Author: Prof. Makhan Lal
Publication: Bharatiya Pragna
Date: October, 2004
Introduction: When 'eminent historians'
as well as prominent congress leaders like Gandhi have argued that India
was a one nation long before the British came, Mr. Arjun Singh in one stroke
has done away nearly 5000 years of Indian history by endorsing the British
historians, that it was only after the British came that India became one
nation.
We have traveled a long way from
safronization to communalization to talibanization to detoxification. These
words no longer surprise anyone and do not even make news. Therefore, one
has to resort something more outlandish in order to make a news and remain
in news. The advertisement issued by the Ministry of HRD, Government of
India, Published in several Newspapers (30.7.2004) does belong to this
category. Indeed the title of advertisement "Students interest - Our foremost
concern" appears very poise. Mr. Arjun singh showed his great concerned
towards setting the wrong done by the previous regime in field of history
right by appointing a three members committee - all former Presidents of
Indian History Congress. It was expected of them that they should identify
the 'mistakes and communal passage in the current history textbooks of
NCERT and suggest alternative expressions.' This was not done; simply because
they could not find even one mistake or communal statement in the book.
They could not comment or even deny the evidence given in the books on
the issues like cow eating in ancient India, Aryan migration, Vedic civilization,
science, astronomy, mathematics etc. during the Vedic period, atrocities
on Hindus and destruction of the places of worship during the medieval
period. Despite no mistakes, despite no communal passages fund in the books,
the members recommended that the books should be withdrawn. Indeed an academic
pursuit by Fatawa.
Let us come back to the advertisement
of 30.07.2004. The real shocking thing in the advertisement is the statement
of Mr. Arjun Singh. Mr. Singh says, "We hope that such a sorry episode
in our academic history will help us to evolve a consensus by which the
sanctity of academic institutions and processes are not compromised and
no one is allowed to cynically play with the future of our children and
diminish in any way, the idea of India that took shape during our freedom
struggle and is so sacredly enshrined in the constitution of India" (emphasis
mine).
No person with right mind will disagree
with Mr. Arjun Singh regarding his first part of the statement. But it
is the second part which needs a close scrutiny. Mr. Arjun Singh is explicitly
endorsing the ideas of some of the cranky British scholars of 19th and
20th centuries and lately of the Marxist historians. Thus, in onea stroke
Mr. Singh has done away nearly 5000 years of Indian history and the concept
of Indian Nationalism, which even the master manipulator and planner Nurul
Hassan could not do. Articulating British view, John Strachey wrote in
1880. "This is the first and foremost thing to learn about India that there
is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India possessing,
according to European ideas, any sort of unity - physical, political, social
and religious, no Indian nation, no 'people of India', of which we hear
so much. "In order to destroy the geographical and cultural unity of the
country British spread these myths that India was never a nation and it
is they who united it politically and made into a nation. Taking the British
theory a step further, the Marxist historians ideologues have been advocating
that India is not a nation but a conglomeration of nations and Indian people
are nothing but rag-tag gathering with no history.
These Marxists are the same ones
who did every thing to destroy the freedom struggle of India; called Gandhiji
an old senile man, Nehru an agent of imperialism and Netaji a Tojo's dog
and were on the pay roles of the British for spying against the leaders
of Indian National Congress and others involved in freedom struggle.
While giving the statement Mr. Arjun
Singh or his ghost writer did not even bother to check that he is endorsing
the very same view against which Congress and its veteran leaders, including
Gandhiji, fought the British. He has even gone to the extent of suggesting
that 'idea of India' as a nation 'took shape during our freedom struggle.'
Perturbed with the British canard that India was not a nation before the
coming of British, the Father of Nation wrote about the existence of the
concept of Indian 'nation' in his "Hindu-Swarajya" (1909), exposing the
British fraud, "The English have taught us that we were not a nation before
and it will require centuries before we become one nation. This is without
foundation. We were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired
us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that
they were able to establish one kingdom. Our leading men traveled throughout
India either on foot or in bullock-carts. What do you think could have
been the intention of those farseeing ancestors of ours who established
Setubandh (Rameswaram) in the south, Jagnnath in the east and Haridwar
in the north as places of pilgrimage? You will admit that they were no
fools. They knew that worship of God could have been performed at home.
They taught us that those whose hearts were aglow with righteousness had
the Ganga in their own homes. (mana changa to kathauti mein Ganga). But
they saw that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They, therefore,
argued that it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they established holy
places in various parts of India and fired the people with the idea of
nationality in a manner unknown in other parts of the world."
Almost at the same time (1909) R.K.
Mookerjee wrote the article 'Fundamental Unity of India' exposing the British
canard. This was published in the form of a book in 1913 under the same
title. While dealing with the issue nationalism, Mookerjee writes, "India
was preaching the gospel of nationalism when Europe was passing through
what has been aptly called the Dark Age of her history, and was labouring
under the travails of a new birth" (Nationalism in Hindu Culture, 9121,
London).
Mr. Arjun Singh and his ghost writers
need to know what has been written about India (i.e. Bharata) vis-vis nationalism
in ancient literature. The Puranaas clearly define the boundaries of the
country. Vishnu Purana (2.3.1) and Vayu Purana (45.75) say that "the land
bounded by the Himalays in the north and seas in the south is known as
Bharatvrsha and people living in here are known as Bharata Santati." The
list of holy places and the list of holy rivers contain the names that
spread from north to south and east to west. The pilgrimage covered the
places from Kailash Mansaraovar in the north to Kanyakumari in the south,
Hingulaj in the west to Parashuram Kunda in the present day Arunchal Pradesh.
The single political unit of this
entire land never bothered the people of this country. What mattered was
the cultural nationalism. Still we find that this political aspect of nationalism
was not completely overlooked. Kautilya in his Asthashashtra (4th century
B.C.) says that a Chakravarti king is the one who has conquered the whole
nation of Bharatavarsh which he defines as the land between Himalayas in
the north to ocean in the south and one thousand yojana (eight thousand
miles) from east to west (Book 9, chapter 1.135-36). Kautilya's this visualization
of one huge political entity of a nation is neither a dream nor impossibility
when we look at the Rock Edicts and Piller Edicts of Ashokan empire of
3rd century B.C. was India not one nation from Afghanistan to Assam and
Nepal Tarai to Mysore? Ashokan edicts mention of south Indian dynasties
like Cheras, Cholas, and Pandyas. Such concepts do not develop overnight
It must have taken several hundred years to develop the kind of nation-empire
Kautilya visualized and Ahsoka realized, Aitereya Brahmana (VIII. 15) clearly
says, "there should be one ruler of this land (nation) up to sea."
As said earlier, one political power,
one language, one dress etc. has never been the prerequisite of Indian
nationalism. The Prithvi sukta of Rigveda recognizes that "the people inhabiting
this land speak different dialects, and follow different norms of behaviour
according to their own region, but this motherland just like a cow, feeds
them all with her milk without any distinction."
The concept of Indian nationalism
has been best summed up by great Congress leader Bipin Chandra Pal in an
article published in May, 1913 in Hindu Review (Calcutta). Pal says, "National
differentiations among us, therefore, have not been based upon territorial
demarcations only, or upon political or economic competitions and conflicts,
but upon differences of culture... And that special character [i.e. culture]
is the very soul and essence of what we know and understand as Nationalism.
This is by no means a mere political idea or ideal. It is organized in
our domestic, our communal, our social and our socioeconomic institutions.
In fact, politics form, from some point of view, the least important factor
of this nation-idea among us. The so called political institutions of Europe
might, indeed, hinder, instead of helping the growth of our national life;
while under conceivable conditions, mere political subjection might not
be able to touch even the outer most fringe of that life."
Thus, on the one hand, beside the
huge mass of ancient literature and respected historians are the great
Congress leaders who think that the concept of India (i.e. Bharatavarsha)
and India as a nation was there right from the earliest times and it was
both the political as well as cultural nationalism; on the other hand here
is Arjun Singh, the minister of Education who thinks that the concept of
India and Indian nationalism is the gift of British. I do hope that Mr.
Arjun Singh realizes that what has been quoted above was written much before
RSS or BJP were even born. And, of course, Rigveda, Brahamans, Puranas,
Gandhi ji and Bipin Chandra Pal did not hold a brief for RSS or BJP or
Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi.
Speaking to a gathering in the Constitution
Club on 24th July Prof. J.S.Rajput said in a jocular vain that all the
controversies of history will be settled if only the people of this country
are persuaded to accept that civilasational history of India begins only
after 7th century A.D.; India is not a nations but a conglomeration of
nationalities and indeed the whole mass of ancient Indian literature and
scripture is nothing but farce. It appears what Prof. Rajput said out of
anguish has been accepted by Arjun Singh as a well meaning advise.
It would be better for the Congress
and also "in the interest of students" now to send bulldozers to Rajghat
and allocate that land for the establishment of a "Centre for the Promotion
of Secularism (Arjun Singh Version)."
