Indian Cultural

An event of immense and lasting impact in Indian history was the advent of the Muslims in the northwest. Lured by tales of the fertile plains of the Punjab and the fabulous wealth of Hindu temples, Mahmud of Ghazni first attacked India in 1000 AD. Other raiders from Central Asia followed him, but these invasions were no more than banditry. It was only in 1192 that Muslim power arrived in India on a permanent basis. In that year, Mohammed of Ghori, who had been expanding his power all across the Punjab broke into India and took Ajmer. The following year his general Qutb-ud-din Aibak took Varanasi and Delhi and after Mohammed Ghori's death in 1206, he became the first of the Sultans of Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aibak founded the so called Slave Dynasty in India at Delhi, setting up the nucleus of the Delhi Sultanate, or the rule of Turkish and Afghan sultans, the Khiljis, the Tughlaqs and the Lodis.

The most important Islamic empire was that of the Mughals, a Central Asian dynasty founded by Babur early in the sixteenth century. His son Humayun succeeded Babur and under the reign of Humayun's son, Akbar the Great (1562-1605), Indo-Islamic culture attained a peak of tolerance, harmony and a spirit of enquiry. The nobles of his court belonged to both the Hindu and the Muslim faiths, and Akbar himself married a Hindu princess. Leaders of all the faiths were invited to his court at Fatehpur Sikri to debate religious issues. Mughal culture reached its zenith during the reign of Akbar's grandson Shahjehan, a great builder and patron of the arts. Shahjehan moved his capital to Delhi and built the incomparable Taj Mahal at Agra.

Aurangzeb, the last major Mughal, extended his empire over all but the southern tip of India, though he was constantly harried by Rajput and Maratha clans.

The next arrival of overwhelming political importance was that of the Europeans. The great seafarers of northwest Europe, the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese, arrived early in the seventeenth century and established trading outposts along the coasts. The spices of Malabar (in Kerala) had attracted the Portuguese as early as the end of the 15th century when, in 1498, Vasco da Gama had landed at Calicut, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope. Early in the 16th Century, the Portuguese had already established their colony in Goa; but their territorial and commercial hold in India remained rather limited. During the late 16th and 17th century they remained unrivalled as pirates on the high seas; but inland the other European companies were making their presence felt, though entirely in commercial terms.

The British established political supremacy over eastern India after the Battle of Plassey in 1757. They gradually extended their rule over the entire subcontinent, either by direct annexation, or by exercising suzerainty over local rajas and nawabs.

Unlike all former rulers, the British did not settle in India to form a new local empire. The English East India Company continued its commercial activities and India became 'the Jewel in the Crown' of the British Empire, giving an enormous boost to the nascent Industrial Revolution by providing cheap raw materials, capital and a large captive market for British industry. The land was reorganized under the harsh Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes to enrich British coffers. In certain areas farmers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute, coffee and tea. This resulted in several famines of unprecedented scale.

In the first half of the 19th century, the British extended their hold over many Indian territories. A large part of the subcontinent was brought under the Company's direct administration; in some parts local rulers were retained as subsidiaries of the Company, militarily and administratively completely at its mercy and yielding to it an overwhelming portion of the revenues. By 1857, "the British empire in India had become the British empire of India." The means employed to achieve this were unrestrained and no scruple was allowed to interfere with the imperial ambition.

A century of accumulated grievances erupted in the Indian mutiny of sepoys in the British army, in 1857. The Mutiny, even in its failure, produced many heroes and heroines of epic character. The rebellion also saw the end of the East India Company's rule in India. Power was transferred to the British Crown in 1858 by an Act of British Parliament. The Crown's viceroy in India became the chief executive.

The British Empire contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The British constructed a vast railway network across the entire land in order to facilitate the transport of raw materials to the ports for export. This gave intangible form to the idea of Indian unity by physically bringing all the peoples of the subcontinent within easy reach of each other. Since it was impossible for a handful of foreigners to administer such a vast country, and with the failure of the 1857 mutiny, the leadership of the freedom movement passed into the hands of common resulting in the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885. The binding psychological concept of National Unity was also forged in the fire of the struggle against a common foreign oppressor.

At the turn of the century, the freedom movement reached out to the common unlettered man through the launching of the Swadeshi movement by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Aurobindo Ghose. But the full mobilization of the masses into an invincible force only occurred with the appearance on the scene of one of the most remarkable and charismatic leaders of the twentieth century, perhaps in history.

Under his leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress launched a series of mass movements - the Non Cooperation Movement of 1920 -1922 and the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930. The latter was triggered by the famous Salt March, when Gandhi captured the imagination of the nation by leading a of followers from his ashram at Sabarmati, on a 200 mile trek to the remote village of Dandi on the west coast, there to prepare salt in symbolic violation of British law. At the end of the Second World War, they saw the writing on the wall, and initiated a number of constitutional moves to effect the transfer of power to the sovereign State of India. For the first and perhaps the only time in history, the power of a mighty global empire 'on which the sun never set', had been challenged and overcome by the moral might of a people armed only with ideals and courage.

India achieved independence on August 15,1947. Giving voice to the sentiments of the nation, the country's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."

India's vanguard role in the international anti-colonial struggle has given her natural moral leadership of the Third World in its quest for international peace, equality and justice. Refusing to be drawn into the dangerous confrontation of rivalries between super powers, India was a moving force behind the formation of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) in 1961. Nonalignment does not mean neutrality; it means a principled approach to international issues. In consonance with the spirit of the movement, India has always sought close bilateral relations and cooperation at all levels with countries of both the Western and Socialist blocs, as well as with other nonaligned nations. The relevance of nonalignment has not diminished in the post USSR era, but the movement has had to redefine its perspective in the context of increasing polarity between the affluent, developed nations of the North, and the economically developing nations of the South. The main thrust of the movement now is to assert the independence of the South against the hegemony of the North, and to resist the interventionist political pressures of aid conditions.

At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, India strongly asserted the position of the countries of the South that environmental problems cannot be tackled in isolation from economic and developmental issues. Pointing out that the affluent nations consume a disproportionately enormous share of the earth's resources and create most of its industrial pollution, India joined the developing countries in insisting on complete national sovereignty over natural resources, and demanded that they be suitably compensated for restraining economic growth in order to preserve these assets in the interests of global survival.

The international prestige enjoyed by the country has enabled India to take a leading role in multilateral initiatives toward finding solutions to some of the critical issues of the day, such as nuclear disarmament, apartheid, the rights of the Palestinian people, protection of the environment and the evolution of a more just international economic order. Mutual respect and cooperation have also been the basis of India's relationship with her neighbors.

The South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), established in December 1985, provides a valuable forum for the promotion of regional cooperation among its seven member states - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. SAARC is based on the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, mutual benefit and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. The U.N. Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace, which India has consistently supported, is another step in the direction of peace and stability in the area.

The moral authority vested in India as a legacy of its anti-colonial stand, has enabled it to play a vigorous and principled role in all international fora, including the United Nations, in efforts to banish all forms of exploitation from the world.