starts, they will, to defend themselves brag about the history and culture of India rather then its progress. Typical human tendency of defending themselves rather than admitting the right. That the reason why I like the quote “to all arguments there is your side, my side and the right side.”
The “Ifs and Buts”
What if the British had not come to India? There are many possible things that would have happened. In either case we would not be any better than today. Even in the slim chance that we would have developed the chances of us not developing would be more.
Let me put a few possibilities of what would India be if the British had not come to India.
The Mogul, The Maratha, The Sikh, The Vijaynagar India.
Divide and rule was possible in India. The reason, today’s states of India were in arms against each other then, that is when the Moguls came to India. Then India was not a country as a whole, small and large provinces ruled by kings who more than living happily fought with each other for status, land and pride. That’s the reason why Moguls and the other country men could come and make a base in India.
I am not going into the history of what happened when, but I will be talking about what would happen if. I was reading the history of India again after all this years and got to know how rich our history is. We never pay attention to it in school, back then its just a subject and marks is all that we care. Just before the British invasion started there where four major rulers of India, the north being the strong hold of Moguls where the Shiks held some land in the north west. The Marathas kept much of the western and the bit of central India, the south was ruled by the Vijaynagars. The Marathas, the Shiks and the Souhtern kings kept fighting with the Moguls for land and in the name of religion. My point here is, as I will elaborate later, we would not have India, but four small countries still fighting against each other, had the British not invaded. The British rule unified us as a country. Lets not go into the Portuguese and French colonies that were there during the time.
Let me say it again, I am not advocating the British rule but whatever place India has reached today is because of its past and it would have not been in its place today if the English had not ruled it.
There could be many possibilities how India would be, Consider that the Mogul came into power (obviously not in the democratic way) and defeated all the other powers. We would have a big country extending from Afghanistan to Sri-Lanka including Pakistan and Bangladesh. Now we would end up like Afghanistan a war torn country, with lot of people and not much to achieve. There will always have been fights among the Hindus, Muslims and the people from other religion. For the fact that the Moguls had levied a non Muslim tax. There would be many communities within the country fighting for right to live more freely. India would not have been democratic, but a Mogul monarchy. The quality of education that is there now and the freedom that we enjoy, would not have been. India would be more of a under developed country rather than a developing country. The big question now you will surely ask, why?
The British brought the railways to the India. Now railway is a major traveling mode for Indians. The western education that we follow, has made the world smaller for India, that too we owe to the English. The thread mill set in Mumbai by the British, has made Mumbai the then Bombay the commercial capital of India. Would much of this be possible if we had just the Moguls? Look at the country from where the Mogul were, how developed are they? With just the Moguls at power, there would be other leader fighting for freedom, this would not be a non- violent freedom fight for sure. Even if the people revolted later they would have a country, devoid of its riches, not that the British left India will a huge treasury. But the Mogul would have left us a huge country to rule with no proper format to rule it. What I mean with the format is that the largest democracy, India is made on a derived format of democracy from the English pattern. The only difference being the Queen is most powerful (namesake) there and the President here (namesake).
Consider now that the Mogul didn’t have all the power but there were four majors, with part being to the Marathas, the Sikhs and the Vijaynagars. At some point we would have four countries, still fighting with each other. All this countries will have a monarchy rule and with the word becoming flat (means open for trade) we would have poor war torn countries which would at most be under developed. As we break a huge country in to smaller one, and each with a past, not so good, with no natural resources and no much land to explore, unless we be as good as Japan or have a past like Britain which made itself rich by making other countries poor where would we be? I will stop this discussion of “if India was broken into many countries”, India would not be India and there is no point discussing the fate of a country because they are like four countries we are discussing here.
What the British did was, unified India it made it one instead of four. Ok the British rule was not the best thing to happen to India. They ruled a country as a slave to fulfill their growing demands. There were many things that they did which were in-human and devoid the country of its natural resources to some extend. But what they got in with them, should to some extend compensate it.
Independence!
The next best thing to happen to India is her independence. The English gave us English, that the reason why the IT industry in India is more successful than in China or for the matter in any other place. I have seen it in India we fight over language, go to any state in India if you don’t know the language you are considered “a outsider”. For god sake language is just a means of communication.
One point of argument that comes up when we talk about Independence is division of India. Now people say the British divided India. Yes the British divided India and Pakistan but the reason for it, were our leaders who wanted power. The people weren’t asked, were they? Who profited by all that.. not nobody just the politicians. Not just then even today we have this communal riots, religion is still basis for discrimination for many. I have seen many Hindus who hate Muslims and vise versa but ask this people for a reason and they won’t have one. The reason I say is much because their parents say so they do so, as they grow, somewhere in their mind the hate grows they don’t have a reason but they hate and I…… I hate these people.
I have roamed place and I have realized even though we all are Indians, you move from one state to the other you are not welcomed. You will always find yourself to be some outsider. Typical behaviors of Indians (Tamilians, Keralite, Maratha, Telgus etc.), I had gone on a camp where you are asked to socialize, you we get to see within minutes there will be a group formed of people speaking only in their respective languages. How much ever you tell them please speak in a language “I understand”, they never do. You, for one are lost and will never be a part of the group how hard you try. No matter where you are if two Bangalis meet you will find them arguing ( better word would be “debating”) on some topic or the other. Lastly the people form Mumbai, know as Mumbaiya, most of them think they own the world. If they are in a group some where outside of Mumbai and ask them not to do something and that’s the biggest mistake you will ever do, its done even before you finish. We have not learned to live like a country we are still living like strangers even though all are, Indians? (The people or cast that i have written over here are the people i have interacted with, each ones perception about others will differ. No hard feeling for naming!)
Why do humans in this country keep fighting, in the name of religion, caste and region? Even today in India people are fighting for free land, even today people fight on language and cast here. Just consider all this, and now think if we had four countries on the basis of religion and language still fight with each other for land what would be the sate of the people living in such countries? Like the Palestine and Israel maybe? In either case it would be much worse than the present. The British not only unified potential different country which we call the Union Republic of India, but unknowingly reduced a lot of wars which would happen due to hostile neighboring nations. The next best thing is Independence. But the real independence will be when all come together to build a nation leaving religion, caste, region and language. I believe Country is not the land people live on it’s the people who live on the land.
We might be independent but we still are not free. Our biggest problem is we have not started thinking for ourselves. When will we learn to stop following people, take thing at its root and think for ourselves, “what I am doing right?” Is the person who is guiding me right?
I wanted to write a lot. Explaining a lot, but than who reads all this? Will there be any change in the thought of people by me putting my thought here?
But still I love writing my thoughts, I don’t care about the world, its just that I want to make myself a better human, always!
LiFe HeRe,
Ninad Dighe.
