THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA , CHAPTER -6

CHAPTER SIX 

NEW PROBLEMS 
The Arabs and the Mongols 



WHILE HARSHA WAS REIGNING OVER A POWERFUL KINGDOM IN 

north India and Hsuan-Tsang, the Chinese scholar-pilgrim, 
was studying at Nalanda University, Islam was taking shape in 
Arabia. Islam was to come to India both as a religious and a 
political force and create many new problems, but it is well to 
remember that it took a long time before it made much differ- 
ence to the Indian scene. It was nearly 600 years before it reached 
the heart of India and when it came to the accompaniment of 
political conquest, it had already changed much and its standard- 
bearers were different. The Arabs who, in a fine frenzy of enthu- 
siasm and with a dynamic energy, had spread out and conquered 
from Spain to the borders of Mongolia carrying with them a 
brilliant culture, did not come to India proper. They stopped at 
its north-western fringe and remained there. Arab civilization 
gradually decayed and various Turkish tribes came into promi- 
nence in central and western Asia. It was these Turkish and 
Afghans from the Indian borderland who brought Islam as a poli- 
tical force to India. 

Some dates might help to bring these facts home to us. Islam 
may be said to begin with the Hijrat, the departure of the Prophet 
Mohammed from Mecca "to Medina, in 622 A.C. Mohammed died 
ten years latter. Some time was spent in consolidating the posi- 
tion in Arabia, and then those astounding series of events took 
place which carried the Arabs, with the banner of Islam, right 
across central Asia in the east and across the whole north African 
continent to Spain and France in the west. In the seventh century 
and by the beginning of the eighth, they had spread over Iraq, 
Iran, and central Asia. In 712 A.C. they reached and occupied 
Sind in the north-west of India and stopped there. A great desert 
separated this area from the more fertile parts of India. In the west 
the Arabs crossed the narrow straits between Africa and Europe 
(since called the Straits of Gibraltar) and entered Spain in 711 
A.C. They occupied the whole of Spain and crossed the Pyrenees 
into France. In 732 they were defeated and checked by Charles 
Martel at Tours in France. 

This triumphant career of a people, whose homelands were 
the deserts of Arabia and who had thus far played no notable 

227 



part in history, is most remarkable. They must have derived 
their vast energy from the dynamic and revolutionary character 
of their Prophet and his message of human brotherhood. And 
yet it is wrong to imagine that Arab civilization suddenly rose 
out of oblivion and took shape after the advent of Islam. There 
has been a tendency on the part of Islamic scholars to decry the 
pre-Islamic past of the Arab people and to refer to it as the period 
of jahiliyat, a kind of dark age of ignorance and supersition. Arab 
civilization, like others, had a long past, intimately connected 
with the development of the Semitic race, the Phoenicians, Cretans, 
Chaldeans, Hebrews. The Israelites became more exclusive and 
separated themselves from the more catholic Chaldeans and 
others. Between them and other Semitic races there were con- 
flicts. Nevertheless all over the Semitic area there were contacts 
and interchanges and to some extent a common background. 
Pre-Islamic Arab civilization grew up especially in Yemen. 
Arabic was a highly developed language at the time of the Pro- 
phet, with a mixture of Persian and even some Indian words. 
Like the Phoenicians, the Arabs went far across the seas in search 
of trade. There was an Arab colony in south China, near Canton, 
in pre-Islamic days. 

Nevertheless it is true that the Prophet of Islam vitalized his 
people and filled them with faith and enthusiasm. Considering 
themselves the standard-bearers of a new cause, they developed 
the zeal and self-confidence which sometimes fills a whole people 
and changes history. Their success was also undoubtedly due to 
the decay of the states in western and central Asia and in north 
Africa. North Africa was torn by internecine conflicts between 
rival Christian factions, leading often to bloody struggles for 
mastery. The Christianity that was practised there at the time 
was narrow and intolerant and the contrast between this and the 
general toleration of the Moslem Arabs, with their message of 
human brotherhood, was marked. It was this that brought whole 
peoples, weary of Christian strife, to their side. 

The culture that the Arabs carried with them to distant coun- 
tries was itself continuously changing and developing. It bore 
the strong impress of the new ideas of Islam, and yet to call it 
Islamic civilization is confusing and probably incorrect. With 
their capital at Damascus, they soon left their simple ways of living 
and developed a more sophisticated culture. That period might 
be called one of Arab-Syrian civilization. Byzantine influences 
came to them, but most of all, when they moved to Baghdad, the 
traditions of old Iran affected them and they developed the Arab- 
Persian civilization which became dominant over all the vast 
areas they controlled. 

Widespread and apparently easy as the Arab conquests were, 
they did not go far beyond Sind in India, then or later. Was 

228 



this due to the fact that India was still strong enough to resist 
effectively the invader? Probably so, for it is difficult to explain 
otherwise the lapse of several centuries before a real invasion 
took place. Partly it may have been due to the internal troubles 
of the Arabs. Sind fell away from the central authority at 
Baghdad and became a small independent Moslem state. But 
though there was no invasion, contacts between India and the 
Arab world grew, travellers came to and from, embassies were 
exchanged, Indian books, especially on mathematics and astro- 
nomy, were taken to Baghdad and were translated into Arabic. 
Many Indian physicians went to Baghdad. These trade and 
cultural relations were not confined to north India. The southern 
states of India also participated in them, especially the RSshtra- 
kutas, on the west coast of India, for purposes of trade. 

This frequent intercourse inevitably led to Indians getting to 
know the new religion, Islam. Missionaries also came to spread 
this new faith and they were welcomed. Mosques were built. 
There was no objection raised either by the state or the people, 
nor were there any religious conflics. It was the old tradition 
of India to be tolerant to all faiths and forms of worship. Thus 
Islam came as a religion to India several centuries before it came 
as a political force. 

The new Arab Empire under the Ommeya Khalifas (Omme- 
yade Caliphs) had its seat and capital at Damascus where a 
splendid city grew up. But soon, about 750 A.C. the Abbasiya 
(Abbaside) Khalifas took the capital to Baghdad. Internal con- 
flicts followed and Spain fell away from the central empire, but 
continued for long as an independent Arab state. Gradually the 
Baghdad Empire also weakened and split up into several states, 
and the Seljuk Turks came from central Asia and became poli- 
tically all-powerful at Baghdad, though the Khalifa still funcioned 
at their pleasure. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, a Turk, arose in 
Afghanistan, a great warrior and a brilliant captain, and he 
ignored and even taunted the Khalifa. But still Baghdad continued 
as the cultural centre of the Islamic world and even far-way Spain 
looked to it for inspiration. Europe was backward then in learn- 
ing and science and art and the amenities of life. It was Arab 
Spain, and especially the university of Cordoba, that kept the lamp 
of learning and intellectual curiosity burning throughout those 
dark ages of Europe and some of its light pierced the European 
gloom. 

The Crusades beginning in 1095 A.C. went on for over a century 
and a half. These did not merely represent a struggle between 
two aggressive religions, a conflict between the Cross and the 
Crescent. 'The Crusades,' says Professor G. M. Trevelyan, the 
eminent historian, 'were the military and religious aspect of a 
general urge towards the east on the part of the reviving energies 

229 



of Europe. The prize that Europe brought back from the Crusades 
was not the permanent liberation of the holy Sepulchre or the 
potential unity of Christendom, of which the story of the Crusades 
was one long negation. She brought back instead the finer arts and 
crafts, luxury, science, and intellectual curiosity — everything that 
Peter the Hermit would most have despised.' 

Before the last of the Crusades had ingloriously petered out, 
something cyclonic and cataclysmic had taken place in the heart 
of Asia. Chengiz (or Jenghiz) Khan had begun his devastating 
march westward. Born in Mongolia in 1155 A. a, he started on 
this great march, which was to convert central Asia into a heap 
of smoking ruins, in 1219. He was no youngster then. Bokhara, 
Samarkand, Herat, and Balkh, all great cities, each having more 
than a million inhabitants, were reduced to ashes. Chengiz went 
on to Kiev in Russia and then returned; Baghdad somehow 
escaped as it did not lie on his route. He died in 1227 at the age 
of seventy-two. His successors went further into Europe and, in 
1258, Hulagu captured Baghdad and put an end to that famous 
centre of art and learning, where for over 500 years treasures from 
all parts of the world had come and accumulated. That gave 
a great shock to the distinctive Arab-Persian civilization in Asia, 
though this survived even under the Mongols; it continued es- 
pecially in parts of North Africa and especially in Spain. Crowds 
of scholars with their books fled from Baghdad to Cairo and Spain 
and a renaissance of art and learning took place there. But Spain 
itself was slipping from the Arab grasp and Corodoba had fallen 
in 1236 A.C. For another two centuries and a half the kingdom of 
Granada continued as a bright centre of Arab culture. In 1492 
A.C. Granada also fell to Ferdinand and Isabella, and Arab domi- 
nion in Spain ended. Thenceforward Cairo became the chief Arab 
centre, though it came under Turkish domination. The Ottoman 
Turks had captured Constantinople in 1453, thereby releasing 
those forces which gave birth to the European Renaissance. 

The Mongol conquests in Asia and Europe represented some- 
thing new in the art of warfare. 'In scale and in quality,' says 
Liddell Hart, 'in surprise and in mobility, in the strategic and 
in the .tactical indirect approach their (the Mongols') campaigns 
surpass any in history.' Chengiz Khan was undoubtedly one of 
the greatest, if not the greatest, military leaders that the world 
has produced. The chivalry of Asia and Europe was matchwood 
before him and his brilliant successors, and it was pure chance 
that central and western Europe escaped conquest. From these 
Mongols Europe learnt new lessons in strategy and the art of 
warfare. The use of gunpowder also came to Europe, through 
these Mongols, from China. 

The Mongols did not come to India. They stopped at the Indus 
river and pursued their conquests elsewhere. When their great 

230 



empires faded away a number of smaller states rose in Asia, and 
then in 1369 Timur, a Turk, claiming to be a descendant of 
Chengiz Khan through his mother, tried to repeat the exploits 
ofChengiz. Samarkand, his capital, again became a seat of empire, 
brief-lived though this was. After Timur's death his successors 
were more interested in a quiet life and in cultivating the arts 
than in military exploits. A Timurid renaissance, as it is called, 
took place in central Asia and it was in this environment that 
Babar, a descendant of Timur, was born and grew up. Babar was 
the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India; he was the first of 
the Grand Mughals. He captured Delhi in 1526. 

Chengiz Khan was not a Moslem, as some people seem to ima- 
gine because of his name which is now associated with Islam. 
He is said to have believed in Shamaism, a religion of the sky. 
What this was I do not know but the word inevitably makes one 
think of the Arab word for Buddhists — Samani, which was derived 
from the Sanskrit Shravana. Debased forms of Buddhism flourished 
then in various parts of Asia, including Mongolia and it is probable 
that Chengiz grew up under their influence. 

It is odd to think that the greatest military conqueror in history 
was probably some kind of a Buddhist.* 

In Central Asia, even to-day four legendary figures of great 
conquerors are remembered — Sikander (Alexander), Sultan Mah- 
mud, Chengiz Khan and Timur. To these four must be added now 
a fifth, another type of person, not a warrior, but a conqueror 
in a different realm, round whose name legend has already gathered 
— Lenin. 

The Flowering of Arab Culture and Contacts with India 

Having rapidly conquered large parts of Asia, Africa, and a bit 
of Europe, the Arabs turned their minds to conquests in other 
fields. The empire was being consolidated, many new countries 
had come within their ken and they were eager to find out about 
this world and its ways. The intellectual curiosity, the adventures 
in rationalist speculation, the spirit of scientific inquiry among the 
Arabs of the eighth and ninth centuries are very striking. 

Normally, in the early days of a religion based on fixed concepts 
and beliefs, faith is dominant and variations are not approved 
or encouraged. That faith had carried the Arabs far and that trium- 

*A kind of Shamanism or Shamaism still lingers in Arctic Siberia, Mongolia, and in Ta- 
nna Tuva in Soviet Central Asia. This appears to be based entirely on a belief in spirits and 
has apparently no connection whatever with Buddhism. Tet it may have been influenced 
long ago by some degraded forms of Buddhism which were gradually submerged in local-pri- 
mitive superstitions. Tibet, which is patently a Buddhist country, has developed its own 
avriety of Buddhism called Lamaism. Mongolia with its Shamanism has also the Living 
Buddha tradition. Thus there seem to be various gradations in northern and central Asia of 
Buddhism fading off into primitive beliefs. 

231 



phant success itself must have deepened that faith. And yet we 
find them going beyond the limits of dogma and creed, dabbling 
with agnosticism, and turning their zeal and energy towards 
adventures of the mind. Arab travellers, among the greatest of 
their kind, go to far countries to find out what other peoples were 
doing and thinking, to study and understand their philosophies 
and sciences and ways of life, and then to develop their own thought. 
Scholars and books from abroad were brought to Baghdad and 
the Khalif al-Mansur (middle eighth century) established a re- 
search and translation bureau where translations were made 
from Greek, Syriac, Zend, Latin, and Sanskrit. Old monasteries 
in Syria, Asia Minor, and the Levant were ransacked for manu- 
scripts. The old Alexandrian schools had been closed by Christian 
bishops and their scholars had been driven out. Many of these 
exiles had drifted to Persia and elsewhere. They now found a wel- 
come and a safe haven in Baghdad and they brought Greek philo- 
sophy and science and mathematics with them — Plato and 
Aristotle, Ptolemy and Euclid. There were Nestorian and Jewish 
scholars and Indian physicians; philosophers and mathematicians. 

All this continued and developed during the reigns of the 
Khalifs Harun-al-Rashid and al-Mamun (eighth and ninth 
centuries) and Baghdad became the biggest intellectual centre 
of the civilized world. 

There were many contacts with India during this period and 
the Arabs learnt much of Indian mathematics, astronomy, and 
medicine. And yet, it would appear, that the initiative for all these 
contacts came chiefly from the Arabs and though the Arabs learned 
much from India, the Indians did not learn much from the Arabs. 

The Indians remained aloof, wrapped up in their own conceits, 
and keeping as far as possible within their own shells. This was 
unfortunate, for the intellectual ferment of Baghdad and the Arab 
renaissance movement would have shaken up the Indian mind 
just when it was losing much of its creative vigour. In that spirit 
of intellectual inquiry the Indians of an older days would have 
found kinship in thought. 

The study of Indian learning and science in Baghdad was greatly 
encouraged by the powerful Barmak family (the Barmecides) 
which gave viziers to Harun-al-Rashid. This family had probably 
been converted from Buddhism. During an illness of Harun-al- 
Rashid, a physician named Manak was sent for from India. 
Manak settled down in Baghdad and was appointed the head of 
a large hospital there. Arab writers mention six other Indian 
physicians living in Baghdad at the time, besides Manak. In 
astronomy the Arabs improved on both the Indians and the Alex- 
andrians and two famous names stand out: Al Khwarismi, a 
mathematician and astronomer of the ninth century, and the poet- 
astronomer Omar Khayyam of the twelfth century. In medicine, 

232 



Arab physicians and surgeons were famous in Asia and Europe. 
Most famous of them was Ibn Sina (Avicenna) of Bokhara, who 
was called the Prince of Physicians. He died in 1037 AC. One of 
the great Arab thinkers and philosophers was Abu Nasr Farabi. 
In philosophy the influence of India does not seem to have 
been marked. Both for philosophy and science the Arabs looked 
to Greece and the old Alexandrian schools. Plato and, more espe- 
cially, Aristotle exercised a powerful influence on the Arab mind 
and since then, and up to the present day, they have become more 

in Arabic commentaries than in the original versions, standard 

P 
subjects for study in Islamic schools. Neo-Platonism from 

Alexandria also influenced the Arab mind. The materialist school 
of Greek Philosophy reached the Arabs and led to the rise of 
rationalism and materialism. The rationalists tried to interpret 
religious tenets and injunctions in terms of reason; the materialists 
almost rejected religion altogether. What is noteworthy is the full 
freedom of discussion allowed in Baghdad for all these rival and 
conflicting theories. This controversy and conflict between faith 
and reason spread from Baghdad all over the Arab world and 
reached Spain. The nature of God was discussed and it was stated 
that He cannot have any qualities, such as were commonly attri- 
buted to Him. These qualities were human. To call God bene- 
volent or righteous was, it was suggested, just as pagan and degraded 
as to say that He has a beard. 

Rationalism led to agnosticism and scepticism. Gradually with 
the decline of Baghdad and the growth of the Turkish power, 
this spirit of rationalist inquiry lessened. But in Arab Spain it still 
continued and one of the most famous of Arab philosophers in 
Spain went to the limits of irreligion. This was Ibn Rushd 
(Averroes) who lived in the twelfth century. He is reported to 
have said of the various religions of his time that they were meant 
for children or for fools or they could not be acted upon. Whether 
he actually said so or not is doubtful, but even the tradition shows 
the kind of man he was, and he suffered for his opinions. In many 
ways he was remarkable. He wrote strongly in favour of giving 
women a chance to play a part in public activities and held that 
they were fully capable of justifying themselves. He also suggested 
that incurables and such-like persons should be liquidated as they 
were a burden on society. 

Spain was then far in advance of the other centres of European 
learning and Arab and Jewish scholars from Cordoba were greatly 
respected in Paris and elsewhere. These Arabs evidently had no 
high opinion of the other Europeans. An Arab writer named Said, 
of Toledo, described the Europeans living north of the Pyrenees 
thus: 'They are of a cold temperament and never reach maturity. 
They are of a great stature and of a white colour. But they lack 
all sharpness of wit and penetration of intellect.' 

233 



The flowering of Arab culture and civilization in western and 
central Asia derived its inspiration from two main sources — Arab 
and Iranian. The two mixed inextricably, producing a vigour of 
thought as well as a high standard of living conditions for the 
upper classes. From the Arabs came the vigour and the spirit of 
inquiry; from the Iranians, the graces of life, art, and luxury. 

As Baghdad waned under Turkish domination, the spirit of 
rationalism and inquiry also declined. Chengiz Khan and the 
Mongols put an end to all this. A hundred years later central 
Asia woke up again and Samarkand and Herat became centres 
for painting and architecture, reviving somewhat the old traditions 
of Arab-Persian civilization. But there was no revival of Arab 
rationalism and interest in science. Islam had become a more rigid 
faith suited more to military conquests rather than the conquests 
of the mind. Its chief representatives in Asia were no longer the 
Arabs, but the Turks* and the Mongols (later called Mughals 
in India), and to some extent the Afghans. These Mongols in 
western Asia had become Moslems; in the Far East and in the 
middle regions many took to Buddhism. 

Mahmud of Ghazni and the Afghans 

Early in the eighth century, in 712, the Arabs had reached Sind 
and occupied it. They stopped there. Even Sind fell away from 
the Arab Empire within half a century or so, though it continued 
as a small independent Moselm state. For nearly 300 years there 
was no further invasion of or incursion into India. About 1000 
AC. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in Afghanistan, a Turk who had 
risen to power in central Asia, began his raids into India. There 
were many such raids and they were bloody and ruthless, and 
on every occasion Mahmud carried away with him a vast quantity 
of treasure. A scholar contemporary, Alberuni, of Khiva, describes 
these raids: 'The Hindus became like the atoms of dust scattered 
in all directions and like a tale of old in the mouths of people. 
Their scattered remains cherish of course the most inveterate 
aversion towards all Moslems.' 

This poetic description gives us some idea of the devastation 
caused by Mahmud, and yet it is well to remember that Mahmud 
touched and despoiled only a part of north India, chiefly along the 
lines of his marches. The whole of central, eastern, and south India 
escaped from him completely. 

South India at that time and later, was dominated by the 
powerful Chola Empire which controlled the sea routes and had 

* / have often used the word 'Turk' or 'Turki'. This may confuse, as 'Turk' is associated 
now with the people of Turkey, who are descended from the Osmanli or Ottoman Turks. 
Bnt there were other kinds of Turks also — Seljuks, etc. All the Turanian races of Central 
Asia, Chinese Turkestan, etc., may be called Turks or Turkis. 

231 



reached as far as Srivijaya in Java and Sumatra. The Indian 
colonies in the eastern seas were also flourishing and strong. Sea 
power was shared between them and south India. But this did not 
save north India from a land invasion. 

Mahmud annexed the Punjab and Sind to his dominions and 
returned to Ghazni after each raid. He was unable to conquer 
Kashmir. This mountain country succeeded in checking and 
repulsing him. He met with a severe defeat also in the Rajputana 
desert regions on his way back from Somnath in Kathiawar.* 
This was his last raid and he did not return. 

Mahmud was far more a warrior than a man of faith and like 
many other conquerors he used and exploited the name of religion 
for his conquests. India was to him just a place from which he 
could carry off treasure and material to his homeland. He enrolled 
an army in India and placed it under one of his noted generals, 
Tilak by name, who was an Indian and a Hindu. This army he 
used against his own co-religionists in central Asia. 

Mahmud was anxious to make his own city of Ghazni rival the 
great cities of central and western Asia and he carried off from 
India large numbers of artisans and master builders. Building 
interested him and he was much impressed by the city of Mathura 
(modern Muttra) near Delhi. About this he wrote: 'There are 
here a thousand edifices as firm as the faith of the faithful; nor 
is it likely that this city has attained its present condition but at 
the expense of many millions of dinars, nor could such another 
be constructed under a period of 200 years.' 

In the intervals of his fighting Mahmud was interested in 
encouraging cultural activities in his own homeland and he gather- 
ed together a number of eminent men. Among these was the famous 
Persian poet Firdausi, author of the 'Shahnamah', who later fell 
out with Mahmud. Alberuni, a scholar and traveller, was a 
contemporary, and in his books he gives us a glimpse into other 
aspects of life in central Asia then. Born near Khiva, but of Persian 
descent, he came to India and travelled a great deal. He tells us 
df the great irrigation works in the Chola kingdom in the south, 

* There is a curious passage relating to this defeat in an old chronicle in Persian, the Tarikh 
-i- Sorath (translated by Ranchodji Amarji, Bombay, 1882) p. 112: 'Shah Mahmud took 
to his heels in dismay and saved his life, but many of his followers of both sexes were captured.. 
Turk, Afghan, and Mughal female prisoners, if they happened to be virgins, were accepted 
as wives by the. Indian soldiers. . . .The bowels of the others, however, were cleaned by 
means of emetics and purgatives, and thereafter the captives were married to men of similar 
rank' 'Low females were joined to low men. Respectable mm were compelled to shave off 
their beards, and were enrolled among the Shekhavat and the Wadhel tribes of Rajputs; 
whilst the lower kinds were allotted to the castes of Kolis, Khantas, Babrias, and Mers. ' 
I am not myself acquainted with the Tarikh-i-Sorath and do not know how far it can 
be considered as reliable. I have taken this quotation from K. M. Munshi's 'The Glory that 
was Gurjardesa' Part III, p. 140. What is especially interesting is the way foreigners are 
said to have been absorbed into the Rajput clans and even marriages having taken place. The 
cleansing process mentioned is novel. 

235 



though it is doubtful if he visited them himself or went to south 
India. He learnt Sanskrit in Kashmir and studied the religion, 
philosophy, science, and arts of India. He had previously learnt 
Greek in order to study Greek philosophy. His books are not only 
a storehouse of information, but tell us how, behind war and 
pillage and massacre, patient scholarship continued, and how the 
people of one country tried to understand those of another even 
when passion and anger had embittered their relations. That 
passion and anger no doubt clouded judgments on either side, 
and each considered his own people superior to the other. Of 
the Indians, Alberuni says that they are 'haughty, foolishly vain, 
self-contained, and stolid,' and that they believe 'that there is no 
country like theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no 
science like theirs.' Probably a correct enough description of the 
temper of the people. 

Mahmud's raids are a big event in Indian history, though 
politically India as a whole was not greatly affected by them and 
the heart of India remained untouched. They demonstrated the 
weakness and decay of north India, and Alberuni's accounts throw 
further light on the political disintegration of the north and west. 

These repeated incursions from the north-west brought many 
new elements into India's closed thought and economy. Above 
all they brought Islam, for the first time, to the accompaniment of 
ruthless military conquest. So far, for over 300 years, Islam had 
come peacefully as a religion and taken its place among the many 
religions of India without trouble or conflict. The new approach 
produced powerful psychological reactions among the people and 
filled them with bitterness. There was no objection to a new reli- 
gion but there was strong objection to anything which forcibly 
interfered with and upset their way of life. 

India was, it must be remembered, a country of many religions, 
in spite of the dominance of the Hindu faith in its various shapes 
and forms. Apart from Jainism and Buddhism, which had largely 
faded away and been absorbed by Hinduism, there were Christia- 
nity and the Hebrew religion. Both of these had reached India 
probably during the first century after Christ, and both had found 
a place in the country. There were large numbers of Syrian 
Christians and Nestorians in south India and they were as much 
part of the country as anyone else. So were the Jews. And so too 
was the small community of the Zoroastrians who had come to 
India from Iran in the seventh century. So also were many Moslems 
on the west coast and in the north-west. 

Mahmud came as a conqueror and the Punjab became just 
an outlying province of his dominions. Yet when he had esta- 
blished himself as a ruler there, an attempt was made to tone down 
his previous methods in order to win over the people ofthe province 
to some extent. There was less of interference with their ways and 

236 



Hindus were appointed to high office in the army and the 
administration. Only the beginnings of this process are notice- 
able in Mahmud's time; it was to grow later. 

Mahmud died in 1030. More than 160 years passed after his 
death without any other invasion of India or an extension of 
Turkish rule beyond the Punjab. Then an Afghan, Shahab-ud- 
Din Ghuri, captured Ghazni and put an end to the Ghaznavite 
Empire. He marched to Lahore and then to Delhi. But the king 
of Delhi, Prithvi Raj Chauhan, defeated him utterly. Shahab-ud- 
Din retired to Afghanistan and came back next year with another 
army. This time he triumphed and in 1192 he sat on the throne 
of Delhi. 

Prithvi Raj is a popular hero, still famous in song and legend, 
for reckless lovers are always popular. He had carried away the 
girl he loved and who loved him from the very palace of her father, 
Jaichandra, King ofKanauj, defying an assembled host of prince- 
lings who had come to offer court to her. He won his bride for a 
brief while, but at the cost of a bitter feud with a powerful ruler 
and the lives of the bravest on both sides. The chivalry of Delhi 
and central India engaged in internecine conflict and there was 
much mutual slaughter. And so, all for the love of a woman, 
Prithvi Raj lost his life and throne, and Delhi, that seat of empire, 
passed into the hands of an invader from outside. But his love story 
is sung still and he is a hero, while Jaichandra is looked upon 
almost as a traitor. 

This conquest of Delhi did not mean the subjugation of the rest 
of India. The Cholas were still powerful in the south, and there 
were other independent states. It took another century and a half 
for Afghan rule to spread over the greater part of the south. But 
Delhi was significant and symbolic of the new order. 

The Indo-Afghans. South India. Vijayanagar. Babar 
Sea Power 

Indian history has usually been divided by English as well as some 
Indian historians into three major periods: Ancient or Hindu, 
Moslem, and the British period. This division is neither intelligent 
nor correct; it is deceptive and gives a wrong perspective. It deals 
more with the superficial changes at the top than with the essen- 
tial changes in the political, economic, and cultural development 
of the Indian people. The so-called ancient period is vast and full 
of change, of growth and decay, and then growth again. What 
is called the Moslem or medieval period brought another change, 
and an important one, and yet it was more or less confined to the 
top and did not vitally affect the essential continuity of Indian 
life. The invaders who came to India from the north-west, like 
so many of their predecessors in more ancient times, became 

237 



absorbed into India and part of her life. Their dynasties became 
Indian dynasties and there was a great deal of racial fusion by 
intermarriage. A deliberate effort was made, apart from a few 
exceptions, not to interfere with the ways and customs ofthe people. 
They looked to India as their home country and had no other 
affiliations. India continued to be an independent country. 

The coming of the British made a vital difference and the old 
system was uprooted in many ways. They brought an entirely 
different impulse from the west, which had slowly developed in 
Europe from the times of the Renaissance, Reformation, and 
political revolution in England, and was taking shape in the begin- 
nings of the industrial revolution. The American and French 
Revolutions were to carry this further. The British remained out- 
siders, aliens and misfits in India, and made no attempt to be other- 
wise. Above all, for the first time in India's history, her political 
control was exercised from outside and her economy was centered 
in a distant place. They made India a typical colony ofthe modern 
age, a subject country for the first time in her long history. 

Mahmud of Ghazni's invasion of India was certainly a foreign 
Turkish invasion and resulted in the Punjab being separated from 
the rest of India for a while. The Afghans who came at the end of 
the twelfth century were different. They were an Indo-Aryan 
race closely allied to the people of India. Indeed, for long stretches 
of time Afghanistan had been, and was destined to be, a part of 
India. Their language, Pashto, was basically derived from Sanskrit. 
There are few places in India or outside which are so full of ancient 
monuments and remains of Indian culture, chiefly ofthe Buddhist 
period, as Afghanistan. More correctly, the Afghans should be 
called the Indo-Afghans. They differed in many ways from the 
people of the Indian plains, just as the people of the mountain 
valleys of Kashmir differed from the dwellers of the warmer and 
flatter regions below. But in spite of this difference Kashmir had 
always been and continued to be an important seat of Indian 
learning and culture. The Afghans differed also from the more 
highly cultured and sophisticated Arabs and Persians. They were 
hard and fierce like their mountain fastnesses, rigid in their faith, 
warriors not inclined towards intellectual pursuits or adventures 
of the mind. They behaved to begin with as conquerors over a 
rebellious people and were cruel and harsh. 

But soon they toned down. India became their home and Delhi 
was their capital, not distant Ghazni as in Mahmud's time. 
Afghanistan, where they came from, was just an outlying part of 
their kingdom. The process of Indianization was rapid, and many 
of them married women ofthe country. One of their great rulers, 
Alauddin Khilji, himself married a Hindu lady, and so did his son. 
Some ofthe subsequent rulers were racially Turks, such as Qutb- 
ud-Din Aibak, the Sultana Razia, and Iltutmish; but the nobility 

238 



and army continued to be mainly Afghan. Delhi flourished as an 
imperial capital. Ibn Batuta, a famous Arab traveller from 
Morocco, who visited many countries and saw many cities from 
Cairo and Constantinople to China, described it in the fourteenth 
century, perhaps with some exaggeration, as 'one of the greatest 
cities in the universe.' 

The Delhi Sultanate spread southwards. The Chola kingdom 
was declining, but in its place a new sea faring power had grown. 
This was the Pandya kingdom, with its capital at Madura and 
its port at Kayal on the east coast. It was a small kingdom but a 
great centre of trade. Marco Polo twice visited this port on his 
way from China, in 1288 and 1293, and described it 'as a great 
and noble city,' full of ships from Arabia and China. He also men- 
tions the very fine muslins, which 'look like tissues of a spider's web' 
and which were made on the east coast of India. Marco Polo 
tells us also an interesting fact. Large numbers of horses were 
imported by sea from Arabia and Persia into south India. The 
climate of south India was not suited to horse-breeding, and horses, 
apart from their other uses, were necessary for military purposes. 
The best breeding-grounds for horses were in central and western 
Asia, and this may well explain, to some extent, the superiority 
of the central Asian races in warfare. Chengiz Khan's Mongols 
were magnificent horsemen and were devoted to their horses. 
The Turks were also fine horsemen, and the love of the Arab for 
his horse is well-known. In north and west India there are some 
good breeding-grounds for horses, especially in Kathiawar, and 
the Rajputs are very fond of their horses. Many a petty war was 
waged for a famous charger. There is a story of a Delhi Sultan 
admiring the charger of a Rajput chief and asking him for it. 
The Hara chief replied to the Lodi king: 'There are three things 
you must not ask of a Rajput: his horse, his mistress, or his sword,' 
and he galloped away. There was trouble afterwards. 

Late in the fourteenth century, Timur, the Turk or Turco- 
Mongol, came down from the north and smashed up the Delhi 
Sultanate. He was only a few months in India; he came to Delhi 
and went back . But all along his route he created a wilderness 
adorned with pyramids of skulls of those he had slain; and Delhi 
itself became a city of the dead. Fortunately, he did not go far and 
only some parts of the Punjab and Delhi had to suffer this terrible 
affliction. 

It took many years for Delhi to wake up from this sleep of death, 
and even when it woke up it was no longer the capital of a great 
empire. Timur's visit had broken that empire and out of it had 
arisen a number of states in the south. Long before this, early 
in the fourteenth century, two gerat states had risen — Gulbarga, 
called the Bahmani kingdom,* and the Hindu kingdom ofVijaya- 

* The name and origin of the Bahmani Kingdom of the South is interesting. The founder 

239 



nagar. Gulbarga now split up into five states, one of these being 
Ahmadnagar. Ahmad Nizam Shah, the founder of Ahmadnagar 
in 1490, was the son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Bhairi, a minister of the 
Bahmani kings. This Nizam-ul-Mulk was the son of a Brahmin 
accountant named Bhairu (from which his name Bhairi). Thus 
the Ahmednagar dynasty was of indigenous origin, and Chand 
Bibi, the heroine of Ahmednagar, had mixed blood. All the 
Moslem states in the south were indigenous and Indianized. 

After Timur's sack of Delhi, north India remained weak and 
divided up. South India was better off and the largest and most 
powerful of the southern kingdoms was Vijayanagar. This state 
and city attracted many of the Hindu refugees from the north. 
From contemporary accounts it appears that the city was rich and 
very beautiful. 'The city is such that eye has note seen nor 
ear heard of any place resembling it upon the whole earth,' says 
Abdur-Razzak, from central Asia. There were arcades and magni- 
ficent galleries for the bazaars, and rising above them all was the 
palace of the king, surrounded by 'many rivulets and streams 
flowing through channels of cut stone, polished and even.' The 
whole city was full of gardens and because of them, as an Italian 
visitor in 1420, Nicolo Conti, writes, the circumference of the city 
was sixty miles. A later visitor was Paes, a Portuguese who came 
in 1522 after having visited the Italian cities of the Renaissance. 
The city of Vijayanagar, he says, is as 'large as Rome and very 
beautiful to the sight'; it is full of charm and wonder with its 
innumerable lakes and waterways and fruit gardens. It is 'the 
best-provided city in the world' and 'everything abounds.' The 
chambers ofthe palace were a mass ofiyory, with roses and lotuses 
carved in ivory at the top — 'it is so rich and beautiful that you would 
hardly find anywhere another such.' Of the ruler, Krishna Deva 
Raya, Paes writes: 'He is the most feared and perfect king that 
could possibly be, cheerful of disposition and very merry; he is one 
that seek to honour foreigners, and receives them kindly, asking 
about all their affairs whatever their condition may be.' 

While Vijayanagar was flourishing in the south, the petty sulta- 
nate of Delhi had to meet a new foe. Yet another invader came 
down from the northern mountains and on the famous battlefield 
of Panipat, near Delhi, where so often India's fate has been decided, 
he won the throne of Delhi in 1526. This was Babar, a Turco- 
Mongol and a prince of the Timurid line in central Asia. With 
him begins the Mughal Empire of India. 

Babar's success was probably due not only to the weakness of 
the Delhi Sultanate but to his possessing a new and improved type 
of artillery which was not in use in India then. From this period 

of this state was an Afghan Moslem who had a Hindu patron in his early days — Gangu 
Brahmin. In gratitude to him he even took his name and his dynasty was called the Bahmani 
(from Brahmin) dynasty. 

240 



onwards India seems to lag behind in the developing science of 
warfare. It would be more correct to say that the whole of Asia 
remained where it was while Europe was advancing in this science. 
The great Mughal Empire, powerful as it was in India for 200 years, 
probably could not compete on equal terms with European armies 
from the seventeenth century onwards. But no European army 
could come to India unless it had control over the sea routes. The 
major change that was taking place during these centuries was the 
development of European sea power. With the fall of the Chola 
kingdom in the south in the thirteenth century, Indian sea power 
declined rapidly. The small Pandya state, though intimately 
connected with the sea, was not strong enough. The Indian colonies, 
however, still continued to hold command over the Indian Ocean 
till the fifteenth century, when they were ousted by the Arabs, who 
were soon to be followed by the Portuguese. 

Synthesis and Growth of Mixed Culture 
Purdah. Kabir. Guru Nanak. Amir Khusrau 

It is thus wrong and misleading to talk of a Moslem invasion of 
India or of the Moslem period in India, just as it would be wrong 
to refer to the coming of the British to India as a Christian inva- 
sion, or to call the British period in India a Christian period. 
Islam did not invade India; it had come to India some centuries 
earlier. There was a Turkish invasion (Mahmud's), and an 
Afghan invasion, and then a Turco-Mongol or Mughal invasion, 
and of these the two latter were important. The Afghans might 
well be considered a border Indian group, hardly strangers to 
India, and the period of their political dominance should be 
called the Indo-Afghan period. The Mughals were outsiders and 
strangers to India and yet they fitted into the Indian structure with 
remarkable speed and began the Indo-Mughal period. 

Through choice or circumstances or both, the Afghan rulers 
and those who had come with them, merged into India. Their 
dynasties became completely Indianized with their roots in India, 
looking upon India as their homeland, and the rest of the word as 
foreign. In spite of political conflict, they were generally considered 
as such and many even of the Rajput princes accepted them as 
their over-lords. But there were other Rajput chiefs who refused 
to submit and there were fierce conflicts. Feroze Shah, one of the 
well-known Sultans of Delhi, had a Hindu mother; so had Ghyas- 
ud-Din Tughlak. Such marriages between the Afghans, Turkish, 
and the Hindu nobility were not frequent, but they did take place. 
In the south the Moslem ruler of Gulbarga married a Hindu 
princess of Vijayanagar with great pomp and ceremony. 

It appears that in the Moslem countries of central and western 
Asia Indians had a good reputation. As early as the eleventh 

241 



century, that is, before the Afghan conquest, a Moslem geographer, 
Idrisi, wrote: 'The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and 
never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty, 
and fidelity to their engagements are well-known, and they are so 
famous for these qualities that people flock to their country from 
every side.'* 

An efficient administration grew up and communications were 
especially improved, chiefly for military reasons. Government was 
more centralized now though it took care not to interfere with local 
customs. Sher Shah (who intervened during the early Mughal 
period) was the ablest among the Afghan rulers. He laid the founda- 
tions of a revenue system which was later to be expanded by Akbar. 
Raja Todar Mai, Akbar's famous revenue minister, was first 
employed by Sher Shah. Hindu talent was increasingly used by 
the Afghan rulers. 

The effect of the Afghan conquest on India and Hinduism was 
two-fold, each development contradicting the other. The immediate 
reaction was an exodus of people to the south, away from the areas 
under Afghan rule. Those who remained became more rigid and 
exclusive, retired into their shells, and tried to protect themselves 
from foreign ways and influences by hardening the caste system. 
On the other hand, there was a gradual and hardly conscious 
approach towards these foreign ways both in thought and life. 
A synthesis worked itself out: new styles of architecture arose; 
food and clothing changed; and life was affected and varied in 
many other ways. This synthesis was especially marked in music, 
which, following its old Indian classical pattern, developed in 
many directions. The Pesrian language became the official court 
language and many Persian words crept into popular use. At the 
same time the popular languages were developed. 

Among the unfortunate developments that took place in India 
was the growth of purdah or the seclusion of women. Why this 
should have been so is not clear but somehow it did result from 
the inter-action of the new elements on the old. In India there had 
been previously some segregation of the sexes among the aristo- 
cracy, as in many other countries and notably in ancient Greece. 
Some such segregation existed in ancient Iran also and to some 
extent all over western Asia. But nowhere was there any strict 
seclusion of women. Probably this started in the Byzantine court 
circles where eunuchs were employed to guard the women's 
apartments. Byzantine influence travelled to Russia where there- 
was a fairly strict seclusion of women right up to Peter the Great's 
time. This had nothing to do with the Tartars who, it is well 
established, did not segregate their women-folk. The mixed Arab- 
Persian civilization was affected in many ways by Byzantine customs 
and possibly the segregation of upper-class women grew to some 

*From Sir H. M. Elliot's 'History of India', Vol. 1, p. 88. 
242 



extent. Yet, even so, there was no strict seclusion of women in 
Arabia or in other parts of western or central Asia. The Afghans, 
who crowded into northern India after the capture of Delhi, had 
no strict purdah. Turkish and Afghan princesses and ladies of the 
court often went riding, hunting, and paying visits. It is an old 
Islamic custom, still to be observed, that women must keep their 
laces unveiled during the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Purdah seems 
to have grown in India during Mughal times, when it became a 
mark of status and prestige among both Hindus and Moslems. 
This custom of seclusion of women spread especially among the 
upper classes of those areas where Moslem influence had been 
most marked — in the great central and eastern block comprising 
Delhi, the United Provinces, Rajputana, Bihar, and Bengal. And 
yet it is odd that purdah has not been very strict in the Punjab and 
in the Frontier Province, which are predominantly Moslem. In 
the south and west of India there has been no such seclusion of 
women, except to some extent among the Moslems. 

I have no doubt at all that among the causes of India's decay 
in recent centuries, purdah, or the seclusion of women, holds an 
important place. I am even more convinced that the complete 
ending of this barbarous custom is essential before India can 
have a progressive social life. That it injures women is obvious 
enough, but the injury to man, to the growing child who has to 
spend much of its time among women in purdah, and to social 
life generally is equally great. Fortunately this evil practice is 
fast disappearing among the Hindus, more slowly among the 
Moslems. 

The strongest factor in this liquidation of purdah has been 
the Congress political and social movements which have drawn 
tens of thousands of middle-class women into some kind of 
public activity. Gandhiji has been, and is, a fierce opponent 
of purdah and has called it a 'vicious and brutal custom' which 
has kept women backward and undeveloped. 'I thought of the 
wrong being done by men to the women of India by clinging to 
a barbarous custom which, whatever use it might have had when 
it was first introduced, had now become totally useless and was 
doing incalculable harm to the country.' Gandhiji urged that 
woman should have the "same' liberty and opportunity of self- 
development as man. 'Good sense must govern the relations 
between the two sexes. There should be no barrier erected 
between them. Their mutual behaviour should be natural and 
spontaneous.' Gandhiji has indeed written and spoken with pas- 
sion in favour of women's equality and freedom, and has bitterly 
condemned their domestic slavery. 

I have digressed and made a sudden jump to modern times, 
and must go back to the medieval period after the Afghans had 
established themselves in Delhi and a synthesis was working 

243 



itself out between old ways and new. Most of these changes took 
place at the top, among the nobility and upper classes, and did 
not affect the mass of the population, especially the rural masses. 
They originated in court circles and spread in the cities and 
urban areas. Thus began a process which was to continue for 
several centuries, of developing a mixed culture in north India. 
Delhi, and what are known now as the United Provinces, became 
the centre of this, just as they had been, and still continued to 
be, the centre of the old Aryan culture. But much of this Aryan 
culture drifted to the south, which became a stronghold of Hindu 
orthodoxy. 

After the Delhi Sultanate had weakened owing to Timur's 
incursion, a small Moslem state grew up in Jaunpur (in the 
United Provinces). Right through the fifteenth century this was 
a centre of art and culture and toleration in religion. The grow- 
ing popular language, Hindi, was encouraged, and an attempt 
was even made to bring about a synthesis between the religious 
faiths of the Hindus and the Moslems. About this time in far 
Kashmir in the north an independent Moslem King, Zainul- 
abdin, also became famous for his toleration and his encourage- 
ment of Sanskrit learning and the old culture. 

All over India this new ferment was working and new ideas 
were troubling people's minds. As of old, India was sub-consciously 
reacting to the new situation, trying to absorb the foreign element 
and herself changing somewhat in the process. Out of this ferment 
arose new types of reformers who deliberately preached this 
synthesis and often condemned or ignored the caste system. There 
was the Hindu Ramanand in the south, in the fifteenth century, 
and his still more famous disciple Kabir, a Moslem weaver of 
Benares. Kabir's poems and songs became, and still are, very 
popular. In the north there was Guru Nanak, who is considered 
the founder of Sikhism. The influence of these reformers went 
far beyond the limits of the particular sects that grew up after 
them. Hinduism as a whole felt the impact of the new ideas, and 
Islam in India also became somewhat different from what it was 
elsewhere. The fierce monotheism of Islam influenced Hinduism 
and the vague pantheistic attitude of the Hindu had its effect on 
the Indian Moslem. Most of these Indian Moslems were converts 
bred up in and surrounded by the old traditions; only a compara- 
tively small number of them had come from outside. Moslem 
mysticism, and Sufism, which probably had had it beginnings in 
neo-Platonism, grew. 

Perhaps the most significant indication of the growing absorp- 
tion of the foreign element in India was its use of the popular 
language of the country, even though Persian continued to be 
the court language. There are many notable books written by 
the early Moslems in Hindi. The most famous of these writers 

244 



was Amir Khusrau, a Turk whose family had setded in the 
United Provinces for two or three generations and who lived in 
the fourteenth century during the reigns of several Afghan Sul- 
tans. He was a poet of the first rank in Persian, and he knew 
Sanskrit also. He was a great musician and introduced many 
innovations in Indian music. He is also said to have invented 
the sitar, the popular stringed instrument of India. He wrote 
on many subjects and, in particular, in praise of India, enu- 
merating the various things in which India excelled. Among 
these were religion, philosophy, logic, language, and grammar 
(Sanskrit), music, mathematics, science and the mango fruit! 

But his fame in India rests, above all, on his popular songs, 
written in the ordinary spoken dialect of Hindi. Wisely he did 
not choose the literary medium which would have been under- 
stood by a small coterie only; he went to the villager not only 
for his language but for his customs and ways of living. He sang 
of the different seasons and each season, according to the old 
classical style of India, had its own appropriate tune and words; 
he sang of life in its various phases, of the coming of the bride, 
of separation from the beloved, of the rains when life springs 
anew from the parched earth. Those songs are still widely sung 
and may be heard in any village or town in northern or central 
India. Especially when the rainy season begins and in every 
village big swings are hung from the branches of the mango 
or the peepul trees, and all the village girls and boys gather to- 
gether to celebrate the occasion. 

Amir Khusrau was the author also of innumerable riddles and 
conundrums which are very popular with children as well as 
grown-ups. Even during his long life Khusrau's songs and riddles 
had made him famous. That reputation has continued and 
grown. I do not know if there is any other instance anywhere 
of songs written 600 years go maintaining their popularity and 
their mass appeal and being still sung without any change of 
words. 

The Indian Social Structure. Importance of the Group 

Almost everyone who knows anything at all about India has 
heard of the caste system; almost every outsider and many people 
in India condemn it or criticize it as a whole. Probably there is 
hardly anyone left even in India who approves of it in all its 
present ramifications and developments, though there are undoub- 
tedly many still who accept its basic theory and large numbers 
of Hindus adhere to it in their lives. Some confusion arises in 
the use of the word caste for different people attach different 
meaning to it. The average European, or an Indian who is allied 
to him in thought and approach, thinks of it as just a petrification 

245 



of classes, an ingenious method to preserve a certain hierarchy of 
classes, to keep the upper classes permanently at the top and the 
lower ones permanently at the bottom of the scale. There is truth in 
that and in its origin it was probably a device to keep the Aryan 
conquerors apart from and above the conquered peoples. Undoub- 
tedly in its growth it has acted in that way, though originally 
there may have been a good deal of flexibility about it. Yet that 
is only a part of the truth and it does not explain its power and 
cohesiveness and the way it has lasted down to our present day. 
It survived not only the powerful impact of Buddhism and many 
centuries of Afghan and Mughal rule and the spread of Islam, 
but also the strenuous efforts of innumerable Hindu reformers who 
raised their voices against it. It is only to-day that it is seriously 
threatened and its very basis has been attacked. That is not chiefly 
because of some powerful urge to reform itself which has arisen in 
Hindu society, though such urge is undoubtedly present, nor is 
it because of ideas from the west, though such ideas have certainly 
exerted their influence. The change that is taking place before 
our eyes is due essentially to basic economic changes which have 
shaken up the whole fabric of Indian society and are likely to upset 
it completely. Conditions of life have changed and thought-pat- 
terns are changing so much that it seems impossible for the caste 
system to endure. What will take its place is more than I can say, 
for something much more than the caste system is at stake. The 
conflict is between two approaches to the problem of social 
organisation, which are diametrically opposed to each other: 
the old Hindu conception of the group being the basic unit of 
organisation, and the excessive individualism of the west, empha- 
sizing the individual above the group. 

That conflict is not of India only; it is of the west also and of 
the entire world, though it takes different forms there. The 
nineteenth century civilization of Europe, taking shape in demo- 
cratic liberalism and its extensions in the economic and social 
fields, represented the high-water mark of that individualism. 
That nineteenth century ideology with its social and political 
organization has extended itself and flowed into the twentieth 
century, but it seems wholly out of date now and is cracking 
under stress of crisis and war. The importance of the group and 
the community is emphasized more now, and the problem is to 
reconcile the respective claims of the individual and the group. 
The solution of that problem may take different forms in different 
countries, yet there will be an ever-increasing tendency for one 
basic solution to apply to all. 

The caste system does not stand by itself; it is a pait, and an 
integral part, of a much larger scheme of social organization. 
It may be possible to remove some of its obvious abuses and to 
lessen its rigidity, and yet to leave thfc system intact. But that 

246 



is highly unlikely, as the social and economic forces at play are 
not much concerned with this superstructure; they are attacking 
it at the base and undermining the other supports which held 
it up. Indeed, great parts of these are already gone or are rapidly 
going, and more and more the caste system is left stranded by 
itself. It has ceased to be a question of whether we like caste or 
dislike it. Changes are taking place in spite of our likes and 
dislikes. But it is certainly in our power to mould those changes 
and direct them, so that we can take full advantage of the character 
and genius of the Indian people as a whole, which have been so 
evident in the cohesiveness and stability of the social organization 
they built up. 

Sir George Birdwood has said somewhere: 'So long as the 
Hindus hold to the caste system, India will be India; but from 
the day they break from it, there will be no more India. That 
glorious peninsula will be degraded to the position of a bitter 
"East End" of the Anglo-Saxon Empire.' With caste or without 
it, we have long been degraded to that position in the British 
Empire; and, in any event, whatever our future position is likely 
to be, it will not be confined within the bounds of that empire. 
But there is some truth in what Sir George Birdwood said, though 
probably he did not look at it from this point of view. The break- 
up of a huge and long standing social organization may well lead 
to a complete disruption of social life, resulting in absence of 
cohesion, mass suffering and the development on a vast scale of 
abnormalities in individual behaviour, unless some other social 
structure, more suited to the times and to the genius of the people, 
takes its place. Perhaps disruption is inevitable during the transi- 
tion period; there is enough of this disruption all over the world 
to-day. Perhaps it is only through the pain and suffering that 
accompany such disruption that a people grow and learn the 
lessons of life and adapt themselves anew to changing conditions. 

Nevertheless, we cannot just disrupt and hope for something 
better without having some vision of the future we are working 
for, however vague that vision may be. We cannot just create 
a vacuum, or else that vacuum will fill itself up in a way that 
we may have to deplore. In the constructive schemes that we 
may make, we have to pay attention to the human material we 
have to deal with, to the background of its thought and urges, 
and to the environment in which we have to function. To ignore 
all this and to fashion some idealistic scheme in the air, or merely 
to think in terms of imitating what others have done elsewhere, 
would be folly. It becomes desirable therefore to examine and 
understand the old Indian social structure which has so powerfully 
influenced our people. 

This structure was based on three concepts: the autonomous 
village community, caste, and the joint family system. In all 

247 



these three it is the group that counts; the individual has a 
secondary place. There is nothing very unique about all this 
separately and it is easy to find something equivalent to any of 
these three in other countries, especially in mediaeval times. 
Like the old Indian republics, there were primitive republics 
elsewhere. There was also a kind of primitive communism. The 
old Russian mir might be comparable in some way to the Indian 
village community. Caste has been essentially functional and 
similar to the medieval trade guilds of Europe. The Chinese 
family system bears a strong resemblance to the Hindu joint 
family. I do not know enough of all these to carry the comparison 
far, and, in any case, it is not important for my purpose. Taken 
as a whole the entire Indian structure was certainly unique and, 
as it developed, it became more so. 

Village Self-Government. The Shukra Nitisara 

There is an old book of the tenth century which gives us some 
idea of Indian polity as it was conceived prior to the Turkish 
and Afghan invasions. This is the Nitisara, the Science of Polity, 
by Shukracharya. It deals with the organization of the central 
government as well as of town and village life; of the king's 
council of state and various departments of government. The 
village panchayat or elected council has large powers, both execu- 
tive and judicial, and its members were treated with the greatest 
respect by the king's officers. Land was distributed by this 
panchayat, which also collected taxes out of the produce and paid 
the government's share on behalf of the village. Over a number 
of these village councils there was a larger panchayat or council 
to supervise and interfere if necessary. 

Some old inscriptions further tell us how the members of the 
village councils were elected and what their qualifications and 
disqualifications were. Various committees were formed, elected 
annually, and women could serve on them. In case of misbeha- 
viour, a member could be removed. A member could be dis- 
qualified if he failed to render accounts of public funds. An intere- 
sting rule to prevent nepotism is mentioned: near relatives of 
members were not to be appointed to public office. 

These village councils were very jealous of their liberties and 
it was laid down that no soldier could enter the village unless 
he had a royal permit. If the people complained of an official, 
the Nitisara says that the king 'should take the side, not of his 
officers, but of his subjects.' If many complained then the official 
was to be dismissed, 'for who does not get intoxicated by drink- 
ing of the vanity of office.' The king was to act in accordance 
with the opinion of the majority of the people. 'Public opinion 
is more powerful than the king as the rope made of many fibres 

248 



is strong enough to drag a lion.' 'In making official appoint- 
ments work, character and merit are to be regarded neither caste 
nor family,' and 'neither through colour nor through ancestors 
can the spirit worthy of a Brahmin be geneiated.' 

In the larger towns there were many artisans and merchants, 
and craft guilds, mercantile associations, and banking corpora- 
tions were formed. Each of these controlled its own domestic 
affairs. 

All this information is very fragmentary but it does appear 
from this and many other sources that there was a widespread 
system of self-government in towns and villages and the central 
government seldom interfeied, so long as its quota of taxes was 
paid. Customary law was strong and the political or military 
power seldom interfered with rights based on custom. Originally 
the agrarian system was based on a co-operative or collective 
village. Individuals and families had certain rights as well as 
certain obligations, both of which were determined and pro- 
tected by customary law. 

There was no theocratic monarchy in India. In Indian polity 
if the king is unjust or tyrannical, the right to rebel against him 
is admitted. What the Chinese philosopher, Mencius, said 2,000 
years ago might apply to India: 'When a ruler treats his subjects 
like grass and dirt, then subjects should treat him as a bandit 
and an enemy.' The whole conception of monarchical power 
differed from that of European feudalism, where the king had 
authority over all persons and things in his domain. This authority 
he delegated to lords and barons who vowed allegiance to him. 
Thus a hierarchy of authority was built up. Both the land and 
the people connected with it belonged to the feudal lord and, 
through him, to the king. This was the development of the 
Roman conception of dominium. In India there was nothing of 
this kind. The king had the right to collect certain taxes from 
the land and this revenue-collecting power was all he could 
delegate to others. The peasant in India was not the lord's serf. 
There was plenty of land available and there was no advantage in 
dispossessing the peasant. Thus in India there was no landlord 
system, as known in the west, nor was the individual peasant the 
full owner of his patch of land. Both these concepts were intro- 
duced much later by the British with disastrous results. 

Foreign conquests brought war and destructon, revolts and 
their ruthless suppression, and new ruling classes relying chiefly 
on armed force. This ruling class could often ignore the numer- 
ous constitutional restraints which had always been part of the 
customary law of the country. Important consequences followed 
and the power of the self-governing village communities decreas- 
ed and later various changes were introduced in the land-reve- 
nue system. Nevertheless the Afghan and Mughal rulers took 

249 



special care not to interfere with old customs and conventions 
and no fundamental changes were introduced, and the economic 
and social structure of Indian life continued as before. Ghyas- 
ud-Din Tughlak issued definite instructions to his officials to 
preserve customary law and to keep the affairs of the state apart 
from religion, which was a personal matter of individual pre- 
ference. But changing times and conflicts, as well as the increas- 
ing centralization of government, slowly but progressively les- 
sened the respect given to customary law. The village self- 
governing community, however, continued. Its break-up began 
only under British rule. 

The Theory and Practice of Caste. The Joint Family 

'In India', says Havell, 'religion is hardly a dogma, but a work- 
ing hypothesis of human conduct adapted to different stages of 
spiritual development and different conditions of life.' In the 
ancient days when Indo-Aryan culture first took shape, religion 
had to provide for the needs of men who were as far removed 
from each other in civilization and intellectual and spiritual 
development as it is possible to conceive. There were primitive 
forest-dwellers, fetishists, totem-worshippers and believers in 
every kind of superstition, and there were those who had attained 
the highest flights of spiritual thought. In between, there was 
every shade and gradation of belief and practice. While the 
highest forms of thought were pursued by some, these were wholly 
beyond the reach of many. As social life grew, certain uniformi- 
ties of belief spread, but, even so, many differences, cultural and 
temperamental, remained. The Indo-Aryan approach was to 
avoid the forcible suppression of any belief or the destruction of 
any claim. Each group was left free to work out its ideals along 
the plane of its mental development and understanding. Assimila- 
tion was attempted but there was no denial or suppression. 

A similar and even more difficult problem had to be faced in 
social organization. How to combine these utterly different 
groups in one social system, each group co-operating with the 
whole and yet retaining its own freedom to live its own life and 
develop itself. In a sense — though the comparison is farfetched — 
this may be compared to the numerous minority problems of to-day 
which afflict so many countries and are still far from solution. The 
United States of America solve their minority problems, more or 
less, by trying to make every citizen a 100 per cent American. 
They make everyone conform to a certain type. Other countries, 
with a longer and more complicated past, are not so favourably 
situated. Even Canada has its strong race, religion and language- 
conscious French group. In Europe the barriers are higher and 
deeper. And yet all this applies to Europeans, or those who have 

250 



spread from Europe; people who have a certain common back- 
ground and similarity of culture. Where non-Europeans come 
in, they do not fit this pattern. In the United States, negroes, 
though they may be 100 per cent American, are a race apart, 
deprived of many opportunities and privileges, which others have 
as a matter of course. There are innumerable worse examples 
elsewhere. Only Soviet Russia is said to have solved its problem 
of nationalities and minorities by creating what is called a multi- 
national state. 

If these difficulties and problems pursue us even to-day with 
all our knowledge and progress, how much harder they must 
have been in the ancient days when the Indo-Aryans were 
evolving their civilization and social structure in a land full 
of variety and different types of human beings. The normal 
way to deal with these problems then and later was to exter- 
minate or enslave the conquered populations. This way was 
not followed in India, but it is clear that every precaution was 
taken to perpetuate the superior position of the upper groups. 
Having ensured that superiority, a kind of multiple-community 
state was built up, in which, within certain limits and subject 
to some general rules, freedom was given to each group to follow 
its avocation and live its own life in accordance with its own 
customs or desires. The only real restriction was that it must 
not interfere or come into conflict with another group. This 
was a flexible and expanding system, for new groups could always 
be formed either by newcomers or by dissident members of an 
old group, provided they were numerous enough to do so. Within 
each group there was equality and democracy and the elected 
leaders guided it and frequently consulted the entire group when- 
never any important question arose. 

These groups were almost always functional, each specializing 
in a particular trade or craft. They became thus some kind of 
trade unions or craft-guilds. There was a strong sense of solidarity 
within each, which not only protected the group but sheltered 
and helped an individual member who got into trouble or was 
in economic distress. The functions of each group or caste were 
related to the functions of other castes, and the idea was that 
if each group functioned successfully within its own framework, 
then society as a whole worked harmoniously. Over and above 
this, a strong and fairly successful attempt was made to create, 
a common national bond which would hold all these groups 
together — the sense of a common culture, common traditions, 
common heroes and saints, and a common land to the four 
corners of which people went on pilgrimage. This national bond 
was of course very different from present-day nationalism; it was 
weak politically but, socially and culturally, it was strong. Be- 
cause of its political lack of cohesiveness it facilitated foreign 

251 



conquest; because of its social strength it made recovery easy, 
as well as assimilation of new elements. It had so many heads 
that they could not be cut off and they survived conquest and 
disaster. 

Thus caste was a group system based on services and func- 
tions. It was meant to be an all-inclusive order without any 
common dogma and allowing the fullest latitude to each group. 
Within its wide fold there was monogamy, polygamy, and celi- 
bacy; they were all tolerated, just as other customs, beliefs, and 
practices were tolerated. Life was to be maintained at all levels. 
No minority need submit to a majority, for it could always form 
a separate autonomous group, the only test being: is it a distinc- 
tive group large enough to function as such? Between two groups 
there could be any amount of variation of race, religion, colour, 
culture, and intellectual development. 

An individual was only considered as a member of a group; 
he could do anything he liked so long as he did not interfere 
with the functioning of the group. He had no right to upset that 
functioning, but if he was strong enough and could gather enough 
supporters, it was open to him to form another group. If he could 
not fit in with any group, that meant that he was out ofjoint so 
far as the social activities of the world were concerned. He could 
then become a sanyasi who had renounced caste, every group 
and the world of activity, and could wander about and do what 
he liked. 

It must be remembered that while the Indian social tendency 
was to subordinate the individual to the claims of the group and 
society, religious thought and spiritual seeking have always em- 
phasized the individual. Salvation and knowledge of the ulti- 
mate truth were open to all, to the member of every caste, high 
or low. This salvation or enlightenment could not be a group 
affair; it was highly individualistic. In the search for this salva- 
tion also there were no inflexible dogmas and all doors were 
supposed to lead to it. 

Though the group system was dominant in the organization 
of society, leading to caste, there has always been an individual- 
istic tendency in India. A conflict between the two approaches 
is often in evidence. Partly that individualism was the result of 
the religious doctrine which laid emphasis on the individual. 
Social reformers who criticized or condemned the caste system 
were usually religious reformers and their main argument was 
that the divisions of the caste system came in the way of spiri- 
tual development and that intense individualism to which religion 
pointed. Buddhism was a breakaway from the group-caste ideal 
towards some kind of individualism as well as universalism. But 
this individualism became associated with a withdrawal from 
normal social activites. It offered no effective alternative social 

252 



structure to caste, and so caste continued then and later. 

What were the main castes? If we leave out for a moment 
those who were considered outside the pale of caste, the un- 
touchables, there were the Brahmins, the priests, teachers, intel- 
lectuals; the Kshatriyas or the rulers and warriors; the Vaishyas 
or merchants, traders, bankers, etc.; and the Shudras, who were 
the agricultural and other workers. Probably the only closely 
knit and exclusive caste was that of the Brahmins. The Kshat- 
riyas were frequently adding to their numbers both from foreign 
incoming elements and others in the country who rose to power 
and authority. The Vaishyas were chiefly traders and bankers 
and also engaged in a number of other professions. The main 
occupations of the Shudras were cultivation and domestic service. 

There was always a continuous process of new castes being 
formed as new occupations developed, and for other reasons the 
older castes were always trying to get up in the social scale. 
These processes have continued to our day. Some of the lower 
castes suddenly take to wearing the sacred thread which is sup- 
posed to be reserved for the upper castes. All this really made 
little difference, as each caste continued to function in its own 
ambit and pursued its own trade or occupation. It was merely 
a question of prestige. Occasionally men of the lower classes, 
by sheer ability, attained to positions of power and authority 
in the state, but this was very exceptional. 

The organization of society being, generally speaking, non- 
competitive and non-acquisitive, these divisions into castes did 
not make as much difference as they might otherwise have done. 
The Brahmin at the top, proud of his intellect and learning and 
respected by others, seldom had much in the way of worldly 
possessions. The merchant, prosperous and rich, had no very 
high standing in society as a whole. 

The vast majority of the population consisted of the agricul- 
turists. There was no landlord system, nor was there any pea- 
sant proprietorship. It is difficult to say who owned the land 
in law; there was nothing like the present doctrine of owner- 
ship. The cultivator had the right to till his land and the only 
real question was as to the distribution of the produce of the 
land. The major share went to the cultivator, the king or the 
state took a share (usually one-sixth), and every functional group 
in the village, which served the people in any way, had its share — 
the Brahmin priest and teacher, the merchant, the blacksmith, 
the carpenter, the cobbler, the potter, the builder, the barber, 
the scavenger, etc. Thus, in a sense, every group from the state 
to the scavenger was a shareholder in the produce. 

Who were the depressed classes and the untouchables? The 
'depressed classes' is a new designation applying rather vaguely 
to a number of castes near the bottom of the scale. There is no 

253 



hard and fast line to separate them from the others. The un- 
touchables are more definite. In north India only a very small 
number, engaged in scavenging or unclean work, are considered 
untouchable. Fa-Hsien tells us that when he came the persons 
who removed human faeces were untouchable. In south India 
the numbers are much larger. How they began and grew to such 
numbers it is difficult to say. Probably those who were engaged 
in occupations considered unclean were so treated; later landless 
agricultural labour may have been added. 

The idea of ceremonial purity has been extraordinarily strong 
among the Hindus. This has led to one good consequence and 
many bad ones. The good one is bodily cleanliness. A daily bath 
has always been a essential feature of a Hindu's life, including 
most of the depressed classes. It was from India that this habit 
spread to England and elsewhere. The average Hindu, and even 
the poorest peasant, takes some pride in his shining pots and 
pans. This sense of cleanliness is not scientific and the man who 
bathes twice a day will unhesitatingly drink water that is unclean 
and full of germs. Nor is it corporate, at any rate now. The 
individual will keep his own hut fairly clean but throw all the 
rubbish in the village street in front of his neighbour's house. 
The village is usually very dirty and full of garbage heaps. 
It is also noticeable that cleanliness is not thought of as such but 
as a consequence of some religious sanction. When that religious 
sanction goes, there is marked deterioration in the standards of 
cleanliness. 

The evil consequence of ceremonial purity was a growth of 
exclusiveness, touch-me-notism, and of not eating and drinking 
with people of other castes. This grew to fantastic lengths un- 
known in any other part of the world. It led also to certain 
classes being considered untouchable because they had the mis- 
fortune to do some kinds of essential work which were consi- 
dered unclean. The practice of normally feeding with one's 
own caste people spread to all castes. It became a sign of social 
status and the lower castes stuck to it even more rigidly than 
some of the higher ones. This practice is breaking up now among 
the higher castes but it still continues among the lower castes, 
including the depressed classes. 

If interdining was taboo, much more so was intermarriage 
between castes. Some mixed marriages inevitably took place but 
on the whole it is extraordinary how much each caste kept to 
itself and propagated its own kind. The continuation of racial 
identity through long ages is an illusion and yet the caste sys- 
tem in India has to some extent managed to preserve distinctive 
types, epescially among the higher castes. 

Some groups at the bottom of the scale are sometimes referred 
to as outside the caste groups. As a matter of fact, no group 

254 



not even the untouchables, are outside the framework of the 
caste system. The depressed classes and the untouchables form 
their own castes and have their panchayats or caste councils for 
settling their own affairs. But many of them have been made to 
suffer cruelly by being excluded from the common life of the 
village. 

The autonomous village community and the caste system were 
thus two of the special features of the old Indian social struc- 
ture. The third was the joint family where all the members were 
joint sharers in the common property and inheritance went by 
survivorship. The father or some other elder was the head but he 
functioned as a manager, and not as the old Roman paterfami- 
lias. A division of property was permitted under certain circum- 
stances and if the parties concerned so desired. The joint pro- 
perty was supposed to provide for the needs of all the members 
of the family, workers or non-workers. Inevitably this meant a 
guaranteed minimum for all of them, rather than high rewards 
for some. It was a kind of insurance for all including even the 
subnormal and the physically or mentally deficient. Thus while 
there was security for all, there was a certain levelling down 
of the standard of service demanded as well as of the recom- 
pense given. Emphasis was not laid on personal advantage or 
ambition but on that of the group, that is the family. The fact 
of growing up and living in a large family minimized the ego- 
centric attitude of the child and tended to develop an aptitude 
for socialization. 

All this is the very opposite of what happens in the highly 
individualistic civilization of the west and more especially of 
America, where personal ambition is encouraged and personal 
advantage is the almost universal aim, where all the plums go 
to the bright and pushing, and the weak, timid or second rate 
go to the wall. 

The joint family system is rapidly breaking up in India and 
individualistic attitudes are developing, leading not only to far- 
reaching changes in the economic background of life but also 
to new problems of behaviour. 

All the three pillars of the Indian social structure were thus 
based on the group and not on the individual. The aim was 
social security, stability and continuance of the group, that is 
of society. Progress was not the aim and progress therefore had 
to suffer. Within each group, whether this was the village com- 
munity, the particular caste, or the large joint family, there was 
a communal life shared together, a sense of equality, and demo- 
cractic methods. Even now caste panchayats function democracti- 
cally. It surprised me at one time to see the eagerness of a villager, 
sometimes illiterate, to serve on elected committees for political 
or other purposes. He soon got into the way of it and was a helpful 

255 



member whenever any question relating to his life came up, and 
was not easily subdued. But there was an unfortunate tendency 
for small groups to split up and quarrel among themselves. 

The democratic way was not only well-known but was a com- 
mon method of functioning in social life, in local government, 
trade-guilds, religious assemblies, etc. Caste, with all its evils, 
kept up the democratic habit in each group. There used to be 
elaborate rules of procedure, election and debate. The Marquis 
of Zetland has referred to some of these in writing about the early 
Buddhist assemblies: 'And it may come as a surprise to many to 
learn that in the Assemblies of the Buddhists in India 2,000 or 
more years ago are to be found the rudiments of our own parlia- 
mentary practice of the present day. The dignity of the Assembly 
was preserved by the appointment of a special officer — the embryo 
of "Mr. Speaker" in the House of Commons. A second officer 
was appointed whose duty it was to see that when necessary a 
quorum was secured — the prototype of the parliamentary chief 
whip in our own system. A member initiating business A did so in 
the form of a motion which was then open to discussion. In some 
cases this was done once only, in others three times, thus anticipat- 
ing the practice of parliament in requiring that a Bill be read a 
third time before it becomes law. If discussion disclosed a diffe- 
rence of opinion the matter was decided by the vote of the majority, 
the voting being by ballot.'* 

The old Indian social structure had thus some virtues, and 
indeed it could not have lasted so long without them. Behind 
it lay the philosophical ideal of Indian culture — the integra- 
tion of man and the stress of goodness, beauty and truth rather 
than acquisitiveness. An attempt was made to prevent the join- 
ing together and concentration of honour, power, and wealth. 
The duties of the individual and the group were emphasized, 
not their rights. 

The Smritis (Hindu religious books) give lists of dharmas, 
functions and duties of various castes but none of them contains 
an inventory of rights. Self-sufficiency was aimed at in the group, 
especially in the village and, in a different sense, in the caste. It 
was a closed system, allowing a certain adaptability, change, and 
freedom within its outer framework, but inevitably growing more 
and more exclusive and rigid. Progressively it lost its power to 
expand and tap new sources of talent. Powerful vested interests 
prevented any radical change and kept education from spreading 
to other classes. The old superstitions, known to be such by many 
among the upper classes, were preserved and new ones were added 
to them. Not only the national economy but thought itself became 
stationary, traditional, rigid, unexpansive and unprogressive. 

The conception and practice of caste embodied the aristo- 

* Quoted by G T. Garratt in 'The Ltgacy of India' (1937), p. xi. 
256 



cratic ideal and was obviously opposed to democratic concep- 
tions. It had its strong sense of noblesse oblige, provided people 
[kept to their hereditary stations and did not challenge the estab- 
lished order. India's success and achievements were on the whole 
[confined to the upper classes; those lower down in the scale had 
[very few chances and their opportunities were stricdy limited. 
I These upper classes were not small limited groups but large in 
numbers and there was a diffusion of power, authority and in- 
fluence. Hence they carried on successfully for a very long period. 
But the ultimate weakness and failing of the caste system and the 
Indian social structure were that they degraded a mass of human 
beings and gave them no opportunities to get out of that condi- 
tion — educationally, culturally, or economically. That degrada- 
I tion brought deterioration, all along the line including in its scope 
even the upper classes. It led to the petrification which became a 
dominant feature of India's economy and life. The contrasts 
between this social structure and those existing elsewhere in the 
past were not great, but with the changes that have taken place 
all over the world during the past few generations they have be- 
come far more pronounced. In the context of society to-day, 
the caste system and much that goes with it are wholly incom- 
patible, reactionary, restrictive, and barriers to progress. There 
can be no equality in status and opportunity within its framework, 
nor can there be political democracy and much less economic 
democracy. Between these two conceptions conflict is inherent and 
only one of them can survive. 

Babar and Akbar: The Process of Indianization 

To go back. The Afghans had settled down in India and had 
become Indianized. Their rulers had to face first the problem 
of lessening the hostility of the people and then of winning them 
over. So, as a deliberate policy, they toned down their early 
ruthless methods, became more tolerant, invited co-operation, 
and tried to function not as conquerors from outside but as Indians 
born and bred in the land. What was at first a policy gradually 
became an inevitable trend as the Indian environment influenced 
these people from the north-west and absorbed them. While the 
process continued at the top, more powerful currents arose spon- 
taneously among the people, aiming at a synthesis of thought and 
ways of living. The beginnings of a mixed culture began to appear 
and foundations were laid on which Akbar was to build. 

Akbar was the third of the Mughal dynasty in India, yet it 
was in effect by him that'the empire was consolidated. His grand- 
father, Babai, had won the throne of Delhi in 1526, but he was a 
stranger to India and continued to feel so. He had come from the 
north, where the Timurid Renaissance was flourishing in his 

257 



homelands in central Asia and the influence of the art and culture 
of Iran was strong. He missed the friendly-society he was used to, 
the delights of conversation, the amenities and refinements of | 
life which had spread from Baghdad and Iran. He longed for the 
snow and ice of the northern highlands, for the good flesh and 
flowers and fruits of Ferghana. Yet, with all his disappointment 
at what he saw, he says that Hindustan is a remarkably fine country. 
Babar died within four years of his coming to India, and much 
of his time was spent in fighting and in laying out a splendid 
capital at Agra, for which he obtained the services of a famous 
architect from Constantinople. Those were the days of Suleiman 
the Magnificent in Constantinople, when fine buidings were 
rising up in that city. 

Babar saw little of India and, surrounded as he was by a hostile 
people, missed much. Yet his account tells us of the cultural 
poverty that had descended on north India. Partly this was due 
to Timur's destruction, partly to the exodus of many learned men 
and artists and noted craftsmen to the south. But it was also due 
to the drying up of the creative genius of the Indian people. Babar 
says that there was no lack of skilled workers and artisans, but 
there was no ingenuity or skill in mechanical invention. Also, it 
would appear that in the amenities and luxuries of life India was 
considerably behind Iran. Whether this was due to some inherent 
want of interest in this aspect of life in the Indian mind or to later 
developments, I do not know. Perhaps, as compared with the 
Iranians, the Indians of those days were not so much attracted to 
these refinements and luxuries. If they had cared for them suffi- 
ciently they could have easily got them from Iran, as there was 
frequent intercourse between the two countries. But it is more 
likely that this was a later development, another sign of the cultural 
rigidity and decline of India. 

In earlier periods, as can be seen from classical literature and 
paintings, there was refinement enough and, for those times, 
a high and complicated standard of living. Even when Babar 
came to north India, Vijayanagar in the south had been spoken 
of by many European travellers as representing a very high stand- 
ard of art and culture, refinement and luxury. 

But in north India cultural decay was very evident. Fixed 
beliefs and a rigid social structure prevented social effort and 
advance. The coming of Islam and of a considerable number of i 
people from outside, with different ways of living and thought, 
affected existing beliefs and structure. A foreign conquest, with 
all its evils, has one advantage: it widens the mental horizon 
of the people and compels them to look out of their shells. They 
realise that the world is a much bigger and more variegated 
place than they had imagined. So the Afghan conquest had 
affected India and many changes had taken place. Even more 

258 



so the Mughals, who were far more cultured and advanced in 
ways of living than the Afghans, brought changes to India. In 
particular, they introduced the refinements for which Iran was 
famous, even to the extent of the highly artificial and strictly 
prescribed court life, which influenced the ways of living of the 
nobility. The Bahmani kingdom in the south had direct con- 
tacts with Iran via Calicut. 

There were many changes in India and new impulses brought 
freshness and life to art and architecture and other cultural 
patterns. And yet all this was the result of two old-world pat- 
terns coming into contact, both of which had lost their initial 
vitality and creative vigour and were set in rigid frames. Indian 
culture was very old and tired, the Arab-Persian culture had 
long passed its zenith and the old curiosity and sense of mental 
adventure which distinguished the Arabs were no more in evidence. 

Babar is an attractive person, a typical Renaissance prince, 
bold and adventurous, fond of art and literature and good living. 
His giandson, Akbar, is even more attractive and has greater 
qualities. Daring and reckless, an able general, and yet gentle 
and full of compassion, an idealist and a dreamer, but also a man 
of action and a leader of men who roused the passionate loyalty 
of his followers. As a warrior he conquered large parts of India, 
but his eyes were set on another and more enduring conquest, the 
conquest of the minds and hearts of the people. Those compelling 
eyes of his were 'vibrant like the sea in sunshine,' as Portuguese 
Jesuits of his court have told us. In him the old dream of a united 
India again took shape, united not only politically in one state 
but organically fused into one people. 

Throughout his long reign of nearly fifty years from 1556 on- 
wards he laboured to this end. Many a proud Rajput chief, who 
would not have submitted to any other person, he won over to 
his side. He married a Rajput princess, and his son and successor, 
Jehangir, was thus a half Mughal and halfRajput Hindu. Jehangir's 
son, Shah Jehan, was also the son of a Rajput mother. Thus racially 
this Turko-Mongol dynasty became far more Indian than Turk 
or Mongol. 

Akbar was an admirer of and felt a kinship with the Rajputs, 
and by his matrimonial and other policy he formed an alliance 
with the Rajput ruling classes which strengthened his empire 
greatly. This Mughal-Rajput co-operation, which continued in 
subsequent reigns, affected not only government and the adminis- 
tration and army, but also art, culture, and ways of living. The 
Mughal nobility became progressively Indianized and the Rajputs 
and others were influenced by Persian culture. 

Akbar won many people to his side and kept them there, but 
he failed to subdue the proud and indomitable spirit of Rana 
Pratap of Mewar in Rajputana, who preferred to lead a hunted 

259 



life in the jungle rather than give even formal allegiance to one 
he considered a foreign conqueror. 

Round himself Akbar collected a brilliant group of men, devoted 
to him and to his ideals. Among these were the two famous brothers 
Fyzee and Abul Fazl, Birbal, Raja Man Singh, and Abdul Rahim 
Khankhana. His court became a meeting place for men of all 
faiths and all who had some new idea or new invention. His 
toleration of views and his encouragement of all kinds of beliefs 
and opinions went so far as to anger some of the more orthodox 
Moslems. He even tried to start a new synthetic faith to suit 
everybody. It was in his reign that the cultural amalgamation of 
Hindu and Moslem in north India took a long step forward. 
Akbar himself was certainly as popular with the Hindus as with 
the Moslems. The Mughal dynasty became firmly established as 
India's own. 

The Contrast between Asia and Europe in 
Mechanical Advance and Creative Energy 

Akbar was full of curiosity, ever seeking to find out about things, 
both spiritual and temporal. He was interested in mechanical 
contrivances and in the science of war. He prized war-elephants 
especially, and they formed an important part of his army. The 
Portuguese Jesuits of his court tell us that 'he was interested in 
and curious to learn about many things, and possessed an inti- 
mate knowledge not only of military and political matters, but 
many of the mechanical arts.' In 'his eagerness for knowledge' 
he 'tried to learn everything at once, like a hungry man trying 
to swallow his food at a single gulp'. 

And yet it is very odd how his curiosity stopped at a point and 
did not lead him to explore certain obvious avenues which lay 
open before him. With all his great prestige as the Great Mughal 
and the strength of his empire as a land power, he was powerless 
at sea. Vasco de Gama had reached Calicut, via the Cape, in 
1498; Albuquerque had seized Malacca in 1511 and established 
Portuguese sea power in the Indian Ocean. Goa on the western 
coast of India had become a Portuguese possession. All this did 
not bring the Portuguese into direct conflict with Akbar. But 
Indian pilgrims going to Mecca by sea, and these sometimes 
included members of the imperial family, or of the nobility, were 
often held up for ransom by the Portuguese. It was obvious that 
however powerful Akbar might be on land, the Portuguese were 
masters of the sea. It is not difficult to understand that a con- 
tinental power did not attach much importance to sea power, 
although, as a matter of fact, India's greatness and importance 
in the past had been partly due to her control of the sea routes. 
Akbar had a vast continent to conquer and had little time to 

260 



spare for the Portuguese, to whom he attached no importance 
even though they stung him occasionally. He did think of build- 
ing ships once, but this was looked upon more as a pastime than 
a serious naval development. 

Again, in the matter of artillery the Mughal armies, as well as 
those of other states in India at the rime, chiefly relied on fore- 
ign experts, who were usually Turks from the Ottoman domi- 
nions. The Master of the Artillery came to be known by the title 
of Rumi Khan — Rum being eastern Rome, that is, Constanti- 
nople. These foreign experts trained local men, but why did not 
Akbar or anyone else send his own men abroad for training or 
interest himself in improvement by encouraging research work? 

Yet another very significant thing. The Jesuits presented Akbar 
with a printed Bible and perhaps one or two other printed books. 
Why did he not get curious about printing, which would have 
been of tremendous advantage to him in his governmental activi- 
ties as well as in his vast enterprises? 

Again, clocks. These were very popular with the Mughal 
nobility, and they were brought by the Portuguese and later by 
the English from Europe. They were regarded as luxuries for the 
rich, the ordinary people being content with sundials and sand- 
and water-clocks. No attempt was made to understand how these 
spring clocks were made or to get them made in India. This lack 
of mechanical bent is remarkable, especially as there were very 
fine craftsmen and artisans in India. 

It is not in India alone that this paralysis of creative energy 
and inventive faculty is visible during this period. The whole of 
western and central Asia suffered from it even more. I do not 
know about China but I imagine that some such stagnation affected 
her also. It must be remembered that both in India and China, 
during earlier periods, there was considerable progress in various 
departments of science. Shipbuilding and an extensive sea-trade 
acted as a constant spur even to mechanical improvements. It 
is true that no major mechanical development took place in either 
of these countries or in any other country at the time. The world 
of the fifteenth century was, from this point of view, not very 
different from what it had been a thousand or two thousand years 
earlier. 

The Arabs, who had developed to some extent the early begin- 
nings of practical science and had advanced knowledge in many 
ways during the dark period of the middle ages in Europe, became 
unimportant and backward. It is said that some of the earliest 
clocks were made by the Arabs in the seventh century. Damascus 
had a famous clock and so did the Baghdad of Harun-al-Rashid's 
day. But with the decline of the Arabs the art of making clocks 
also disappeared from these countries, although it was progressing 
in some of the European countries where clocks were not rarities. 

261 



Long before Caxton, the Moorish Arabs of Spain used to print 
from wooden blocks.* This was done by the state for duplication 
of official orders. Printing there does not seem to have advanced 
beyond the block stage and even that faded away later. The 
Ottoman Turks, who for long were the dominant Moslem power in 
Europe and western Asia, completely'ignored printing for many 
centuries, although printed books were being produced in large 
numbers in Europe, right at their very threshold. They must have 
known about them, but the incentive to utilize this great invention 
was totally lacking. Partly also religious sentiment was opposed 
to it, as it was considered that it was sacrilegious to print their 
holy book, the Koran. The printed sheets might be put to impro- 
per use or stepped upon or thrown into the rubbish heap. It was 
Napoleon who first introduced the printing press into Egypt and 
from there it spread very gradually and slowly into the other Arab 
countries. 

While Asia had become dormant, exhausted, as it were, by its 
past efforts, Europe, backward in many ways, was on the thres- 
hold of vast changes. A new spirit, a new ferment, was at work 
sending her adventurers across the oceans and turning the minds 
of her thinkers in novel directions. The Renaissance had done 
little for the advancement of science; to some extent it turned 
people away from science, and the humanistic conservative edu- 
cation which it introduced in the universities prevented the 
spread of even well-known scientific ideas. It is stated that the 
majority of educated English people, as late as the middle of 
the eighteenth century, declined to believe that the earth rotated 
or that it revolved round the sun, in spite of Copernicus, Galileo, 
and Newton; and the manufacture of good telescopes. Bred up in 
the Greek and Latin classics, they still clung to Ptolemy's earth- 
centred universe. That eminent English statesman of the nine- 
teenth ceruury, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, in spite of his deep erudition, 
neither understood nor was attracted to science. Even to-day 
probably there are many statesmen and public men (and not in 
India only) who know little of science or the scientific method, 
though they live in a world governed by the applications of science 
and themselves use it for large-scale slaughter and destruction. 

The Renaissance had, however, released the mind of Europe 
from many of its old fetters and destroyed many an idol that it 
had cherished. Whether it was partly and indirectly due to the 
Renaissance or whether it was in spite of it, a new spirit of objec- 
tive inquiry was making itself felt, a spirit which not only challen- 
ged old-established authority, but also abstractions and vague 

*/ do not know how this kind of printing reached the Arabs in Spain. Probably it came to 
them via the Mongols from China, long before it reached northern and western Europe. The 
Arab worldfrom Cordoba to Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad, had frequent contacts with 
China even before the Mongols appeared upon the scene. 

262 



speculations. Francis Bacon has written that 'the roads to human 
power and to human knowledge lie close together, and are nearly 
the same, nevertheless on account of the pernicious and inveterate 
habit of dwelling on abstractions it is safer to begin and raise the 
sciences from those foundations which have relation to practice 
and let the active part be as a seal which prints and determines 
the contemplative counterpart.' And later in the seventeenth 
century, Sir Thomas Browne has said: 'But the mortallest enemy 
unto knowedge, and that which hath done the greatest execution 
upon truth, hath been a peremptory adhesion to authority;-and 
more especially, the establishing of our belief upon the dictates of 
antiquity. For (as every capacity may observe) most men, of ages 
present, so superstitiously do look upon ages past, that the authori- 
ties of the one exceed the reasons of the other. Whose persons 
indeed far removed from our times, their works, which seldom 
with us pass uncontrolled, either by contemporaries, or imme- 
diate successors, are now become out of the distance of envies; 
and the further removed from present times, are conceived to 
approach the nearer unto truth itself. Now hereby me thinks 
we manifestly delude ourselves, and widely walk out of the track 
of truth.' 

Akbar's century was the sixteenth, which saw in Europe the 
birth of dynamics, a revolutionary advance in the life of huma- 
nity. With that discovery Europe forged ahead, slowly at first, 
but with an ever-increasing momentum, till in the nineteenth 
century it shot forward and built a new world. While Europe 
was taking advantage of, and exploiting the powers of nature, 
Asia, static and dormant, still carried on in the old traditional 
way, relying on man's toil and labour. 

Why was this so? Asia is too big and varied a place for a single 
answer. Each country, especially such vast countries as China 
and India, must be judged separately. China was certainly then 
and later more cultured and her people led a more civilized life 
than any in Europe. India, to all outward seeming, also presented 
the spectacle, not only of a brilliant court, but of thriving trade, 
commerce, manufactures, and crafts. In many respects the 
countries of Europe would have seemed backward and rather 
crude to an Indian visitor then. And yet the dynamic quality 
which was becoming evident in Europe was almost wholly absent 
in India. 

A civilization decays much more from inner failure than from 
an external attack. It may fail because in a sense it has worked 
itself out and has nothing more to offer in a changing world, or 
because the people who represent it deteriorate in quality and 
can no longer support the burden worthily. It may be that the 
social culture is such that it becomes a bar to advance beyond 
a certain point, and further advance can only take place after 

263 



that bar has been removed or some essential qualitative varia- 
tion in that culture has been introduced. The decay of Indian 
civilization is evident enough even before the Turkish and Afghan 
invasions. Did the impact of these invaders and their new ideas 
with the old India produce a new social context, thus unbinding 
the fetters of the intellect and releasing fresh energy? 

To some extent this happened, and art and architecture, 
painting, and music, and the ways of life were affected. But those 
consequences did not go deep enough; they were more or less 
superficial, and the social culture remained much the same as 
it used to be. In some respects indeed it became more rigid. 
The Afghans brought no new element of progress; they repre- 
sented a backward feudal and tribal order. India was not feudal 
in the European sense, but the Rajput clans, who were the 
backbone of Indian defence, were organized in some kind of a 
feudal way. The Mughals were also semi-feudal but with a strong 
monarchical centre. This monarchy triumphed over the vague 
feudalism of Rajputana. 

Akbar might have laid, the foundations of social change if his 
eager, inquisitive mind had turned in that direction and sought 
to find out what was happening in other parts of the world. But 
he was too busy consolidating his empire and the big problem that 
faced him was how to reconcile a proselytizing religion like Islam 
with the national religion and customs of the people, and thus to 
build up national unity. He tried to interpret religion in a rational 
spirit and for the moment he appeared to have brought about a 
remarkable transformation of the Indian scene. But this direct 
approach did not succeed, as it has seldom succeeded elsewhere. 

So not even Akbar made any basic difference to that social 
context of India, and after him the air of change and mental 
adventure which he had introduced subsided, and India resumed 
her static and unchanging life.* 



*Abul Fazl tells us that Akbar had heard of the discovery of America by Columbus. In the 
next reign, Jehangir's, tobacco from America reached India, via Europe. It had an imme- 
diate and amazing vogue in spite of Jehangir's efforts to suppress it. Throughout the Mughal 
period India had intimate contacts with central Asia. These contacts extended to Russia 
and there are references to diplomatic and trade missions. A Russian friend has drawn my 
attention to such refrences in Russian chronicles. In 1532 an envoy of the Emperor Babar, 
named Khoja Husain, arrived in Moscow to conclude a treaty of friendship. During the 
reign of Tsar Michael Fedorovitch (1613-1645) Indian traders settled on the Volga. In 
1625 an Indian serai was built in Astrakhan by order of the military governor. Indian 
craftsmen and especially weavers were invited to Moscow. In 1695 Semean Melenky, a 
Russian trade-agent, visited Delhi and was received by Aurangzeb. In 1722 Peter the Great 
visited Astrakhan and granted interviews to Indian traders. In 1 745 a party of Indian 
sadhus, described as hermits, arrived in Astrakhan. Two of these sadhus settled in Rtissia 
and became Russian subjects. 

264 



Development of a Common Culture 

Akbar had built so well that the edifice he had erected lasted 
for another 100 years in spite of inadequate successors. After 
almost every Mughal reign there were wars between the princes 
for the throne, thus weakening the central power. But the court 
continued to be brilliant and the fame of the Grand Mughal 
spread all over Asia and Europe. Beautiful buildings combining 
the old Indian ideals in architecture with a new simplicity and 
a nobility of line grew up in Agra and Delhi. This Indo-Mughal 
art was in marked contrast with the decadent, over-elaborate 
and heavily ornamented temples and other buildings of the 
north and south. Inspired architects and builders put up with 
loving hands the Taj Mahal at Agra. 

The last of the so-called 'Grand Mughals,' Aurungzeb, tried 
to put back the clock, and in this attempt stopped it and broke 
it up. The Mughal rulers were strong so long as they put them- 
selves in line with the genius of the nation and tried to work 
for a common nationality and a synthesis of the various elements 
in the country. When Aurungzeb began to oppose this move- 
ment and suppress it and to function more as a Moslem than 
an Indian ruler, the Mughal Empire began to break up. The 
work of Akbar, and to some extent his successors, was undone 
and the various forces that had been kept in check by Akbar's 
policy broke loose and challenged that empire. New movements 
arose, narrow in outlook but representing a resurgent nation- 
alism, and though they were not strong enough to build perma- 
nently, and circumstances were against them, they were capable 
of destroying the Empire of the Mughals. 

The impact of the invaders from the north-west and of Islam 
on India had been considerable. It had pointed out and shown 
up the abuses that had crept into Hindu society — the petrifac- 
tion of caste, untouchability, exclusiveness carried to fantastic 
lengths. The idea of the brotherhood of Islam and of the theo- 
retical equality of its adherents made a powerful appeal, espe- 
cially to those in the Hindu fold who were denied any semblance 
of equal treatment. From this ideological impact grew up vari- 
ous movements aiming at a religious synthesis. Many conversions 
also took place but the great majority of these were from the 
lower castes, especially in Bengal. Some individuals belonging 
to the higher castes also adopted the new faith, either because 
of a real change of belief, or, more often, for political and econo- 
mic reasons. There were obvious advantages in accepting the 
religion of the ruling power. 

In spite of these widespread conversions, Hinduism, in all its 
varieties, continued as the dominant faith of the land, solid, 
exclusive, self-sufficient, and sure of itself. The upper castes had 

265 



no doubt about their own superiority in the realm of ideas and 
thought and considered Islam as a rather crude approach to 
the problems of philosophy and metaphysics. Even the mono- 
theism of Islam they found in their own religion, together with 
monism which was the basis of much of their philosophy. Each 
person could take his choice of these or of more popular and 
simpler forms of worship. He could be a Vaishnavite and believe 
in a personal God and pour out his faith to him. Or more 
philosophically inclined, he could wander in the tenuous realms 
of metaphysics and high philosophy. Though all their social 
structure was based on the group, in matters of religion they 
were highly individualistic, not believing in proselytization them- 
selves and caring little if some people were converted to another 
faith. What was objected to was in interference with their own 
social structure and ways of living. If another group wanted to 
function in its own way, it was at liberty to do so. It is worth 
noting that, as a rule, conversions to Islam were group conversions, 
so powerful was the influence of the group. Among the upper 
castes individuals might change their religion, but lower down 
the scale a particular caste in a locality, or almost an entire village 
would be converted. Thus their group life as well as their functions 
continued as before with only minor variations as regards worship, 
etc. Because of this we find to-day particular occupations and 
crafts almost entirely monopolized by Moslems. Thus the class 
of weavers is predominantly, and in large areas wholly Moslem. 
So also used to be shoe-merchants and butchers. Tailors are almost 
always Moslems. Various kinds of artisans and craftsmen are 
Moslems. Owing to the breaking up of the group system, many 
individuals have taken to other occupations and this has somewhat 
obliterated the line dividing the various occupational groups. 
The destruction of crafts and village industries, originally delibe- 
rately undertaken under early British rule and later resulting from 
the development of a new colonial economy, led to vast numbers 
of these artisans and craftsmen, more especially the weavers, 
being deprived of their occupations and livelihood. Those who 
survived this catastrophe drifted to the land and became landless 
labourers or shared a tiny patch of land with their relations. 

Conversions to Islam in those days, whether individual or 
group, probably aroused no particular opposition, except when 
force or some kind of compulsion was used. Friends and rela- 
tives or neighbours might disapprove, but the Hindu commu- 
nity as such apparently attached little importance to this. In 
contrast with this indifferent attitude, conversions to-day attract 
widespread attention and are resented, whether they are to 
Islam or Christianity. This is largely due to political factors 
and especially to the introduction of separate religious electo- 
rates. Each convert is supposed to be a gain to the communal 

266 



group leading ultimately to greater representation and more 
political power. Attempts are even made to manipulate the 
census to this end. Apart from political reasons, there has also 
been a growth in Hinduism of a tendency to proselytize and 
convert non-Hindus to Hinduism. This is one of the direct 
effects of Islam on Hinduism, though in practice it brings it 
into conflict with Islam in India. Orthodox Hindus still do not 
approve of it. 

In Kashmir a long-continued process of conversion to Islam 
had resulted in 95 per cent of the population becoming Mos- 
lems, though they retained many of their old Hindu customs. 
In the middle nineteenth century the Hindu ruler of the state 
found that very large numbers of these people were anxious or 
willing to return en bloc to Hinduism. He sent a deputation 
to the pundits of Benares inquiring if this could be done. The 
pundits refused to countenance any such change of faith and 
there the matter ended. 

The Moslems who came to India from outside brought no 
new technique or political and economic structure. In spite of a 
religious belief in the brotherhood of Islam, they were class 
bound and feudal in outlook. In technique and in the methods 
of production and industrial organization, they were inferior 
to what prevailed then in India. Thus their influence on the 
economic life of India and the social structure was very little. 
This life continued as of old and all the people, Hindu or Moslem 
or others, fitted into it. 

The position of women deteriorated. Even the ancient laws 
had been unfair to them in regard to inheritance and their 
position in the household — though even so they were fairer than 
nineteenth-century English law. Those laws of inheritance deriv- 
ed from the Hindu joint family system and sought to protect 
joint property from transfer to another family. A woman by 
marriage changed her family. In an economic sense she was 
looked upon as a dependant of her father or husband or son, 
but she could and did hold property in her own right. In many 
ways she was honoured and respected and had a fair measure 
of freedom, taking part in social and cultural activities. Indian 
history is full of the names of famous women, including thinkers 
and philosophers, rulers and warriors. This freedom grew pro- 
gressively less. Islam had a fairer law of inheritance but this 
did not affect Hindu women. What did affect many of them to 
their great disadvantage, as it affected Moslem women to a much 
greater degree, was the intensification of the custom of seclusion 
of women. This spread among the upper classes all over the north 
and in Bengal, but the south and west of India escaped this 
degrading custom. Even in the north, only the upper classes 
indulged in it and the masses were happily free from it. Women 

267 



now had less chances of education and their activities were 
largely confined to the household.* Lacking most other ways of 
distinguishing themselves, living a confined and restricted life, 
they were told that their supreme virtue lay in chastity and the 
supreme sin in a loss of it. Such was the man-made doctrine, but 
man did not apply it to himself. Tulsidas in his deservedly 
famous poems, the Hindi Ramayana, written during Jehangir's 
time, painted a picture of woman which is grossly unfair and 
prejudiced. 

Partly because the great majority of Moslems in India were 
converts from Hinduism, partly because of long contact, Hindus 
and Moslems in India developed numerous common traits, 
habits, ways of living and artistic tastes, especially in northern 
India — in music, painting, architecture, food, clothes, and com- 
mon traditions. They lived together peacefully as one people, 
joined each other's festivals and celebrations, spoke the same 
language, lived in more or less the same way, and faced iden- 
tical economic problems. The nobility and the landed gentry 
and their numerous hangers-on took their cue from the court. 
(These people were not landlords or owners of the land. They 
did not take rent but were allowed to collect and retain the state 
revenue for a particular area. These grants were usually for life.) 
They developed a highly intricate, and sophisticated common 
culture. They wore the same kind of clothes, ate the same type 
of food, had common artistic pursuits, military pastimes, hunting, 
chivalry, and games. Polo was a favourite game and elephant 
fights were popular. 

All this intercourse and common living took place in spite of 
the caste system which prevented fusion. There were no inter- 
marriages except in rare instances and even then it was not fusion 
but usually the transfer of a Hindu woman to the Moslem fold. 
Nor was there inter-dining but this was not so strict. The seclusion 
of women prevented the development of social life. This applied 
even more to Moslems inter se for purdah among them was stricter. 
Though Hindu and Moslem men met each other frequently, such 
opportunities were lacking to the women of both groups. These 
women of the nobility and upper classes were thus far more cut 
off from each other and developed much more marked separate 
ideological groups, each largely ignorant of the other. 

Among the common people in the villages, and that means 
the vast majority of the population, life had a much more cor- 
porate and joint basis. Within the limited circle of the village 
there was an intimate relationship between the Hindus and 
Moslems. Caste did not come in the way and the Hindus looked 

'And yet many instances of notable women, scholars as well as rulers, occur even 
during this period and later. In the eighteenth century Lakshmi Devi wrote a great legal 
commentary on the Mitakshara, a famous law book of the medieval period. 

268 



upon the Moslems as belonging to another caste. Most of the 
Moslems were converts who were still full of their old tradi- 
tions. They were well acquainted with the Hindu background, 
mythology, and epic stories. They did the same kind of work, 
lived similar lives, wore the same kind of clothes, spoke the same 
language. They joined each other's festivals, and some semi- 
religious festivals were common to both. They had common 
folk-songs. Mostly these people were peasants and artisans and 
craftsmen. 

The third large group, in between the nobility and the pea- 
santry and artisans, was the merchant and trader class. This was 
predominantly Hindu and though it had no political power, the 
economic structure was largely under its control. This class had 
fewer intimate contacts with the Moslems than any other class, 
above it or below. The Moslems who had come from outside 
India were feudal in outlook and did not take kindly to trade. 
The Islamic prohibition against the taking of interest also came 
in the way of trade. They considered themselves the ruling class, 
the nobility and functioned as state officials, holders of grants 
of land or as officers in the army. There were also many scholars 
attached to the court or in charge of theological and other aca- 
demies. 

During the Mughal period large numbers of Hindus wrote 
books in Persian which was the official court language. Some 
of these books have become classics of their kind. At the same 
time Moslem scholars translated Sanskrit books into Persian 
and wrote in Hindi. Two of the best-known Hindi poets are Malik 
Mohammad Jaisi who wrote the 'Padmavat' and Abdul Rahim 
Khankhana, one of the premier nobles of Akbar's court and 
son of his guardian. Khankhana was a scholar in Arabic, Persian, 
and Sanskrit, and his Hindi poetry is of a high quality. For 
sometime he was the commander-in-chief of the imperial army, 
and yet he has written in praise and admiration of Rana Pratap 
of Mewar, who was continually fighting Akbar and never 
submitted to him. Khankhana admires and commends the patrio- 
tism and high sense of honour and chivalry of his enemy on the 
battlefield. 

It was this chivalrous and friendly approach on which Akbar 
based his policy and which many of his counsellors and ministers 
learned from him. He was particularly attached to the Rajputs, 
for he admired in them qualities which he himself possessed — 
reckless courage, a sense of honour and chivalry, and an adherence 
to the pledged word. He won over the Rajputs, but. the Rajputs 
for all their admirable qualities, represented a medieval type of 
society which was already becoming out of date as new forces 
were arising. Akbar was not conscious of these new forces, for he 
himself was a prisoner of his own social inheritance. 

269 



Akbar's success is astonishing, for he created a sense of one- 
ness among the diverse elements of north and central India. 
There was the barrier of a ruling class, mainly of foreign origin, 
and there were the barriers of religion and caste, a proselytizing 
religion opposed to the static but highly resistant system. These 
barriers did not disappear, but in spite of them that feeling of one- 
ness grew. It was not merely an attachment to his person; it was an 
attachment to the structure he had built. His son and grandson, 
Jehangir and Shah Jehan, accepted that structure and functioned 
within its framework They were men of no outstanding ability, but 
their reigns were successful because they continued on the lines so 
firmly laid down by Akbar. The next comer, Aurungzeb, much 
abler but of a different mould, swerved and left that beaten track, 
undoing Akbar's work. Yet not entirely, for it is extraordinary how, 
in spite of him and his feeble and pitiful successors, the feeling of 
reverence for that structure continued. That feeling was largely 
confined to the north and centre; it did not extend to the south 
or west. And it was from western India, therefore, that the chal- 
lenge to it came. 

Aurangzeb puts the Clock Back 
Growth of Hindu Nationalism. Shivaji 

Shah Jehan was a contemporary of Louis XIV of France, le Grand 
Monarque, and the Thirty Years War was then ravaging central 
Europe. As Versailles took shape, the Taj Mahal and the Pearl 
Mosque grew up in Agra, and the Jame Masjid of Delhi and the 
Diwan-i-Am and the Diwan-i-Khas in the imperial palace. These 
lovely buildings with a fairy-like beauty represent the height of 
Mughal splendour. The Delhi court, with its Peacock Throne, 
was more magnificent and luxurious than Versailles, but, like 
Versailles, it rested on a poverty-stricken and exploited people. 
There was a terrible famine in Gujarat and the Dekhan. 

Meanwhile the naval power of England was rising and spread- 
ing. The only Europeans that Akbar knew were the Portuguese. 
During his son Jehangir's time the British navy defeated the Portu- 
guese in Indian seas and Sir Thomas Roe, an ambassador of James 
I of England, presented himself at Jehangir's court in 1615. He 
succeeded in getting permission to start factories. The Surat factory 
was started, and Madras was founded in 1639. For over 100 years 
no one in India attached any importance to the British. The fact 
that the British now controlled the sea routes and had practically 
driven away the Portuguese had no significance for the Mughal 
rulers or their advisers. When the Mughal Empire was visibly 
weakening during Aurungzeb's reign, the British made an orga- 
nized attempt to increase their possessions in India by war. This 
was in 1685. Aurungzeb, weak as he was growing and beset by 

270 



enemies, succeeded in defeating the British. Even before this the 
French had established footholds in India. The overflowing energies 
of Europe were spreading out in India and the east just when 
India's political and economic condition was rapidly declining. 
In France, Louis XIV was still continuing his long reign, laying 
the seeds of future revolution. In England, the rising middle classes 
had cut off the head of their king, Cromwell's brief-lived republic 
had flourished, Charles II had come and gone, and James II had 
run away. Parliament, representing to a large extent a new mer- 
cantile class, had curbed the king and established its supremacy. 

It was during this period that Aurungzeb succeeded to the 
throne of the Mughals after a civil war, having imprisoned his 
own father, Shah Jehan. Only an Akbar might have understood 
the situation and controlled the new forces that were rising. 
Perhaps even he could have only postponed the dissolution ofhis 
empire unless his curiosity and thirst for knowledge led him to 
understand the significance of the new techniques that were 
arising, and of the shift in economic conditions that was taking 
place. Aurungzeb, far from understanding the present, failed 
even to appreciate the immediate past; he was a throw-back and, 
for all his ability and earnestness, he tried to undo what his 
predecessors had done. A bigot and an austere puritan, he was no 
lover of art or literature. He infuriated the great majority of his 
subjects by imposing the old hated jeziya poll-tax on the Hindus 
and destroying many of their temples. He offended the proud 
Rajputs who had been the props and pillars of the Mughal Empire. 
In the north he roused the Sikhs, who, from being a peaceful sect 
representing some kind of synthesis of Hindu and Islamic ideas, 
were converted by repression and persecution into a military 
brotherhood. Near the west coast of India, he angered the warlil-e 
Marathas, descendants of the ancient Rashtrakutas, just when a 
brilliant captain had risen amongst them. 

All over the widespread domains of the Mughal Empire there 
was a ferment and a growth of revivalist sentiment, which was 
a mixture of religion and nationalism. That nationalism was 
certainly not of the modern secular type, nor did it, as a rule, 
embrace the whole of India in its scope. It was coloured by feuda- 
lism, by local sentiment and sectarian feeling. The Rajputs, 
more feudal than the rest, thought of their clan loyalties; the Sikhs, 
a comparatively small group in the Punjab, were absorbed in their 
own self-defence and could hardly look beyond the Punjab. Yet the 
religion itself had a strong national background and all its tradi- 
tions were connected with India. 'The Indians,' writes Professor 
Macdonell, 'are the only division of the Indo-European family 
which has created a great national religion — Brahmanism — and 
a great world religion — Buddhism; while all the rest far from 
displaying originality in this sphere have long since adopted a foreign 

271 



faith.' That combination of religion and nationalism gained strength 
and cohesiveness from both elements, and yet its ultimate weakness 
and insufficiency were also derived from that mixture. For it could 
only be an exclusive and partial nationalism, not including the many 
elements in India that lay outside that religious sphere. Hindu 
nationalism was a natural growth from the soil of India, but inevi- 
tably it comes in the way of the larger nationalism which rises 
above differences of religion or creed. 

It is true that during this period of disruption, when a great 
empire was breaking up and many adventurers, Indian and 
foreign, were trying to carve out principalities for themselves, 
nationalism, in its present sense, was hardly in evidence at all. 
Each individual adventurer sought to augment his own power; 
each group fended for itself. Such history as we have only tells us 
of these adventurers, attaching more importance to them than to 
more significant happenings below the surface of events. Yet there 
are glimpses to show that it was not all adventurism, though many 
adventurers held the field. The Marathas, especially, had a wider 
conception and as they grew in power this conception also grew. 
Warren Hastings wrote in 1784: 'The Marathas possess, alone of 
all the people of Hindostan and Deccan, a principle of national 
attachment, which is strongly impressed on the minds of all indi- 
viduals of the nation, and would probably unite their chiefs, as in 
one common cause, if any great danger were to threaten the gene- 
ral state.' Probably this national sentiment of their was largely 
confined to the Marathi-speaking area. Nevertheless the Marathas 
were catholic in their political and military system as well as their 
habits, and there was a certain internal democracy among them. 
All this gave strength to them. Shivaji, though he fought Aurung- 
zeb, freely employed Moslems. 

An equally important factor in the break-up of the Mughal 
Empire was the cracking up of the economic structure. There 
were repeated peasant risings, some of them on a big scale. From 
1669 onwards the Jat peasantry, not far fram the capital itself, rose 
again and again against the Delhi Government. Yet another 
revolt of poor people was that of the Satnamis who were described 
by a Mughal noble as 'a gang of bloody miserable rebels, gold- 
smiths, carpenters, sweepers, tanners, and other ignoble beings.' 
Thus far revolts had been confined to princes and nobles and others 
of high degree. Quite another class was now experimenting with 
them. 

While the empire was rent by strife and revolt, the new Mara- 
tha power was growing and consolidating itself in western India. 
Shivaji, born in 1627, was the ideal guerilla leader of hardened 
mountaineers and his cavalry went far and wide, sacking the city 
of Surat, where the English had their factory, and enforcing the 
chowth tax payment over distant parts of the Mughal dominions. 

272 



Shivaji was the symbol of a resurgent Hindu nationalism, drawing 
inspiration from the old classics, courageous, and possessing high qua- 
lities of leadership. He built up the Marathas as a strong unified 
fighting group, gave them a nationalist background, and made 
them a formidable power which broke up the Mughal Empire. 
He died in 1680, but the Maratha power continued to grow till it 
dominated India. 

The Marathas and the British Struggle for 
Supremacy. Triumph of the British 

The 100 years that followed the death of Aurungzeb in 1707 saw 
a complicated and many-sided struggle for mastery over India. 
The Mughal Empire rapidly fell to pieces and the imperial vice- 
roys and governors began to function as semi-independent rulers, 
though so great was the prestige of the descendant of the Mughals 
in Delhi that a formal allegiance was paid to him even when he 
was powerless and a prisoner of others. These satrapies had no real 
power or importance, except in so far as they helped or hindered the 
main protagonists for power. The Nizam of Hydrabad, by virtue 
of the strategic position of his state in the south, appeared to have 
a certain importance in the beginning. But it soon transpired that 
this importance was entirely fictitious and the state was 'straw- 
stuffed and held upright' by external forces. It showed a peculiar 
capacity for duplicity and for profiting by the misfortunes of others 
while avoiding all risk and dangers. Sir John Shore described 
it as 'incorrigibly depraved, devoid of energy., .consequently liable 
to sink into vassalage.' The Marathas looked upon the Nizam as 
one of their subordinate chieftains paying tribute to them. An 
attempt by him to avoid this and to show independence met with 
swift retribution and the Marathas put to flight his feeble and 
none-too-brave army. He took refuge under the protecting wings 
of the growing power of the British East India Company and sur- 
vived as a state because of this vassalage. Indeed the Hyderabad 
state enlarged its area considerably, without any remarkable 
effort on its part, by the British victory over Tipu Sultan of Mysore. 
Warren Hastings, writing in 1784, refers to the Nizam of Hydera- 
bad : 'His dominions are of small extent and scanty revenue; his 
military strength is represented to be most contemptible; nor 
was he at any period of his life distinguished for personal courage 
or the spirit of enterprise. On the contrary, it seems to have been 
his constant and ruling maxim to foment the incentives of war 
among his neighbours, to profit by their weakness and embar- 
rassments, but to avoid being a party himself in any of their 
contests, and to submit even to humiliating sacrifices rather than 
subject himself to the chances of war.'* 

'Quoted in Edward Thompson's 'The Making of the Indian Princes' (1943),p. 1. 

273 



The real protagonists for power in India during the eighteenth 
century were four: two of these were Indian and two foreign. 
The Indians were the Marathas and Haidar Ali and his son 
Tipu Sultan in the south; the foreigners were the British and the 
French. Of these, it appeared almost inevitable, during the first 
half of the century, that the Marathas were destined to establish 
their supremacy over India as a whole and to be the successors 
of the Mughal Empire. Their troops appeared at the very gates 
of Delhi as early as 1737 and there was no power strong enough 
to oppose them. 

Just then (in 1739) a new eruption took place in the north- 
west and Nadir Shah of Persia swept down to Delhi, killing and 
plundering, and carrying off enormous treasure including the 
famous Peacock Throne. It was an easy raid for him for the 
Delhi rulers were effete and effeminate, wholly unused to war- 
fare, and Nadir Shah did not come into conflict with the Marathas. 
In a sense, his raid facilitated matters for the Marathas, who in 
subsequent years spread to the Punjab. Again Maratha supremacy 
of India was in sight. 

Nadir Shah's raid had two consequences. He put an end com- 
pletely to any pretensions that the Delhi Mughal rulers had to 
power and dominion; heneceforth they became vague shadows 
enjoying a ghostl/ sovereignty, puppets in the hands of any one 
who was strong enough to hold them. To a large extent 
they had arrived at that stage even before Nadir Shah came; 
he completed the process. And yet, so strong is the hold of tradi- 
tion and long-established custom, the British East India Company 
as well as others, continued to send humble presents to them in 
token of tribute right up to the eve of Plassey; and even after- 
wards for a long time the Company considered itself and func- 
tioned as the agent of the Delhi emperor, in whose name money 
was coined till 1835. 

The second consequence of Nadir Shah's raid was the sepa- 
ration of Afghanistan from India. Afghanistan, which for long 
ages past had been part of India, was now cut off and became 
part of Nadir Shah's dominions. Sometime afterwards a local 
rebellion resulted in the murder of Nadir Shah by a group of 
his own officers and Afghanistan became an independent state. 

The Marathas had in no way been weakened by Nadir Shah 
and they continued to spread in the Punjab. But in 1761 they 
met with a crushing defeat at Panipat from an Afghan invader, 
Ahmad Shah Durrani, who was ruling Afghanistan then. The 
flower of the Maratha forces perished in this disaster and, for 
a while, their dreams of empire faded away. They recovered 
gradually and the Maratha dominions were divided into a num- 
ber of independent states joined together in a confederacy under 
the leadership of the Peshwa at Poona. The chiefs of the bigger 

274 



states were Scindhia of Gwalior, Holkar of Indore, and the 
Gaekwar of Baroda. This confederacy still dominated a vast 
area in western and central India. But the Panipat defeat of the 
Marathas by Ahmad Shah had weakened them just when the 
English Company was emerging as an important territorial 
power of India. 

In Bengal, Clive, by promoting treason and forgery and with 
very little fighting, had won the battle of Plassey in 1757, a date 
which is sometimes said to mark the beginning of the British 
Empire in India. It was an unsavoury beginning and something 
of that bitter taste has clung to it ever since. Soon the British 
held the whole of Bengal and Bihar and one of the early conse- 
quences of their rule was a terrible famine which ravaged these 
two provinces in 1770, killing ever a third of the population of 
this rich, vast, and densely populated area. 

In south India, the struggle between the English and the French, 
a part of the world struggle between the two, ended in the triumph 
of the English, and the French were almost eliminated from 
India. 

With the elimination of the French power from India, three 
contestants for supremacy remained — the Maratha confederacy, 
Haider Ali in the south, and the British. In spite of their victory 
at Plasssey and their spreading out over Bengal and Bihar, few, 
if any, people in India then looked upon the British as a dominant 
power, destined to rule over the whole of India. An observer 
would still have given the first place to the Marathas who sprawled 
all over western and central India right up to Delhi and whose 
courage and fighting qualities were well-known. Haider Ali and 
Tipu Sultan were formidable adversaries who inflicted a severe 
defeat on the British and came near to breaking the power of the 
East India Company. But they were confined to the south and did 
not directly affect the fortunes of India as a whole. Haider Ali 
was a remarkable man and one of the notable figures in Indian 
history. He had some kind of a national ideal and possessed the 
qualities of a leader with vision. Continually suffering from a 
painful disease, his self-discipline and capacity for hard work were 
astonishing. He realized, long before others did so, the importance 
of sea power and the growing menace of the British based on 
naval strength. He tried to organize a joint effort to drive them 
out and, for this purpose, sent envoys to the Marathas, the Nizam, 
and Shuja-ud-Dowla ofOudh. But nothing came of this. He started 
building his own navy and, capturing the Maldive Islands, made 
them his headquarters for shipbuilding and naval activities. He 
died by the wayside as he was marching with his army. His son 
Tipu continued to strengthen his navy. Tipu also sent messages to 
Napoleon and to the Sultan in Constantinople. 

In the north a Sikh state under Ranjit Singh was growing up 

275 



in the Punjab, to spread later to Kashmir and the North West 
Frontier Province; but that too was a marginal state not affect- 
ing the real struggle for supremacy. This struggle, it became 
clear as the eighteenth century approached its end, lay between 
the only two powers that counted — the Marathas and the British. 
All the other states and principalities were subordinate and 
subsidiary to these two. 

Tipu Sultan of Mysore was finally defeated by the British in 
1799, and that left the field clear for the final contest between 
the Marathas and the British East India Company. Charles 
Metcalfe, one of the ablest of the British Officials in India, wrote 
in 1806: 'India contains no more than two great powers, British 
and Mahratta, and every other state acknowledges the influence 
of one or the other. Every inch that we recede will be occupied 
by them.' But there was rivalry amongst the Maratha chieftains, 
and they fought and were defeated separately by the British. They 
won some notable victories and especially inflicted a severe defeat 
on the British near Agra in 1804, but by 1818 the Maratha power 
was finally crushed and the great chiefs that represented it in 
central India submitted and accepted the overlordship of the East 
India Company. The British became then the unchallenged sove- 
reigns of a great part of India, governing the country directly 
or through puppet and subsidiary princes. The Punjab and some 
outlying parts were still beyond their control, but the British 
Empire in India had become an established fact, and subsequent 
wars with the Sikhs and Gurkhas and in Burma merely rounded 
it off on the map. 

The Backwardness of India and the Superiority of the 
English in Organization and Technique 

Looking back over this period, it almost seems that the British 
succeeded in dominating India by a succession of fortuitous 
circumstances and lucky flukes. With remarkably little effort, 
considering the glittering prize, they won a great empire and 
enormous wealth, which helped to make them the leading power 
in the world. It seems easy for a slight turn in events to have 
taken place which would have dashed their hopes and ended 
their ambitions. They were defeated on many occasions — by 
Haider Ali and Tipu, by the Marathas, by the Sikhs, and by 
the Gurkhas. A little less good fortune and they might have lost 
their foothold in India, or at the most held on to certain coastal 
territories only. 

And yet a closer scrutiny reveals, in the circumstances then 
existing, a certain inevitability in what happened. Good fortune 
there certainly was, but there must be an ability to profit by good 
fortune. India was then in a fluid and disorganized state, follow- 

276 



ing the break-up of the Mughal Empire; for many centuries it 
had not been so weak and helpless. Organized power having 
broken down, the field was left open to adventurers and new 
claimants for dominion. Among these adventurers and claimants, 
the British, and the British alone at the time, possessed many of 
the qualities necessary for success. Their major disadvantage was 
that they were foreigners coming from a far country. Yet that 
very disadvantage worked in their favour, for no one took them 
very seriously or considered them as possible contestants for the 
sovereignty of India. It is extraordinary how this delusion lasted 
till long after Plassey, and their functioning in formal matters as 
the agents of the shadow Emperor at Delhi helped to further this 
false impression. The plunder that they carried away from Bengal 
and their peculiar methods of trade led to the belief that these 
foreigners were out for money and treasure and not so much for 
dominion; that they were a temporary though painful infliction, 
rather like Timur or Nadir Shah, who came and plundered and 
went back to his homeland. 

The East India Company had originally established itself for 
trading purposes, and its military establishment was meant to 
protect this trade. Gradually, and almost unnoticed by others, 
it had extended the territory under its control, chiefly by taking 
sides in local disputes, helping one rival against another. The 
company's troops were better trained and were an asset to any 
side, and the company extracted heavy payment for the help. 
So the company's power grew and its military establishment 
increased. People looked upon these troops as mercenaries to 
be hired. When it was realized that the British were playing 
nobody's game but their own, and were out for the political domi- 
nation of India, they had already established themselves firmly 
in the country. 

Anti-foreign sentiment there undoubtedly was, and this grew 
in later years; but it was far removed from any general or wide- 
spread national feeling. The background was feudal and loyalty 
went to the local chief. Widespread distress, as in China during 
the days of the war lords, compelled people to join any military 
leader who offered regular pay or opportunities of loot. The 
East India Company's armies largely consisted of Indian sepoys. 
Only the Marathas had some national sentiment, something much 
more than loyalty to a leader, behind them, but even this was 
narrow and limited. They managed to irritate the brave Rajputs 
by their treatment of them. Instead of gaining them as allies, they 
had to deal with them as opponents or as grumbling and dissatis- 
fied feudatories. Among the Maratha chiefs themselves there was 
bitter rivalry, and occasionally civil war, in spite of a vague 
alliance under the Peshwa's leadership. At critical moments they 
failed to support each other, and were separately defeated. 

277 



Yet the Marathas produced a number of very able men, states- 
men and warriors, among them being Nana Farnavis, the Peshwa 
Baji Rao I, Mahadaji Scindhia of Gwalior, and Yaswant Rao 
Holkar of Indore, as also that remarkable woman, Princess Ahalya 
Bai of Indore. Their rank and file was good, seldom deserting 
a post and often facing certain death unmoved; but behind all 
this courage there was often an adventurism and amateurishness, 
both in peace and war, which were surprising. Their ignorance of 
the world was appalling, and even their knowledge of India's 
geography was strictly limited. What is worse, they did not take 
the trouble to find out what was happening elsewhere and what 
their enemies were doing. There could be no far-sighted states- 
manship or effective strategy with these limitations. Their speed 
of movement and mobility often surprised and unnerved the 
enemy, but essentially war was looked upon as a series of gallant 
charges and little more. They were ideal guerrilla fighters. Later 
they reorganized their armies on more orthodox lines, with the result 
that what they gained in armour they lost in speed and mobility, 
and they could not adjust themselves easily to these new condi- 
tions. They considered themselves clever, and so they were, but 
it was not difficult to overreach them in peace or war, for their 
thought was imprisoned in an old and out-of-date framework and 
could not go beyond it. 

The superiority in discipline and technique of foreign-trained 
armies had, of course, been noticed at an early stage by Indian 
rulers. They employed French and English officers to train their 
own armies, and the rivalry between these two helped to build 
up Indian armies. Haider Ali and Tipu also had some concep- 
tion of the importance of sea-power, and they tried, unsuccess- 
fully and too late, to build up a fleet in order to challenge the 
British at sea. The Marathas also made a feeble attempt in this 
direction. India was then a shipbuilding country, but it was not 
easy to build up a navy within a short time and in the face of 
constant opposition. With the elimination of the French many 
of their officers in the armies of the Indian powers had to go. 
The foreign officers who remained, chiefly British, often deserted 
their employers at critical stages, and, on some occasions, betray- 
ed them, surrendering and marching over to their enemies (the 
British) with their armies and treasure. This reliance on foreign 
officers not only indicates the backwardness of the army organiza- 
tion ofthe Indian powers, but was also a constant source of danger 
owing to their unreliability. The British often had a powerful 
fifth column both in the administration and in the armies of the 
Indian rulers. 

If the Marathas, with their homogeneity and group patrio- 
tism, were backward in civil and military organization, much 
more so were the other Indian powers. The Rajputs, for all their 

278 



courage, functioned in the old feudal way, romantic but thoroughly 

inefficient, and were rent among themselves by tribal feuds. Many 
of them, from a sense of feudal loyalty to an overlord, and partly 
as a consequence of Akbar's policy in the past, sided with the 
vanishing power of Delhi. But Delhi was too feeble to profit by this, 
and the Rajputs deteriorated and became the playthings of others, 
ultimately falling into the orbit of Scindhia, the Maratha. Some 
of their chiefs tried to play a careful balancing game in order to 
save themselves. The various Moslem rulers and chiefs in northern 
and central India were as feudal and backward in their ideas as 
the Rajput. They made no real difference, except to add to the 
confusion and the misery of the mass of the people. Some of them 
acknowledged the suzerainty of the Marathas. 

The Gurkhas of Nepal were splendid and disciplined soldiers, 
the equals, if not the superiors, of any troops that the East India 
Company could produce. Although completely feudal in orga- 
nization, their attachment to their homelands was great, and 
this sentiment made them formidable fighters in its defence. They 
gave a fright to the British, but made no difference to the issue 
of the main struggle in India. 

The Marathas did not consolidate themselves in the vast areas 
in northern and central India where they had spread. They came 
and went, taking no root. Perhaps nobody could take root just 
then owing to the alternating fortunes of war, and indeed many 
territories under British control, or acknowledging British suzera- 
inty were in a far worse condition, and the British or their admi- 
nistration had not taken root there. 

If the Marathas (and much more so the other Indian powers) 
were amateurish and adventurist in their methods, the British in 
India were thoroughly professional. Many of the British leaders 
were adventurous enough but they' were in no way adventurist 
in the policy for which they all worked in their separate spheres. 
'The East India Company's secretariat,' writes Edward Thomp- 
son, 'was served in the courts of native- India by a succession 
and galaxy of men such as even the British Empire has hardly 
ever possessed together at any other time.' One of the chief duties 
of the British residents at these courts was to bribe and corrupt 
the ministers and other officials. Their spy system was perfect, says 
a historian. They had complete information of the courts and 
armies of their adversaries, while those adversaries lived in 
ignorance of what the British were doing or were going to do. 
The fifth column of the British functioned continuously and in 
moments of crisis and in the heat of war there would be defections 
in their favour which made a great difference. They won most 
of their batles before the actual fighting took place. That had been 
so at Plassey and was repeated again and again right up to the 
Sikh wars. A notable instance of desertion was that of a high officer 

279 



in the service of Scindhia of Gwalior, who had secretly come to 
terms with the British and went over to them with his entire army 
at the moment of battle. He was awarded for this later by being 
made the ruler of a new Indian state carved out of the territories 
of Scindhia whom he had betrayed. That state still exists, but 
the man's name became a byword for treason and treachery, just 
as Quisling's in recent years. 

The British thus represented a higher political and military 
organization, well knit together and having very able leaders. 
They were far better informed than their adversaries and they 
took full advantage of the disunity and rivalries of the Indian 
powers. Their command of the seas gave them safe bases and 
opportunities to add to their resources. Even when temporarily 
defeated, they could recuperate and assume the offensive again. 
Their possession of Bengal after Plassey gave them enormous 
wealth and resources to carry on their warfare with the Marathas 
and others, and each fresh conquest added to these resources. 
For the Indian powers defeat often meant a disaster which could 
not be remedied. 

This period of war and conquest and plunder converted cen- 
tral India and Rajputana and some parts of the south and west 
into derelict areas full of violence and unhappiness and misery. 
Armies marched across them and in their train came highway 
robbers, and no one cared for the miserable human beings who 
lived there, except to despoil them of their money and goods. 
Parts of India became rather like central Europe during the 
Thirty Years War. Conditions were bad almost everywhere but 
they were worst of all in the areas under British control or suzera- 
inty: '...nothing could be more fantastic than the picture pre- 
sented by Madras or by the vassal states of Oudh and Hyderabad, 
a seething delirium of misery. In comparison, the regions where 
the Nana (Farnavis, the Maratha statesman) governed were an 
oasis of gentle security' — so writes Edward Thomspson. 

Just prior to this period, large parts of India were singularly 
free from disorder, in spite of the disruption of the Mughal 
Empire. In Bengal during the long reign of Allawardi, the semi- 
independent Mughal Viceroy, peaceful and orderly government 
prevailed and trade and business flourished, adding to the great 
wealth of the province. Some little time after Allawardi's death 
the battle of Plassey (1757) took place and the East India Com- 
pany constituted themselves the agents of the Delhi Emperor, 
though in reality they were completely independent and could 
do what they willed. Then began the pillage of Bengal on behalf 
of the company and their agents and factors. Some years after 
Plassey began the reign of Ahalya Bai, of Indore in central India, 
and it lasted for thiry years (1765-1795). This has become almost 
legendary as a period during which perfect order and good govern- 

280 



merit prevailed and the people prospered. She was a very able 
ruler and organizer, highly respected during her lifetime, and 
considered as a saint by a grateful people after her death. Thus 
during the very period when Bengal and Bihar, under the new 
rule of the East India Company, deteriorated and there was 
organized plunder and political and economic chaos, leading 
.to terrible famines, central India as well as many other parts of the 
country were in a prosperous condition. 

The British had power and wealth but felt no responsibility 
for good government or any government. The merchants of the 
East India Company were interested in dividends and treasure and 
not in the improvement or even protection of those who had come 
under their sway. In particular, in the vassal states there was a 
perfect divorce between power and responsibility. 

When the British had finished with the Marathas and were 
secure in their conquests, they turned their minds towards civil 
government and some kind of order was evolved. In the subsi- 
diary states, however, the change was very slow, for in those 
so-called protected areas there was a permanent divorce between 
responsibility and power. 

We are often reminded, lest we forget, that the British rescued 
India from chaos and anarchy. That is true in so far as they esta- 
blished orderly government after this period, which the Marathas 
have called 'the time of terror.' But that chaos and anarchy were 
partly at least due to the policy of the East India Company and 
their representatives in India. It is also conceivable that even 
without the good offices of the British, so eagerly given, peace and 
orderly government might have been established in India after 
the conclusion of the struggle for supremacy. Such developments 
had been known to have taken place in India, as in other countries, 
in the course of her 5,000 years of history. 

Ranjit Singh and Jai Singh 

It seems clear that India became a prey to foreign conquest 
because of the inadequacy of her own people and because the 
British represented a higher and advancing social order. The 
contrast between the leaders on both sides is marked; the Indians, 
for all their ability, functioned in a narrow, limited sphere of thought 
and action, unaware of what was happening elsewhere and there- 
fore unable to adapt themselves to changing conditions. Even 
if the curiosity of individuals was roused they could not break the 
shell which held them and their people prisoners. The English- 
men, on the other hand, were much more worldly wise, shaken up 
and forced to think by events in their own country and in France 
and America. Two great revolutions had taken place. The 
campaigns of the French revolutionary armies and of Napoleon 

281 



had changed the whole science of war. Even the most ignorant 
Englishman who came to India saw different parts of the world 
in the course of his journey. In England itself great discoveries 
were being made, heralding the industrial revolution, though 
perhaps few ralised their far-reaching significance at the time. 
But the leaven of change was working powerfully and influencing 
the people. Behind it all was the expansive energy which sent the 
British to distant lands. 

Those who had recorded the history of India are so full of wars 
and tumults and the political and military leaders of the day, 
that they tell us very little of what was happening in the mind of 
India and how social and economic processes were at work. Only 
occasional and accidental glimpses emerge from this sordid record. 
It appears that during this period of terror the people generally 
were crushed and exhausted, passively submitting to the decrees 
of a malevolent fate, dazed and devoid of curiosity. There must 
have been many individuals, however, who were curious and who 
tried to understand the new forces at play, but they were over- 
whelmed by the tide of events and could not influence them. 

One of the individuals who was full of curiosity was Maharaja 
Ranjit Singh, a Jat Sikh, who had built up a kingdom in the 
Punjab, which subsequently spread to Kashmir and the Frontier 
Province. He had failings and vices; nevertheless he was a re- 
markable man. The Frenchman, Jacquemont, calls him 'extre- 
mely brave' and 'almost the first inquisitive Indian I have seen, 
but his curiosity makes up for the apathy of the whole nation.' 
'His conversation is like a nightmare.'* It must be remembered 
that Indians as a rule, are a reserved people, and more so the 
intellectuals amongst them. Very few of these would have cared 
to associate then with the foreign military leaders and adventurers 
in India, many of whose actions filled them with horror. So these 
intellectuals tried to preserve their dignity by keeping as far as 
possible from the foreign elements and met them only on formal 
occasions when circumstances compelled them to do so. The 
Indians whom Englishmen and other foreigners usually met were 
of the opportunist and servile class that surrounded them or the 
ministers, frequently corrupt and intriguing, of the Indian courts. 

Ranjit Singh was not only intellectually curious and inquisi- 
tive, he was remarkably humane at a time when India and the 
world seethed with callousness and inhumanity. He built up a 
kingdom and a powerful army and yet he disliked bloodshed. 
'Never was so large an empire founded by one man with so little 
criminality,' says Prinsep. He abolished the death sentence for 
every crime, however heinous it might be, when in England 
even petty pilferers had to face death. 'Except in actual war- 
fare,' writes Osborne, who visited him, 'he has never been known 

*Qyoted by Edward Thompson in ' The Making of Indian Princes' (1943), p. 158. 
282 



to take life, though his own has been attempted more than once, 
and his reign will be found freer from any striking acts of cruelty 
and oppression than those of many more civilized monarches.'* 

Another but a different type of Indian statesman was Sawai 
Jai Singh, of Jaipur in Rajputana. He belongs to a somewhat 
earlier period and he died in 1743. He lived during the period 
of disruption following Aurungzeb's death. He was clever and 
opportunist enough to survive the .many shocks and changes 
that followed each other in quick succession. He acknowledged 
the suzerainty of the Delhi Emperor. When he found that the 
advancing Marathas were too strong to be checked, he came to 
terms with them on behalf of the emperor. But it is not his poli- 
tical or military career that interests me. He was a brave warrior 
and an accomplished diplomat, but he was something much more 
than this. He was a mathematician and an astronomer, a scientist 
and a town-planner, and he was interested in the study of history. 

Jai Singh built big observatories at Jaipur, Delhi, Ujjain, 
Benares, and Mathura. Learning through Portuguese mission- 
aries of the progress of astronomy in Portugal, he sent his own 
men, with one of the missionaries, to the court of the Portuguese 
King Emmanuel. Emmanuel sent his envoy, Xavier de Silva, 
with De la Hire's tables to Jai Singh. On comparing these with 
his own tables, Jai Singh came to the conclusion that the Portu- 
guese tables were less exact and had several errors. He attributed 
these to the 'inferior diameters' of the instruments used. 

Jai Singh was of course fully acquainted with Indian mathe- 
matics; he had studied the old Greek treatises and also knew of 
recent European developments in mathematics. He had some 
of the Greek books (Euclid, etc.) as well as European works on 
plane and spherical trigonometry and the construction and use 
of logarithms translated into Sanskrit. He also had Arabic books 
on astronomy translated. 

He founded the city of Jaipur. Interested in town planning, 
he collected the plans of many European cities of the time and 
then drew up his own plan. Many of these plans of the old Euro- 
pean cities of the time are preserved in the Jaipur museum. The 
city of Jaipur was so well and wisely planned that it is still consi- 
dered a model of town-planning. 

Jai Singh did all this and much more in the course of a compa- 
ratively brief life and in the midst of perpetual wars and court 
intrigues, on which he was himself often involved. Nadir Shah's 
invasion took place just four years before Jai Singh's death. Jai 
Singh would have been a remarkable man anywhere and at any 
time. The fact that he rose and functioned as a scientist in the 
typically feudal milieu of Rajputana and during one of the darkest 

* Quotations taken from Edward Thompson: 'The Making of Indian Princes' (1943), 
pp. 157, 158. 

283 



periods of Indian history, when disruption and war and tumults 
filled the scene, is very significant. It shows that the spirit of 
scientific inquiry was not dead in India and that there was some 
ferment at work which might have yielded rich results if only an 
opportunity had been given to it to fructify. Jai Singh was no 
anachronism or solitary thinker in an unfriendly and uncom- 
prehending environment. He was a product of his age and he 
collected a number of scientific workers to work with him. Out 
of these he sent some in the embassy to Portugal, and social custom 
or taboo did not deter him from doing so. It seems probable that 
there was plenty of good material for scientific work in the country, 
both theoretical and technical, if only it was given a chance to 
function. That opportunity did not come for a long time. Even 
when the troubles and disorders were over, there was no encourage- 
ment of scientific work by those in authority. 

The Economic Background of India: the two Englands 

What was the economic background of India when all these 
far-reaching political changes were taking place? V. Anstey has 
written that right up to the eighteenth century, 'Indian methods 
of production and of industrial and commerical organization 
could stand comparison with those in vogue in any other part of 
the world.' India was a highly developed manufacturing country 
exporting her manufactured products to Europe and other coun- 
tries. Her banking system was efficient and well organized 
throughout the country, and the hundis or bills of exchange issued 
by the great business or financial houses were honoured every- 
where in India, as well as in Iran, and Kabul and Herat and 
Tashkent and other places in central Asia. Merchant capital 
had emerged and there was an elaborate network of agents, 
jobbers, brokers, and middlemen. The ship building industry 
was flourishing and one of the flagships of an English admiral 
during the Napoleonic wars had been built by an Indian firm 
in India. India was, in fact, as advanced industrially, commer- 
cially, and financially as any country prior to the industrial revo- 
lution. No such development could have taken place unless the 
country had enjoyed long periods of stable and peaceful govern- 
ment and the highways were safe for traffic and trade. 

Foreign adventurers originally came to India because of the 
excellence of her manufacturers which had a big market in. 
Europe. The chief business of the British East India Company 
in its early days was to trade with Indian goods in Europe, and 
very profitable trading it was, yielding enormous dividends. So 
efficient and highly organized were Indian methods of produc- 
tion, and such was the skill of India's artisans and craftsmen, 
that they could compete successfully even with the higher tech- 

284 



niques of production which were being established in England. 
When the big machine age began in England, Indian goods 
continued to pour in and had to be stopped by very heavy duties 
and, in some cases, by outright prohibitions. 

Clive described Murshidabad, in Bengal, in 1757, the very 
year of Plassey, as a city 'as extensive, populous, and rich as the 
city of London, with the difference that there are individuals 
in the first possessing infinitely greater property than in the last.' 
The city of Dacca, in eastern Bengal, was famous for its fine 
muslins. These two cities, important as they were, were near the 
periphery of Hindustan. All over the vast land there were greater 
cities and large numbers of big manufacturing and trading centres, 
and a very rapid and ingenious system of communicating news 
and market prices had been evolved. The great business houses 
often received news, even of the wars that were going on, long 
before despatches reached the officials of the East India Company. 
The economy of India had thus advanced to as high a stage as it 
could reach prior to the industrial revolution. Whether it had 
the seeds of further progress in it or was too much bound up with 
the rigid social structure, it is difficult to say. It seems quite pos- 
sible, however, that under normal conditions it would have under- 
gone that change and begun to adapt itself, in its own way, to 
the new industrial conditions. And yet, though it was ripe for 
a change, that change itself required a revolution within its own 
framework. Perhaps some catalytic agent was necessary to bring 
about that change. It is clear that however highly organized and 
developed its pre-industrial economy was, it could not compete 
for long with the products of industrialized countries. It had to 
industrialize itself or submit to foreign economic penetration 
which would have led to political interference. As it happened, 
foreign political domination came first and this led to a rapid 
destruction of the economy India had built up, without anything 
positive or constructive taking its place. The East India Company 
represented both British political power and British vested inte- 
rests and economic power. It was supreme and, being a company of 
merchants, it was intent on making money. Just when it was making 
money with amazing rapidity and in fantastic quantities, Adam 
Smith wrote about it in 'The Wealth of Nations' in 1776: 'The 
government of an exclusive company of marchants is perhaps 
the worst of all governments for any country whatever.' 

Though the Indian merchant and manufacturing classes were 
rich and spread out all over the country, and even controlled 
the economic structure, they had no political power. Government 
was despotic and still largely feudal. In fact, it was probably more 
feudal than it had been at some previous stages of Indian history. 
Hence there was no middle class strong enough, or even consci- 
ously thinking of seizing power, as in some western countries. 

285 



The people generally had grown apathetic and servile. There was 
thus a gap which had to be filled before any revolutionary change 
could take place. Perhaps this gap had been produced by the 
static nature of Indian society which refused to change in a chang- 
ing world, for every civilization which resists change declines. 
That society, as constituted, had no more creative part to play. 
A change was overdue. 

The British, at that time, were politically much more advanced. 
They had had their political revolution and had established the 
power of Parliament over that of the King. Their middle classes, 
conscious of their new power, were full of the impulse to expand. 
That vitality and energy, proof of a growing and progressive 
society, were indeed very evident in England. They showed them- 
selves in many ways and most of all in the inventions and discoveries 
which heralded the industrial revolution. 

And yet, what was the British ruling class then? Charles and 
Mary Beard, the eminent American historians, tell us how the 
success of the American revolution removed suddenly from the 
royal provinces in America the 'British ruling class — a class 
accustomed to a barbarous criminal code, a narrow and intolerant 
university system, a government conceived as a huge aggregation 
of jobs and privileges, a contempt of men and women who toiled 
in field and shop, a denial of education to the masses, an established 
religion forced alike on Dissenters and Catholics, a dominion of 
squire and parson in counties and villages, callous brutality in 
army and navy, a scheme of primogeniture buttressing the rule 
of the landed gentry, a swarm of hungry placemen offering syco- 
phancy to the king in exchange for offices, sinecures, and pensions, 
and a constitution of church and state so ordered as to fasten upon 
the masses this immense pile of pride and plunder. From the 
weight of this mountain the American revolutionists delivered 
the colonial subjects of the British Crown. Within a decade or two 
after that emancipation they accomplished reforms in law and 
policy which required 100 years or more of persistent agitation 
to effect in the mother country — reforms which gave to the states- 
men who led in the agitation their title to immortality in English 
history'.* 

The American Declaration of Independence, that landmark 
in freedom's history, was signed in 1776, and six years later the 
colonies separated from England and began their real intellectual, 
economic, and social revolution. The land system, that had grown 
up under British inspiration and after the model of England, was 
completely transformed. Many privileges were abolished and the 
large estates confiscated and then distributed in small lots. A 
stirring period of awakening and intellectual and economic activity 
followed. Free America, rid of feudal relics and foreign control, 

•'The Rise of American Civilization' (1928), Volume I, p. 292. 
286 



marched ahead with giant strides. 

In France, the great revolution smashed the Bastille, symbol 
of the old order, and swept away the king and feudalism and 
declared the rights of man to the world. 

And in England then? Frightened by these revolutionary 
changes in America and France, England became even more 
reactionary, and her fierce and barbarous penal code became 
even more savage. When George III came to the English throne 
in 1760 there were about 160 offences for which men, women, 
and children were put to death. By the time his long reign ended 
in 1820, nearly a hundred new offences, carrying the death penalty, 
were added to this terrible list. The ordinary soldier in the British 
army was treated worse than a beast of the field, with a brutality 
and inhumanity that horrify. Death sentences were common and 
commoner still was flogging, inflicted in public, flogging up to 
several hundred lashes, till death sometimes intervened or the 
mangled body of the sufferer, just surviving, told the story to his 
dying day. 

In this matter as in many others involving humanity and 
respect for the individual and the group, India was far more 
advanced and had a higher civilization. There was more literacy 
in India then than in England or the rest of Europe, though the 
education was strictly traditional. Probably there were more civic 
amenities also. The general condition of the masses in Europe 
was very backward and deplorable and compared unfavourably 
with the conditions prevailing in India. But there was this vital 
difference: new forces and living currents were working invisibly 
in western Europe, bringing changes in their train; in India, 
conditions were far more static. 

England came to India. When Queen Elizabeth gave a charter 
to the East India Company in 1600, Shakespeare was alive and 
writing. In 1611 the Authorized English edition of the Bible was 
issued; in 1608 Milton was born. There followed Hampden and 
Cromwell and the political revolution. In 1660 the Royal Society 
of England, which was to advance the cause of science so much, 
was organized. A hundred years later, in 1760, the flying shuttle 
was invented, and there followed in quick succession the spinning 
jenny, the steam engine, and the power loom. 

Which of these two Englands came to India? The England of 
Shakespeare and Milton, of noble speech and writing and brave 
deed, of political revolution and the struggle for freedom, of science 
and technical progress, or the England of the savage penal code 
and brutal behaviour, of entrenched feudalism and reaction? 
For there were two Englands, just as in every country there are 
these two aspects of national character and civilization. 'The 
discrepancy in England,' write Edward Thompson, 'between the 
highest and the ordinary levels of our civilization, has always been 

287 



immense; I doubt if there is anything like it in any country with 
which we should wish to be compared and it is a discrepancy 
that lessens so slowly that it often seems hardly to lessen at all.'* 

The two Englands live side by side, influencing each other, 
and cannot be separated; nor could one of them come to India 
forgetting completely the other. Yet in every major action one 
plays the leading role, dominating the other, and it was inevit- 
able that the wrong England should play that role in India and 
should come in contact with and encourage the wrong India in 
the process. 

The independence of the United States of America is more or 
less contemporaneous with the loss of freedom by India. Survey- 
ing the past century and a half, an Indian looks somewhat wistfully 
and longingly at the vast progress made by the United States 
during this period, and compares it with what has been done and 
what has not been done in his own country. It is true no doubt 
that the Americans have many virtues and we have many failings, 
that America offered a virgin field and an almost clean slate to 
write upon while we were cluttered up with ancient memories 
and traditions. And yet perhaps it is not inconceivable that if 
Britain had not undertaken this great burden in India and, as she 
tells us, endeavoured for so long to teach us the difficult art of 
self-government, of which we had been so ignorant, India might 
not only have been freer and more prosperous, but also far more 
advanced in science and art and all that makes life worth living. 



''Making of Indian Princes' (1903),