These are times like never before
when many parts of the world, swept over by liberal ideals and the all-blending
torrents of globalization question the very founding premises of intangible
things like 'State', 'nation', 'people', 'patriotism' and so on. They were intangible
but they were at the same time immutable, for thousands of years. Now, they
seem to make a journey into the abstract and non-existent in people's
reasoning.
By no means are these changes wrong
or without merit. Nationalist feelings can be accused of historically and
presently sprouting all kinds of nastiness in collective human behavior. But we
are not going to discuss the merits and demerits of any line of political
thought. We are going to examine the curious case of one particular 'country'- India.
India, or south Asia to be historically accurate, is an entity
whose true nature cannot be adequately encompassed by any modern political
equation, borders, laws, standards or definitions. Anyone who is acquainted
well enough with its history and has become familiar to its long, unbroken line
of uttered and written word, it's hoary yet cogent instances of self
recognition and textual self-attestation will quickly come to the inevitable
conclusion that there are serious inaccuracies in comparing and equating it
with any other post world war or Westphalian 'country'.
In fact, the name 'India' itself
fails to do justice to the phenomena lying underneath it. But let us not
digress, let us understand why it is unique. And the best way to do that is to
understand the rise and fall of some of the most iconic nations in history.
1. Mesopotamia- Without
a doubt, the many city states of Mesopotamia and the empires that some of them
carved out in the middle east are the cynosure of all eyes in scholarly
circles. Such diverse and path-breaking things as agriculture, the invention of
writing, astronomy, technology, mathematics etc are readily ascribed to them by
most historians.They are also considered as the worlds first empire builders.
Starting with the Sumerians who spoke a language isolate and founded the cities
such as Ur, Uruk and Eridu in the 4th millennium BCE, succeeded and peaked by
Akkadians, and finally with the neo-Babylonian empire of the 6th century BCE.
Though it had linguistic breaks and major incursions by Indo European Hittites
and their cousins the Sanskrit speaking Mittani, the cultural and political
entity lasted for a good 3000 years.
But the end for Mesopotamia came in
539 BC when Cyrus the great conquered the neo-Babylonian empire from the last
king Nabonidus. The culture and the Akkadian language lingered for a few more
centuries, but they too inevitably died out.
2. Egypt- There is no
need to elaborate about the iconic Egypt whose pyramids are the first things
that come to most people's minds when they hear the word 'ancient'. It's clout
and course of history and was nearly contemporaneous and coeval with
Mesopotamia.
But just like Mesopotamia, Egypt
fell to the Achaemenid Persians at the battle of Pelusium in 525 BCE; a battle
which they lost in their inability to fight the Persians throwing cats at them-
for cats were sacred to the Egyptians. Some Pharaohs managed to stage revolts
against the Persians. Nectanebo II was the most successful of them but he too
was defeated by Ataxerxes in 343 BC. Pharaonic Egypt never rose again after
this defeat. It was passed hands successively from Achaemenids to Macedonians
to Romans to Sassanians and finally to the invading Arabs. Between them, to
know where the last vestige of ancient Egyptian culture flickered out would be
nigh impossible.
Paul-Marie Lenoir's paintwork, 1872, depicting the use of cats by
Achaemenids against Egyptians
3.Iranian Civilization- From the
Medians were instrumental in overthrowing the neo-Assyrian empire to the
Achaemenid Persians who established the largest empire the world has yet seem,
to the Sassanians of the common era who were the greatest rivals of Rome, Iran
has many a glorious tale to tell. But in the 7th century, the
Arabs made short, irreparable work of the once mighty superpower. It was wiped
from the world map and condemned to the pages of history. Its last prince
exiled and forced to live out his days as a refugee of the Chinese emperor, we
hear no more of the great Parsava, Parthava and the Madra(Parthians, Persians
and Medes as they are commonly known). Today the ancient culture founded by
Zoroaster and proudly upheld by heroes like Vistaspa, Cyrus and Shapur survives
only through the small numbers of Zoroastrians living mainly in other
countries, especially India.
US soldiers at Ctesiphon, once the capital of the Parthian and Sassanian empires
4.Greece and Rome- While there is lack of
consensus about when exactly the Indo-European Proto-Greeks entered the
mainland of what is now 'Greece', and while we could assume for purpose of
convenience alone that it happened towards the close of the second millenium
BCE, the fact that the 'Proto-Romans' or the 'Latins' usurped much what is now
Italy from the Etruscans, a native European nation is knowledge common. The
rise of Rome was so inescapable that even the iconic Greek city states
submitted to the Roman eagle one after the other. Athens, Corinth, Thebes, the
Sparta of Leonidas and even the Macedon of Alexander, all of them, sparing
none. Rome played them masterfully against each other and finally in one fell
swoop consumed the glory that was Greece.
But of course, it was only a political change. Greece continued to thrive and
even conquered Rome culturally. Zeus and Athena did not see the counts of their
votaries wane but indeed saw them swell and the Homeric epics, Plato's
philosophy and the tales and wisdom of the olden Greeks came to be the most
prized by the intellectuals in and beyond the borders of Rome....
Irony indeed, that all it took for the two most deep rooted, refined and
prolific cradles of ancient European identity to be rendered into mere passages
in a book and pieces in a museum were a few eccentric monarchs starting with
Constantine the 'great' who became the first christian emperor to Theodosius I.
Between them, they razed down temples, abolished Roman and Greek cultural
practices, derecognized festivals and holidays, uprooted centuries old
institutions, disbanded the Vestal virgins and soon, outright banned the
culture of ancient Rome and Greece.Between 430 and 450 AD, iconoclastic
christian mobs personally led by 'saints' and patronised by the church and Rome
laid waste to the temples of all the Greek city states and gutted even the
Parthenon of Athena herself in 435 AD. Slowly and steadily, their theocratic
successors all over Europe, over the next few centuries, proscribed and expunged with relentless violence all traces of the pagan
cultures of the Celts, Hellenes, Slavs, Balts, Teutons and whatever other
tradition that had passed by under Rome's shadow.
So there! We have seen how, one by one, the great nations of old, empires that
at their peak boasted of invincibility and immortality,perished under the
pitiless torrents of time. But there is one, and only one,
that has defied all odds and defeated all adversity to survive even into this
new millennium.
She was contemporary to the bronze age Mesopotamian states and Pharaonic Egypt.
She was contemporary again to the Achaemenids, Greeks and the Macedonian
Empire.Contemporary, yet again, to Rome and the Sassanians. Contemporary,
mightily yet, to the Arabs and Turks at their peaks. Contemporary, even still,
to the Europe of Renaissance and colonialism. And she is contemporary, even now,
to this very day.
This 'awe' is not to be demeaned by
calling it 'nationalism'. Indeed, only those who truly understand
it will be able to aid in its defence and preservation. The challenges of this
modern world are very different from that of the ancient and medieval times.
But the challenges exist. And they cannot be met as long as
the wider public is kept in the dark about many forgotten, yet amazing, most
archaic and critical aspects about their history.
But few, even within this 'Bharatavarsh',as we fondly call it,seem to
realize the significance of this. Worse, there are those who actively work to
subvert the dissemination of these realizations among the general public; those
who are in control of academic institutions and yet find it proper to ignore
the overwhelming evidence of this cultural continuity and propagate starkly
contradicting conclusions and opinions. Is it the
stubbornness of the orthodoxy to change and loosen grips? Or is it agenda? It
matters not.
Devasura is an attempt to contribute at least a meager part in the great
effort at an 'Indian renaissance'- an effort no doubt is already beginning from
multiple fronts.