Integrity Score 270
No Records Found
No Records Found
Prologue continues ...
Foreign invasions and domination for almost 1,000 years changed much
of India. Yet, in a basic sense, it remained the same. The early invaders
mostly settled here and ultimately became a part of India. There was also
a religious dimension to many of these invasions. Inevitably there were
conflicts and destruction of places of worship. But ultimately, the invaders
had to come to terms with the reality of India, whose cultural world they could not overrun. Rather, there took place a cultural fusion that gave
India new ideas in the realm of religion, art, architecture and literature.
Lack of internal unity because of social segmentation must have been
the root cause of India’s downfall. The apocryphal story of an Indian king’s soldiers during a campaign cooking food in different kitchens at night
because of caste restrictions – which gave the idea to the invader camping
on the other side of the river on how to defeat the Indians – throws light on the structural weaknesses of Indian society. Nevertheless, it is a measure of the inner strength of India that it survived almost a millennium of foreign
domination.
India is not a mere geographical entity. Its dimensions are much greater. The resonance of its vibrant culture could be heard over the past centuries. Invasions could not destroy it. Despite sharp social contradictions, abysmal poverty, disabling disunity, appalling ignorance, superstitions and a whole host of socially abhorrent practices, the grand idea of India has been kept alive like an inextinguishable flame. Pandit Nehru discovers this eternal reality and presents it in the following words in his autobiography:
To be continued....