Saturday, November 14, 2009

The root of it all


The principle of Cuius regio, eius religio provided for internal religious unity within a state: The religion of the prince became the religion of the state and all its inhabitants. Those inhabitants who could not conform to the prince's religion were allowed to leave, an innovative idea in the 16th century. The phrase cuius regio, eius religio as applied to the outcome is attributed to the early seventeenth century (1612, by the jurist Joachim Stephani (1544-1623) of the University of Greifswald[9]). (via Cuius regio, eius religio: Information from Answers.com).

After war ... peace

All immigrants who do not 'fit in' or who don't 'integrate' into the Danish 'community', it was decided recently, will get an incentive of 100,000 kroner. By the Danish Government, to go back to their home countries. The 'fitting in' and 'integrating' refers to Muslims in Denmark.

The Danes are not alone. The French feel let down because “immigrants were supposed to blend harmoniously into society and not exist in separate communities.”

For centuries, the settled principle in the Desert Bloc was 'Cuius regio, eius religio' (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) - the ruler decided his people's religion.

After the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), Vatican invoked the CRER principle ('Cuius regio, eius religio') during its brief rule over the Byzantine Empire to reject religious objections by the Byzantine subjects. Post Hussite Wars and the 'Reformation', establishing the CRER principle to settle Germany, giving rise to the logic of 'ubi unus dominus, ibi una sit religio' (One ruler, one religion). Just in case someone had religious disagreement, the logic was they could well emigrate - (ius emigrandi).

Haiti - and after

The CRER policy guideline was finally abandoned in post-bellum America and Europe after The Haiti Fright. With Haiti breaking loose, when slaves defeated all the major Euro-colonial powers, in battle after battle, slavery was doomed. More than 200 slave rebellions, revolts and conspiracies made slavery in the West impractical. Cuban slaves were the last to win their freedom - which sounded the slavery's death knell.

Western propaganda has made slavery, an invisible factor in their ‘success.’ And they are on the half way mark, on the erasure in popular memory, about the use of colonies for Western enrichment.

Western political constructs

With an acute labour shortage, looming over the West, slavery made way for indentured labour - and America made way for immigrants from all parts of Europe, Japan, China and Philippines.

As immigrants of various colours and beliefs made their way across the world, the CRER principle was relegated into the background.

Added to this was the 1857 War in India, against Christian proselytism, which too had to take a back seat. Victoria Regina's Colonial India Government printed leaflets in tens and thousands to proclaim that the British Crown had no intentions to dictate faith to its Indian 'subjects'. The 1857 War also forced Euro-centric historians to change the entire drift of world history.

Faced with a reality of 'warm-bodies-shortage', 'liberalism', 'secular' Governments, Marxism, Socialism et al were invented in the 19th century. It is this principle which accounts for the low levels of diversity in the West - and which also accounts for the shrillness with which the West proclaims it 'liberalism' - facts being otherwise.

Melting pot vs Mosaic patterns

The need for 'integration', the concerns over the slow 'assimilation' of the Mexicans in the American melting pot, the Islamo-phobia, the Compulsive Jihadic Syndrome, are all sides of the same cube. The schizophrenic Christian aggression in India combined with hysterical protests against any backlash are symptoms of the same ideological thread.

While the West talks about the respect for the individual, reality is different.

Members of the Catholic Church note with anxiety (and so does the its replacement, The State) that “the continued insistence that Hispanics will soon pass through the assimilationist melting pot and be American like us is not only false, but also harmful for our Hispanic sisters and brothers, and thus for the church”.

Another study to measure ‘assimilation’ notes “Mexican immigrants are assimilating more slowly than Italian immigrants did at the turn of the last century”. Similarly, expatriate populations in the Middle East have to live with disrespect and intolerance of non-Islamic religions.

Lowest diversity vs. Biggest talk

The West today has the lowest levels of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity – and persecutes whatever little is left, like the Roma Gypsies for example. Would critics like to mention any other country, where such a large minority Muslim population, has greater freedom and opportunity, than in India? Would you like to suggest France instead?

The language conundrum

India, has 15 official languages.

No other countries even had the courage to think of that. Various US state governments outlawed all languages – except English. It was only in 1923, was this finally set aside after the matter reached the US Supreme Court (read Meyer vs Nebraska). The USA gathered some courage to start timidly with more than English only after seeing India’s success with 15 languages. Switzerland has only four. Sri Lanka’s Sinhalas do not want to accept Sri Lankan Tamils as full and equal citizens – hence the 20 year old civil war.

In the thrall of One

The Western concept of nation building requires the cornerstones of Desert Bloc – One God, One Book, One Holy Day, One Prophet (Messiah), One Race, One People, One Country, One Authority, One Law, One Currency, One Set of Festivals. This tyranny of the ‘One’ is the root of most problems in the world. From this ‘Oneness’, we get the ‘One’ Currency, ‘One’ Language logic – a fallacious syllogism. Once you accept ‘One’, you will accept all others.

For more than 20 years, EU had rules in place to allow vegetables of specified shapes and sizes to come onto shop shelves. After more than 20 years, the EU decided that it is easier to change laws than to make tomatoes, cucumbers and bananas follow EU rules.

The Indic model

Unlike the Indian social system, where differences are respected and encouraged, the position of the French Government, paraphrases the thinking of the ‘desert bloc’. Indians believe that all are वासुदेवाय कुटुम्बकम ‘vasudevaih kutumbakam’ and ईसा वास्यो मिदं सर्वं ‘isa vaasyo midam sarvam’ (meaning we are all God’s family and God is in everyone and everywhere respectively).

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Looking back at India's Partition

Hard landing for Pakistan

From its very inception, Pakistan fancied itself as an equal to India. An illusion that India did little to change. And many in India implicitly believed in, till about two decades ago. While the Indian ship has changed course, the Pakistani behaviour remains rooted in the past - back to its very formation. Back to events, immediately after the formation of India and Pakistan.

when India was divided, it might have been logical for the new Muslim state in the Indus valley to take the name 'India' (or even 'Industan', as the valley was called by an eighteenth-century English sailor). But Muhammad Ali Jinnah rejected the colonial appellation and chose the pious neologism Pakistan, 'Land of the Pure', instead. He assumed that his coevals in Delhi would do the same, calling their country by the ancient Sanskrit title, 'Bharat'. When they did not, Jinnah was reported to be furious. He felt that by continuing to use the British name, India had appropriated the past; Pakistan, by contrast, looked as if it had been sliced off and 'thrown out'.

Sixty years after Jinnah, the Pakistani response remains the same. Obama administration's recent Af-Pak Strategy has left Pakistan shell shocked. The de-hyphenation of India and Pakistan in the Af-Pak strategy has dealt a body blow to their illusions. Pervez Musharraf in this interview reveals,

I don’t agree with this Af-Pak solution at all because we are being bracketed with Afghanistan. Afghanistan hardly has any governance, it is out of control. And also, there is extremism within India among the Muslim youth and it is developing linkages with others — the Kashmir issue too. Therefore, if we want to finally deal with terrorism and extremism and solve it in its short-term and long-term perspective, we have to look at events in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. I am totally against this Af-Pak strategy. (via ‘Kashmir solution can reduce extremism in Pak society’).

Obviously, this change is something that has dawned on Pakistan as a ‘hard print’ rather than a ‘soft copy’. Fancying themselves as an equal till a few decades ago, Pakistan had to endure a hard landing. And this hard landing is Musharraf’s real problem.

India's growing up

In India, the India-Pakistan calculus changed. A few decades earlier, India-Pakistan sporting encounters were most awaited by sports enthusiasts in India and Pakistan. India-Pakistan cricket now comes lower down in India at least – and the position has been taken up India-Australia cricket series. Now Pakistan is asking David Morgan, from the ICC to ‘intervene’ and“to convince the BCCI to play a series in England” against Pakistan.

In the 60s-80s, Indian business publications, Indian bureaucracy indexed themselves with Pakistan. Sensex, the Indian stock index was then compared with the Karachi index. But the comparison is now with global markets and the US.

Then and now

The Indian economy is now compared with the Chinese economy, ASEAN, EU and the US economies. The Indian film industry, compares itself with Hollywood – unfortunately, in terms of becoming a Hollywood clone.

In this new global matrix, India must now work to jettison some colonial detritus, its diplomacy must get over its Pakistan Fixation – and manage the Chinese relationship.

Understanding India of today

There are three aspects of this ‘development’ that has not fully dawned on Indians, which needs greater introspection in India. One is the ‘Western clone’ status – which, for instance, is what some ‘leading lights’ of the Indian film industry want to be. The second is danger of becoming an arrivistathe danger of hubris.

The third aspect is the continuing debate, pain and anger about India-Pakistan Partition. The Congress response has been the demonization of Pakistan. The BJP offers a dream of 'akhand Bharat'. The (increasingly irrelevant) Marxist response is, of course, dictated by their admiration for the Chinese model.

A British born journalist, Sarfraz Manzoor, writing for The Guardian, from a significantly Western prespective feels

Sixty years on and today's India is sexy, forward-looking and economically powerful; Pakistan, on the other hand, remains trapped by the contradictions which led to its creation and in the grip of the mullahs and the military. India has thousands of years of history its citizens can cite; Pakistan sits on an ancient land but as a nation it is younger than my mother.

In his novel Shame, Salman Rushdie described Pakistan as a "place insufficiently imagined"; when one considers its troubled history, perhaps it is not heretical to confess some sadness that it was ever imagined at all.

Whether Pervez Musharaff's escapist unwillingness to acknowledge reality or Sarfraz Manzoor's emotional view from a Western perspective, they both miss (like many Indians and Pakistanis) the realities of the post WW2 world and the India.

Within the realms of possibility

To understand the choices, outcomes, responses and alternatives, this post examines the three scenarios that could have resulted from the British retreat from India.

As Britain progressively impoverished India during 200 years of colonial rule, India became a drag on Britain. Between 1857-1947, more and more Indians rejected British rule, violently and peacefully. Soon after WW2, the colonial Indian Army, some 2 million strong, revolted against British rule. Colonial history calls it the Naval Ratings Mutiny - on February 18th 1946. Within 1 week, Britain decided to evacuate from India.

Post war Britain was tired of rationing, shortages – and subsidising a starving, bankrupted India.

The Colonial Office was reporting deficits. Gold transfers from India had reduced to a trickle. After WW2, Churchill promised that he will not “preside over the liquidation of Her Majesty’s empire …” Clement Atlee promised the British voter a quick exit from India. Clement Atlee won. Mountbatten was sent to India.

Broadly, India(ns) was given three choices.

1. A Federal India with regional autonomy

India could have accepted the British Cabinet Mission Plan(1946) of a 'federal' India - which was designed by the British, for rejection by the Congress. Nehru and Patel saw this as a British attempt at 'Balkanizing' India.

The Cabinet Mission Plan is now of academic interest since it was overtaken by Partition, but it is true that on June 25, 1946 Congress accepted it in the hope of establishing a “united democratic Indian Federation with a Central authority, which would command respect from the nations of the world, maximum provincial autonomy and equal rights for all men and women in the country”. And on July 10, Nehru, newly elected Congress President, rejected “Grouping”, one of the key (if still opaque) aspects of the Plan. Azad described this, politely, as one of those “unfortunate events which changed the course of history”. (from Jaswant's Jinnah: Dividing India to save it By M J Akbar).

What was this 'grouping' which according to MJ Akbar was 'a key aspect but opaque' ?

the British and Jinnah's insistence that Congress accept those provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan which specified the compulsory grouping of provinces into separate sections and those which specified that the proposed Indian Union have not one but two or more separate Constitution making bodies for all subjects except only three Union subjects defence, foreign affairs and communications. (from India's Constitutional Question - The Cabinet Mission Plan 1946).

A successful execution of this option (though difficult), meant that Sikkim, Tibet would have surely joined India - with options of Afghanistan, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka joining India in a loose federation and a common market.

xThis would have meant modern Federal India would have had a population of nearly 200 crores, nearly 35,000 tonnes of private gold, the 2nd largest economy of the world (PPP basis), a raw material and agricultural powerhouse. By 2050 the GDP (PPP basis) would be equal to the EU and the US put together. With such a large market, India would have also become an intellectual powerhouse, becoming the world's largest education market and producer, with unmatched R&D spend.

With close cultural and eco0nomic ties with China, the combination of Ch-India would become the economic, intellectual capital of of the world.

The major issue could possibly be the management of a large Islamic population. 40% of this India would have been Muslims - numbering about 50 crores. This would have given India the world's largest Muslim population.

The British calculus

How could Britain and the dominant Anglo Saxon Bloc allow this? If an India of this shape emerged, what would happen to the Bretton Woods architecture? Britain obviously did not wish to midwife a country of these dimensions - especially, since there were apparent desires from Tibet, Sikkim to join the Indian Union. With such countries joining in, India would have become a country with 200 crore people (2000 million).

This Greater Federal India could have been a possibility between 1940 and 1950, while the cement was not yet set. While Britain was at war. While the ferment was on. And the two people who could have made this happen, were alive.

SC Bose and the IIL had significant presence across most of SE Asia. After all, how could arrangements for Netaji's escape from India and travel via Afghanistan, Russia to Germany happen! With the passing away of SC Bose, and the IIL, India's international agenda had little chance of success.

That left us with only one man who could have made this happen - Gandhiji. The only way to stop this from happening, was the death of Gandhiji.

It happened.

2. Partition of India - or the Two Nation Theory

The other option that the Colonial Raj 'offered' was TNT - Two Nation Theory. This was something that Britain had worked upon for long. In fact from 1822. Starting with the knighthood in 1888 and encouragement to 'Sir' Syed Ahmad Khan. More seriously from 1906. After subduing the native population with unprecedented levels of brutality during the 1857 War and subsequent revolts and rebellions.

Commandent of Moradabad, Lt. Col. Coke, wrote in 1822:

“Our endeavour should be to uphold in full force the (for us fortunate) separation which exists between the different religions and races, not to endeavor to amalgamate them. Divide et Impera should be the principle of Indian government.”

The Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 paved the way for communalization of India. From 1910-1940, the British vigorously implemented the ‘divide and rule’ policy. Initially, in fact Jinnah,

"scoffed at Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s two-nation theory, and wrote an angry letter to The Times of India challenging the legitimacy of the famous Muslim delegation to Lord Minto on October 1, 1906, which built the separatist Muslim platform. He ignored the convention in Dhaka on December 30, 1906 where the Muslim League was born."

Under this proposal, India and Pakistan would become two countries. The immediate chances of a large federation and a common market became that much more difficult. Which suited British interests fine.

India with a population of 35 crores and a ‘ship-to-mouth' economy, (in KM Munshi's words, then Union Minister for Agriculture and Food, on a trip to the US to obtain food-aid), seemed unlikely to succeed.

In this scenario, instead of 2050, India would possibly (if at all) attain a significant leadership position only by 2070. In Western minds, the continued existence of India itself was a question mark. The sneering and the patronizing view of the British establishment is best illustrated by the cartoons linked to this post.

What could have stopped India from becoming stable and successful nation? Communal bloodletting, war, famine, and death of its leaders. All this and much more, happened.

Communal bloodletting - At the time of 1947 partition, organized gangs started communal riots. Kolkatta (then Calcutta) was in flames. An unprepared India and a leaderless Pakistan were handed over governance.

Many theories apart, it showed another extension of the “scorched earth policy” and a callous disregard for 10 lakh brown lives that were lost to Hindu-Muslim-Sikh riots. The British Raj was a mute bystander. In contrast, areas ruled by the ‘decadent’ and ‘feudal’ Indian maharajahs, did not see such a magnitude of communal riots in their territories.

War - India have Pakistan have fought four wars neither could afford. Over boundaries and legacy issues.

The Mechanics of Partition

The very division of India was based on broadly three rules -

1. Hindu majority - India; Muslim majority - Pakistan

2. The wish of the local ruler - as quite a few local rulers were independent of the British Raj.

3. Wish of the people

In most of the Indian subcontinent these principles worked well - except in three places. Hyderabad and Junagadh, where a Muslim ruler, ruling over a Hindu majority wished to become part of Pakistan. And Kashmir, where a Hindu king with a Muslim majority, wished to remain independent.

In Hyderabad and Junagadh, the Indian Government resorted to 'police action' - where the respective kings were deposed and their kingdoms became a part of India.

In Kashmir, the king wanted to remain independent. Since, it had a Muslim majority, Pakistan wanted Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan. There was only one glitch. The popular leader of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah refused to even meet up with Pakistani leaders. He wished for an autonomous Kashmir as a part of India. Pakistan, of course, disputes, if the Sheikh Abdullah represented the popular leadership of Kashmir.

So, while all these discussions were going on, the Pakistani Government and Army, which still had a significant British component, decided to invade Kashmir. The Indian Government and Army, headed by Earl Mountbatten, at the invitation of Nehru, messed up this situation.

Pakistan occupied half of Kashmir. India rushed to the UN - a mistake. UN asked both armies to freeze - which they did. And there they remain - frozen from 1948. All in all, the Kashmir issue is colonial detritus - which both India and Pakistan have not been able to jettison.

Famine - Indian agriculture system was in a comatose state. India had not yet recovered from the Great Bengal Famine when another crisis developed. Within a year of the Indian Republic, the food situation in India became alarming. KM Munshi was despatched to the US for obtaining food aid. In his famous interview with The New York Times, he described the Indian situation as ‘ship-to-mouth.'

Leadership - Gandhiji was assassinated in 1948. Sardar Patel was no more by the end of 1950. Ambedkar in 1956 and in 1958, Maulana Azad passed away. Thus apart from Nehru, the entire leadership of India was no more, 10 years after Mountbatten's departure.

3. India becomes 8-12 countries

This was the worst of all options. Nizam State becomes a country. Kashmir becomes another country. India and Pakistan of course were already on the table. No other significant land bloc, of course, raised such a possibility at that time. But if Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharaja of Kashmir, were to become successful, a Baroda-Gaikwad, or a Scindhia-Holkar or a Raja of Travancore raising such a demand could have materialized.

Looking at the contours of the situation, ground realities and realpolitik of the era, the Partition scenario seemed manageable. Having gone down that road, where are we today? What direction do we take?

Permutations and combinations

Of the three outcomes, that were possible, outcome One and Three would have made India too small or too large. The important points are that: –

1. The West could NOT let the larger ‘Federal’ India come into being. What could have stopped either the British or the IML to up the ante, the moment the Congress agreed to anything. The larger India would have left us an India that would be unwieldy, i.e. open to ‘unrest’, ‘independence movements’, etc .

2. The Indian polity (principally the Congress + the other political parties) would NOT accept a lesser India – i.e. with an Nizam of Hyderabad or a Nawab of Junagadh wanting to be a part of Pakistan.

Looking at the contours of the situation, ground realities and realpolitik of the era, the Partition scenario seemed manageable. Having gone down that road, where are we today? What direction do we take?

The most unproductive exercize is to blame any of the individual players – including the IML and Jinnah. If for a minute, if we are to assume, that Jinnah was intractable to British overtures, was it too difficult for the British to prop up some one else. After all, some of the legitimacy that the Congress was derived from the fact that the British preferred to talk only to the Congress.

After 60 years

India, China and Pakistan are nuclear powers, all. History shows that when our people live in peace, there is peace in the world. When there is war, in our countries, the whole world is at war. Peace in our countries will usher peace in the world.

Our three countries are blessed with adequate, natural resources – and between us three, we hardly need anyone else in the world. The rest of the world cannot say that about itself – or for us. Remember, the world still ‘orients’ itself.

Between our three countries, we have foreign exchange currency reserves of more than US$2.5 trillion – equal to the one third the global forex reserves. Each year, we subsidize the West to the tune of US$250 billion in currency depreciation.

It is this subsidy that enables the West to continue exploiting us. Between our three countries, we have one third of the world’s gold reserves.

The subsidy by the three of us to the West increases, when we use the PPP matrix. Based on PPP, Western currencies are overvalued by 30%-50%. Combine the fact, that the current system allows the West to maintain no foreign exchange reserves and to use their own over valued currencies for trade, means that they pay us a lot less – and we pay them a lot more.

As various colonial powers were forced out of various colonies, left behind was the garbage of colonialism. This post-colonial debris has become the ballast, that is dragging down many newly de-colonized countries.

60 years on, there is nothing to show for these border disputes. Dutifully, the Indians, Pakistanis and the Chinese glare at each other – over colonial border issues. These border issues are less than peripheral to our nations. We have allowed the past to hold our future as a hostage.

The past is extracting a ransom that we cannot afford to pay. Let us recognize our past for what it is – empty ballast that is dragging us down. Having achieved nothing on this front for the last 60 years, why do we wish to continue down that path?

Sixty years earlier, 80% of the world’s poorest lived in our countries . For many decades now, peoples in our country have been patient in their suffering. There has been progress. These poorest of the world, living in our countries, deserve a better deal. A much better deal.

Between our three countries, lives half of humanity. The poorest half of humanity. At one time the richest half of humanity. They deserve peace, security, progress. We have 5000 years of history to show that we can do it. We have done it many times before. We can do it again. That is all our poorest ask and need.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

How 1857 changed world history …

A war of a different kind

During the 1857 War against the colonial rule of Britain in India, unable to gain military advantage, British armed forces started using Indian human populations as human shield. For each military success of the Indian armies, the British armies exacted retribution on the local non-combatant populations.

This reign of terror and brutality on home populations disarmed Indian armies and ended the war. A impressive work on this period is by Amaresh Misra – a film critic and journalist, who was moved sufficiently to research for a few years, because, “Since 1957, no Indian has written a comprehensive account of the Revolt. Indian historians have done a limited work”. Another step in this direction is Parag Tope’s forth coming book, Operation Red Lotus, on the life and wars of Tatiya Tope.

And Britain started a more insidious war – a propaganda war. History started getting twisted, perverted, mutilated – and over the next 100 years, Indian and world history was changed beyond recognition.

Let the games begin

After 1857, racist propaganda and cultural baggage came covertly – to gain better traction at home and in the colonies. For instance, Priya Joshi, a researcher shows that after 1857, book shipments from Britain to India increased by a factor of three.

The death of Semiramis

In this propaganda campaign, the most interesting bit is the cold-blooded murder of the historical Semiramis. Readers will find that Semiramis as an Assyrian Queen till the 1850-60 period Western histories.

Edward Degas and Guercine made Semiramis the subject of their paintings. Calderon used her character in his plays. Mozart died before he could complete his melodrama based on Semiramis. A 16th century painter, Philip Galle used Semiramis and Babylon as the subjects of his paintings.

Mired in legend and prejudice, Semiramis is discredited in modern Western history – especially starting from 1853-1857. Her very existence denied, accused of incest, Semiramis has been tarred and condemned to the rubbish heap of modern history – and the Bible. Semiramis established an empire that lasted, practically till WW1. Some 300 years, after the reign of Semiramis, the Assyrian Empire passed into Persian hands. From the Persians, into Alexander’s lap.

Suddenly, from 1860 onwards, Western history started treating Semiramis as a wanton, decadent, probably mythical, a perverted sluttish character.

The reason. Semiramis biggest defeat was at the hands of Indians. And soon after her defeat was the defeat of Cyrus the Great at the hands of Indians again. And before that were the Battles of Meggido and Kadesh, in which Indic armies confronted the Slave Empire of the Egypt. In colonial periods such an Indian history would have been very inconvenient for the Raj.

The Alexander mythos

Alexander’s raid of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, finally turned out to be a overthrow of the Achaemenid dynasty, usurpers of the Assyrian Empire. Unable to make headway into India, as the Indian Brahmins had helped and influenced Indian princes to organize and support the Indian war against Alexander. Greek sources cite, after this realization, at ‘The City of Brahmans’, Alexander massacred an estimated 8000-10,000 of these non-combatant Brahmans.

Alexander’s massacres in India, a colonial historian informs us (without naming a source), earned him an “epithet … assigned (to) him by the Brahmins of India, The Mighty Murderer.” This Indian Brahmanic characterization of Alexander, commonly taught to English schoolchildren and present in English college texts, as The Mighty Murderer, curiously disappeared from Western-English texts soon after 1860 – and instead now “a positive rose-tinted aura surrounds Alexander” … !

Since Indian texts were completely silent about the very existence of Alexander, colonial Western historians had a free run. Using hagiographic Greek texts as the base, Alexander became the conqueror of the world.

Max Mueller – Son of Hegel

Behind this propaganda was possibly a man who is much admired (wrongly) in India today – Max Mueller. For instance in Max Muller’s colonial propagandist history, when it comes to Indian triumphs over Semiramis, she becomes half legendary. Yet in another book, the same Semiramis becomes one of ‘the great conquerors of antiquity.’ In a matter of a few pages, he dismisses Indian history completely, in a half-Hegelian manner.

Aiding Max Mueller, English poets were press ganged into this propaganda war. Matthew Arnold wrote how, India, a ‘nation of philosophers, from

“The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain,
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.”

Matthew Arnold’s influence in Indian education can be gauged by the fact that Indian-English language poetry was for long called derisively as Matthew Arnold in a Saree”. Just before 1857 War, the works of another ‘influential’ poet, John Keats, became popular. In his hubristic haze, Keats wrote how,

The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus’ eye-wink turning pale.

Much of modern history’s debates and questions were born during this time – verily created to wage a propaganda war against India – and the world. India’s cultural stature in the pantheon of world’s societies was reduced to a minimal role – and the Greek Miracle was born.

In the dying days of the Raj

This propaganda war continued well for another 100 years. In the middle of WW2, Britain pulled out a general from the Italian theatre of war and sent him to India – to head colonial India archaeological operations.

One evening in early August 1943, Brigadier General Mortimer Wheeler was resting in his tent after a long day of poring over maps, drawing up plans for invasion of Siciliy. Mortimer Wheeler was invited to become the director general of archaeology by the India Office of the British government in its last years of rule in South Asia … Summoning a general from the battlefields of Europe was an extraordinary measure, an admission both of the desperate condition of Indian archaeology and an acknowledgment of its vital importance. (from The Strides of Vishnu: Hindu Culture … – Google Books).

Amazing!

Why would the glorious British Empire, on which the sun never set, struggling for its very existence, in the middle of WW2, suddenly pull a general back from the battlefield – and put him into archaeology! That too, Indian archaeology. Not Egyptian, not Greek! Especially, when it was clear, that they would be departing from India – sooner rather than later.

Considering what theories came from Mortimer Wheeler’s rather fertile ‘imagination’ and his rigourous archaeological process, in hindsight, from a Western perspective, this was sound decision. There may be the facile answer that the British were, after all ‘searching for history and truth’.

And it led Mortimer Wheeler to remark,

“They demonstrate with astonishing clarity the extent to which the brief transit of Alexander did in fact Hellenize almost instantly vast tracts of Asia populated previously by nomads or semi-nomads and villagers”

It is this one incident which possibly contains answers to many unanswered questions like: -

  1. The amount of energy expended by the West in defending the Aryan Invasion /Migration Theory,
  2. The lack of access to Indian scholars of the archaeological sites in Pakistan
  3. The many myths in Indian history
  4. The clues to the partition of India
  5. The dating problems

et al.

Just why did the world’s foremost imperial power, struggling for its very existence, suddenly pull a general from the battle field, in the middle of WW2 – and put him onto the job of digging dirt.

Only one explanation fits – it had to be a struggle for its own existence at a higher level!

Linguistics of the Jewish diaspora

Our knowledge of Jewish life in the second century B.C.E. comes mainly from Flavius Josephus (37/38-95/100 C.E.), the great Jewish-Roman historian who wrote in Greek, the scholarly language of his time. The hellenization of the Jews had been thorough.The King of Judea and the High Priest of Yahweh had Greek names. (page 240).

During the third century B.C.E., the Tobiads were the principal advocates of hellenization among the Jews (Grayzel 1969:49). The Jewish family called the Tobiads (the sons of Tobias) traced their ancestry to Tobias the Ammonite, governor of the Persian province of Ammon (now Jordan), east of Jordan River, during the tenure of Nehemiah in Judea in the fifth century B.C.E. One of them, Joseph ben Tobias, became very prominent during the second half of that century. (page 219).

By the beginning of the third century B.C.E. the Jews were being hellenized rapidly. They no longer spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, but Greek. Their religious services were conducted in Greek. Their personal Hebrew names were hellenized: Honio became Onias, Ezra became Esdras, Yeshua became Iesous (Jesus), and Joshua became Jason. Some Jews had Greek names only, such as Antigonus, Hyrkanos, Aristobolus, or Philon (Philo).The choice of such names by Jews for their children indicated the degree of their hellenization. (page 219).

During the reign of Ptolemaios Philadelphos (Ptolemy II, 308-246 B.C.E.), the Torah and other Jewish holy scriptures were translated into Greek by a synod of scholars. (page 215).

During the years that he was the High Priest and ethnarch (175-171 B.C.E.) Jason promoted Greek sports at the expense of Temple worship. Jason did not last long in the office of High Priest. He was unseated in 171 B.C.E. by Menelaos, a member of the noble Jewish Tobiads and a more extreme Hellenizer than Jason himself.(page 224-225).

By the first century, Greek had become the language of the Jews in the”diaspora”. The Jews of the Hellenic world spoke Greek the way present-day American Jews speak English. During the Greco-Roman and the Byzantine periods, from the late fourth century B.C.E., to the early seventh century C.E. most Jews were thoroughly Hellenized.(page 454).

By the third century B.C.E the Jews of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had become thoroughly hellenized. They worshipped Zeus, Hera, and the rest of the Greek pantheon. There were images of Greek sun god Helios, the wine god Dionysos, and the demigod Heracles on Jewish synagogue floor mosaics at Sepphori an other Gallilean cities as late as the sixth century C.E. But the Orthodox Jews violently resisted Hellenism. The conflict between Helenism and Judaism, or rather between hellenized and Orthodox Jews, was to lead to major trouble in the second century BCE, after Palestine was captured from Egypt by the Seleucid Greeks of Syria. (page 215).

Just as in modern America most Jews use English rather than Hebrew in their religious services and rituals, so Greek was used by the Jews of Egypt, including Judea, in their religion (page 215).

Hellenic culture was much more attractive to the young Jews of Judea than the rigid strictures of their own religion. The Greek myths and deities, projections of the deepest infantile conflicts and family relations, etched into the unconscious mind of every person, deeply appealed to the people, just as the Canaanites myths had to their ancestors. The Tobiads led the wave of hellenization among the Jews. (page 220)

Jews always spoke the language of the land which was their home. When expulsions and persecutions eventually brought about a wider separation between the Jews and the non-Jews, the result was a growing dissimilarity between the intimate languages spoken by each group.(Grayzel quoted on page 458).

in the early fourth century, the Jews were divided into three main groupings. Those living in the Western Roman Empire of Italy, which comprised much of Western Europe, spoke mainly Latin, the lingua franca of the West, and the native European languages of the ethnic groups amongst whom they lived. The Jews of the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, with its capital at Constantinople spoke mainly Greek, the language of the East. The Jews living in Sassanian Neo-Persian empire east of the Euphrates spoke mainly Aramaic. Hebrew continued to be spoken by Jewish scholars and by the people in their prayers. (page 337).

During the seventh and eighth centuries the lands inhabited by Jew in the Middle East and North Africa were conquered by the Muslim Arabs. Arabic became the language of the these Jews. (page 454).

Text extracts from A psychoanalytic history of the Jews By Avner Falk.

Judaism – an existential challenge

The Jewish population, followers of one of the oldest religions in the world, across countries and in Israel, today faces an existential challenge. With 0.25% of world population, i.e. less than 1.5 crore Jews left, in a world of more than 600 crore people, they have made enemies of their neighbours around their country.

The Jewish state, dependent on US largesse, hangs by a thin thread. Without Hitler, the world population of Jews would possibly have been not much better. Maybe 2.5 crores instead of 1.5 crores (at the risk of sounding insensitive). Maybe 0.5% of world population, instead of 0.25%. Also, must be remembered that Jewish studies in the modern context are affected by the ‘Jews as the eternal victims’ syndrome.

Genetic analysis of the Jewish populations

So, what is the reason for this fragile position of the Jewish population? One recent study states that

Admixture analysis based on binary and Y-STR haplotypes indicates a high mean proportion of ancestry from North African (10.6%) and Sephardic Jewish (19.8%) sources. Despite alternative possible sources for lineages ascribed a Sephardic Jewish origin, these proportions attest to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of descendants.

(from The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula by Susan M. Adams,Elena Bosch,Patricia L. Balaresque,Stéphane J. Ballereau,Andrew C. Lee,Eduardo Arroyo,Ana M. López-Parra,Mercedes Aler,Marina S. Gisbert Grifo,Maria Brion,Angel Carracedo,João Lavinha,Begoña Martínez-Jarreta,Lluis Quintana-Murci,Antònia Picornell,Misericordia Ramon,Karl Skorecki,Doron M. Behar,Francesc Calafell andMark A. Jobling, Copyright 2008 The American Society of Human Genetics, The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 83, Issue 6, 725-736, 04 December 2008).

Another study concludes that the Jewish population shares a high level of common paternal similarities.

Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors. The only exception was the Ethiopian Jews, who were affiliated more closely with non-Jewish Ethiopians and other North Africans.

Second, despite their high degree of geographic dispersion, Jewish populations from Europe, North Africa, and the Near East were less diverged genetically from each other than any other group of populations in this study. At the most basic level, the genetic distances observed among Jewish and non-Jewish populations can be interpreted as reflecting common ancestry, genetic drift, and gene flow. The latter two processes will tend to increase genetic distances among Jewish populations, whereas admixture will also have the effect of decreasing genetic distances between Jewish and non-Jewish populations.

Our results suggest that common ancestry is the major determinant of the genetic distances observed among Jewish communities, with admixture playing a secondary role. (from Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes By M. F. Hammer, A. J. Redd, E. T. Wood, M. R. Bonner, H. Jarjanazi, T. Karafet*, S. Santachiara-Benerecetti, A. Oppenheim, M. A. Jobling, T. Jenkins, H. Ostrer, and B. Bonné-Tamir)

Of course, it begs the question, was the Jewish population ever a significant part of global population? One writer who has addressed this question is James Carroll, in his book, Constantine’s sword. He estimates,

Jews accounted for 10 percent of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million. (He goes onto recount that the) potential demographic crisis facing the Jewish people is defined by the loss of the murdered millions, not only in the twentieth century, but in all others. (from Constantine’s sword By James Carroll, page 26-27, texts in brackets, mine).

Population growth and changes (of not just the Jews) are subject to interplay of complex demographic factors – like assimilation, disease, migration, reproduction rates and proselytization. Since these factors affect all human populations, further analysis of these factors may just reinforce current red herring theories.

Jews – the eternal victims?

Of course, Jews have not been the only population group in the world who have had to face the problems of epidemics, migration, assimilation, and conversion. What could have been a significant reason for the decline in the Jewish population over the centuries?

A 2ndlook at history points out (extracts above) that the Jewish populations gave up their language and culture ab initio. Within a few centuries of its foundation, they were giving up on their culture.

Interestingly, and apparently, language plays an important and crucial role in the expansion and growth of populations – as the Jewish case seems to suggest.

Those who don’t learn from history …

The Jewish history has invaluable lessons for Indians. For one, all those who think that English is God’s special gift to India (and mankind), should look at the eclipse of the Greek language. I am yet to discover the logic which shows that English will fare better than Greek, Spanish, Persian or Urdu.

Reducing the role of the Indian State

The massive subsidy given by the Indian state towards English language education needs to be phased out. Indian languages (all of them) should start getting back on their feet. The people of India, each individual will choose their language. No bureaucrat, politician, ‘intellectual’ will decide that. Finito. Completo. Terminato. Endlich. Eindig. ändlig.

The Indian language basket also calls for diversification. India needs to learn more foreign languages. The great ’software success story is actually two countries – US and UK who give between 70%-80% of Indian software business? This is coolie labour! We are missing out on the massive Japanese, French and the Spanish markets because we have not invested in those foreign languages. And we have missed out on computing in Indian languages, because we have not invested there either.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

A war of a different kind

A war of a different kind

During the 1857 War against the colonial rule of Britain in India, unable to gain military advantage, British armed forces started using Indian human populations as human shield. For each military success of the Indian armies, the British armies exacted retribution on the local non-combatant populations. This reign of terror and brutality on home populations disarmed Indian armies and ended the war

And Britain started a more insidious war - a propaganda war. History started getting twisted, perverted, mutilated - and over the next 100 years, Indian and world history was changed beyond recognition.

In fact, after 1857, racist propaganda and cultural baggage came covertly - to gain better traction at home and in the colonies. For instance, Priya Joshi, a researcher shows that after 1857, book shipments from Britain to India increased by a factor of three.

The death of Semiramis

In this propaganda campaign, the most interesting bit is the cold-blooded murder of the historical Semiramis. Readers will find that Semiramis as an Assyrian Queen till the 1850-60 period Western histories.

Suddenly, from 1860 onwards, Western history started treating Semiramis as a wanton, decadent, probably mythical, a perverted sluttish character.

Edward Degas and Guercine made Semiramis the subject of their paintings. Calderon used her character in his plays. Mozart died before he could complete his melodrama based on Semiramis. A 16th century painter, Philip Galle used Semiramis and Babylon as the subjects of his paintings.

Mired in legend and prejudice, Semiramis is discredited in modern Western history – especially starting from 1853-1857. Her very existence denied, accused of incest, Semiramis has been tarred and condemned to the rubbish heap of modern history – and the Bible. Semiramis established an empire that lasted, practically till WW1. Some 300 years, after the reign of Semiramis, the Assyrian Empire passed into Persian hands. From the Persians, into Alexander’s lap.

The reason. Semiramis biggest defeat was at the hands of Indians. And soon after her defeat was the defeat of Cyrus the Great at the hands of Indians again. And before that were the Battles of Meggido and Kadesh, in which Indic armies confronted the Slave Empire of the Egypt. In colonial periods such an Indian history would have been very inconvenient for the Raj.

The Alexander mythos

Alexander’s raid of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, finally turned out to be a overthrow of the Achaemenid dynasty, usurpers of the Assyrian Empire. Unable to make headway into India, as the Indian Brahmins had helped and influenced Indian princes to organize and support the Indian war against Alexander. Greek sources cite, after this realization, at ‘The City of Brahmans’, Alexander massacred an estimated 8000-10,000 of these non-combatant Brahmans.

Alexander’s massacres in India, a colonial historian informs us (without naming a source), earned him an “epithet … assigned (to) him by the Brahmins of India, The Mighty Murderer.” This Indian Brahmanic characterization of Alexander, commonly taught to English schoolchildren and present in English college texts, as The Mighty Murderer, curiously disappeared from Western-English texts soon after 1860 – and instead now “a positive rose-tinted aura surrounds Alexander” … !

Since Indian texts were completely silent about the very existence of Alexander, colonial Western historians had a free run. Using hagiographic Greek texts as the base, Alexander became the conqueror of the world.

Max Mueller - Son of Hegel

Behind this propaganda was possibly a man who is much admired (wrongly) in India today - Max Mueller. For instance in Max Muller’s colonial propagandist history, when it comes to Indian triumphs over Semiramis, she becomes half legendary. Yet in another book, the same Semiramis becomes one of ‘the great conquerors of antiquity.’ In a matter of a few pages, he dismisses Indian history completely, in a half-Hegelian manner.

Aiding Max Mueller, English poets were press ganged into this propaganda war. Matthew Arnold wrote how, India, a 'nation of philosophers', from

“The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain,
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.”

Matthew Arnold's influence in Indian education can be gauged by the fact that Indian-English language poetry was for long called derisively as "Matthew Arnold in a Saree". Just before 1857 War, another 'influential' poet, John Keats, in his hubristic haze wrote how,

The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.

Much of modern history's debates and questions were born during this time - verily created to wage a propaganda war against India - and the world. India's cultural stature in the pantheon of world's societies was reduced to a minimal role - and the Greek Miracle was born.

In the dying days of the Raj

This propaganda war continued well for another 100 years. In the middle of WW2, Britain pulled out a general from the Italian theatre of war and sent him to India - to head colonial India archaeological operations.

One evening in early August 1943, Brigadier General Mortimer Wheeler was resting in his tent after a long day of poring over maps, drawing up plans for invasion of Siciliy. Mortimer Wheeler was invited to become the director general of archaeology by the India Office of the British government in its last years of rule in South Asia ... Summoning a general from the battlefields of Europe was an extraordinary measure, an admission both of the desperate condition of Indian archaeology and an acknowledgment of its vital importance. (from The Strides of Vishnu: Hindu Culture ... - Google Books).

Amazing!

Why would the glorious British Empire, on which the sun never set, struggling for its very existence, in the middle of WW2, suddenly pull a general back from the battlefield - and put him into archaeology! That too, Indian archaeology. Not Egyptian, not Greek! Especially, when it was clear, that they would be departing from India - sooner rather than later.

Considering what theories came from Mortimer Wheeler's rather fertile 'imagination' and his rigourous archaeological process, in hindsight, from a Western perspective, this was sound decision. There may be the facile answer that the British were, after all 'searching for history and truth'.

And it led Mortimer Wheeler to remark,

"They demonstrate with astonishing clarity the extent to which the brief transit of Alexander did in fact Hellenize almost instantly vast tracts of Asia populated previously by nomads or semi-nomads and villagers"

It is this one incident which possibly contains answers to many unanswered questions like: -

  1. The amount of energy expended by the West in defending the Aryan Invasion /Migration Theory,

  2. The lack of access to Indian scholars of the archaeological sites in Pakistan

  3. The many myths in Indian history

  4. The clues to the partition of India

  5. The dating problems
et al.

Just why did the world's foremost imperial power, struggling for its very existence, suddenly pull a general from the battle field, in the middle of WW2 - and put him onto the job of digging dirt.

Only one explanation fits - it had to be a struggle for its own existence at a higher level!