C E L E B R I T Y: Its Changing Face in India Through the Ages

By Preminder Singh Sandhawalia

CELEBRITY is a book about the changing perceptions of societies at different periods of Indian history for evaluating and acclaiming outstanding achievements presented in the public domain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468577709

Preminder Singh Sandhawalia

Preminder Singh Sandhawalia has travelled extensively during assignments with the Government of India, International Airports Authority of India, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation. His first book, a family biography, Noblemen and Kinsmen was published in 1999, and his second book, Beyond Identity, about his people was released in 2007. He has now explored the phenomenon of Celebrity in India, evidence of a widening scope of enquiry. He lives in Chandigarh, India.

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© 2012 by Preminder Singh Sandhawalia. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/15/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7768-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7770-9 (e)

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2

SOCIETY, ACHIEVEMENT AND PERCEPTION

CHAPTER 3

THE EPIC ERA

CHAPTER 4

THE MAURYA PERIOD

CHAPTER 5

THE GOLDEN AGE

CHAPTER 6

ISLAMIC IMPACT

CHAPTER 7

THE RAJ YEARS

CHAPTER 8

AGITATION AND AWAKENING

CHAPTER 9

MODERN INDIA

CHAPTER 10

TRIUMPH OF THE MASSES?

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about changing perceptions of societies in different eras for celebrating achievements.

Over twenty centuries ago an extraordinary man roamed through the lanes of Athens performing what he regarded as a most important occupation: discussing philosophy. He spoke about knowledge and logic and a coherent explanation for everything instead of a belief in the arbitrary actions of gods and demons. The Socratic method he espoused was to question and question progressively zeroing in on the core of the problem rather than fall back on superstition and irrationality. He is considered to be the father of political philosophy, ethics and Western moral philosophy. He held that virtue is knowledge and knowledge influenced the entire personality through the intellect spawning justice, courage, temperance and self-control. Obviously, if knowledge was virtue, ignorance according to Socrates, was the source of all vice. Socrates was morally, intellectually and politically at odds with fellow Athenians, and it took exceptional courage and strong conviction for him to constantly preach his teachings in the environments of the city and state in which he resided. He questioned the legitimacy of his government and said that only a wise man is suitable to govern others and Athenian democracy as practiced then and the Thirty Tyrants who ruled for a year were all sham and an ideal government should be a republic led by philosophers.

This brilliant Greek whose invention of the philosophical question was, as Roberts writes, part and parcel of one of the great intutions of all time¹, was rejected by his own people and sentenced to death for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and not believing in the gods of the state². An achievement which laid the foundation of all western intellectual activity was labelled heretic by the society of the time and these ideas had to wait for a more enlightened generation to be recognized as great and Socrates as worthy of eternal fame.

In the same era, in a contiguous country, the military exploits of Alexander, Prince of Macedonia, were extolled because his people felt that he had conquered the world. When he conquered the richest and most powerful cities of the Persian empire the Macedonians thought that Alexander’s mission was complete. But Alexander was not out to conquer an empire but to conquer the world. So he continued advancing towards the rising sun and stopped only when after a voyage down the Indus to the Arabian Sea he felt that he had finally reached the Great Ocean that surrounds the world³. In a society that admired military success and empire-building, Alexander was hailed as Great. So we have two achievements in two countries. In Greece: The achievement is the founding of political, ethical and moral Western philosophy. The perception of the Greek society at that time was to consider this massive achievement as heretic and to sentence Socrates to death. Changing perceptions of later societies bestowed fame on Socrates and hailed the same achievement. In Macedonia, Greece and Persia, Alexander’s achievement of conquering the world was lauded and cheered by his society as unparalled because this society valued conquests and hailed military victories. Two dissimiliar examples of how achievements intersect with values of societies at the time they come into the public arena.

Another age and another society also underscored the primacy of the people in appraising an achievement. Sir Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as the Prime Minister of Britain in October 1940 when the German juggernaut had rolled over most of Europe in the Second World War and was almost knocking on the gates of the British Isles. He was not a popular choice. Hated by his political enemies and distrusted by his associates for his ambition, independence and pugnacity⁴, he was invited by the Monarch only after Lord Halifax turned down the post of Prime Minister. It was thus left to Churchill to complete the almost superhuman task of leading a divided and dejected country to victory in a struggle that was to shape the future of the world. He did this with an over-riding passion for military victory—relegating all else including party politics to be secondary—travelling over 100,000 miles impervious to personal danger and above all by a glittering display of oratory throughout the war years. He instinctively understood the turn of phrase and the effectiveness of the media of communications and used it to its maximum potential. When he took over as Prime Minister, he told his people: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. He rallied them with the words: We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender. On another occasion his stirring speech included the famous: Let us, therefore, brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘this was their finest hour’. Another gem was the battle of Britain oration which included the memorable line, never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

With the war won in Europe, Churchill’s wartime parliamentary coalition broke up and the Conservatives, Labour and Liberals contested the long-deferred election in June-July 1945. Surprisingly the people of Britain rejected their war-time, legendary, silver-tongued hero and gave the Labour party under Attlee a resounding victory. What happened to recognition of an achievement that ensured that the British remained an unconquered, free people? Why was Churchill’s heroic feat rejected so soon? War-weariness, may be! The Beveridge report suggesting that what England needed after the World War were social reforms like a full employment policy, a National Health Service and social security? May be! Churchill’s unfortunate reference in an election speech of the Labour party having to follow a Gestapo-like approach to implement their vision of social change? May be! But the amazing fact remained the rejection by the British people of their very own war-time hero in 1945 itself. Sixty years later the same people were to vote Churchill as the most important Britian of the century.

In the same era in a contiguous country France honoured a general who had fled his country before it was over-run by the Germans, assumed command of a small contingent of ‘Free French’ troops from the safe shores of England and saw himself as the custodian of French interests and honour. After France was militarily humiliated and occupied by the Germans General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Forces fought against the occupation with the allies. de Gaulle also organised the Resistance Movement in France till victory was achieved and returned to France to form the Fourth Republic, four years after the Vichy Government had court-martialed him for desertion and sentenced him to death in absentia. The French society of 1945 believed that de Gaulle had given France back its soul and its pride and that he was the greatest servant of France since Clemenceau. de Gaulle later worked on a new constitution for France and went on to head the Fifth Republic in 1958.

In Britain the achievement of Winston Churchill was to save his country from imminent defeat and turn World War II into a great victory. As soon as the war was won the perceptions of the British society in 1945 rejected this wondrous achievement in favour of a policy that favoured social reforms needed then by the British society. In France the people did not reject a general who had fled but welcomed him back as a hero. Taken together these four examples, Socrates, Alexander, Churchill and de Gaulle illustrate the question of celebrating or rejecting an achievement depends not only on the quality, significance and permanence of the achievement but also on how the society at that time in that country perceives its relevance to the values that the society then cherishes.

While discussing society and its values, race, ethnicity and geography become important because societies even at the same time differ from country to country, being shaped by the history, culture and politics of the country. And every country needs its own heroes. Within the same country, society itself changes from era to era as its social make-up and values change from time to time. This book limits itself to India and analyses the achievements in different eras in Indian history to see how the people of each era appraised them to extol only the ones that they could celebrate in the context of the values then considered important by them. In India the society of the Epic Era revered the holy men, in the Maurya and Gupta periods it admired monumental structures and celebrated its scholars, in the Raj years after a period of liberal education we were grateful to the social reformers and in the years of the Freedom struggle we hailed the courage and sacrifice of our freedom fighters. As we go down the ages we note the changing perceptions of society to the achievements of their greats. It is possible to do a similar analysis for societies and achievements in other countries.

CHAPTER 2

SOCIETY, ACHIEVEMENT AND PERCEPTION

Society

Society is a group of people, in a particular era in a specific part of the world, who act in accordance with the culture evolved by them. Culture, meaning way of life, immediately imposes limitations of time and geography. Time, because constant human effort to harness environmental resources, thought and understanding and tools and techniques to improve his lot lead man to changes in his ‘way of life’ from one era to the other. And Geography, because cultural practices differ from one group of people to another with their different ethnicities, languages, beliefs and rituals. This study in limited to India because Indian culture is unique. It is different from the cultures of the West or the Orient. The theory of convergence of way of life due to globalization to a single world pattern will always be difficult to apply to India because Islamalisation and Westernisation merely provided overlays to the basic Indian spiritual underlay during their extended stays in the land. The Indian psyche continues from the epic era to date. For the Indian the salient features of the Divine Idea are:

The ‘Eternal Law’ (Sanatana Dharma) has no founder since it has existed from the dawn of time.

According to this law man and the supernatural constitute a unity of spiritual continuum. Man may have descriptions of the empirical universe on the basis of space, time and cause dimensions, but the real is beyond these.

Man strives tirelessly through the process of births and rebirths to realize a spiritual oneness with all other things and only when this is done does man attain freedom from the transmigration of the soul. The inner and the spiritual are real while the material and