Jeann Dreze is outraged that Indians should even mention t hat "India was shining"

There was outrage and ridicule amongst the responses of some "eminent" scholars to the view on pre-British India presented in the preamble to the BJP Manifesto, which appeared in the Times of India and The Hindu, along with our response to them. Needless to say that our response is yet to appear in the esteemed newspapers which published the views of these eminent scholars.

In certain quarters in India it remains a sacrilege to say anything good about ancient India



PREAMBLE TO BJP MANIFESTO 2009

http://www.bjp.org/images/pdf/election_manifesto_english.pdf


TO BUILD A PROSPEROUS,

POWERFUL NATION,

RECALL INDIA’S PAST



Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. India has a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom. But India has also experienced continued foreign attacks and alien rule for centuries and this has resulted in a loss of pride in India and its remarkable achievements. Indians, particularly educated under the system of education imposed by the Britishers, have lost sight of not only the cultural and civilisational greatness of India, but also of its technological achievements and abounding natural resources.


History tells us that India was a land of abundance. The country has been blessed with great natural fertility, abundant water and unlimited sunshine. According to foreigners visiting this country, Indians were regarded as the best agriculturists in the world. Records of these travels from the 4th Century BC till early- 19th Century speak volumes about our agricultural abundance which dazzled the world. The Thanjaur (900-1200 AD) inscriptions and Ramnathapuram (1325 AD) inscriptions record 15 to 20 tonnes per hectare production of paddy. Now, even after the first green revolution, according to Government statistics, Ludhiana in the late-20th Century recorded a production of 5.5 tonnes of paddy per hectare. It is, therefore, imperative that India rediscovers an agricultural technology which incorporates all the inputs from our own wisdom and agricultural skills that made us a land of abundance in food.


Indian economy was as flourishing as its agriculture. Foreigners from Magasthenes to Fa-Hian and Hiuen-Tsiang have described and praised Indian material prosperity. Indian villages around 1780 in Bihar have been cited as an example of cleanliness and hospitality. The streets were swept and watered and the people had a remarkable sense of hospitality and attention to accommodate the needs of the travellers.


Old British documents established that India was far advanced in the technical and educational fields than Britain of 18th and early-19th Century. Its agriculture technically and productively was far superior; it produced a much higher grade of iron and steel. The Iron Pillar at Mehrauli in Delhi has withstood the ravages of time for 1,500 years or more without any sign of rusting or decay. Metallurgists of the world have marvelled at this high degree of sophistication in technology. Textiles formed the great industrial enterprise of pre-British India. Up to the late-18th Century, India was the leading producer and exporter of textiles; China was then a close second.


Indian advancements in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, physics and biological sciences have been documented and recognised all over the world. Contributions in the field of medicine and surgery are also well known. Ayurveda and Yoga are the best gifts from India to the world in creating a healthy civilisation. India knew plastic surgery, practised it for centuries and, in fact, it has become the basis of modern plastic surgery. India also practised the system of inoculation against small pox centuries before the vaccination was discovered by Dr Edward Jenner.


Fa-Hian, writing about Magadha in 400 AD, has mentioned that a well organised health care system existed in India. According to him, the nobles and householders of this country had founded hospitals within the city to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, the crippled and the diseased may repair. “They receive every kind of requisite help. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicines or decoctions, everything in fact that contributes to their ease. When cured they depart at their ease.”


It has been established beyond doubt by the several reports on education at the end of the 18th Century and the writings of Indian scholars that not only did India have a functioning indigenous educational system but that it actually compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at the time in respect of the number of schools and colleges proportionate to the population, the number of students in schools and colleges, the diligence as well as the intelligence of the students, the quality of the teachers and the financial support provided from private and public sources. Contrary to the then prevailing opinion, those attending school and college included an impressive percentage of lower caste students, Muslims and girls. Mahatma Gandhi was absolutely right in saying that India was more illiterate in 1931 compared to its state of literacy 50-60 years ago, i.e. in 1870. India had also an expertise in ship building, as also in extensive manufacturing and uses of dyes, and also in manufacturing paper.


India had a share of about 22.5 per cent of world GDP in 1600 AD which during British domination suffered a steep decline to 12.25 per cent in 1870, while the British share in the same period rose sharply from 1.8 per cent to 9.1 per cent. When Britishers left India, the economy was completely shattered and India’s share in world manufacture, trade and GDP declined further. Even after 62 years of Independence, India’s share in world market remains less than one per cent.


India’s prosperity, its talents and the state of its high moral society can be best understood by what Thomas Babington Macaulay stated in his speech of February 02, 1835, in the British Parliament. “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such high caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very back bone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” This policy was implemented very meticulously by Britishers and the education system was created to make Indian’s ignorant about themselves.


No nation can chart out its domestic or foreign policies unless it has a clear understanding about itself, its history, its strength and failings. It becomes all the more important for any nation to know its roots which sustain its people in a highly mobile and globalised world. Leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and others who spearheaded the freedom movement had built the struggle around a clear vision of India’s civilisational consciousness. Indian ways of thought and action were in the centre of their political action. These leaders had a vision to reconstruct the political and economic institutions of India as a continuum of the civilisational consciousness which made India one country, one people and one nation. It is unfortunate that the leaders of independent India quickly discarded this vision and continued to work with the institutional structures created by the British which had nothing to do with India’s world view and its vitality which were responsible for its survival despite continued outside attacks and alien rule.


During the six decades of our independence, governance of our country, except for a short period, was with the Congress and its associates. It was most unfortunate that they never thought of creating a socio-economic and political paradigm of governance drawing from the civilisational consciousness of India. They, instead, tried to emulate whatever was being practised in this or that Western country. The disastrous results are before us.


What was required after independence was to reorient India’s polity to bring it in consonance with the seekings and sensibilities of the Indian people. Failure to do so has resulted in a fractured society, vast economic disparities, terrorism and communal conflict, insecurity, moral, psychological and spiritual degradation, and a state apparatus unable to handle any of these problems. Attempts are sometimes made to apply palliatives to manage the affairs but nothing succeeds. What is needed is to arrive at a consensus about the ‘Idea’ of India and also about the seekings and preferences of the people and how they find expression in various socio-economic, political organisations and cultural, aesthetic and ethical sensibilities of the people of India.


The civilisational consciousness of India has been well defined by the sages and philosophers and has its roots in Bharatiya or Hindu world view. This world view is holistic and spiritual. It accepts that diversity is inherent in the scheme of creation; it is the manifestation of the same cosmic entity in different forms. Hence it not only accepts diversity but respects it and even more celebrates it. Hindu or Bharatiya view of life seeks unity in diversity. It is an inclusive approach and one can say that Hinduism is the most ennobling experience in spiritual co-existence. The Bharatiya mind has contemplated beyond national boundaries and the Vedic Rishi declared in the hoary past ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbukam’ – that the world is a family. The horizons of India’s worldview are known to have extended from Bamiyan / Kandahar to Borobudur / Indonesia on the one hand, and Sri Lanka to Japan on the other. Imprints of Indian culture are found in some other parts of the world as well. In ancient times India was isolated in geography but not in cultural relationship, trade and commerce.


The belief in essential unity of mankind is a unique feature of Hindu thought. The Vedic Rishi had also declared that ‘Ekam Sad Viprah Bahudha Vadanti’ (truth or reality is one but wise men describe it in different ways). This is essentially a secular thought in the real sense of the term because it accepts that one can follow his own path to reach the ultimate. Hindus are well known for their belief in harmony of religions. And because of this world view almost all religions practised in different parts of the world have existed peacefully in India and will continue to do so.


But it appears that even after six decades of independence India has not been able to discover its innate vitality and its sense of time and consequently has lost its direction and will to act. The drift is acute and has encompassed all aspects of national life. The situation needs a change and a new paradigm is called for, for creating a prosperous, progressive and powerful India whose voice is heard in international fora.


India can achieve this goal provided the people seriously set to this task. We are endowed with vast human and material resources. Indian youth have demonstrated their capabilities in various walks of life and proved their competence. In science and technology, space and atomic energy, despite handicaps and lack of world class facilities, they have done remarkably well. In industry, business and management and information communication technology, they have successfully taken challenging risks. With this energetic and vibrant youth power and by prudently harnessing natural resources, Indians can perform miracles provided they work with self-confidence and pride in India. We have to assure a prominent role and full opportunities to our youth in the decision-making process. They are the future and the propellers of our prosperity.


India need not blindly copy this or that model of development; it should evolve a model suited to its genius and resources. The Integral Humanism suggested by Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay provides such a model. India should be original, India should innovate, and India should move upwards on the ladder of global leadership. The global scenario demands a solution, a radical solution to save the world from the impending disaster of the Great Economic Recession and terrorism looming large all over the world. India is destined to play its historic role at this crucial juncture and for this the BJP is committed to work for creating a modern, powerful, prosperous, progressive and secure India.


Dr Murli Manohar Joshi

Chairman

Manifesto Committee

April 3, 2009.









JEAN DREZE IN THE TIMES OF INDIA


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/TOP-ARTICLE--Interpretation-Of-Dreams/articleshow/4455896.cms
TOP ARTICLE | Interpretation Of Dreams

28 Apr 2009, 0000 hrs IST, JEAN DREZE


"No nation can chart out its domestic or foreign policies unless it has a clear understanding about itself, its history, its strengths and failings." Jawaharlal Nehru could not have put it better. The author of this noble statement, however, is none other than Murli Manohar Joshi, in his preamble to the manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party, signed by him as chairman of the manifesto committee.


Ironically, this statement is at odds with the preamble itself, which peddles a series of myths (of the "India Shining" variety) about Indian history and civilisation. According to this preamble, India used to be "a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom". It was not only the most fertile land but also far ahead of other countries "in the technical and educational fields", with "a well organised health-care system" as early as 400 AD. Even "plastic surgery" has been "practised for centuries" in India according to Joshi. These achievements had their roots in the "Bharatiya or Hindu world view" of ancient sages and Vedic rishis.



Interestingly, the evidence given for these feats does not consist of Indian historical records. Instead, Joshi invokes scattered testimonies of foreign travellers

, including some rather unreliable ones such as Megasthenes, whose account of India was embellished with stories of dog-headed giants and other fantastic creatures. The testimonies are highly selective, and, in some cases, grossly distorted. A few illustrations may help.


Joshi describes pre-colonial India as a "land of abundance", with an "economy as flourishing as its agriculture". Hunger and famines, in his perception, were obviously unknown in that period. But the fact is that famines have a long history in India. They are mentioned in the Jatakas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Arthashastra and Manu's Dharmashastra, among other ancient texts. As historian Romila Thapar notes: "Famine was common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have to go looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors."


In a similar vein, Joshi states that Gandhi was "absolutely right in saying that India was more illiterate in 1931 [than] in 1870". The fact, however, is that Gandhi was wrong on this. We know that from census data. Perhaps Joshi considers Gandhi as a more authoritative source than the census. But Gandhi, for all his wisdom, was not infallible, and this is not the only occasion when he was carried away. Elsewhere, he touchingly described "the Indian shepherd" as "a finely built man of Herculean constitution", at a time when the vast majority of the Indian population was wasted and stunted, with a life expectancy of less than 30 years. His hasty comment on literacy belongs to the same genre wishful thinking.


The most insidious part of the BJP manifesto's preamble is a fake quote attributed to Thomas Babington Macaulay. According to Joshi: "India's prosperity, its talents and the state of its high moral society can be best understood by what Thomas Babington Macaulay stated in his speech of February 2, 1835, in the British Parliament. 'I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such high calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage..."

This "quote" (abridged here) is a wonderful prop for Joshi's arguments. But there is a catch Macaulay never said this. The quote is a well-known fabrication, which has been the subject of many comments and articles. This does not prevent it from being publicised on numerous Hindutva websites. On a dissenting note, one of these websites advises against using this quote, as it "has a bad reputation amongst scholars of Indology who generally ridicule it". Joshi is evidently not among these "scholars of Indology", despite his emphasis on the need for the nation to "understand itself". Incidentally, Macaulay was in India on February 2, 1835, making it rather unlikely that he would have addressed the British Parliament that day.


Hopefully, these examples suffice to show that the BJP manifesto's preamble is an exercise in obfuscation. As it happens, large portions of this preamble were posted the same day on Wikipedia, in the entry on "Indian culture". Perhaps a well-wisher thought that inserting this gem in Wikipedia would add credibility to Joshi's propaganda. Be that as it may, this entire portion of the "Indian culture" entry was removed from the Wikipedia website a few days later.


Behind this fairy tale are useful insights into the psychology of Hindutva leaders and the political strategy of the BJP. The dominant theme of Joshi's preamble is the hurt pride of the higher castes (or "of India" as he calls it). Humiliated by foreign dominance in so many fields today, their coping strategy is to claim that "we were actually ahead all along". Their agenda is to restore India's lost glory as they perceive it. This lost glory is nothing but the traditional, exploitative social order dominated by them. Over the centuries, this domination has been achieved partly through force, and partly through deception. The BJP manifesto's preamble continues this tradition of "deceive and rule".


The writer is with the department of economics, Allahabad University.







RESPONSE TO JEAN DREZE


The BJP manifesto’s preamble: A new Orientation not Obfuscation


Prof. Murli Manohar Joshi in his preamble to the manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party lays down a clear new perspective for a reorientation of Indian polity away from its roots in the colonial British period and towards the long civilisational heritage of India and the genius, skills and seekings of her people. The manifesto succinctly summarises the context and purpose of this new perspective: “What was required after independence was to reorient India’s polity to bring it in consonance with the seeking and sensibilities of the Indian people. Failure to do so has resulted in a fractured society, vast economic disparities, terrorism and communal conflict, insecurity, moral, psychological and spiritual degradation, and a state apparatus unable to handle any of these problems. Attempts are sometimes made to apply palliatives to manage the affairs but nothing succeeds. What is needed is to arrive at a consensus about the ‘Idea’ of India and also about the seekings and preferences of the people and how they find expression in various socio-economic, political organisations and cultural, aesthetic and ethical sensibilities of the people of India.”


Jean Dréze in his analysis of the preamble of the manifesto published in the Times of India (April 28) seems to have completely missed the point of this exercise, and has indulged in the triviality of picking holes in the evidence that Prof. Joshi has indicated to show that the Indian civilisation, and the skills, seekings and preferences of the Indian people, offer a materially, socially and morally efficient basis for ordering our polity today as these have done during the millennia prior to the coming of the British here.


Or, perhaps Jean Dréze has not really missed the point; he is simply disturbed at the idea of anyone proposing that India can today think of moving away from its dependence on the western ways and can begin looking at her own people and resources as the basis of her future polity. He is certainly seriously disturbed by the BJP-manifesto describing pre-colonial India as a “land of abundance”. Western imperial scholars and their Indian disciples, who unfortunately dominate much of the academia and articulate public space of India today, have always resisted strongly any suggestion that India before the arrival of the British imperialists had anything at all to commend itself. The imperialists created the myth that they had come to India for the entirely benevolent purpose of helping India prosper materially and advance morally, socially and politically. According to them, it was through such benevolence that India began to break out of grinding poverty and hunger that had been her fate for millennia. It was this benevolence that taught Indians how to live harmoniously amongst themselves. And, most importantly, it was this imperial benevolence of the west which helped the ordinary people of India throw off the yoke of unbearable oppression of the higher-castes and begin to breathe easy for the first time in Indian history.


This was an obviously convenient myth. It transformed the western invaders, usurpers and oppressors into benevolent guardian angels, who arrived into India, not for any selfish imperial purposes, but for the greater good of India and the mankind. It provided an easy justification for invading and colonising a far-off and ancient land. It is no wonder that the myth has been lapped up by all western thinkers and scholars concerned with India, from Marx to our own modern saving angel, Jean Dréze.


The myth has been assiduously nurtured since the colonial times; all academic research has been forced to fit into this straightjacket, and all education, from the school level onwards, has been designed to teach this motivated untruth about India and the imperial colonisers. Any historical fact that seems to contradict the nightmarish story of an eternally impoverished India whose people were always at each others throat till the west came to rescue them from this hell is systematically suppressed. Any attempt to correct the picture, even partially, invites immediate howls of protest from western and westernised scholars like Jean Dréze and Romila Thapar. Romila Thapar, the historian Jean Dréze quotes approvingly, has gone to ridiculous lengths to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of sixth standard school children about the descriptions of a prosperous and harmonious India found in the accounts of Fa Hien and Huan Tsiang. Such descriptions are simply not palatable to the western and westernised scholars.


Unfortunately, this myth-making has been so successful that not only the westerners but most of the educated Indians have come to believe in it. The brainwashing of educated Indians in this respect is so complete that the celebrated Cambridge-educated economist who happens to be our current prime minister feels no shame in telling the British people that their rule was of great beneficence to India. This is the effect of what has been called Macaulayan education, which is designed to perpetuate the myth of a decadent and poor India saved by a prosperous and progressive west. It is not surprising that scholars like Jean Dréze, Romila Thapar and their ilk get so worked up at any effort to even slightly reform the Macaulayan system and syllabi.


But myths do not become reality by repetition; not even when the persons repeating happen to be a series of highly privileged and cartelised academics. Thus, notwithstanding Dréze’s, and Romila Thapar’s, assertions that “famines have a long history in India”, “famine was common”, and so on, the fact remains that India was an agriculturally, and otherwise, prosperous land before the British arrived here. There is vast epigraphic evidence of the extra-ordinary productivity of Indian lands. There is also much evidence provided by the western and other observers who travelled to different parts of India in different epochs. And, there are systematic late eighteenth century archival records from thousands of localities showing an abundance of production even in relatively less well-endowed lands of coastal Tamilnadu. This is the evidence that Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi relies upon in his brilliant preamble to the BJP manifesto.


Jean Dréze and Romila Thapar, claim to rely on ancient Indian texts for proving the persistence of famines in Indian history. How one wishes that they also showed similar faith in what these texts say about other aspects of Indian history and civilisation? The texts like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are epic texts. They describe all aspects of human experience; it is natural that there would be some references in these texts about conditions of famines in some specific places and eras. But, anyone who has read the Ramayana or the Mahabharata would know that the condition of India that these texts describe is certainly not that of a land ravaged with famines and epidemics. The images that recur repeatedly in these texts are those of plenty and abundance, not of scarcity and deprivation. The texts speak of healthy and happy people, of healthy and well-nourished animals, of lands irrigated by tanks, wells and other water-bodies that are diligently taken care of and are always full, of cultivators who are celebrated as the backbone of the nation, and of a country that is laden with grain and all kinds of wealth. The texts also lay down the duty of ensuring that no being, human or non-human, ever goes hungry, that no one ever suffers from hunger or disease, or lacks protection from sun, snow and winds. A Jean Dréze or a Romila Thapar can indeed find references to famine in these texts, but these texts are not about famines.


Someone looking for descriptions of famines and epidemics in the Indian texts has to diligently search for these; but one has to make no effort at all to see famines in the history of British-controlled India. John Dréze’s mentor, Amartya Sen, has in fact made his career in economics by analysing the abundant data that is available on the pervasive famines of the British period. And the effects of these famines and epidemics can be easily seen in the census data of the British period with which Jean Dréze seems very familiar. The series of famines and epidemics began immediately after the British got a foothold in India with the Bengal famine of 1770; the famine is known to have killed one-third the population of the effected area which included the territories of today’s Bangladesh and West Bengal, and parts of Assam, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand. And the long series of British-induced famines ended with the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. Both these famines are known to have been caused by the predatory British policies rather than any natural scarcity. Between these two great famines, there were several others that covered vast areas of India and destroyed large populations. Jean Dréze could not be unaware of these and of their cause in British malfeasance.


Jean Dréze also takes issue with Mahatma Gandhi’s assertion about the decline of education in India during the British period. In a speech at Chatham House, London in 1931, that Prof. Joshi quotes, Mahatma Gandhi said: “I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a 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.”


The issue has been studied by competent scholars right from the time Mahatma Gandhi made his assertion. Nobody has been able to disprove Mahatma Gandhi on the basis of census records. If Jean Dréze has come across such records, he should publish his findings in a scholarly forum rather than using a newspaper column for making his exaggerated claims. Mahatma Gandhi’s observation has been conclusively proved by the Gandhian historian, Dharampal, through a meticulous analysis of the various surveys of indigenous education system carried out by the British during the nineteenth century including the Survey of Indigenous Education in the Madras Presidency of 1822-26, W. Adam’s Survey of the State of Education in Bengal of 1835-38, and G. W. Leitener’s study of the History of Education in Punjab since Annexation and in 1882.

But Mr. Dréze seems to be disturbed by Mahatma Gandhi and his observations almost as much as he is by Prof. Joshi’s preamble to the BJP manifesto; perhaps for the same reason. Mahatma Gandhi simply refused to believe in the myth of an impoverished and degenerate pre-British India, and he insisted that Indian civilisation was much higher than the western civilisation; in fact, he wondered whether the western way could be termed a “civilisation” at all. Mr. Dréze in his article shows unnecessary contempt for the Mahatma. While dismissing Gandhiji’s assertions on the state of education in India, Mr. Dréze says, “Elsewhere, he touchingly described ‘the Indian shepherd’ as ‘a finely built man of Herculean constitution’, at a time when the vast majority of the Indian population was wasted and stunted, with a life expectancy of less than 30 years. His hasty comment on literacy belongs to the same genre ̶ wishful thinking.”


Mr. Dréze should know that while describing the ‘Indian shepherd’, Mahatma Gandhi had in mind the shepherds he had actually seen in his native Saurashtra, who do have a ‘Herculean constitution’. And, the reality of a wasted and stunted people with a life-expectancy of less than 30 years that Mr. Dréze puts forth as a counterpoint to the Mahatma’s description was the reality that the British created in India, not only through famines but also through devastating epidemics. Even Mr. Dréze must have read through some of the chilling descriptions of the devastation and destitution caused by the plague that ravaged India during the last four years of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth. He would also not be unaware of the great influenza epidemic that decimated Indian population during the second decade of the twentieth century. It was the scarcity and disease let loose by the British administration that led to the stunting of large parts of Indian population and reducing life-expectancy to tragically low levels. The people of India are still struggling to get over the impact of those years of devastation, even when our prime-ministers and sundry scholars go about praising the benevolence of British rule.


But Mr. Dréze is probably not concerned with academic rigour and truth. Like several of his western predecessors, he uses his academic credentials for political purposes. Mr. Dréze is no mere academician; he has been constantly dabbling in politics, including in Kashmir, even during the twenty odd years that he stayed in India before condescending to become an Indian citizen. He has been part of the extra-constitutional team that the UPA Chairman constituted to guide and oversee the functioning of the present government. It is no wonder that he has chosen to pick holes in the manifesto of a political party at the height of an election campaign. As a naturalised Indian citizen, he has the right to participate in the Indian electoral process. But, even the status of a naturalised citizen gives him no right to malign the Indian nation, and Indian civilisation.



Dr. J. K. Bajaj

Centre for Policy Studies

83 DDA Site 1, New Rajinder Nagar

New Delhi – 110 060


policy@vsnl.com, www.cpsindia.org

EMINENT HISTORIANS IN HINDU


http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/05/03/stories/2009050350100400.htm

Sunday, May 03, 2009

From ‘India Shining’ to ‘India was Shining’

Murli Manohar Joshi is the Chairperson of the Drafting Committee for the BJP Manifesto, released on April 3, 2009. As Chairperson, he has written the preamble of the Manifesto, supposedly based on historical “facts” about Indian civilisation and culture. Below are excerpts from the preamble (in bold) along with brief comments given to The Hindu by eminent historians.

Photo: V. Sudershan

Iron Pillar at Qutab: Has it withstood the ravages of time?

Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. India has a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom. But India has also experienced continued foreign attacks and alien rule for centuries and this has resulted in a loss of pride in India and its remarkable achievements. Indians, particularly educated under the system of education imposed by the Britishers, have lost sight of not only the cultural and civilisational greatness of India, but also of its technological achievements and abounding natural resources.

India is not the most ancient civilisation. Civilisation is generally defined as having city cultures and that would make Egypt, Mesopotamia and China older. Nor is it the only continuous culture since China has a continuous culture that is older.

Every part of the world has been subjected to attacks by aliens and alien rule. In India the aliens were frequently assimilated and incorporated into Indian culture and ceased to be alien.

India lost its pride when it became a British colony and not before that. Colonial domination was more deeply destructive than any other had been before it.

The technological achievements of India had been known to those Indians who were part of these professions. Such achievements never became public knowledge. They were not applied to changing the technologies of Indian society in a major way. This is something Indians learnt through colonial rule.

According to foreigners visiting this country, Indians were regarded as the best agriculturists in the world. Records of these travels from the 4th Century BC till early-19th Century speak volumes about our agricultural abundance which dazzled the world. The Thanjavur (900-1200 AD) inscriptions and Ramnathapuram (1325 AD) inscriptions record 15 to 20 tonnes per hectare production of paddy.

Agricultural abundance varied over time and space. There was no uniform abundance at all times. Joshi quotes inscriptions from Thanjavur but does not say which one. In AD 1054 (the period he speaks of as producing 20 tons per hectare of paddy) there is also a record that the area of Alangudi in Thanjavur Dt. suffered severe famine, so severe that even the state could not help the people and they finally went to the temple and sold their land to the temple treasury to get money to buy food from elsewhere. [M.E.A.R. 1899-1900, 20]

Famine was common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have to go looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors. References are made to anavrishti and ativrishti and locusts as the cause. Famine is referred to in the Ramayana [1.8.12 ff] and the Mahabharata [12.139] and in the latter it led to people eating all kinds of unsavoury things. The frequency of references to the 12-year famine is found in many texts. Manu in his Dharma-shastra states that in times of famine social codes can be dispensed with. [102 ff] The Jatakas refer to famines. [1.75, etc;]

It has been established beyond doubt by the several reports on education at the end of the 18th Century and the writings of Indian scholars that not only did India have a functioning indigenous educational system but that it actually compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at the time in respect of the number of schools and colleges proportionate to the population, the number of students in schools and colleges, the diligence as well as the intelligence of the students, the quality of the teachers and the financial support provided from private and public sources.

Contrary to the then prevailing opinion, those attending school and college included an impressive percentage of lower caste students, Muslims and girls.

Photo: K. Pichumani

In search of a glorious past: Murli Manohar Joshi.

There were no schools or colleges as we know them today in ancient India. Upper caste children were educated in mathas, agraharas and sometimes monasteries. Children following a profession were apprentices in that profession. Lower castes and women were not educated generally. In Sanskrit plays they are the ones who speak the vernacular language Prakrit whilst the upper caste, educated persons speak Sanskrit.

Old British documents established that India was far advanced in the technical and educational fields than Britain of 18th and early-19th Century. Its agriculture technically and productively was far superior; it produced a much higher grade of iron and steel. The Iron Pillar at Mehrauli in Delhi has withstood the ravages of time for 1,500 years or more without any sign of rusting or decay.

The iron-pillar at the Qutab has rusted but the rust cannot be seen as it is in the socket at the top.

Astronomy, mathematics and medicine were at a premium from the Seventh century onwards when there was close interaction between scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, India and China.

India knew plastic surgery, practised it for centuries and, in fact, it has become the basis of modern plastic surgery. India also practised the system of inoculation against small pox centuries before the vaccination was discovered by Dr. Edward Jenner.

India had no practice of plastic surgery until modern times. Nor did India know about vaccines.

Fa-Hian, writing about Magadha in 400 AD, has mentioned that a well organised health care system existed in India. According to him, the nobles and householders of this country had founded hospitals within the city to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, the crippled and the diseased may repair.

“They receive every kind of requisite help. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicines or decoctions, everything in fact that contributes to their ease. When cured they depart at their ease.”

The Chinese pilgrims visiting India — Fa Hien and Hsuan Tsang — make a brief mention of sick persons being treated by having to fast for seven days and being given some medicine. This was probably the treatment given to sick monks in monasteries. There were no hospitals.

India’s worldview is known to have extended from Bamiyan/ Kandahar to Borobudur/ Indonesia on the one hand, and Sri Lanka to Japan on the other. Imprints of Indian culture are found in some other parts of the world as well.

India’s world view did not extend from Afganistan to Indonesia. Hindus in south India knew nothing about Bamiyan and those in north-western India knew nothing about Borobudur. Nor was there any knowledge of Japan. There was some knowledge of central Asia in the north-west of India, some knowledge of south-east Asia in eastern and southern India and the Cholas had contacts with Canton.

The belief in essential unity of mankind is a unique feature of Hindu thought. The Vedic Rishi had also declared that Ekam Sad Viprah Bahudha Vadanti (truth or reality is one but wise men describe it in different ways). This is essentially a secular thought in the real sense of the term because it accepts that one can follow his own path to reach the ultimate. Hindus are well known for their belief in harmony of religions.

The notion of the secular was not known to the Hindus, as the secular requires giving priority to the human being irrespective of his/her beliefs. Hindus were concerned with establishing caste and sect. Only the Buddhists expounded a view that might be called secular since they emphasised social ethics irrespective of other links. And Buddhists were ousted by Hindus.

A new paradigm is called for, but one that endorses the primacy of the human being, the citizen of India, rather than the Hindu.











RESPONSE TO EMINENT HISTORIANS



India was Shining notwithstanding the Eminent Historians





In the Sunday Supplement of the Hindu of May 3, some unnamed ‘eminent historians’ have joined issue with the descriptions of the relative affluence and functionality of Indian society in pre-British India given in the preamble to the BJP manifesto. The historians seem to claim that all that is suggested in the preamble about the agricultural abundance, technological sophistication and efficient schooling arrangements of the pre-British India is merely a figment of someone’s imagination and has no basis in historical evidence.


However, almost every sentence in the preamble is backed by impeccable evidence. The so-called eminent historians of India – who seem to get greatly agitated whenever they find any mention of a functioning pre-British India – may want to wish away all this evidence, but that cannot make the evidence disappear. Below, we give some of the easily accessible sources on some aspects of pre-British Indian society mentioned in the preamble. The evidence is of course much more extensive that what can be given within the space of a newspaper article. We are mentioning only those sources that an interested reader of your paper can access to make up his or her mind on whether the preamble to the manifesto has some truth.



Agricultural Productivity of India


An easily available source on the productivity of Indian agriculture in pre-British south India is the article by L. B. Alaev, The System of Agricultural Production: South India, in the widely available The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I, c.1200-c.1750, Cambridge 1982.


On the basis of epigraphic records, Alaev estimates productivity of 6.6 tons per hectare of paddy in the not so fertile region of Ramanad. This is almost certainly an underestimate, because Alaev assumes a much higher rate of taxation than what was considered the norm in India and assigns a much lower value for the volume measures of the period than what seems reasonable. For the later period of 1807, Alaev gives an estimate of 13 tons of paddy per hectare from two crops per year in Coimbatore.


Another fairly well-known source is Dr. Tennant’s, Indian Recreations, which mentions productivity of 7.5 tons of wheat per hectare in the region around Allahabad in 1803; the estimate was cited in the Edinburgh Review of July 1804. Similarly high productivity in several places in north India was repeatedly mentioned by several British administrators up to the middle of the nineteenth century.


The estimate of Dr. Tennant was quoted by Henry Elliot, the governor of NWP, in his memoirs of 1869. The detailed references are available in Tapan Raychaudhuri’s, “The mid-Eighteenth century Background”, in The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. II, c.1757-c.1970, Cambridge 1982. While analysing the information, Tapan Raychaudhuri observes “One striking fact about Indian agriculture in pre-colonial and early colonial days is the very high yield per acre – which cannot be explained away simply as errors of observation…” before he begins to caste doubts on the data in the manner of all ‘eminent historians’ of India, who seem determined to suppress and disparage all evidence that puts a positive light on the pre-British India.


We have ourselves estimated agricultural production of some 2,000 localities in the Chengalpattu region based on the records of an extensive survey undertaken by the British in 1764-68. Preliminary estimates are available in J. K. Bajaj and M. D. Srinivas, Restoring Abundance, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla, 2001 and in the various books published by the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai.





Public Health Care


The ‘eminent historians’ dismiss the observations of Fa-Hien and Huan Tsang as brief references to the treatment of monks. However, the statements of both observers are far from brief or ambiguous; these are very explicit and detailed. What Fa Hien actually says in this context is:


“The nobles and householders of this country have founded hospitals within the city, to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, cripples and the diseased may repair. They receive every kind of requisite help gratuitously. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicine or decoctions, everything in fact that may contribute to their ease. When cured they depart at ease.”


The quote is from Fa Hien: A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms, English Translation by J. Legge, Oxford 1886, Delhi Reprint 1971, p.79. Your readers should be able to easily get this book in any good public library.


Eminent Indian historians, including Romila Thapar, seem to be very disturbed by the observations of the two Chinese travellers about the India of their times, and keep on finding convoluted ways of dismissing them. However, an even more eminent foreign scholar, Dominik Wujastyk, in his The Roots of Ayurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings (Penguin Classics, London 2003), concludes the following on the basis of Fa-Hien’s observations:


“This description by Fa Hsien is one of the earliest accounts of a civic hospital system anywhere in the world and, coupled with Caraka’s description of how a clinic should be equipped… suggests that India may have been the first part of the world to have evolved an organized metropolitan system of institutionally-based medical provision.”


Incidentally, there is a much later mention of an almost similar medical care system prevailing in the Chhatrams of Thanjavur. Following the annexation of Thanjavur by the British in 1799, the then Raja of Thanjavur, Sarfojee Mahraja, wrote to the British describing the services available in the Chhatrams and requested them to continue the services uninterrupted. Among the services available at the Chhatrams he mentions:


“In each Chetrum a teacher to each of the four vedums is appointed, and a Schoolmaster, and Doctors, skilful in the cure of diseases, swellings and the poison of reptiles; all the orphans of strangers, who may come to the Chetrum are placed under the care of the Schoolmaster – they are also fed three times a day, and once in four days, they are anointed with oil – they receive medicine when they require it. Clothes also are given to them and the utmost attention paid to them. They are instructed in the science to which they may express a preference, and after having obtained a competent knowledge of them the expenses of their marriage are defrayed.


“Travellers who fall sick at the Chetrum or before their arrival, receive medicines, and the diet proper for them, and are attended with respect and kindliness until their recovery. …


This letter of Sarfojee Maharaj is reproduced in full in Annam Bahu Kurvita: Recollecting the Indeian Discipline of Growing and Sharing Food in Plenty, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai 1996.




Plastic Surgery and Inoculation


The eminent historians dismiss the possibility of plastic surgery being practiced in pre-British India. But the operation is mentioned in great detail in the Susruta Samhita and the reference is well-known to those interested in the history of plastic surgery.


Such operations were being performed in India even in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is widely reported. Below is an account of the operation from

J. C. Carpue, An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the forehead …to which are prefixed Historical and Physiological Remarks on the Nasal Operation including Descriptions of the Indian and Italian Methods (London, 1816):

“It was in this manner that the nasal operation had become forgotten or despised, in at least the west of Europe; when, at the close of the last century, it was once more heard of in England, from a quarter whence mankind will yet, perhaps, derive many lights, as well in science, as in learning and in arts. A periodical publication, for the year 1794, contains the following communication from a correspondent in India, which is accompanied by a portrait of the person mentioned, explanatory of the operation. ‘Cowasjee, a Mahratta, of the caste of husbandman, was a bullock-driver with the English army, in the war of 1792, and was made a prisoner by Tippoo, who cut off his nose, and one of his hands. In this state, he joined the Bombay army near Seringapatam, and is now a pensioner of the Honourable East India Company. For above twelve months, he was wholly without a nose; when he had a new one put on, by a Mahratta surgeon, a Kumar, near Pune. This operation is not uncommon in India, and has been practised from time immemorial. Two of the medical gentlemen, Mr. Thomas Cruse and Mr. James Findlay, of Bombay, have seen it performed as follows…


The above article has been reprinted in Classics of Medicine Library, Bethesda 1981.


Inoculation against small-pox through injection of material derived from the cow – the so-called ‘vaccination’ – was indeed not practised in India; but inoculation with attenuated human small-pox material obtained from previous outbreaks was widespread and is well-documented. One fairly easily available account is that of J. Z. Holwell, FRS, published in 1767.



Metallurgy


The eminent historians dismiss the sophistication of pre-British Indian metallurgy with the ridiculous comment that “the iron-pillar at the Qutab has rusted but the rust cannot be seen as it is in the socket at the top”. If after more than a millennia the pillar has rusted only in some invisible corner, than there must be something interesting about Indian metallurgy! In any case, pre-British Indian metallurgy, and especially the Iron Pillar at Delhi, has been studied by knowledgeable and perhaps equally eminent metallurgists, who are fascinated with its early technological sophistication. An easily available reference is the book by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam of IIT Kanpur, Delhi Iron Pillar: New Insights, Delhi 2001.




Public Education


The eminent historians are most dismissive of the suggestion that there were public arrangements for school education in India. Instead of giving any data, they merely assert, on the authority of their imputed ‘eminence’, that there were no schools or colleges in India and that education was limited to upper castes. However, there is just too much of evidence available about a widespread system of education in India in the various surveys that the British undertook during the eighteenth century. The evidence of these surveys cannot be dismissed by merely the shake of an eminent head. The details of the surveys have been painstakingly compiled and analysed in Dharampal: The Beautiful Tree, Biblia Impex, Delhi 1983.


Those who are convinced that India could not have been a functioning society before the arrival of the British in India cannot be easily disabused of their prejudice. But, the readers of the Hindu deserve to know the evidence on the other side also. It is with this intent that we have collated the above brief summary of evidence.




Dr. J. K. Bajaj and Dr. M. D. Srinivas

Centre for Policy Studies

6 Balaiah Avenue, Chennai – 600 004


policy@vsnl.com, www.cpsindia.org