RE: Loveable Nation INDIA

[NavinK@Gafri.com]

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Aye, we probably had as many wars as Europeans had betwixt themselves on

their continent. But it really depends on what you mean by "war." If war

included civil strife, pillage by the nobles, and such internal
disorders,
then there were a lot of "wars". People feared for their lives everyday.

Even during the times of the great emperors, when most of India was one,

there were many "wars" betwixt the nobles, who were little kings and
often
ignored the emperor.

The primary reason why the great Indian civilization declined is because
we
were too busy fighting. Peace only arrived after the British Indian
Empire
had established itself. Had the British not brought with them their
superior
ways of governance (which we did well to keep), we should probably have
fragmented into 100 states with the old feudal system. One does not have
to
be a lover of the Raj to allow that the modern form of government,
reformed
courts of justice, and a disciplined military kept India together. We
were
in great danger of disintegrating in 1947 when the various "native"
states
wanted to go their own way, and be separate from the Union. If it
weren't
for our strong established government in New Delhi, and if it weren't
for
our disciplined army, we could not have stopped them. Hyderabad is an
example. Mysore and Travancore were unwilling to join the Union
too,--and so
was the Kashmir maharaja--initially.

Before I digress too far we have to accept that ancient India (although
such
an entity did not exist till the British arrived, and politically did
not
exist till they left) was always in turmoil. And it would not be
inaccurate
to say that every Indian village faced the danger of pillage and total
destruction of life and property every month, if not every week. The
life
expectancy could not have been more than 30 for men.

There were probably only two-dozen major wars; but there certainly were
a
lot of infighting, lot of bloodshed. In any case, we have now come
together
as one people, bonded in custom and politics, and we have to preserve
this
union at all cost.

[That is why Kashmir has become so important to us. It is not a fight
for a
patch of land: we are fighting to preserve the modern foundations of
India,
we are fighting to preserve the dream of our founding fathers. People of
all
religions (Hindus, Moslems, etc.) make up the Indian nation; and to
suggest
that Moslems or a Moslem state has no place in India is to question the
legitimacy of our very existence.

When India was born in 1947, we could have excluded Kashmir from the
foundation, but now to remove it would be impossible, without risking
the
collapse of the whole edifice.]

--N.K.B. Kadambi


-----Original Message-----
From: Krishna C Tripathi [mailto:krishnact@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2001 11:15 PM
To: debate@indiapolicy.org
Subject: Re: Loveable Nation INDIA


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I keep hearing that Indian kings always kept fighting
among themselv. This doesn't sound correct. Let us
examine this statement.

1. There must have been at least 100 kingdomes in
India in those times.
Support--> Right we have around 25 big states.Each of
them can easily accomodate 3 "petty" kingdoms. So the
number comes to 75. If you add the area of Pakistan
and Bangladesh it would increase by 40% more, that is
105. So lets assume there were 100 petty kingdoms.

2. On an aveage each should have 3 neighbours. So
There are 300 points where fighting can start.

3. From 300 BC (Ashok) to 1200 AD, in 1500 years if
every one of them fought once in 20 years there must
have been 300*1500/20=22500 wars during this period.
If they did not fight once in 20 years we can not call
them figting often.

4. Out of these 22500 wars how many do we know?

  Now suppose you can list 100 wars during this period
and each of them lasting for a year, it would mean 100
years of war out of 1500*300 years of border that
implies that these kings were at peace more than
99.97% time. That is not lot of warring. Is it?

  This may not relevant to the thread of discussion
but I wanted to higlight it because this myth of
Indian infigting has to go. It does not have any proof.





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