I read Mr. Katju’s article on ‘Four
People’s Principles’. I fully conform to his views. But what I’m not pleased
about is him using ‘India’ to denote what was here in this part of sub-continental
geographic area many centuries ago. Some excerpts from that article -
"Here are 3 examples of Indian scientific achievements in ancient
times…
It [the
decimal system] is accepted now that these numbers came from India, and were
copied by the Arabs…
Plastic
surgery was invented in India in the 6th century B.C.; Westerners discovered it
about 200 years ago…
King Ajatashatru of
Magadha was planning to attack the Vajjian democracy, he sent a messenger to
the Buddha … …The merchants replied: Deva, kechit deshah ganadheena, kechit
rajaadheena, iti, which means “Your Majesty, some regions are under
democratic rule, while others are under kings.” So, democracy is nothing new to
India… " and so on.
This is also the case in most other
articles that cite historical references. They blatantly refer to ancient
civilization’s achievements as ‘India’s’ achievements. So while that is the
case, why not claim the Mauryan’s or Akbar or anyone else as the "1st
president of India"? And why not start conferring Bharat Ratna awards to
them posthumously for stellar achievements in the field of public affairs? (If
only the Nobel prizes were awarded posthumously too! Then we could officially
nominate Ashoka or Buddha as the ‘Indian’ candidate for the Nobel Peace prize.
Surely he deserves it more than Mr.Obama!)
Such references strengthen and
justify some people’s falsely held belief that ‘India’ always belonged and
still does belong to only their race/religion and the rest are sort of
unwelcome guests, overstaying in their homeland. India as a nation is a concept
that is only a century old. We are all born in this concept of India.
It’s past history should be in no way relevant to who lives here and definitely
not used to settle claims of ownership of whose homeland it is. History may be
used to draw inspiration from or be used as a lesson to be learnt or even find
our roots and identity in this ever changing world but certainly it should not
come in the way of how the nation is being shaped in the present day & in
shaping the future.
So i guess it would be better to
tame the urge to refer to the ancient civilizations and anything to do with
them as 'Indian'. It would help maintain and improve the communal harmony and
maybe make it (communal harmony) spontaneous and not forced upon.
No comments:
Post a Comment