India : Past, present, problems. The 3 Ps or a short history.

Our Species’ early history begins in the Stone Age called by specialists the Paleolithic.

Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens and in the Upper or late Paleolithic, Sapiens Sapiens AKA us.

Then we got better at living together* and sedentarized around farming zones and in cities where things got organized. That is the birth of civilization and takes place in the Neolithic, Neo Stone Age.
Present theories account for a few places as civilization centers : Near East from Egypt to Irak and Iran, Indus from Iran through Pakistan to India, China, South & Central America.
As soon as records of events began being kept, we entered History itself in which we all still reside today. 😎

The common point in those centers was water. They were established around river valleys, the Nile, The Tigris and Euphrates, the Yellow River and for today’s subject, the Indus.
It is thus called the Indus Valley Civilization although some scholars prefer Harappan Civilization since the first city found was in … Harappa of course ( in present day Pakistan ).

People lived around there from as far as 7 000 BC bettering agriculture, pottery appearing from 5 500 BC onward. Harappan Civilization itself is given as ranging from 3 300 to about 1 400 BC and the Iron Age.  Their people were also named Dravidians.
At that time, Aryans from Eastern Europe down to Iran and thus called Indo-Europeans on occasion invaded the whole region including India down to the Ganges River. The RigVeda sacred hymns also probably originated around that time.

Sometime between 500 and 400 BC, Siddharta Gautama lived there. You may have heard of him as Buddha!

The next visitor from Europe would be Alexander the Great. The famed king of Macedonia and his Ancient Greek brethren made it over the Indus in 326 BC.
About 60 years later, the Maurya Dynasty ran from Myanmar to Iran ( then Persia ).

When the Romans encountered India, trade was the name of the game between them. For centuries, the Indian sub-continent had been exchanging raw materials at a pretty impressive level. Stones as Lapis-Lazuli, ivory, pearls, pottery, cloth especially silk and of course spices were the products in fashion!

The Maurya Empire’s decline sets the Middle Kingdoms period, Classical India that lasts until the Dehli Sultanate after 1280 AD. It is incredibly varied a time span with numerous dynasties, conquerors and empires. Only historians can remember when the northern part of the land was Kushan or the eastern one Kharavela’s.

गुप्त साम्राज्य, the Gupta Empire changed things for ever in India. While even at the height of the Harappan Civilization, power was most likely spread amongst various cities, from 320 to 550 CE or AD, the whole northern part of India along with half of Pakistan, a little Nepal and most of Bengladesh was unified. The Guptas are probable ancestors of the Vaish caste in our time. One should at least remember that those rulers gave us the modern Maharajah and one name : Chandra Gupta II called Vikramaditya ( the Powerful Sun ) seen pictured below :

Just kidding but the Indians did give the name to their aircraft carrier 😎

The Guptas, for all of their importance and extensive accomplishments in all fields thus somewhat founding the Hindu culture, were contemporaries of other dynasties and rulers. Vedic and Buddhist religious overtones  and history were Hindi/Bharat/Indian hence nonetheless.

When the Guptas are overrun around 500, India is segmented again until the Gurjara Pratihara which strongly resisted the advance of the Muslims. The Pala rulers also bear mention at that period.

South and North India got unified by the Mogul Empire in 1526 and that is the India “discovered” by Holland, France and Great Britain in the 1600s as they established trading posts. In 1632, Shah Jahan began the most elaborate memorial to a deceased lover, the Taj Mahal to honor his wife Mumtaz.

Two centuries later in 1858, the British ousted the Moguls and took over. But in 1915, a small and frail but sturdy thorn was planted in the British foot called Mohandas Gandhi. 😉 So that in 1947, India lost Pakistan but gained independence which seems a fair trade. Pakistan was intended as a way for the muslims of the region, leftover from the Arabians invaders evoked earlier, to have their own place. In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated and much lost but nothing gained this time.

In 1974, India becomes the 6th nuclear power ( first weapon test  in 1998 answering Pakistan’s first test ) and in 2000 breaks the 1 billion inhabitants mark.

So what is India doing nowadays? A whole lot actually. Its rich history brought along mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and other fields to top levels. Thus, India has achieved nuclear and space technologies, is catching up fast in any domain that it really decides to pursue and finance and has a massive industry. Arcelor-Mittal and Tata industries are two World-sized Indian corporations. However, this industrial base is not on the whole as modern as in the West and the final processses that make up modern manufacturing are often to be perfected yet. Additionally, the country is so vast so populated and until recently so relatively poor, that the infrastructures are still below the modern norms in many places. There is a lot to be done for electricity and other essentials. Some of the poorer states need those like modern sewage systems. The fact is that it will be long and hard to complete this work especially in concurrence to the above industrial growth in quality. But it can be done.

Politics are also a work in progress. If there are but 5 main ( recognized ) political parties at the national level, the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata being the important ones, there are 22 states in India that each have regional party platforms. Those often show conflictual aspirations with regards to the national level as independence calls in some spots. I’ll give my readers an example by supposing in the US that California, Oregon and Washington plus maybe Nevada were one political region. They’d have a major weight in American politics, right? Now suppose that while the national politics remain centered on the bi-partisan set-up of Democrats and Republicans, Cal-Ne-Or-Wash has 4 parties, one in favor of Independence from the USA, one for  prosperity and spiritual enlightenment, one for business and ultra-traditional extreme-right & strong capitalism and a Brotherhood of the Sea-Sun-Sex&drugs party? There you go! If you add a tendency to keep control of parties in the familial circle/grasp that would have the Kennedy and Bush ones look like bumbling amateurs, there you go : Indian politics!

( Do add too that in some cases, widespread violence is almost a political tool to the most extreme formations. )

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Now, having just mentioned family and traditions, we can explore the problems facing India. Familial predominance in politics is but one consequence of the caste system, as it is known in the West, corruption and part of the poverty being the others. What is the caste system and how can it cause those three problems? Well first, in all truth it does not cause all of these problems but originates in its present form from the same historic conditions of the nation. To begin with, it was a Hindu religious system but grew to be incorporated in the Indian society. Four groups called Varnas, sometimes Vamas, exist each divided in Jats. Brahmins are intellectual, Kashtrias are leaders,civil servants and sometimes military, Vaishias are businessmen, Sudras are laborers and and the lowest are known as the untouchables, referring to their outcast and impure status. Brahmin always highest, outcasts of course, always lowest.

I always found that it helped to remember medieval times in Europe as a comparison. Nobility, warriors, shopkeepers and clerics towered above the serfs/peasants in much the same way. Now let us imagine that the Middle Ages feudal society had endured. Since Protestant and Lutherian Reformists in Christianity are more open to business and fortune by virtue of their creed, they would have monopolized the business sector. And being born in such a family would have destined you to that activity. And so on. Well, that is just about what happened in India. As I mentioned in the historical segment that opened this post, India is old, big and very varied. So old that I shortened part of it and must return to it. Except for a few indelible markers such as Dravidian/Aryan origins, Vedic and Buddhist and Islam religions, Sanskrit and the Gupta’s Golden Age, India has always been a bubbling cauldron of  ethnies. As Empires were made and lost, as invaders added or subtracted land, as minorities became empowered or not and sunk back into lowliness, as feuding rivals tore through the place and the frequent natural catastrophes ravaged the land, India patiently endured and waited. As a whole, the only sure thing, namely uncertainty bred patience to a dangerous art and that too entered the societal construct of the Nation. The caste system, with its defects, was still a valeur sure, a known quantity. The complacency that the West reproaches India stems from there. Corruption too since what does one learn from being a civil servant to a ruler that may change soon or to a state that may not include your region by next year, etc? But to protect one’s own interest in the first place. Where does one place loyalty in an ever changing situation? But in oneself and brethren?

The variety also means that as it shifted from religion to overall society which happened at different paces according to locations, the caste system got more complex with local varieties. For instance, the same job/function may not be in the same Varna in North or East, West etc part of India. Marriages are controlled and casts have their own matchmaking agencies and websites as exists for say Christian singles in the USA.

India has also been on the path of reform in relation to the caste system since the Mahatma Gandhi. The official state of India is now democratic, socialist and secular. The official standpoint thus being that it is illegal to discriminate against people for caste reasons. Positive discrimination programs were set up but just as for the Civil Rights movement in the US, lucid folks know it takes time for the spirit to suffuse into reality and millions of poor people to rise in the social hierarchy. Then again, as said before, India is patient.

So, combine a huge territory with a huge population, throw in millenary habits and practices, a bit of inherited nonchalance and enmities dating back many centuries and a given lack in  modern infrastructures but no lack in intellectual means, turn it resolutely to the future despite the hurdles and get the Bharat* wonderland. I will not even try to attempt a guess at how long it will take India to reach such goal or other but considering its past, don’t close your eyes on them too long, change may be coming soon!

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There you go my good readers and Shards of DuBois in particular! I tried my best for a portrait of this fascinating land. I am now half thinking the explanation was too long and half knowing that any proper historian would fault me for lapses and omissions. That too is India! Hard to grasp! Almost permanent in regard to History but fleeting in the instant. I hope the picture was not too blurry!

Good Sunday all and good Thanksgiving in particular for our US gang and see you tomorrow, Tay.

* Bharat or Bharata is the name of the Indian sub-continent and homeland to Indians in general, short for the modern Republic and can be found everywhere including in corporations names.

* I only said better; judging by yesterday’s post, good would have been an blatant exageration, sigh!

Additional reading on religions in India : http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Religions/religions.html

Additional reading on politics in India : http://www.rediff.com/news/column/how-family-feuds-drive-indian-politics/20121122.htm