During his travels, Sadhguru makes a stop in Hampi, the historic capitol of the Vijayanagar Empire. Surrounded by magnificent stones, cave carvings over 4000 years old, and exuding an aura of fascination, this city was once described as “far bigger and greater than Rome”.
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‘ Macaulayism ‘ the term derives from Thomas Babington Macaulay, a member of the Governor General’s Council in the 1830s. Earlier, the British Government of India had completed a survey of the indigenous system of education in the Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras.
A debate was going on whether the indigenous system should be retained or a new system introduced. Macaulay was the chief advocate of a new system.
This, he, expected, will produce a class of Indians brown of skin but English in taste and temperament. The expectation has been more than fulfilled.
There is a widespread impression among “educated” classes in India that this country had no worthwhile system of education before the advent of the British. The great universities like those at Takshashilã, Nãlandã, Vikramashîla and Udantapurî had disappeared during Muslim invasions and rule.
What remained, we are told, were some pãthashãlãs in which a rudimentary instruction in arithmetic, and reading and writing was imparted by semi-educated teachers, mostly to the children of the upper castes, particularly the Brahmins. But the impression is not supported by known and verifiable facts.
Speaking before a select audience at Chatham House, London, on October 20, 1931, Mahatma Gandhi had said: “I say without fear of my figures being successfully challenged that India today is more illiterate than it was before a fifty or hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root and left the root like that and the beautiful tree perished.”
What the Mahatma had stated negatively, that is, in terms of illiteracy was documented positively, that is, in terms of literacy by a number of Indian scholars, notably Sri Daulat Ram, in the debate which followed the Mahatma’s statement, with Sir Philip Hartog, an eminent British educationist, on the other side.
Now Shri Dharampal who compiled Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts in 1971 has completed a book on the state of indigenous education in India on the eve of the British conquest.
Shri Dharampal has documented from old British archives, particularly those in Madras, that the indigenous system of education compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at about the same time. The Indian system was admittedly in a state of decay when it was surveyed by the British Collectors in Bengal, Bombay and Madras. Yet, as the data brought up by them proved conclusively, the Indian system was better than the English in terms of
This indigenous system was discarded and left to die out by the British not because its educational capacity was inferior but because it was not thought fit for serving the purpose they had in mind. The purpose was, first, to introduce the same system of administration in India as was obtaining in England at that time.
The English system was highly centralised, geared towards maximisation of state revenues, manned by “gentlemen” who despised the “lower classes” and were, therefore, ruthless in suppression of any mass discontent. Secondly, the new system of education aimed at promoting and patronising a new Indian upper class who, in turn, would hail the blessings of British Raj and cooperate in securing its stability in India.
The indigenous system of education was capable neither of training such administrators nor of raising such a social elite, not at home anywhere.
The system of education introduced by the British performed more or less as Macaulay had anticipated. Hindus like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahamanã Malaviya, Veer Savarkar, Sri M.S. Golwalker, to name only the most notable amongst those who escaped its magic spell and rediscovered their roots, were great souls, strong enough to survive the heavy dose of a deliberate denationalisation.
For the rest, it has eminently succeeded in sweeping an ancient and highly cultured people off its feet. Macaulay does deserve the honour of a whole ‘ism’ of which we have not seen the last yet.
It is not easy to define the doctrine of Macaulayism in as authentic terms as we could do in the case of Islamism and Christianism. Doctrinally, Macaulayism is quite diffused. It does not swear by a historical prophet whom it proclaims as the latest as well as the last and the best. It does not bestow a monopoly of truth and wisdom on a single book. It does not lay down a single code of conduct distilled from the doings of a prophet or the sacerdotal tradition of a church.
Nor is Macaulayism malevolent like Islamism or mischievous like Christianism.
It is rather mild and well-meaning, more like an imperceptible breeze which blows in silently, fins up the psychological atmosphere, creates a mental mood, inspires an intellectual attitude, and finally settles down as a cultural climate-pervasive, protean and ubiquitous.
Unlike Islamism and Christianism, Macaulayism does not employ any meticulously matured methods to propagate or proliferate itself. It is not out to use a specified section of Indian society as a vehicle of its virulence. It is not a potent potion like Islamism which destroys the body of a culture in one fell sweep. It is not subtle like Christianism which subverts a society surreptitiously. But at the same time, it is a creeping toxaemia which corrodes the soul of a culture and corrupts a social system in slow stages. And its target is every section of Indian society.
Yet, as we survey the spread of its spell over Hindu society, particularly Hindu intelligentsia, we can spot some of its paralysing processes. The most prominent are the following five:
The intellectual and cultural fashions and fads of our Macaulayists change as freely and frequently as the intellectual and cultural climate in the West. Now it is English Utilitarianism, now German Idealism, now Russian Nihilism, now French Positivism or Existentialism, now American Consumerism-whatever be the dominant trend in the West, it immediately finds its flock among the educated Hindus. But one thing remains constant.
The platform must first be prepared in the West before it could or should find an audience in India.
And this process of approving, rejecting, judging and justifying which Macaulayism promotes among its Hindu protagonists does not remain a mere mental mood or an intellectual inclination or a psychological propensity, that is to say, a subjective stance on men and matters.
It inevitably and very soon expresses itself in a whole life-style which goes on rejecting 
and replacing Hindu mores and manners indiscriminately in favour of those which the West recommends as the latest and the best.
The land from which the new styles of life are imported may be England as upto the end of the Second World War or the United States of America as ever since. But it must always be ensured that the land is located somewhere in the Western hemisphere. “Phoren” is always fine.
The models which are thus imported from the West in ever increasing numbers need not have any relevance to the concrete conditions obtaining in India such as her geography, climate, economic resources, technological talent, administrative ability, etc.
If the imported model fails to flourish on the Indian soil and in India’s socio-economico-cultural conditions, these must be beaten and forced into as much of a receptive shape as possible, if need be by a ruthless use of state power.
But if the receptacle remains imperfect even after all these efforts, let the finished product reflect that imperfection. A model imported from the West and implanted on Indian soil even in half or a quarter is always preferable to any indigenous design evolved in keeping with native needs and adapted to local conditions.
Starting from the secular and socialist state and planned economy, travelling through a casteless society and scientific culture, and arriving at day-to-day consumption in Hindu homes, we witness the same servile scenario unfolding itself in an endless endeavour.
Our parliamentary institutions, our public and private enterprises, our infrastructure of power and transport, our medicine, public health and housing, our education and entertainment, our dress, food, furniture, crockery, table manners, even the way we gesticulate, grin and smile have to be carbon copies of what they are currently doing in the West.
Drain-pipes, bell-bottoms, long hair, drooping moustaches; girls dressed up in jeans; parents being addressed as mom and pa and mummy and daddy; demand for convent schooling in matrimonial ads: and natives speaking their mother tongues in affected accents after the English civilian who was helpless to do otherwise-these are perhaps small and insignificant details which would not have mattered if the Hindus had retained pride in the more substantial segments of their cultural heritage. But in the current context of kowtowing before the West, they are painful portents of a whole culture being forced to feel inferior and go down the drain.
The Hindu may sometimes need to feel some pride in his ancestral heritage, particularly when he wants to overcome his sense of inferiority in the presence of visitors from the West. Macaulayism will gladly permit him that privilege, provided Kãlidãsa is admired as the Shakespeare of India and Samudragupta certified as India’s Napoleon.
The Hindu is permitted to take pride in that piece of native literature which some Western critic has lauded.
Of course, the Hindu should read it in its English translation. He is also permitted to praise those specimens of Hindu architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance and drama which some connoisseurs from the West have patronised, preferable in an exhibition or performance before a Western audience. But he is not permitted to do this praising and pride-taking in a native language nor in an English which does not have the accepted accent.
The Hindu who is thus addicted to Macaulayism lives in a world of his own which has hardly any contact with the traditional Hindu society. He looks forward to the day when India will become a society like societies in the West where the rate of growth, the gross national product and the standard of living are the only criteria of progress. He is tolerant towards religion to the extent that it remains a matter of private indulgence and does not interfere with the smooth unfoldment of the socio-political scene. Personally for him, religion is irrelevant, though some of its rituals and festivities can occasionally add some colour to life. For the rest, religion is so much obscurantism, primitive superstition and, in the Indian context at present, a creator of communal riots.
It should not, therefore, be surprising if this self-forgetful, self-alienated Hindu who often suffers from an incurable anti-Hindu animus a la Nirad Chaudhry, turns his back upon Hindu society and culture and becomes indifferent to their fate.
He cannot help having not much patience with the traditional Hindu who is still attached to his spiritual tradition, who flocks to hallowed places of pilgrimage, who celebrates his festivals with solemnity, who regulates his daily life with rituals and sacraments, and who honours his forefathers, particularly the old saints, sages and heroes.
He also cannot help being indulgent towards those who are hostile to the traditional Hindu and who heap contempt and ridicule on him, no matter to what community or faith they belong, though he may not share their own variety of religious or ideological fanaticism.
The traditional Hindu, on the other hand, wants to live in peace and amity with all his compatriots. He is normally very tolerant towards his Muslim and Christian countrymen, and gladly grants them the right to their own way of worship. He goes further and quite often upholds Muslim and Christian religions as good as his own.
He shows all due respect to Muslim and Christian prophets, scriptures and saints. He does not try to prevent anyone from freely discussing, dissecting, even ridiculing his religion and culture.
He never mobilises murderous mobs against those Hindus who do not share his convictions about his ancestral heritage. He turns a blind eye to his Gods and Goddesses being turned into cheap models in calendars and commercial advertisements. Nor does he go out converting people of other faiths to his own.
The traditional Hindu, however, does get stirred when the Muslims and Christians cross the limits and threaten the unity and integrity of his country. He does want to retain his majority in his only homeland against Muslim and Christian attempts to reduce him to a minority by fraudulent mass conversions.
He does believe that Hindu society and culture have a right to survive and put up some defence in exercise of that right. But the Hindu addict of Macaulayism stubbornly refuses to concede that right to Hindu society and culture.
He cannot see the need for defence because he cannot see the danger. And he has many strings to his bow to run down the Hindu who dares defy his diktat. His attitude can by summarised as follows:
But the stance which suits Macaulayism best is to sit on the fences and call a plague on both houses. The search for fairness and justice is somehow always too strenuous for a follower of Macaulayism.
The one thing he loathes from the bottom of his heart is taking sides in a dispute, even if he is privately convinced as to who is the aggressor and who the victim of aggression. He views the battle as a disinterested outsider and finds it somewhat entertaining.
The reports and reviews which some of our eminent journalists have filed in the daily and the periodical press about happenings in Meenakshipuram and other places where Islamism is again on the prowl, leaves an unmistakable impression that these gentlemen are not members of Hindu society but visitors from some outer space on a temporary sojourn to witness a breed of lesser beings fighting about Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
An adherent of Macaulayism can well afford to take this neutral, even hostile stance, away from and above Hindu society, its problems and its struggles, because, in the last analysis, he no more regards Hindu society as his own or as his indispensable benefactor. He has already managed to monopolise most of the political and administrative power in this country and the best jobs in business and the professions.
He has secured a stranglehold on the most prestigious publicity media. The political upstarts and the neo-rich look up to him as their paragon and try to mould their sons and daughters in his image.
But what is uppermost in his mind, if not his conscious calculation, is the plenty of patrons, protectors and pay-masters he has in the West, particularly the United States of America.
The scholars and social scientists over there in the progressive West approve and applaud whenever he pontificates about India’s socio-economico-cultural malaise and prescribes the proper occidental cures. They invite him to international seminars and on well-paid lecture tours to enlighten Western audiences about the true state of things in this “unfortunate” country and the rest of the “under-developed” world.
He can travel extensively in the West with all expenses paid on a lavish scale. Even in this country he alone is entitled to move and establish the right contacts in social circles frequented by the powerful and the prestigious from the West.
And, God forbid, if the worst comes to the worst and the “fanatics like the RSS fascists” or the Muslim fundamentalists or the Communist totalitarians take over this country, he can always find a safe refuge in one Western country or the other. There are plenty of places which can use his talents to mutual profit.
The salaries they pay and the expense accounts they allow are quite attractive. The level of living with all those latest gadgets is simply lovable. In any case, he has all those sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, cousins and close relatives ensconsed in all those cushy jobs over there-the UN agencies, the fabulous foundations, the business corporations, the universities and research institutions.
So, Hindu society with all its hullabaloo of religion and culture be damned. This society, and not he, stands to lose if he is not permitted to work out his plans for progress in peace. In any case, this society cannot pay even for his shoes getting polished properly.
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“Expressing his frustration at the law officers of the government, [Dr Swamy] said that he was ashamed of them for claiming that this was a ‘gift’ to the British when the truth was miles away from it.” – ANIFollowing the government’s assertion that the legendary Kohinoor diamond could not be brought back as it was ‘gifted’ to the British, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday expressed his disappointment over the stand of the ruling dispensation and said that he would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the facts of the diamond’s transaction from India to Britain.
“The first production of the Kohinoor was during the Kakatiya dynasty, which was in Warangal and this was taken out from the Guntur mines. It was later taken over by the Mughals, who put it in the peacock throne, then it went to Abdali then to his opponents and then to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. When he was getting sick and he knew that he may die, he wrote his will and bequeathed the diamond to Jagannath Mandir. That’s final. You can’t change that,” Swamy told ANI.
Expressing his frustration at the law officers of the government, he said that he was ashamed of them for claiming that this was a ‘gift’ to the British when the truth was miles away from it.
Throwing light on the history of the diamond’s transaction, Swamy added that Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s 13-year-old son Dilip Singh had a British tutor.
“When the young prince was about to meet Queen Victoria, he was told that he would have to present her a grand gift, which is when he gave the diamond. However, he regretted what he did as he grew older,” said Swamy.
“All this is recorded in the book of our High Commission in London. The book is titled Exile. The Prime Minister should tell the Additional General and the Solicitor General to compulsorily read that book first and then file a new affidavit,” Swamy said.
The government yesterday told the Supreme Court that as per the Ministry of Culture, India should not stake a claim to the famed Kohinoor diamond as “it was neither stolen nor forcibly taken away”.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the government, said this was the stand of the Culture Ministry.
Chief Justice T.S. Thakur asked the Centre if it wants the case to be dismissed as they would face a problem in the future when putting forward any legitimate claim.
The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to file a detailed reply within six weeks.
Following the furore by the government’s assertion, Union Minister of State for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said that only the Centre can act on the issue of the Kohinoor diamond.
“According to the guidelines, the Central Government can take steps on things that were gifted or procured by the British before independence. Expert opinion on this regard will be taken at an appropriate time,” he told ANI.
The diamond is now part of the glittering purple-velvet Queen Mother’s Crown in the Tower of London. For years, the politicians and others in India and in the UK have said the diamond was seized after the British annexed Punjab. The gem was once the largest diamond in the world and is twice the size of the Hope Diamond. – DNA, 19 April 2016
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The idea, however, that the British have wrested the Empire from the Mohamadans is a mistake. The Mohamadans were beaten down — almost everywhere except in Bengal — before the British appeared upon the scene; Bengal they would not have been able to hold, and the name of the “Mahratta Ditch” of Calcutta shows how near even the British there were to extirpation by India’s new masters. Had the British not won the battles of Plassey and Buxar, the whole Empire would ere now have become the fighting ground of Sikhs, Rajputs, and Mahrattas and others.
Except the Nizam of the Deccan there was not a vigorous Musalman ruler in India after the firman of Farokhsiar in 1716; the Nizam owed his power to the British after the battle of Kurdla in 1795), and it was chiefly British support that maintained the feeble shadow of the Moghul Empire, from the death of Alamgir II. to the retirement of Mr. Hastings. Not only Haidarabad but all the other existing Musalman principalities of modern India owe their existence, directly, or indirectly, to the British intervention. British author, H.G.Keene
A myth that endures is often harmless – there are others that despite being utterly baseless serve to propagate the most absurd and extreme views of both history and towards their fellow man. One of these is the myth that British Imperialism saved the Hindus from Islamic rule and domination.
The myth is of almost breathtaking audacity given that the facts of history reveal very clearly the truth of the Islamic empires and kingdoms being destroyed by a steady wave of Hindu revolts and then attacks with their remnants rushing to the western powers for protection from their Hindu rivals.
By 1759 the Maratha flag fluttered over Peshawar – in the early 1800’s the Hindu Gurkhas contented with the Chinese Empire for control over Tibet a feat repeated by the Dogra Hindu warriors some decades later.
The warlord Mahadji Sindhia recovered the silver gates of Somnath from the hands of the Afghans in a symbolic gesture of the Hindu reconquest. And yet this myth endures – in fact endures to such an extent that the defeated believe that their visions of Muslim rule over the subcontinent was thwarted only by the advent of the British and the Hindus believing that they were saved from utter extinction by the Imperialist interventions.
The propagation of myths and half-truths served to prop the edifice of Imperialism during the British sojourn in India.
This edifice was supported in numerous forces and bodies that were propped up by their erstwhile colonial masters , and this the seeds of hatred and self-loathing that still afflict the subcontinent remains today.
With the fall of that once mighty edifice of the British Empire these very forces were unleashed upon the subcontinent. These very groups weaned on the education system and myths propagated by colonialism were content to allow the same system and ideas dominate India. A new set of western educated elite preferred to maintain the myths of cultural superiority which allowed a narrow elite to lord over the vast toiling masses that comprised the majority of the nation.
The myths of Hindu defeat and slavery designed to destroy and dampen the morale of the majority population continued to be taught – the need by the imperialists to destroy the ardour and fighting spirit of the people was also grabbed upon eagerly by Islamic and other anti Hindu forces.
The myth that Hinduism was a dying and decayed body waiting to be preyed upon by its more aggressive competitors has become almost folklore to Islamists and other extremists.
To hide and cover the resistance of 800 years – the rolling back of the forces of Jihad which by the 18th century has ended in utter failure before the rise of the nascent Hindu forces leading to the climactic failure of arms by the remaining Muslim kingdoms in South Asia by the close of the 1700’s only brought to a sudden end by the entry of western powers.
The same ideology promoted the so called discredited martial race theory of certain communities being more ‘martial’ than others (once again flying in the face of historical evidence) the same ideology allows cross border terrorism to be pushed from the Islamic republic of Pakistan – that allowed it to engage four time in war with its Hindu neighbour each time resulting in humiliating defeat and yet continues to attempt to cause trouble for India.
And yet – despite the above- the myth remained – and even stranger the myth remained propagated by the very forces that otherwise espouse Hindu revivalism – Thus you will find otherwise very earnest Hindus in organisations such as the RSS being weaned on the diet of Hindu passivity and non-aggression despite flying in the face of all known historical evidence and truths.
To the myth of the thousand year slavery being exposed in our previous article composed of two parts – the first being the attacks from the 11th century to the 16th century by various Islamic intruders. The second part being that of the period of colonialism – in this case the rise and establishment of the British Empire.
Having heard ad nausea the view that the British ruled over the Indian subcontinent for a two hundred year period (i.e. from 1757 to 1947) I decided that it was worthwhile into looking into the veracity of this view.
Apart from various small port colonies by the British and French living under the sufferance of local grandees it was the Portuguese who made a serious attempt to establish a lasting empire in the subcontinent. The foundation of Goa, Daman, Diu and other small settlements as part of their attempt to thwart their Ottoman enemies the Portuguese sought to dominate the trade routes to India.
Their own limited resources combined with the hostility aroused amongst both Hindus and Muslims due to their violence and religious oppression together with the fact of living within the shadows of powerful empires such as Vijayanagar, Bahmani and others created a cap on European expansion in the middle ages.
Thus over e long period of decline they were beaten into insignificance by the Marathas in the 1730’s under a vigorous set of campaigns by Chimnaji Appa.
The same period saw the dramatic decline of the Mughal Empire in India – the long period of relative stability based on a tenuous compromise between the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent was shattered by the violent and extreme policies of the Emperor Aurangzeb. Led by the strictures of Islamic law his jaundiced administration was faced by a tidal wave of revolts and risings from the Jats, the Satnamis, Bundelas, Ahoms, Rajputs and the Marathas under the famed king Shivaji.
The initial decades of the 18th century saw the Maratha power spread across the face of India, at first under their famed leader Baji Rao and then by his generals, Sindhia, Holkar, Gaekwad and Bhonsle each given his own special area of operation
Now British rule is said to have begun after their victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 over the Mughals and their subsequent triumph over them at the Battle of Buxar in 1764. Following this the right to govern, albeit in the name of the Mughals was granted to the British over Bengal and Bihar.
By way of background it is worth noting that Bengal, Bihar and Orrisa were governed by the same appointee from the court in Delhi – in the early 18th century with the Mughal Empire cracking under the repeated hammer blows from the Marathas this province under Alivardi Khan broke off to become for all intents and purposes an independent kingdom.
It was their ill fortune that at the same time the Maratha leaders had demarcated their own spheres of influence over all of India – This region was the hunting ground of the Bhonsle family under their war leader Raghuji Bhonsle.
From the 1730’s onwards in an ever expanding series of raids the regions of Orrisa, Bengal and to a lesser extent Bihar was subject to devastating attacks by the Marathas. The Nawab Alivardi Khan made determined and energetic efforts to defend his province to no avail. Each year he drive further back with the Maratha raiders covering what is modern day Bangladesh up to the Hindu kingdom of Assam.
The only defeat suffered by the Marathas was when the Maratha leader Balaji Baji Rao chastised the Bhonsles and drove them back to their base in Nagpur – the following year they were back however and in utter failure the Nawab of Bengal agreed to cede in perpetuity parts of Bihar, Bengal and the whole of Orissa to the Marathas – This was further compounded by having to pay a yearly tribute to the Marathas (the chauth – or one fourth of their income) – As stated above some years later the British won a victory over the Mughals in 1757 at Plassey .
At the same time Maratha expansion was halted at the Battle of Panipat a thousand miles away in 1761 – this setback the Marathas for a decade – in the interim the British who after assuming governance over Bengal had continued to pay the tribute adroitly stopped paying.
The efforts of the Marathas were then directed at North India – mainly around Delhi to hammer home their final influence over the now fast decaying Mughals – In the interim the British buoyed by their successes in Bengal sought to expand their range of influence over the region of Awadh – the Nawab of the region which covers the northern part of modern-day Uttar Pradesh was best on all side by enemies – to one side the Hindu Jat tribes were seeking to expand their power over his holdings -to the south the warriors of Bundlekhand held sway – the martial Naga Sadhus marched with impunity through the land to protect the holy sites in ranks of thousands armed with matchlocks and artillery and from 1769 the Marathas were back at his borders when a large warband under Holkar attacked their province .
The weak and incompetent ruler – Shuja Ud Dualah fled under British protection in an attempt to preserve his kingdom against his Hindu enemies and thus the British were planted within striking distance of Delhi –
Their interference began to expand and with the establishment of armies in (what was then referred to as) Bombay, Calcutta and Madras the British sought to drive a necklace around the Marathas and thus led to the First Anglo-Maratha war – this was fought across the subcontinent over a period of 7 years – it saw the sensational defeat of British arms at the Battle of Wadgaon (leading to a humiliating British surrender) to the march of Captain Goddard across north India to the capture of Gwalior and the final stalemate at Sipri after which peace was sought and secured by all parties – the Marathas were led by their maverick minister Nana Fadnavis who managed to coordinate a series of alliances to push back the British threat and pushing the East Indian company to the brink of bankruptcy – coupled with the military genius of Mahadji Sindhia the Marathas resumed their march across India and by 1788 had defeated the remnants of the Mughal forces and stretched their sphere of influence to the Sutlej river in Punjab
In 1795 there remained only two Muslim kingdom in India – that of the Nizam of Hyderabad and Tipu Sultan of Mysore (whose infantry was predominantly Hindu) – In 1795 the Marathas delivered a crushing defeat to the Nizam – a defeat which destroyed his power so utterly that he clung in desperation to the British for succour which they gladly gave thus allowing the recovered British arms entry into the south of India – Tipu Sultan however resisted and alone amongst his coreligionists he refused to accept the British alliance and thus perished at the Battle of Seringapatnam in 1799.
The unemployed Muslim soldiery across India could only observe with horror as Hindu arms emerged triumphant over them on all fronts. Many joined the ranks of the Hindu armies others became votaries and supporters of Hindu groups with many even joining the dreaded Thugee cult of Northern Indian becoming devotees of the Goddess Kali.
By 1799 the two great Maratha leaders were dead – Nana Fadnavis and Mahadji Sindhia – who had kept this rising tide of colonialism at bay – their untimely deaths however plunged the Maratha Confederacy into chaos and a civil war beginning in 1799 resulted in chaos and bloodletting across the face of the country – with Sindhia’s fighting the Holkars, battling with their leader the Peshwa and other warrior bands.
A climactic battle before the city of Poona in 1803 left the Maratha capital city in utter confusion and with a series of fast moving manoeuvres the British entered the fray to face a fractured Maratha Confederacy.
Rather than combine and fight on a common ground each component of the famed Maratha army faced the British separately – Led by Arthur Wellesley (Later the Duke of Wellington) and Lord Lake the British fought a series of blooding engagements -the Battle of Assaye – the Battle of Assaye which delivered defeats to the Sindhias and Bhonsles Marathas – following this, when all seemed lost Holkar under their maverick leader Jaswant Rao attacked the British – defeating them in Rajasthan under Col. Monson and then attacking them at Delhi itself – following a setback he took support from the Jats of Bharatpur who then faced the famed infantry and artillery of the British – four times the British tried to attack then walls each ending in utter failure with the loss of thousands of troops – Eventually the British made a peace with Holkar each agreeing not to disturb the other
But the effects of the above were not lost on anyone – the British had by 1805 cast their sphere of influence over the whole of India – although not ruling the majority of the country they had secured their position which was decisively contested once again by the Marathas in 1818 – In a last attempt to drive the British from their positions the Marathas were finally defeated in the Third Anglo-Maratha war and the true establishment of British rule can in some degree be said to commence – This has to be seen in light of the fact that they (like the Marathas before them) maintained the fiction of ruling in the name of the by now impotent Mughal Emperor issuing coins in his name and issuing order in the same vein .
Thus many of the inhabitants could maintain the happy fiction of being independent and free.
The Himalayan foothills had been conquered by the Hindu Gurkha clans who then clashed with the Imperialist powers in 1816 almost leading to a humiliating British defeat – the only part yet outside of the British influence was the rising empire of Ranjit Singh and his allies in Jammu.
The death of the Maharaja in 1839 led to utter chaos and whilst the allies of the Sikh kingdom – the Dogra Rajputs of Jammu managed to expand the empire into Ladakh, Gilgit and Baltistan and even conducting a daring march in the heart of Tibet to fight the Chinese empire the machinations and violence that engulfed the kingdom allowed the British to deliver, despite hard fighting the destruction of the kingdom of Punjab and hits absorption into the British sphere of influence.
By now the reality of Empire was dawning on most of the inhabitants of the subcontinent – Increasing British interference in personal and religious matters as well as their obnoxious policy of wantonly grabbing the kingdoms of their supposed native allies burst into fury and violence in 1857 in a great rising that engulfed a huge portion of northern India – the fighting was bloody and intense and led by the mostly Hindu soldiers of the Bengal army – in a valiant attempt to unite the disparate factions the name of the Peshwa and the Mughal were invoked together with all of the symbolism of the old India that they sought to recover against the imperialist aggressor – After wading through an ocean of blood and violence the rising was finally suppressed in 1859 which led to the final and emphatic establishment of Imperial rule over India for the next 90 years until freedom came in 1947.
90 years – not quite 200 years as we have often been told – Even in regions where the British influence was felt the deepest and lasted the longest it was a slow and gradual process only really being deeply felt after the end of the great rising in 1859 –
The student of history cannot help noticing that barring the battle of Tipu Sultan his co-religionists had failed to make a notable stand against the British – indeed it can been said that they were amongst the first to flee to British protection from their Hindu Enemies – The major struggles of the Old India – from the three wars of the Marathas, the battle of the Jats, the Gurkhas – the Sanyasi rebellions in Bengal, wars of the Sikhs, the Nayar and poligar battles of the south were almost all by Hindus – This is further compounded by the great rising of 1857 which was led by the predominantly Brahmin and Rajput soldiers of the army
90 years of imperial rule were first contested by Vasudev Balwant Phadke in 1875 – these were then followed by the revolutionaries from Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab which by the 1920’s had thrown British rule into chaos (almost all Hindus) – in response the policies of divide and rule through religion, caste and region were played (ultimately unsuccessfully) by the British due to which the subcontinent still suffers today.
It is important to have an honest and open appraisal of history and not to succumb to failed ideas and slogans – we have found even otherwise well meaning people propagate some of the most absurd and baseless theories without a modicum of basis in truth – the History of colonialism and resistance to it has to be seen in light of the facts of history.
Also Read The Myth of “1000 Years of Hindu Slavery
(4520)
Meenakshi Gurukkal crouched low, sword poised; her eyes unblinking as she faced her opponent in the mud-paved ‘kalari’ or arena. From the tree tops, a mynah’s call resonated in the silence. In a flash she moved to attack, twirling her sword; metal clashing loudly as it made contact with a shield.
At 74, she is possibly the oldest woman exponent of Kalaripayattu, the ancient martial arts from Kerala. She has been practising Kalaripayattu for no less than sixty-eight years – training and teaching.
Around 150 students learn Kalaripayattu in her school Kadathanadan Kalari Sangam, in a tiny hamlet in Vadakara, near Calicut, Kerala. From June to September every year, classes are held thrice a day teaching the Northern style of Kalaripayattu, including “uzhichil” or massages for aches and pains. Techniques have been passed down through generations, written in a palm ‘booklet’, grey and delicate with age. When school term is over, Meenakshi takes part in performances. “Nowadays, apart from teaching, I practise only when I have a show,” she says nonchalantly. This, from someone who on an average performs in 60 shows a year.
More than a third of the students are girls, aged between six and twenty six. Meenakshi’s school welcomes children from all walks of life. “Gender and community are totally irrelevant. What matters is age. The earlier you start, the more proficient you are,” she explains.
The school runs on a ‘no fees’ principle. At the end of each year, students give her whatever guru dakshina they chose to. Today, some of her students are now Gurukkals or masters themselves.
The kalari walls display weapons – fist daggers, shields, spears, thick wooden rods, tusk-shaped ‘ottas’ and ‘urumis’ – long flexible blades used in combat. Among them is a shield, polished, but old with use – one that Meenakshi herself had trained with as a young girl.
She started learning Kalaripayattu at the age of six, when her father had taken her and her sister to a local kalari. “There were only a handful of girls in our class. But my father wasn’t bothered. He was determined we learn Kalaripayattu,” she says.
Meenakshi turned out to be naturally gifted, and her father encouraged her to continue training even past puberty, when girls normally stopped.
It was then that she met and married Raghavan Master, a school teacher with a passion for Kalaripayattu. Shunned from joining a local kalari because he was from the backward Thiyya/Ezhava community, Raghavan Master had built his own Kalaripayattu training school in defiance. Kadathanadan Kalari Sangam was set up in 1949; a place where anyone and everyone who had a passion for the martial art could join. “His goal was to make Kalaripayattu accessible to everyone. Today we have done that,” explained Meenakshi, who started teaching Kalaripayattu at his training school at age 17.
Oral folklore in north Kerala, known as Vadakkan Pattu or Northern Ballads, is rich with tales of Kalaripayattu champions. Among them are the Thiyya/Ezhava warriors of Puthooram tharavad in North Malabar- heroes and heroines such as Aromal Chekavar, an expert in ‘ankam’ (duelling) and Unniarcha, a women skilled in ‘urumi’ combat who singlehandedly took on vagabonds to ensure safe passage for women in that area. Ironically, Raghavan Master, from the same Thiyya/Ezhava community, had to fight discrimination in the late 1940s and set up a separate kalari to train and teach.
Historians stress that Kalaripayattu was popular in medieval Kerala.
“Each ‘desam’ or locality had a kalari or gymnasium with a guru at its head and both boys and girls received physical training in it,” noted historian Prof A Sreedhara Menon in his work ‘A Survey of Kerala History’.
Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa, wrote of how he saw Kalaripayattu students in North Kerala in the early 1500s, who “…Learn twice a day as long as they are children… and they become so loose jointed and supple that they make them turn their bodies contrary to nature..” (exerpt from The Book of Duarte Barbosa, Volume II, Duarte Barbosa)
Mythology credits Parasurama being the father of Kalaripayattu having learnt in from Shiva himself. Historically, it finds mention in early Sangam literature. Kerala historian, Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai, in his book Studies in Kerala History, opined that the northern form Kalaripayattu practised today came into existence in 11 th century, in the wake of the strife between the Tamil Kingdoms of Cheras and Cholas.
Later, colonial rulers were quick to ensure that locals did not pose a threat to them, and strongly discouraged Kalaripayattu. Their prudish sensibilities also prevented women from learning such skills. Prof Menon noted that after the 17 th century, interest in Kalaripayattu declined.
Restrictions on carrying arms ensured that most Kalaripayattu weapons were kept in cold storage.
Kalaripayattu was revived in the 1920s, but practitioners had to ask authorities for special licences to use weapons.
“It was well past Independence that things really picked up. Now it’s a way of life for us,” says Meenakshi. Her children, two sons and two daughters, also started training in Kalaripayattu at six, and today her son Sajeev is a Gurukkal. “I will practise Kalaripayattu for as long as I physically can,” she adds.
This grand dame of Kalaripayattu is determined to prove the cliché that age is just a number.
By Supriya Unni Nair
The News Minute
(1685)
When an Indian Kushti wrestler rolls in the earth, his hair and body become covered in the burnt-umber hue of soft clay. It’s said that he becomes “of one color.” This is meant literally of course — his black hair is matted down by the same mud that covers his body — but it also conveys a spiritual ideal. Wrestling in India, which counts Kushti as one of its indigenous disciplines, has a monastic history. Winning a wrestling match (or a Kushti-Spardha) isn’t the ultimate goal. The attainment of a kind of virtuous integrity of mind, spirit, and body is: being of one color.
Higher aspirations than victory shouldn’t be mistaken for softness. Kushti fighters are strong and they live to train and fight. Like Aussie Muay Thai fighter James Polodna, who literally lives at Montreal’s Tristar Gym and isn’t allowed company, Kushti fighters reside in their training facilities and submit themselves to a Spartan routine. They abstain from alcohol, drugs, meat, and women. They live apart from society because theirs is not a universal pursuit. Life in the akhara, the monastery-like gyms where upwards of 60 fighters live and train, is rigorous and austere. Yes, there’s glory in victory, but it’s fleeting. To Kushti wrestlers, there’s immortality in the cultivation of the essence of strength.
That strength starts with the mud. Students at akharas cart hundreds of pounds of soft earth from riverbanks and lakebeds to their gyms every few weeks. That earth is mixed with oil, turmeric, rosewater, and sometimes buttermilk to create a fragrant, pleasing surface on which training exercises and bouts take place. The wrestling pit is covered, either by a thatch or concrete roof, to keep out the sun. Training is an orchestrated chaos of arched limbs and strained faces. Holds, moves, countermoves, throws are practiced in the rich darkness.
Days are regimented. Early in the morning every fighter studies under the guru of the akhara and practices a series of moves and countermoves called Jor (literally “exerting force”). This complex vocabulary of grappling includes familiar freestyle wrestling takedowns and more exotic, and potentially dangerous, maneuvers like using your head to pivot your body out of a hold. These moves are practiced until they become rote.
After morning practice the wrestlers eat. Their diet is highly structured as well. They’re all vegetarians and so they get their protein from a thick mixture called Khurak, made from clarified butter (ghee), milk, almond paste, or chick peas. They eat great volumes of this stuff. There are tales of fighters who would go through 50 pounds of ghee and 80 pounds of almonds a week. The better part of the afternoon is spent resting and followed by another regimen of strengthening exercises. Then more Khurak. Then sleep. When fighters compete they do so at raucous village festivals called Kushthi-spardhas that thousands in India’s north and central regions attend. These competitions tend to last all day, with featured fights unregulated by time or scoring. Pinning a man is the only way to win.
In other words, there are thousand differences between Kushti and modern-day mixed martial arts (the diaper-like loincloths the fighters wear differ significantly from ad-covered MMA shorts, and American MMA gyms are rarely, if ever, dedicated to monkey gods). But the differences are actually only superficial. The ethos of restraint, the cloistering off from society, and the aspiration towards achieving something transcendent are shared by both kinds of fighter. So is the yearning for competition.
And just like MMA and other western combat sports, kushti has its own legend — its Babe Ruth, its Muhammad Ali, its Fedor Emelianenko. Joseph S. Alter, an anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburg and scholar in Indian fighting, told me about the Great Gama, a Kushti fighter from the outskirts of Amristar in the Punjab who rose through the ranks of Akhara training, became a national champion in India by the age of 19, and, at the invitation of British wrestling promoter, landed on the cold shores of England in 1910. Once there, he won the John Bull belt by defeating Stanislaus Zbyszko in bout that lasted three hours. The Great Gama became world champion.
So, when the UFC announced that it would launch The Ultimate Fighter: India in 2013, at a press conference in Mumbai on September 11, 2011, and Man Jit Singh, the CEO of the company the promotion would be partnering with, pointed to India’s “long legacy of Kushti,” and said he hoped that “our fighters from the akharas and gyms will progress and eventually become UFC champions,”the questions were obvious: Could kushti find its way into the MMA fighter’s technical vocabulary, and could India once again produce a world champion?
Prof. Alter was intrigued when I put the question to him, but he warned that there is what he called an “idiosyncratic rather than pervasive masculinity” in Indian culture that complicates the rise of Indian wrestling and could keep it from having the kind of influence on the development of MMA some might hope for.
“Masculinity is more nuanced in the sense that there are two related dimensions,” he said. “It’s linked to self-discipline and the moral, non-violent, balanced, and considered restraint. The preservation of the essence of masculinity is what’s valued. That’s what makes a strong person.”
By Krishna Andavolu
Vice
Photos by Mitchell Kanashkevich
(2001)
‘Buddhism with its exaggerated emphasis on quiescence & the quiescent virtue of self-abnegation, its unwise creation of a separate class of quiescents & illuminati, its sharp distinction between monks & laymen implying the infinite inferiority of the latter, its all too facile admission of men to the higher life and its relegation of worldly action to the lowest importance possible stands at the opposite pole from the gospel of Srikrishna and has had the very effect he deprecates; it has been the author of confusion and the destroyer of the peoples.
Under its influence half the nation moved in the direction of spiritual passivity & negation, the other by a natural reaction plunged deep into a splendid but enervating materialism. As a result our race lost three parts of its ancient heroic manhood, its grasp on the world, its magnificently ordered polity and its noble social fabric.
It is by clinging to a few spars from the wreck that we have managed to perpetuate our existence, and this we owe to the overthrow of Buddhism by Shankaracharya. But Hinduism has never been able to shake off the deep impress of the religion it vanquished; and therefore though it has managed to survive, it has not succeeded in recovering its old vitalising force.
The practical disappearance of the Kshatriya caste (for those who now claim that origin seem to be with a few exceptions Vratya Kshatriyas, Kshatriyas who have fallen from the pure practice and complete temperament of their caste) has operated in the same direction.
The Kshatriyas were the proper depositaries of the gospel of action. But when the Kshatriyas disappeared or became degraded, the Brahmins remained the sole interpreters of the Bhagavadgita, and they, being the highest caste or temperament and their thoughts therefore naturally turned to knowledge and the final end of being, bearing moreover still the stamp of Buddhism in their minds, have dwelt mainly on that in the Gita which deals with the element of quiescence.
Time, however, in its revolution is turning back on itself and there are signs that if Hinduism is to last and we are not to plunge into the vortex of scientific atheism and the breakdown of moral ideals which is engulfing Europe, it must survive as the religion for which Vedanta, Sankhya &Yoga combined to lay the foundations, which Srikrishna announced & which Vyasa formulated.
– Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings.
(2452)
“Political considerations, ideological affiliations—especially of those who have always tried to establish an imported ideology—of well-resourced groups who have thrived in the Western academia by projecting India as a society in perpetual conflict and instability, has largely influenced the study of history. Their prime political objective, despite their arguments to the contrary, has been to generate confusion and to finally deconstruct Bharat’s civilisational self-perception.” – Dr Anirban Ganguly
In the preface to his three-volume classic, History of the Freedom Movement in India, R. C. Majumdar (1888-1980), one of India’s most distinguished 20th century historians, made a very telling remark, especially relevant to teaching the history of the Indian freedom movement to young learners. “I have not hesitated,” wrote Majumdar, “to speak out the truth, even if it is in conflict with views cherished and propagated by distinguished political leaders for whom I have the greatest respect.” He also argued that a “solid structure of mutual amity and understanding cannot be built on the quicksands of false history and political expediency.”
One notices a compartmentalised and selective approach to the study of India, especially when examining the freedom struggle and the role of various regions and leaders. How many, for example, have been taught in some detail, of the rebellions against the East India Company rule in the southern region between 1800 and 1801? Why is the Northeast’s contribution to the freedom struggle and its pre-British civilisational identity and achievements not highlighted, researched and taught? Shall we not marvel to know how V. O. Chidambaram Pillai launched a Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company and challenged the British monopoly of the shipping sector until he was held, charged with sedition, and sentenced to life imprisonment? Sri 
Aurobindo’s columns in Vande Mataram still stir the depths of our being and shape our patriotic sentiments. Ranima Gaidinliu’s exploits continue to inspire, as does the poetry of the revolutionary Subramaniam Bharati. Sister Nivedita’s contribution to strengthening scientific research in India against great colonial opposition is worth knowing.
Political considerations, ideological affiliations—especially of those who have always tried to establish an imported ideology—of well-resourced groups who have thrived in the Western academia by projecting India as a society in perpetual conflict and instability, has largely influenced the study of history. Their prime political objective, despite their arguments to the contrary, has been to generate confusion and to finally deconstruct Bharat’s civilisational self-perception. Therefore, all episodes in our history that have strengthened that civilisational self-perception, any individual or movement that has derived inspiration from Bharat’s civilisational self or has worked to discover and disseminate its achievements has been marginalised and suppressed.
So opportunistic and shallow has been the commitment to officially write the history of the freedom struggle that Marxist historians who got down to writing it could never complete it despite spending crores of taxpayers’ money and working on it for over four decades. The “Towards Freedom” project that continues to languish was essentially handed over to a group of scholars with no known commitment to India’s civilisational 
ethos and who used the opportunity to perpetuate a political line and to exonerate a political class whose only contribution to the struggle for freedom was through collaboration with colonialists and imperialists in suppressing the movement itself.
But finally, there seems to be a gradual reversal of that approach. Attempts are being made to rediscover and re-interpret, as inspiring icons, many marginalised personalities who have made epochal contributions to shape our civilisational self and world view. Efforts are being made to study and disseminate their contributions, the contributions of historical episodes, events and achievements that have instilled a genuine civilisational sense in us. The compartmentalised approach is being challenged and questioned, new ideas, hitherto suppressed, are finding voice.
Such first steps towards restating our civilisational self is an urgent necessity, it alone can lead towards achieving that second dimension of freedom—the freedom of the mind, self and self-perception. – The New Indian Express, 15 August 2015
» Dr Anirban Ganguly is Director, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi. Email anirbangan@gmail.com
(1289)
The greatest damage inflicted to India by colonialism was the imposition of its academic indology, specifically engineered to distort the original perfect system of varnas and ashramas into a degrading mechanism based on birth prejudice and privilege and modeled after the racist mentality imported by the alien invaders.
In this way, schools both in India and outside India began to teach the superficial, false and misleading equivalence of brahmanas with priests, Kshatriya with military or aristocracy, vaisyas with burgeois merchants or bankers, and sudras with slaves or proletarians. As a corollary, the values and behaviors of western society in the middle ages and colonial periods were artificially superimposed to the varna model, introducing the typically abrahamic idea that the higher classes can legitimately exploit the lower classes, with respectively more rights and less duties, while in fact the varna model was exactly the opposite as the higher classes had progressively more duties and less rights than the lower classes.
The ideological glue to keep this fabrication together was the infamous Aryan Invasion Theory, stating that Vedic civilization and Sanskrit had been brought to the Indian subcontinent by nomadic hordes of Caucasian pillagers assimilated to the Norse/ Viking populations of north Europe, of which the British empire claimed to be the descendent. A fictitious Indo-European culture was thus invented, and in spite of the total lack of historical and archeological evidence, it continues to be presented in many academic institutions and texts as the absolute truth.
Sure, by the time the East India Company landed on the subcontinent, Indian society had already become weaker because of the negative influence of Kali yuga that was expected to reduce the good qualities and behaviors in the natural character of people, but the Vedic social model had a check and balance system and a training syllabus that still enabled the people in the subcontinent to maintain an exceptionally high standard of living, culture and prosperity compared to the rest of the world, well into the first millennium of the present age.
Without the degradation of the caste system, Indian society would have been able to resist colonialism and attempts at conversion by other religions; still today, the absurdity of the degraded caste system, with its absolute birth prejudice, is alienating a large part of the Indian population and the almost totality of the global public opinion from Hinduism and Vedic culture.
To solve such problem it is sufficient to honestly return to the actual version of the genuine scriptures and to the prescriptions for the purification and progress of each member of society, both materially and spiritually, for the benefit of individuals, communities and society at large. The main concern of the Vedic system is indeed the benefit of the society as a whole, symbolized by the Virat purusha in the famous Purusha sukta (Rig Veda 10.90.12).
The failsafe mechanism that kept the varna system working was called by indologists “caste mobiity” and was guaranteed by the threefold social authority of the gurukulas, the assemblies of brahmanas and the kings, who had the independent power to correct social discomfort created by discrepancies between the position of birth (kula dharma) and the actual qualifications of each individual (sva dharma), still within the original blueprint (sanatana dharma) described in the fundamental scriptures, such as Bhagavad gita.
In verse 18.41, Krishna states: brahmana-kshatriya-visam sudranam ca parantapa, karmani pravibhaktani svabhava-prabhavair gunaih, “The duties of the brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaisyas and sudras are categorized according to their specific natures, produced by the gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas)”.
A person who has a kshatriya nature is influenced by sattva with a latent tendency to rajas, and therefore he needs to be trained more strictly to a harder discipline. His natural qualities of heroism, leadership, resourcefulness and generosity are sattvik, but if rajas is not controlled, they can turn into arrogance and thirst for power over people and wealth, deceitfulness, and manipulation of others through corruption and dirty politics.
Therefore the Guru trains the kshatriya students in overcoming selfishness and egotism, through the study of the transcendental science as well as in sacrificing one’s life in defense of the prajas.
The word bhava is very interesting. It contains the meanings of “feeling, sentiment, nature, emotion, nature, development, creation” and refers to the individual evolution through the Vedic path of progress, by which a student is trained to develop higher qualities, behaviors and skills for his own benefit and the benefit of society at large.
In this sense, bhava can also be translated as “potential”, a raw material that will be shaped by the proper application of gunas (modes of existence) and karmas (duties or activities). Verse 4.13 of Bhagavad gita states: catur varnyam maya sristam guna karma vibhagasah, tasya kartaram api mam viddhy akartaram avyayam, “The four varnas have been created by me on the basis of different gunas and karmas, but although I am their maker, know that I am unchangeable and detached from action.”
Verses 18.42 to 18.44 continue to elaborate: samo damas tapah saucam kshantir arjavam eva ca, jñanam vijnanam astikyam brahma-karma svabhava-jam, sauryam tejo dhritir dakshyam yuddhe capy apalayanam, danam isvara-bhavas ca kshatram karma svabhava-jam, krishi-go-rakshya-vanijyam vaisya-karma svabhava-jam, paricaryatmakam karma sudrasyapi svabhava-jam, “
The activities/ duties of the brahmana, determined by his particular nature, are control of his own mind, senses and body, cleanliness, tolerance, simplicity, theoretical and practical knowledge, and living in accordance to Vedic teachings.
The activities/ duties of the kshatriya, determined by his particular nature, are heroism, charisma, determination, resourcefulness, steadiness in battle, charity, sense of leadership. The activities/ duties of the vaisya, determined by his particular nature, are agriculture, protection of the cows/ planet, and commerce.
The activities/ duties of the sudra, determined by his particular nature, are the service and assistance (to others).”
Vaisyas and sudras are grouped up in one single verse because they are less evolved than brahmanas and kshatriyas and therefore they have less duties; the sudras considerably less than the vaisyas.
These professional and social positions are easier to maintain even without making particular efforts to qualify oneself or make lots of personal sacrifices. Therefore it is said that in the age of Kali everyone is born a sudra, because without a strenuous effort and a proper training it is almost impossible to become genuine brahmanas or kshatriyas.
Since we are studying here the characteristics of the kshatriya, let us analyze especially verse 18.43. The word sauryam is closely related to sura (divine beings such as the Devas) and surya, referring to the Sun, and indicates the radiance of majesty, the chivalry and personal power, and invincibility that we associate with the Sun itself. Tejas also means “radiance, power”, and even “heat”, and its meanings overlap with tapah; in fact tejas is created by tapah.
Normally and ideally, sauryam and tejas should be engaged with determination and careful skills in the protection of the prajas, and therefore the two qualities are mentioned in the first part of the verse together with dhriti (determination, patience, endurance, perseverance), dakshyam (skillfulness, resourcefulness, expertise, ability, dexterity) and yuddhe apalayanam (steadfastness and courage in battle).
Just like arjavam (simplicity) and kshanti (tolerance) should not be confused with foolishness and apathy, the characteristics of a kshatriya need to be understood correctly. The expression isvara bhava (“controlling nature”) could also be translated as “lordly attitude” because isvara means “Lord”; a tendency to be bossy is not a bad thing, as it does not mean bullying people around to impose one’s will over others whimsically.
If the bossy individual is qualified and properly trained, and capable to lead, direct and manage others, society should appreciate this quality and use it to its benefit instead of resenting it on the basis of a delusional belief in the complete equality of all human beings.
The only equality that should exist in society is equal access to opportunities to qualify oneself; according to the particular nature (talents and tendencies, or guna and karma) of each individual, some people will become more qualified for some particular duties, and some will be more suitable for other duties, and some others will always need to be told what to do and depend on others for their protection and maintenance.
Of course respect and obedience are to be commanded, not demanded. A true leader shines for his own value and charisma (tejas, saurya) and naturally inspires faith and loyalty in good people.
A true Kshatriya is always on the front line, before anybody else, in the thick of the battle, and is the best example to follow. He works harder and longer hours than anyone else, and is ever ready (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to sacrifice his own sense gratification, comforts, possessions, position and personal life (by living and by dying) for the sake of the kingdom and the prajas – whether the kingdom is a large country or a village, a neighborhood or any group of people who look up to him for guidance.
A true Kshatriya takes responsibility not only for his own failures but also for collective defeats, inspires and encourages others and helps them to rise and progress to become qualified leaders in turn. He demonstrates concern, care and affection for the prajas just like a good father behaves with his children, engages them happily and appropriately, and always watches over their well-being, over and above his own immediate family and relatives.
If a Kshatriya expects to be obeyed in his orders to people about what they should do, it is because he knows what he is doing; he is daksha, “expert”, as his training has taught him the sciences of war strategy, social management and resource administration.
The word dakshyam also indicates resourcefulness, that is the ability to face new unforeseen situations and to adapt one’s approach smoothly. Generosity and charitable disposition (dana) are his natural qualities, therefore people are not afraid they will be exploited or mistreated in any way; rather, because he is never afraid to stand for justice and protection of the subjects (yuddhe apalayanam), people feel safe in his presence and seek his help and protection. The qualities called sauryam and tejas are similar to each other.
The word dhriti, especially in this context, could also be translated as “grit, resolve”. It indicates the strong determination of the warrior, who firmly faces any difficult situation or loss and even death, and when he is wounded and unable to stand, he continues to fight even on his knees.
However, this determination should not be confused with the stupid stubborness of tamasic people that are attached to some particular action or belief or underestimate dangers; the kshatriya has a clear vision of the situation but he chooses to sacrifice himself for the protection of the prajas if this is required, because that is his duty.
He is never depressed or dogged down, as this is considered a contamination (kasmalam, 2.2), a sign of impotence (klaibyam, 2.3) and a “weakness of the heart” (hridaya daurbalyam, 2.3) that is unworthy of a civilized person (anarya justam, 2.1), a cause of infamy (akirti karam, 2.1) and an obstacle to one’s elevation (asvargyam, 2.1).
Of course these qualities cannot be expected from everyone, and even in a person who has the genuine talents and inclinations for the role of kshatriya, these must be developed through appropriate training and experience, so aspiring kshatriyas should not feel discouraged at their shortcomings.
Similar to dhriti is apalayanam, “not fleeing”, referring to the steadiness in battle and heroism in spite of adversities; this quality or characteristic is not demonstrated only on the battlefield but in all aspects of daily life, in the small and the big things. Kshatriyas are educated and trained in strategy and diplomacy in dealing with the enemy – the first attempt is sama, treating the opponent like a friend and allowing sufficient space for his livelihood and prosperity, the second is dana, trying to win them with peace offerings and gifts, the third attempt is bheda, trying to break up hostile alliances and facing one enemy at the time, and only as a last resort one should resort to danda, punishment as in taking physical action against the offender.
This brings us to another very important clarification. The main job of a kshatriya is fighting to protect the prajas, because that is his natural inclination and the best use of his qualities, as Krishna has stated specifically
: sva dharmam api caveksya na vikampitum arhasi, dharmyad hi yuddhac chreyo ‘nyat ksatriyasya na vidyate, yadricchaya copapannam svarga dvaram apavritam, sukhinah ksatriyah partha labhante yuddham idrisam,
“Considering your own dharmic duty you should not hesitate, because for a kshatriya there is nothing better than fighting a dharmic battle. O Arjuna, happy are the kshatriyas to whom such opportunity comes unsought. For a warrior, engaging in such a battle is like having the doors of heaven open in front of him.” (2.31, 2.32).
This will also be confirmed again in verse 18.59. However, the warrior spirit of a kshatriya is not the war mongering, blood lust, and cruelty of the asuras; he is not a brawling bully and he avoids confrontation and conflict if there is any other option still possible, as the Pandavas demonstrated in practice in their dealings with the aggressive Duryodhana and his brothers.
Besides, there is a specific code of conduct for kshatriyas; non-combatants should never be attacked or harmed, and property that is not directly connected to the fighting should not be destroyed; for example, the encampments where the warriors retire for the night are not to be touched. Even on the battlefield a warring enemy should not be attacked if he is unprepared, unarmed, distracted, distraught, or if he admits defeat.
Sometimes unqualified persons pose as kshatriyas, but they should be exposed and neutralized by genuine kshatriyas or brahmanas; they are described as nripa linga dharam (merely showing the appearance/ insignia of kings).
Here is a description of the unqualified kings of Kali yuga: stri bala go dvija ghnas ca, para dara dhanadritah, uditasta mita praya, alpa sattvalpakayusah, asamskritah kriya hina, rajasa tamasavritah, prajas te bhaksayisyanti, mleccha rajanya rupinah,
“These mlecchas in the form of kings will be killing/ injuring women, children, cows/ the planet and the twice born, and going after the wives and wealth of others.
They will be mentally and emotionally unstable, rather weak mentally and physically and short lived. Covered by rajas and tamas, they will not perform any proper duty or auspicious ritual, but they will devour the prajas.” (Bhagavata Purana 12.2.39-40).
From the teachings and examples offered by the shastra we can therefore understand who is a kshatriya and who is not; in this regard we also need to remember that in times of emergency (apat kala) all the members of society were called to defend it even on the battlefield against external and internal aggressors.
Brahmanas usually oversaw the strategies and sometimes fought in the battle, vaisyas not only contributed wealth and supplies but could also fight with weapons according to their abilities, and sudras also participated, most often as charioteers and order carriers but also as foot soldiers.
In Vedic society everyone is implicitly authorized to defend himself and his family, subordinates and property from such aggressors. Therefore there is no need for jails, lawyers or even judges or police like in the present faulty system that is very prone to judicial mistakes and abuses.
We need to understand that an army soldier or a policeman is not automatically a kshatriya, especially when he is unable or unwilling to take the required initiative to protect the prajas. A true kshatriya does not wait for anybody’s orders to stop aggressors, and is directly and personally responsible for the physical protection and well being of the prajas.
However, a kshatriya only concerns himself with precisely this task, and is never expected to invade the field of religious beliefs and worship practices, that is exclusively entrusted to brahmanas, who can only offer teachings and never enforce them physically or materially in any way.
Vedic civilization does not mistake dissenters for enemies, and does not interfere with the individual’s private life, professional occupation, beliefs, or freedom of expression. It also does not interfere with the private level of sexual “morality” of people, except of course in case of sexual aggression, that falls into the category of aggression and violence.
The government (the kshatriyas) intervene only when an individual is subject to an aggression that s/he is unable to prevent or stop – this is the true demonstration of the famous motto “to serve and protect”.
There is no need for the government to issue or enforce many laws and rules to restrict the liberties of the people: the only thing that the government/ kshatriya/ police should do is to protect the people (harmless human beings and harmless animals) from any form of violence.
Any individual has the right to fight back all categories of aggressors (atatayinah), that are those who attack with any type of deadly weapon, or who set fire to a house, give poison, attack (rape or abduct) a girl or woman (or children), break into a house to steal or destroy/ damage property, or encroach land or property.
Thus any individual has the right to own suitable defensive weapons and is responsible for their proper use, but if s/he is not able to defend him/herself sufficiently, s/he is entitled to the protection of the kshatriyas.
The definition of dharma yuddha (“fight for dharma”) should never be assimilated to the typically abrahamic concept of “holy war” or “religious war” by which a political entity (king, khalifa, pope, etc) intends to subjugate people or nations in order to impose a particular type of belief, religious tradition, mode of worship, culture, values, legislation, or to acquire the control of resources for selfish purposes, by taking them away from other people.
A dharma yuddha is a battle conducted according to strict ethical rules of engagement and with the purpose to protect the good, harmless and innocent people from the attack of aggressors and evil doers.
According to the Vedic rules for dharmic fight, only active combatants may be attacked in a battle; if the enemy surrenders or is unarmed, unconscious, or unable to fight back, the use of force is condemned as asuric. However, it becomes justified against an enemy that has already broken the ethical rules of combat.
For example, a cunning criminal may pretend to surrender, and then escape and attack again under stealth or deceit: in this case, the kshatriya is authorized to overlook the ordinary rules and deal with the situation as required to protect the prajas. Rules are meant to help and serve us in the performance of our duty, and not the other way around; an honest and wise person can understand how dharma can be better served, as Krishna himself demonstrated several times in the Mahabharata.
Foolish and envious people sometimes claim that Krishna was a clever politician and manipulated the rules to the advantage of his family by resorting to adharma, but if we actually examine the circumstances, the facts and the results we will see that all the persons involved in the action obtained the greatest possible benefit.
A dharma yuddha is always purely defensive, never offensive or imperialistic, colonialistic or exploitative in any other way. In this regard, we need to understand the tradition of the Rajasuya/ Asvamedha yajna celebrated by a king who wishes to rise to the level of “emperor”.
The concept of empire in the Vedic tradition has only administrative purposes, aimed at strengthening communication and cooperation between regions through building roads, encouraging trade, creating a common front against outside invaders and aggressors, and providing emergency support to tributary kingdoms in case of need – famine, natural disasters, etc.
The aspiring emperor celebrated the Rajasuya yajna to verify the qualifications of the local kings and rulers; if they accepted his superiority, they would offer some gifts as tribute. A local ruler admitting defeat was not killed or replaced by the emperor or by the emperor’s men, and did not have to change his personal or tribal/ social beliefs or way of life.
He would continue to rule his own prajas as always, but he knew that there was a man greater and more powerful than him, to whom he could turn for help in times of need.
A kshatriya is not a war-mongering brawler eagerly searching for the opportunity to pick a fight or even creating such opportunity by attacking innocent and harmless people who are just engaged in their own honest and harmless business. A kshatriya is called to defend his land (kshetra) and the creatures of his land (prajas) from all attacks: this is the dharmic fight.
The genuine kshatriyas are capable and active enough to catch a criminal red-handed and either kill him in battle or see him out of the kingdom to be banished forever if he does not accept to reform himself sincerely, atone and repay his victims suitably.
A qualified kshatriya warrior fights and kills the aggressors without being touched by krodha and himsa, because his actions are not dictated by personal motivations. He is not venting his personal problems and frustrations, and he is not seeking any personal advantage in the fight – revenge, elimination of rivals, acquisition of a better status. He is just stopping the aggression and protecting the prajas.
Thus a dharmic fight always remains on the level of sattva or visuddha sattva even if it becomes “violent” or “angry”. Shouting, throwing weapons, or even cutting bodies to pieces are not necessarily a proof of anger or violence, and they should certainly be employed when the circumstances require it for the protection of the good and the innocent.
The only concern of kshatriyas is to protect the prajas and the kingdom from aggressors, from the criminals that try to commit violence against others. In this work, there is no need for many laws – good people will behave properly without being forced by laws, and bad people will always try to get around the laws to commit their crimes. The only principle that the King needs to apply is to stop aggressors.
Not even punishing them, as in the Vedic system there are no prisons or courts or lawyers: if the criminal surrenders and repents, he is either pardoned or banned, depending on the seriousness of his crime. It does not matter what these aggressors profess to believe, even if they think that God has ordered them to rape and murder innocent people and pillage or steal properties, the kshatriya is only concerned about the act in itself, the rape and the murder and the stealing.
The king has the duty to stop aggressions and violence, and he does that without leaving much space to the rationalization that the criminals may try to offer to justify their bad actions. The truth of the facts is that there is no justification whatsoever for aggression and unethical actions, and each and every arya, or civilized person belonging to the Vedic society, has the duty to step in and make the aggression stop, with whatever means the situation requires.
Ahimsa is a compound word consisting of the “privative” a, and the noun himsa, of the same root of the verb himsati, “to hate”. The usual translation of “non-violence” is therefore rather simplistic, as it does not explain how a kshatriya can remain perfectly situated in ahimsa while he is doing his job of protecting the innocent and good prajas from the aggression of criminals.
Coupled with the mythical vision that many uninformed people have about the policies of MK Gandhi, often called “the apostle of non-violence”, as well as about the history of India in the last 1200 years, this imprecise rendition of the Sanskrit concept of ahimsa can really cause serious misunderstandings.
We need to clarify that the Vedic idea of ahimsa is not cowardice, absenteeism, irresponsibility, callousness or the delusional hope that “evil” will simply disappear if we choose not to look at it. Real ahimsa is directly connected to samata or equanimity: it is about being free from prejudice and hatred, and about looking straight at reality to take the required measures without any selfish motivation.
Another important quality listed in Bhagavad gita as characteristic of the kshatriyas is dana, charity. Here we should clarify that political charity (including political charity dressed as religious charity) is meant to create or reinforce vote banks and is certainly not selfless, therefore it will not bring good results.
On the contrary, it will encourage the general people to become irresponsible and depending on handouts, developing a beggar’s mentality when instead they could work honestly and take care of themselves and their own subordinates. In extreme cases, such political beneficiaries will even become arrogant and demand special privileges as in the notorious “reservation system” enforced in India to favor the so-called “minorities” without any consideration of merit or need.
The Government’s duty (the King’s duty) is to engage everyone in their own appropriate sva dharma according to their individual guna and karma, and support them in developing their true potential. The first foundation for this work is the concept of dharma, or selfless work performed to support society. Without teaching this concept in theory and practice (through the example of the srestha, as mentioned in verse 3.21), a Government is simply a failure.
Government people and leaders must be shown as having very specific professional duties and fulfilling them in the proper spirit, otherwise no legislation or scheme will ever improve the conditions of society. More laws will only create more difficulties to good people, because of the bureaucracy involved and the blind restrictions that can easily be exploited by ill-motivated people, and corruption can only increase.
Good people do not need laws in order to behave properly, and bad people will always find a way to circumvent the laws or will even break the laws regardless of the severity of the punishment promised. In fact, too many laws will keep the Government servants busy with petty matters while criminals remain free to commit any aggression or damage, protected by shameless lawyers and corrupt police and magistrates.
by Parama Karuna Devi
Those who are interested to read more on the subject of Bhagavad gita are invited to obtain a copy of the translation and commentaries by the author, Parama Karuna Devi, available on Amazon.
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I have just been exposed to a worthless and meaningless article by a self-propagating Hindu phobic writer.
The person I refer to is known as Girish Shahane, who by his own account is the proud owners of multiple degrees from various institutions including Oxford University – we presume he means the world famous Oxford University as opposed to Oxford International College which was apparently recently closed by the Department of Further Education in the United Kingdom due to violations of the Immigration rules.
In any event this scholar has sought to mock and denigrate the valour and fighting abilities of the Rajput clans who ruled much of medieval India. He has, without providing any valid sources chosen to characterize the Rajput’s as a pathetic failed group of warriors who understood nothing of fighting or warfare.
In doing so selective and malignant usage of history has been used – the full article can be viewed here..
I felt obliged to retort as I find it astounding that Shahane has chosen to omit or was simply not aware of the following events:
738 AD: The Battle of Rajasthan – where a coalition of Rajput kings defeated the tide of Arab conquest from India and thus blunted the wave of Jihad from India for a further 300 years.
1033 . The Battle of Bhairach – where a Rajput army under Raja Sukhdev surrounded and slaughtered the Ghaznavid army under Salar Masud Ghaznavi thus avenging themselves on their bitter enemies.
1191. The First Battle of Tarain – where Muhamad Ghori was defeated and captured by Prthviraj Chauhan
1200-1350 – desperate and ferocious resistance from Rajput clans spread all over Northern India which erupted into anarchy and destruction
1350-1520 The revival of Rajput power – from the Vijay Stambha (Tower of Victory) erected by Rana Kumbha to the endless wars and fighting of Rana Sangha a century and a half later.
1555 The Eastern Rajputs (Purbia) war bands coalesce under the leadership of Hemu who for a period drives the Mughals from Delhi and is anointed Emperor.
1520-1707 – The Mughals reach a peace with the Rajput clans having understood the impossibility of domination over them and a tenuous compromise is achieved – This is shattered in 1680 following the deaths of Jai Singh and Jaswant Singh and the great Rajput rebellions thereafter under the inspiration of Durga Dass Rathore
1707 – a meeting of the Rajputs at Lake Pushkar revives their age old unity and sense of purpose vis a vis their enemies.
1645 – The Mughals attack Central Asia – Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur attacks and defeats a combined army of Uzbek cavalry backed by Hazara tribesmen despite being outnumbered with 2000 troops against 20,000 adversaries. The Rajput king utilized both the lay of the land as well as attacking tactics to defeat the Parthian tactics of the Uzbeks and defeated them utterly
1805-1840 – The Dogra Rajputs dominate the hill regions reaching out to conquer Baltistan and Gilgit as well as Kashmir – they penetrate further and conquer Ladakh and penetrate to Lhasa in Tibet fighting the Chinese army on the Himalayan plateau
There are of course many more examples which puts paid to the vaunted military background and knowledge of Mr. Shahane- He has produced figures for battles for which no source is provided – He has caste aspersions on the skill and fighting abilities of various Rajput armies without an iota of evidence or regarded for the truth.
He has somewhat malignantly tried to paint the Rajput legend for bravery as being based on drugs quite ignoring the facts that in the first instance not all Rajput’s followed the same methodology of war – The Purbia Rajput was quite different from the Rajasthani as different from the Pahari Rajput’s .Secondly he glibly passes over the fact that not just the Rajput but the Mughal, Afghan, tribal clans were all to varying degrees overly fond of opium
One can only conclude that we are witness to a malicious and vicious attempt to malign and denigrate sources of strength and inspiration from Indian History.
The Rajput’s fought against the foreign invaders for over a thousand years. Not thousands but millions have given their lives in this millennia without abjuring their faith or giving up their pride and desire for freedom.
The history of India is witness to such sacrifice, the enemies of India have been witness to such sacrifice and struggle that has scarce been seen in this world and despite the vain attempts of pseudo scholars inspired by extremist ideologies the truth cannot be hidden.
Sher Singh Chauhan
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