Live for India

By Anshu Pathak

Cliché and reality are rooted in India's long history. No invader or British Raj is ruling us. We have our own government but are we anywhere near to what we were in our glorious past? If Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa had highly precise science of civil engineering and architecture then why can't we have clean and orderly cities now where people can live with basic dignity without unruly traffic and filthy streets? If Megasthenese said that in India thefts were extremely rare, that Indians honoured truth as a virtue, why today even after paying a bribe one is unsure if his work gets done? If Marco-polo rated Indians to be the best merchants in the world and the most truthful , then why in these times we think of our politicians, industrialists and bureaucrats as self-servers, obstructive, corrupt and always blocking the economic reforms? If we were straight forward, if it was love of truth and justice that Indians were known for, then why can't we insist loudly and clearly and courageously to defend our claim? If no one ever accused us of falsehood then why can't we redeem that same rule of law and decency? Why is there such deep rooted corruption and why an ever pervasive flair for free riding? Why are we ever ready to blame anyone but ourselves for our collective plight? How, where, what went wrong? Will our grandchildren also inherit a corrupt and inefficient system of governance? Is it that words come easier to us, actions come harder? If as people of one nation we have lost our sensitivity to the misery and mediocrity around us, then what value system we are passing on to the next generation; scepticism, oppression and corruption? Sometimes; questions are too complicated, especially if we fear the answers, sometimes; the worst battle we have to fight is between what we know and what we feel. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diamond Books
• Release date: Oct 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9798128819574

Book preview

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Chapter One

Treasures Of Curiosity

Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another. But mark you, my friends; it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist. Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live....!

- Swami Vivekananda

We don’t inherit self, we build it and one way to do it is with knowledge but knowledge needs an effort to be born and to live in us and that is our effort. The confused search for answers to my questions of identity and ideology led me to reading the great wealth of our ancient scriptures. I thought that would clear my confusion a little bit and build conviction. Instead I am enriched with more questions now. So I contemplated; why not excavate into our amusing, traditional, historical past and find out the complete picture myself. Trust me; I am equally curious to know whether we are genetically coded to be like that only. Was the foundation laid long ago for a long lasting Indian culture where even today the labourers carry sacks of construction material on their backs all day while their women folk carry bricks on their heads, where the farmers still move on the wooden wheels of bullock carts, househelps sweep and mop our homes squatting on haunches and the poorest of the poor still defecate on the great Indian plains exactly as their ancestors did some five thousand years ago?

Do we Indians really mistake talk for action? Do words come easy to us and action comes harder. If we were the only people who developed with a reflective intelligence then why the sense of self-worth is missing and why is there a lack of propensity to look for loopholes in laws? Are our leaders high on promises and speeches but short on delivery? Why inability to follow or implement systems? Why is there such deep rooted corruption and why an ever pervasive flair for free riding? Why are we ever ready to blame anyone but ourselves for our collective plight? How, where, what went wrong?

As Indian students we learn about Indian history, about India and other useful things in primary schools. We get to study that India was the most backward country ever. We learn that we were the poorest country. We learn that since last four or five centuries other countries have contributed much to India. We learn that if we were not under the control or were ruled by England, India would have reached nowhere, we would not have got technology, good education, science, math, airplanes, railways etc. and we accept it as accurate and correct because all these lessons are given by our teachers. And we are taught in such a way that it comes in our blood, it comes in our mind, and affects our thinking forever. Hence we are not able to escape these fabrications and untruths told by instructors. History lessons become true for us and we believe that they are factual and information given in the text books is also true. When we ask our teachers why we are taught like this, they say they were also taught like that by their teachers and so on and so forth. Nobody questions their authenticity. As Swami Vivekananda rightly said, "We have had a negative education all along from our boyhood. We have only learnt that we are nobodies. Seldom are we given to understand that great men were ever born in our country. Nothing positive has been taught to us. We do not even know how to use our hands and feet! We master all the facts and figures about the ancestors of the English, but we are sadly unmindful about our own. We have learnt only weakness. Being a conquered race, we have brought ourselves to believe that we are weak and have no independence in anything. So, how can there be a feeling of national pride when the Shraddha is lost? The idea of true reverence must be brought back once more to us. The faith in our own selves must be reawakened, and then only, all the problems which our country face will gradually be solved by ourselves."

The last millennium certainly belonged to the West. Einstein changed the way we think about space, time, and universe. Marx changed the view of society and relationship between human beings. Darwin took the humans off their pedestal with his theory of evolution. Newton and Galileo decimated astronomy and science but then the West wrote the history of that millennium and influenced us, we did not influence their history because what they were talking had already happened here in the previous millennium.

Fact remains is that when the people of one nation have been conquered and killed, their properties confiscated and the remnants of population made slaves and all the written records burnt by invaders then it becomes obvious that nearly everything known of them is derived from what has been told by the conqueror. The mythology of incarnations of Vishnu in the Puranas is much imaginatively understandable than Darwin’s theory. India’s history has been gradually distorted by colonial and historical materialistic European bias. It was always thought that India was a melting pot of different influences coming from the West either by trade or through invasions. But more and more discoveries, both archaeological and linguistic have pointed to exactly the opposite direction.

Truth is that in the millennium before Christ, it was Indian civilization which was gradually westward and influenced the religion, sciences, and philosophies of many other civilizations which are considered by the West as a cradle of its culture and thoughts. The British used Aryan invasion theory to denigrate the Hindu religion and use it as ‘divide et imperia’ to control India by dividing its people. In fact, India was the home of Aryans and it was from India that Aryans expanded in different directions to various parts of the world. History tells us that India is a country that was ravaged and intellectually destroyed by continuous invasions that began about 1000 AD and we need to understand that every invasion, every war, and every campaign was accompanied by slaughter which led to a tremendous intellectual and economic depletion. The first act of every invader was to raze the schools and universities. On record ,Taxila and Nalanda were burnt down, all the residents ;scholars and students, were put to death and smoke from the burning manuscripts hung for days like a dark cloud over the low hills of Nalanda. Vikramsala, Nagarjuna, Vallabhi and Tamralipti suffered a similar fate.

Centuries of struggle and slavery led to gradually dominating and proving the superiority of western culture and religion. As a result this made Indians feel that their culture was not such a great thing as their sages and ancestors had said it was. It causes the Indians even now to feel ashamed of their culture because the theory makes its basis neither historical nor scientific but only imaginary while it is actually rooted in invasion and oppression. By the time India obtained its freedom from the British, it had lost everything and was left with a headless, clueless population. When the oppressed gain power to assert them, they behave badly, severely, and desperately. That exactly, is what happened in India after independence. The citizens of my country need a few generations of security and knowledge. The present day generation doesn’t realize the past traditions that made Bharatvarsha rich in all aspects. It is time for us to question and get out of the trapped imperialistic bias of the past. We need to know the fact that when the first school was opened up in London, England in 1868, India had 7.32 Million schools and Gurukuls already running in our country for years. We need to acknowledge the fact that before coming to India to rule, the British went to numerous other countries and knew that India was unparalleled in comparison to those countries. On 2nd February 1835, Lord Macaulay made his historical speech in the British parliament which struck a blow at the century’s old system of Indian education-"I have travelled the length and breadth of India and have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre that I don’t think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will become what we want for them, a truly dominated nation."

Macaulay had realized that he could achieve his goal by eliminating Sanskrit from being an essential part of the Indian education system. The most important step that he adopted was to shut down several Sanskrit schools and to introduce English as a modern and civilized language. Sadly enough, even today we Indians take pride in speaking English while neglecting our own rich and invaluable language. John Mills and Charles Grant were appointed to write a history of India. Mills wrote three volumes clearly stating that there was nothing to be proud of or to be honoured in India’s past. Hindu Dharma was trash and Sanskrit was no language at all. Similarly Grant disparaged everything that was Hindu and these books were taken as authoritative text books on Indian history. Lord Macaulay wanted no part of absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, and absurd theology of India in prevailing text books. In fact, Macaulay employed German Vedic scholar Max Müller to interpret the Indian scriptures in such a way that would destroy the faith of newly educated Hindus in their own religion and ancient scriptures. Max Müller started with this idea initially but changed his mind abruptly in 1872.

Clearly the company’s goal was to rule. English missionary schools had a distinct goal of creating Anglo Indian breed who were English in taste, morals, and intellect but Indian in blood and colour. Macaulay’s idea was ‘that in the coming times this class would by degrees become fit vehicles for conveying British knowledge to people.

It is essential for us to know why and how the history of Bharatvarsh got distorted and fabricated into a new guise of Indian history. Ancient Jews were most likely descendants of the Aryas because their beliefs were the same as those of Aryas. The Primeval Man, whom they called Adam, was Brahma, the originator of mankind. The Hebrew name is derived from Atma-Bhu, one of the epithets of Brahma. In the beginning of Creation Brahma gave names to all objects and beings and so did Adam. According to Jewish tradition Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof. In later times the Jews forgot their ancient history as well as ancestry and became narrow in their outlook. They began to consider themselves as the oldest of all races. But in 1654 A.D. Archbishop Usher of Ireland announced that his study of Scripture had proved that creation took place in the year 4004 BC. Thus from the end of the seventeenth century, this chronology was accepted by the Europeans and they came to believe that Adam was created 4004 years before Christ. Hence a majority of the modern Jews and Christians, especially many western scholars of Sanskrit found it hard to reconcile them to the view that any race or civilisation could be older than the date of Adam accepted by them. They resented the hoary antiquity ascribed by their broad-minded brother scholars to the literature and civilisation of Bharatavarsha and much more to the