Selling the largest Hindu temple in the world

Angkor Wat is celebrated, the world over, as a temple of steroid-induced proportions, buried for centuries in the forests of northern Cambodia before being rediscovered by modernity. Visitors such as I, expect to ‘stumble upon’ a giant temple rising about 700 feet in the air amidst the isolation of an intrusive forest.

In today’s global tourism industry, Angkor Wat is portrayed as that rarity, the last chance to truly discover.

There is some truth to this image. Before it was ‘discovered’ in 1840 by a French adventurer, it had not yet entered European imagination. During much of the late twentieth century, when global tourism really took off, Angkor Wat (means city temple) remained inaccessible due to a catastrophic civil war in Cambodia.

Besides, Angkor Wat is probably the largest Hindu temple in the world.

Built by King Surya Varman in the early 12th century, it is dedicated to lord Vishnu. Even the Creator of the Universe would have gasped at the scale of this creation—one square kilometer in size, and built on multiple levels. The artistry of each panel is intricate.

I spot a horde of Hindu tourists, aggressively explaining to their befuddled Cambodian guide that this is actually ‘their’ culture.

The truth is Hinduism in Cambodia dates back to the first century AD, brought by Indian traders from the kingdoms of Magadha (East Bihar) and Tamil Nadu. By the time of the Angkor era, this influence had flowered into a distinct culture of which Angkor Wat is the most enduring example.

So much for the product. Now the packaging.

Even at the time of its so called discovery, Angkor Wat was being administered by some one thousand Buddhist monks. Today, chattering groups of pliant tourists arrive in chartered planes to the nearby airport, Siem Reap. The scatter of shops around the temple sites—some mom and pop, some more enticing—sell every possible packaged memory. The entire area seems like a giant well run hotel.

This gilt-edged wrapping paper, however, is torn at places, revealing contradictions. In sharp contrast to the booming Asian Tigers that surround it, the Cambodian countryside is stark, famished and numbingly poor. Entirely different is Siem Reap, an artificial city, meant to service the many rich western and Japanese tourists who come to visit the Angkor temples. There are super markets everywhere, and the architecture is Baroque-meets-Surya Varman.

The obvious poverty of Cambodia seems to give way to a bubble of smooth highways and air-conditioned modernity. The economy seems as fissured: I could pay in Riel (the Cambodian currency), Baht or in US dollars.

Even the culture that was peddled as Khmer (the majority ethnic group in Cambodia) seemed hybrid. Like in neighbouring Thailand, the Angkor massages on offer in Siem Reap reflected the specific tastes of our globalised times. Eastern European women offer their white skin for the post-colonial Asian, and Nigerians peddle their bodies, rumoured to be well endowed, to Japanese women.

It may seem petulant to emphasise this lack of ‘authentic’ history here. After all every country packages its attractions in bubble wrap for outside tourists. But Angkor Wat’s history has been repackaged for its own people. For Cambodia has had to wrestle with notions of history like few others.

From 1974 to 1979, a far left Maoist regime controlled Cambodia. Until it was overthrown, the Khmer Rouge had succeeded in killing a tenth of Cambodia, forced the entire urban population to the countryside, and sought to radically reshape Cambodian society. Worse (if at all possible) was to follow.

During their fourteen years of exile and guerrilla warfare from the northern jungles, it laid ten million landmines across north Cambodia—one for each Cambodian.

Today, Cambodia enjoys a tenuous peace, and seeks to put behind its immediate past. The Angkor temples are now packaged for Cambodians, as a symbol of national unification.

Even the current Cambodian national flag carries an etching of Angkor Wat. But the phantoms of a grisly past cannot be wished away. Some temples in the Angkor area are still inaccessible due to landmines, and I saw many amputees hobbling across the temple stones.

Mammal Origin in India

Many present day plant and animal species might have their origin in India, a new find has suggested.

Scientists have suggested the new theory after the discovery of a 66-million-year old tooth in central India. The newfound tooth was unearthed in a sedimentary rock sandwiched between lava flows from the late part of the Cretaceous period, which spanned from 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago.

According to a new study led by Guntupalli Prasad of the University of Jammu, the tooth may have belonged to one of the condylarths, which were a group of primitive mammals. They included the ancestors of modern hoofed animals such as goats, horses, cows, sheep, and deer.

Because the newfound molar is about three million years older than the earliest known Condylarth specimen, this places it on the Indian subcontinent at a time when the landmass was a drifting island that had just broken away from the super continent called Gondwana. This has fuelled speculation about many mammal species originating in India.

"Many researchers had postulated that mammalian groups may have originated from basal Gondwanan stocks during the northward flight of India and finally dispersed to Asia when India collided with the Asian mainland around 55 million years ago," said Prasad.

Scientists are also supporting this theory because mammal fossils found on the southern continents that date to the time of Gondwana are quite rare.

"With a few minor exceptions, the only other place where there are really good records of mammals at that time is North America," said J David Archibald, an evolutionary biologist at San Diego State University.

But some researchers are puzzled about the primitive tooth's presence in India. "How did this animal get onto India, when the landmass was probably about in the middle of the Indian Ocean on a rapid drift northward?" asks Kenneth Rose, a palaeontologists. "That's one of the really intriguing questions here. If it is an ungulate (hoofed mammal), it provides an interesting scenario that some primitive stock got onto India and later evolved into ungulates," he speculates.

An interesting hypothesis is that good interspecies exchange existed between India and the Asian continent even during the Cretaceous period.

If so, the early ungulates might not have originated in India but somehow moved there from northern locales, where their fossils are more commonly found. "But it's still quite interesting to realize that there is some kind of placental mammal that was on India in the late Cretaceous period," said Rose.

Ancient History of India

¤ Discovery of Ancient City of Mahenjodaro and Harappa

The year was 1922. Initial forays in delving into India’s past began when Dr R D Banerjee found the ancient city of Mohenjodaro (literally, `city of the dead’) in Larkana district of Sindh, now in Pakistan.

A little later, archeological remains of another city, quite similar in planning and age, were dug up by Sir Daya Ram Sawhney in Harappa, in the Montgomery district of the Punjab. Sir John Marshall, who was the then chairperson of the Archeology department, decided this was a thing well worth looking into. Under his supervision, teams of archeologists worked in other areas of the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces of present Pakistan. What they came up with astounded the world.


¤ The Marvelous Town Planning of Mohenjodaro

The chief feature of Mohenjodaro, that amazes all curious spectators, is its superb town planning. The streets, which divided the city into neat rectangular or square blocks, varied in width but always intersected each other at right angles.
The city had an elaborate drainage system consisting of horizontal and vertical drains, street drains and so on. The architecture of the buildings was clearly intended to be functional and minimalist, and certainly not to please the aesthete.

Mohenjodaro was obviously a cosmopolitan city, the capital of the civilization or something, with people of different races mingling with the local populace.
Studies reveal that four distinct races inhabited the city: Proto-Austroloid, Mediterranean, Alpine and Mongoloid. Not much is known about their socio-economic-religious life as the script of the civilization eludes decoding; many have come tantalizingly close, but then just that.
They had their distinct religious sects, including a very active Mother Goddess cult, as is evinced from various seals that they have left behind not only here, but also in far-flung places like Mesopotamia. Which means that sea trade was very much part of their lives; this is confirmed from another source as their seals carry insignias of boats and ships on them.

¤ The Indus Valley Civilization

It is without a doubt that the civilization one of the most important finds in the world of archeology. In one stroke the age of Indian history was pushed back by more than a millennium, deep into 3000BC. This effectively exploded the myth that everything in India before the coming of the Aryans was enveloped in the supreme darkness of one primeval swamp. Here was a civilization that was not only well-developed, but actually far more sophisticated than that of the Aryans.

The Indus Valley Civilization said its last hurray roughly in 2200 BC. The beginning and end of the Indus Valley Civilization are both a matter of debate. Obviously there must have been a lead up to it. Suddenly, out of the blue, a people could not have emerged complete with their perfect town planning, neat houses, lovely jewellery and loads of make-up. So where did they come from? and then having come, just where did they disappear?

Popular theory which is accepted by the man on the street is that the people of the civilization (commonly referred to as the Harappans) were chased out by the Aryans and went down south. The present South Indians are their descendants. Recent research also threw up evidence that the Aryans’ descendants actually still survive as santals (tribals) in various jungle areas in India.


¤ The Settlement of Aryans

It took the tall, beautiful, long limbed Aryans surprisingly little time to get used to their new home. Initially, they settled in the area of Sapt-Sindhu, which included Punjab, Kashmir, Sindh, Kabul and Gandhara (Kandhar). The chief sources of this period which have come down to us are The Vedas and the Epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which through their stories and hymns tell us about the expansion of the Aryans. It took them about a thousand years to bring the entire northern region under their control. Then they turned their attention to the south. The epic Ramayana is a symbolic tale which tells of the Aryan expansion to the south – the good, almost godly, aryaputra (an Aryan's son) king Rama surging forth to finish off the evil Dasyu (that was what the Aryans called the natives) Ravana.


¤ Aryans Political System

The political system of the Aryans in their initial days here was amazingly complex, though quite ingenious. They hung around together in small village settlements (which later grew to kingdoms) and the basis of their political and social organization was, not surprisingly, the clan or kula.
Being of somewhat militant nature, this was very much a patriarchal society, with the man in the house expected to keep his flock in control.

Groups of kulas together formed a Grama or village, which was headed by a Gramina. Many villages formed another political unit called a Visya, headed by a Visyapati. The Visyas in turn collected under a Jana, which was ruled by a Rajana or king. However, the precise relationship between the grama, the visya and the jana has not been clearly defined anywhere.


¤ The King Was The Supreme Power

The king was yet to become that the all-powerful monarch that he eventually became. Although he lived as befitted a king, he was supposed to work in tandem with the people's wishes.
He had an elaborate court of many officials, including the chief queen (Mahishi) who was expected to help in the decision making process. Two assemblies, Sabha and Samiti further assisted the king. The Samiti was roughly equivalent to our modern Lower House or the Lok Sabha, with members that represented the people, and the Sabha was a permanent body of selected men.

So everything was very proper and democratic. This was obviously speedily amended. As one Jana swallowed another and kingdoms arose out of their ashes, the king became increasingly the despot that we are all more familiar with. Women seemed to have had it good at this time, but then through almost all of the ancient period of Indian history women continued to command respect and considerable pull in society. Although by the time of the Mahabharata their position had fallen enough for them to be treated as a man's property, as is evinced by the episode where Yudhistra gambles away his wife.


¤ No Rigidity In Caste System

The caste system (see Varna system) as is known now does not seem to have evolved yet. and even when it did, it was not the rigid thing it became by the time of the Guptas but was a loose social system where people could move up and down the social scale. Aryan’s worshipped nature gods – they prayed to the Usha (Dawn), Prajapati (The Creator), Rudra (Thunder), Indra (Rain), Surya (Sun) and so on. These gods and goddesses were appeased by prayers and sacrifices.

As time went this idyllic life among the beautiful wooded country with a benevolent monarch, a democratic senate and an open social system failed to survive. Power won over all else.


¤ Period of Social Reform

By the sixth century BC things had become complicated and rigid enough for socio-religious reformers like the Buddha and Mahavira to want change. The priestly class, as happened the world over, became increasingly the real masters in the socio-economic-political scheme of affairs. Rituals became rigid, sacrifices elaborate and religion increasingly expensive.


¤ Rising of Diverse Religions

Buddhism and Jainism were instant hits with the populace and became powerful clannish minorities while the bulk of the people remained with Aryanism. Not for long, however. As the two new religions which had extremely charismatic leaders and very zealous followers caught the people's imagination, the influence of both faiths spread enough for kings to profess and actively promote them.

While the Buddha was expounding on the metaphysics of life, kings were going about the usual business of going after more power, more money and more land. A fierce battle of domination (upon which, it is said, that the Mahabharata might have been based; see Indraprastha under Delhi History) was waging, of which Magadha (roughly the region of the present Bihar) emerged as the clear leader.
From now on Magadha, with its capital Patliputra (the present Patna), became the power that be in the Indian sub-continent (India, of course, was not recognized as a unit yet). The kings of Magadha were to remain the mightiest all through out the period of Ancient Indian history, and their kingdom, at its peak, stretched from Afghanistan in the northwest to deep into the present Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka region.


¤ Bimbisara- The Magadhan Ruler of Sisunga Dynasty

The first important Magadhan king who emerges into the limelight was Bimbisara (544-491 BC) of the Sisunga dynasty. He was an extremely polished diplomat and crafty statesman.
While the earlier rulers had brought Magadha out of clear and present danger, it was Bimbisara who consolidated and increased that power and really gave it the identity of a kingdom.
Through some clever marital and martial policies he pushed the frontiers of Magadha over, according to a source, eighty thousand villages. Bimbisara was a contemporary of the Buddha and met him twice, thanks to his wife Khema's reverence for the teacher. We learn that when he met him the second time, in Rajgriha (which is an important Buddhist pilgrimage today), Bimbisara converted to Buddhism.


¤ Assasination of Bimbisara

Apparently Bimbisara was assasinated by his impatient son Ajatsatru, who was a good friend of the Buddha's cousin Devadutta. This Devadutta, not to be judged by his cousin's credentials, was very much a blot on his family name and talked Ajatsatru into killing his father in the first place.

However, there is evidence that his crime weighed on Ajatsatru's mind, and in the end he confessed his crime to the Buddha before converting to Buddhism. Apart from this, Ajatsatru was very much his father's son and continued his imperialist policies. One particularly bitter, acrimonious and prolonged rivalry went on between him and the Lichchavi dynasty that ruled Vaishali (in Bihar), which he eventually managed to conquer.

Ajatsatru was obviously a colorful character and a man of sentiment. There are tales of his passionate affair with the chief courtesan of Vaishali, called Amrapali. Then, when the Buddha attained parinirvana (nirvana from all births and bonds), Ajatsatru insisted upon a part of his relics be buried in a stupa (shrine) that he got erected in Rajgriha. He said, "The lord was a kshatriya (the warrior caste of the Varna system), so am I. Therefore I am worthy of a share of his relics upon which I will erect a stupa."


¤ The Fading Glory of Sisunga Dynasty

The Sisunga dynasty faded fast after Ajatsatru; having produced two rulers with force enough for twenty, the dynasty bowed out. The last recorded ruler of the family was Kakavarna who was put to death by Mahapadmananda, of the Nanda dynasty which followed the Sisungas.

The Nandas could never be popular rulers despite their airs of magnificence and immense wealth (which they amassed by huge taxation). They were of lowborn sudra stock and hence had the odds stacked against them right from the start. By now the kings had become the more familiar despots and were becoming increasingly unapproachable.
The Nandas, though very powerful with a huge standing army and a grand court, were apparently a very vain lot. Indeed, traditional sources give us a very unflattering picture of the kings of this family. Much of this can be discounted – the Nandas were sudras to start with (which queered them with the Aryan Brahmins who were writing one half of these sources) and never bothered to associate with the Buddhists and Jains (who were writing the other half).

The Nanda who unwittingly became the most famous of the entire dynasty was Dhanananda. He started his own downfall by insulting a certain unsightly looking Brahmin, who unfortunately for Dhanananda, turned out to have surprising vision, intellect and Machiavellian cunning. ¤ Chanakya - The Man With Master Mind

This Brahmin was called Chanakya. This was time (around 326BC) when Alexander came visiting India's northwest borders along Taxila where the king, called Ambhi, laid out the red carpet for him. There was an active concern among all except the king Dhanananda himself that Alexander would come all the way to Magadha. The first thing that Chanakya tried to achieve was to raise a confederacy against the foreign invader. Though this attempt, to a large extent failed, what it did manage was to bring Chanakya into political limelight of the day. He made many friends in high places, which set him off on a bigger goal – to overthrow the Nandas.

One of the main reasons the confederacy against Alexander never got going was that Magadha, as the most powerful kingdom and the obvious leader for the rest to follow, simply refused to fall in. Dhanananda apparently not only flatly refused to spend good cash on a mad project like this, but also managed to offend Chanakya so thoroughly by his insolent behavior that the Brahmin went away convinced that the king deserved to be overthrown. It was a good thing that Chanakya's concerns were in vain; Alexander never did come all the way to Magadha; in fact, he didn't even get close. Long before that summer set in and his armies started grumbling, while he himself fell ill (this illness would eventually be the end of the great king in 323BC, at a tragically early age of 32).

So the Greek armies turned around after leaving Seleucus Nikator as Alexander's general in the region. The Greeks established a colony along the border who eventually mingled with the local populace, thus forming a new stock of people. This meant not only political, but also cultural and social exchange with the Greek which influenced Indian warfare, painting and sculpture (a whole school of art called Gandhara School of art come up of the amalgam), trade and economy. While we, in turn, influenced their science, astronomy, art and philosophy.

In these exciting times, Chanakya was going about with a single-minded focus to find a replacement for Dhananada. This he found in young Chandragupta Maurya (324-298BC).


¤ Mauryan Dynasty

The dynasty that Chandragupta and Chanakya established in Magadha together, the Mauryan dynasty, was the first real dynasty of Indian history. The first among the Mauryas, however, is quite a mystery figure in history and not much is known about him. Descriptions of his good looks have led some to conclude that he had Greek blood in him. and since he was supposed to have come from the North, certainly he was of the hills. Much hair splitting has happened over him, his credentials to the throne, his family, even his name; with one of the theories claiming that he was actually the son of Dhanananda mistress called Mura, and hence the name Maurya

. However, all this is up there in the realm of conjecture, since we are never likely to know the truth about Chandragupta Maurya's background. His mentor himself doesn't throw any light on his origins; indeed, if he was in fact low born, Chanakya's attempts would have been more in the direction of hushing them up. He was on the look out for a shrewd, intelligent young man who had a certain genius for battle as also ruling, suffice is that he got him.

Together they both made a formidable team and stayed together till the end of Chandragupta's reign, when Chanakya lived to see the early half of his successor Bindusara's (298-273BC) reign too. There's sufficient evidence to prove that elaborate planning and much intrigue went to shake the Nandas out of the Magadha throne.
A few early attempts, in fact, failed. There's a story about how Chandragupta finally got the idea that managed to defeat the Nanda might. Apparently he was walking round Taxila when he saw a woman feeding her son a dish of rice and lentils. As the son started to go straight for the middle of the dish, his mother reprimanded him and told him to start eating from the sides, for the centre was bound to be hotter.
This gave Chandragupta the idea to abandon trying to directly take on the Magadhan armies, and consolidate his position around it first and choke the Nandas so to speak.

After Magadha was taken, Chanakya and Chandragupta had most of their allies summarily disposed off and integrated their kingdoms into one strong Mauryan empire. His successor Bindusara although known as Amitraghat (slayer of foes) was neither a conqueror nor a military man.
But he was a dynamic and brilliant diplomat. He started sending and receiving missions to Egypt, Greece, Persia, Mesopotamia and various other countries. Trade increased, the economy prospered and there was general prosperity in the kingdom. There were several rebellions in the border regions in this period (regular features through out Indian history), for which he sent out his son Ashoka Maurya, who was very successful in dealing with them.


¤ Ashoka The Great

Ashoka Piyadassi Maurya (269-232BC) was perhaps Buddhism's most famous convert. He has caught the imagination of many as the cruel king who suddenly, after one battle, saw the light and became an avowed non-violent. The truth was a little more complicated than that.

Ashoka's conversion had been building for sometime before the famous battle of Kalinga (present Orissa) which is supposed to have knocked the wastefulness of war into him – ever since his younger brother Tissa converted to Buddhism. and he wasn't really a cruel king, even though he did put all his brothers to death to come to the throne – but then that was no different from what any other aspiring king would have done, and no doubt any of his brothers in similar circumstances would have done the same.
Most of what we know about him comes from Buddhist traditions, which would naturally try to portray him as this really ruthless animal who turned into a radically decent person as soon as he converted to Buddhism.

Nevertheless, Ashoka's reign has remained unique all through our Indian history. Under him, for the first time, almost the entire regions of present-day India were united under one central authority. Ashoka made Buddhism the state religion for having found peace in it. He wanted others to find it as well, although no conversions were forced upon the people.
This last was a clever political move as well for nothing unites a nation like the bonds of a common religion, as recommended by the crafty Chanakya in his masterpiece Arthasastra, a political and economic critique.

Next, Ashoka propounded his celebrated philosophy of Dhamma, which was a something like a correct moral code of conduct meets metaphysics. It has been suggested that Ashoka abandoned all violence so thoroughly that he even disbanded the army. This, however, was not true; for certainly the tone of some of the edicts that he has left strewn all over India, in which he warns troublemakers in the northwest border regions, is very much that of a king in control and ready to back up word with force. Ashoka also sent Buddhist missionaries abroad to spread the light; the most famous of these was sent to then Ceylon (Sri lanka), under his own son Mahindra and daughter Sanghamitra.

After Ashoka the Mauryan dynasty fizzled out surprisingly quickly. of Ashoka's sons, one Tivara died in his lifetime, another Kunala established an independent kingdom in the Kashmir region. Mahindra was, of course, appointed to carry out the more esoteric side of his father's concerns. The successor then was Jaloka, who succeeded when Ashoka died in 232Bc. He was physically very weak and died after just eight years. Confusion reigned for some years after his death, which was ended by Pushyamitta Sunga (184-149BC) taking over.

¤ The Post Maurya Period


In the post Maurya period, three dynasties jostled, came and went with astonishing speed on the Magadhan throne.
The first among these were the Sungas, under whom the country made certain progress.
The Sunga rulers were also quite successful in checking foreign invasions. Art and culture also flourished considerably under the Sungas who were particularly known to be great patrons of both.
They were followed by the Kanvas who were almost like a blip in the scene of Indian history, lasting only 45 years in all. The other important dynasty of this Post-Mauryan confusion was the andhras or the Satavahanas.

According to traditional sources, they were apparently Dasyus (as opposed to Aryans) from south India. Even in Ashoka's time, this dynasty had risen to quite a bit of prominence along the southwest regions.
We are told that it had 30 kings, however we get to names only with Simukha (235-213BC), who has been credited with founding the dynasty although his claim is in dispute – by historians that is. Simukha himself, one presumes, is now beyond caring. One of the most famous rulers of this dynasty was Sri Satkarni (194-184BC), who had a kingdom covering almost all of south India, down to the andhra region and around with his capital as the present Aurangabad.

¤ Kushana Dynasty

The next important dynasty to step into the scene were the Kushanas, about whom not much is known, so much so that there is controversy even over the date of accession of their most important king Kanishka.

Scholars have used imaginative ways to come up with as disparate dates as 78BC to down to 248AD. Most probably he ruled sometime in the first century AD. Kanishka has been greatly associated with Buddhism and his reign made the religion popular again.
Much artistic, cultural, spiritual and literary activity was encouraged by him to promote the religion. It was in his reign that Buddhism split into two sects, Hinayana (the older simpler religion when Buddha was not considered God) and Mahayana (the more ritualistic Buddhism, which worships the Buddha). The latter was the state religion of the Kushanas, who were Indo-Greek by origin.


¤ Gupta Dynasty

After the Kushanas, India saw political unity only under the second great dynasty of ancient Indian history after the Mauryas, the Guptas.

The imperial Guptas were great conquerors, efficient administrators and renowned patrons of the arts, science and culture. What's more, they lasted pretty long too; they had at least six strong rulers before the dynasty petered off, which meant greater stability than any kingdom had ever known in Indian sub-continent. Their reign is called the Golden Age of ancient Indian history.

There is evidence, the first traces ever, of fundamentalism as the staunchly Aryan Guptas set about reviving the older religion. It is in this era also that we see the beautifully simple and free-spirited Aryan philosophy settling down into a more rigid mould of a religion that we now call Hinduism. There could be reasons for this, though.

For when the Guptas came on the scene India had just seen a long line of Indo-Greek, Indo-Bactrian, Indo-Parthian, in short Indo-anything except Indo-Indian rulers. and even then they had to continuously wage bitter battles to keep foreign invaders like the Sakas off their backs. So naturally they reached deep back to their roots so to speak, in reaction against all things foreign. To revive the glory of the `old’ culture, which had been obscured by the so-called foreign rulers, must have been a matter of pride for them. In this, however, came certain downs. For example the caste system came back with a vengeance but no longer as the flexible loose social structure of the early Aryan days, but a strict code that later became such a curse for India.


¤ Great Rulers of Gupta Dynasty

If one turns a blind eye to this, the Guptas were obviously what the doctor ordered for the country then. For a dynasty which was so well documented we know surprisingly little about the rise of the Guptas. The first Gupta king was apparently Chandra Gupta I (320-335AD), though not much is known about him.

Next in line was Samudra Gupta (335-375AD) who, by all accounts, seemed to have been nothing short of a genius. He appears to have come to the throne brimming with an amazing appetite for conquest. Considering that he defeated kings all over northern and southern India (in all about twenty-four of them) one wonders when did he get the time to govern the kingdom. So, it is not really a surprise to learn that he did not. He came up with a rather clever plan to keep the newly acquired territories as annexed lands; which meant that he retained the old kings as vassals to keep the administration going. So, effectively his kingdom was like a loose federation, where everyone knew who the boss was while the actual ruling was handed over to other more competent authorities.

The conqueror was just one facet to the charismatic Samudra Gupta. Court poets would, of course, have us believe that he was nothing short of a Narcissus to look at. However, he must have been unquestionably a magnetic personality which he used to great effect as a statesman. He was a skilful diplomat who had excellent relations with not only foreign rulers but also his vassal-kings, surely a much more difficult task to achieve. Due to his ingenious ideas of government, Samudra Gupta could establish a really powerful empire which stood solid as a rock for many years to come. He was also a great scholar and was especially fond of poetry and spiritual studies.

He was followed by his elder son Rama Gupta (375-380AD) who was a bit of blot on that proud family's good name. Apparently he was having immense trouble with the central Asian Saka invaders who refused to budge from borders of the empire and threatened to come in. Rama Gupta sued for peace, and the Saka king agreed on one condition that his queen Dhruvadevi be surrendered to him. Which was okay with Rama Gupta, but not his younger brother Chandra Gupta who, disguised as the queen, entered the Saka camp and killed their king. After this Chandra Gupta also killed his brother and married Dhruvadevi and succeeded the throne.

He came to be called Chandra Gupta Vikramaditya (380-413AD) and was an excellent ruler. The story does not change much from Samudra Gupta's time. Conquests (though not many since Samudra Gupta had pretty much already conquered all there was to conquer), able administration, the arts flourishing, literature being produced in huge quantities, relations with foreign kings being excellent… and God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. Vikramaditya’s main achievement was that he managed to quash the stronghold of the Saka might (called the Saka Satraps) in India. Fa-Hien the famous Chinese Buddhist traveller-student came to India during his rule.

Next in line were Kumara Gupta (413-455AD) and Skanda Gupta (455-468AD). They were considerably troubled by foreign invasions, especially the latter who had to contend with the Huns. The Huns, though finally defeated by Skanda Gupta, seemed to have had remarkable tenacity, for they continued to invade Gupta territory with unfailing regularity.

The period between 458-540AD saw five Gupta rulers and the slipping away of the reigns of a once-powerful kingdom away from their hands. The Guptas were the last great dynasty to rule India till the Delhi Sultanate came along much later, and certainly they were the end of great Aryan rulers.


¤ Harsha Vardhana -- The Rulere of Vardhana Dynasty

The final important ruler of Ancient Indian history was Harsha Vardhana (606-646AD), who ruled not from Magadha but Thanesar (in modern Haryana area) of the Vardhana dynasty. He was a Buddhist and convened many Buddhist assemblies. The second Chinese traveller to come to India, Huien Tsang, arrived during his reign.
By all accounts Harsha was all the usual things that one associates with a good king. However, lots of petty dynasties like the Maukharis and the Vakatakas had started springing up all over the place, and the confusion which is generally associated with the absence of a strong central dynasty was rife.

The south presented a medley of dynasties around the time of Harsha Vardhana. There were the Pandyas (in regions of Mudurai, Travancore and Tinnevelly), the Chalukyas (in present Maharashtra region) and Pallavas (in modern Tamil Nadu region), who had this terrific battle of supremacy going constantly. Pulakesan II (610-642AD) was the ablest of the Chalukyan kings and for a time managed to keep the Chalukyan flag flying above the others. But strictly for a time being.

This was also the time (around 650AD) when the Rajputs suddenly appeared on the scene out of nowhere . Another major dynasty called Rashtrakutas, which had been around during the days of the Guptas too, suddenly saw an upsurge in power in 750BC in the present Karnataka region. Their dynasty spills over to very early Medieval period and then fizzles out.

In 800AD thus we leave India in a state of chaos, out of which order was made only somewhere in 1192AD.

Medieval Indian History

¤ The Most Powerful - Cholas

For the moment, most of action shifts to the southern peninsula.

The most important dynasty to rise out of the southern India was that of the Cholas. Unlike most of the other dynasties (the Chalukyas, the Pallavas, the Pandyas or the Rashtrakutas), their origins are not traced from outside, but very much from the south itself.

The Deccan region was at this time in much turmoil. To begin with, the Cholas had managed almost immediately to reduce the Pallavas to the status of minor feudatories.
The Rashtrakutas were in decline now, but their place was taken by a resurgent branch of the Chalukya family (imaginatively called the later Chalukyas by historians) who were gaining strength in the region of western Deccan. The power equation in the Deccan now involved the later Chalukyas, the Yadavas of Devagiri (northern Deccan; region around Aurangabad), the Kakatiyas of Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) and the Hoysalas of Dorasamudra (Mysore). Much sorting out had to be done before the Cholas finally emerged as unchallenged authorities in the south. This they managed with sheer tenacity over a period of 300 years from 900-1100 AD – and even then for a short while only.


¤ Chola's Contribution To South Indian History

However, the Chola contribution to south Indian history is far more wide-ranging than just political. This period saw the final settling down and consolidation of Tamil culture. In whatever sphere – whether of social institutions, religion, fine arts, music, dance, jewellery – the standards that were set during this period came to be regarded as classical, and dominate, in a modified form, much of the living patterns of south Indians even today. This period also saw the spread of this culture overseas to Southeast Asia, regions with whom the Cholas had strong political and economic relations.


¤ Cholas Came Into Power

The Cholas came to power rather suddenly when one of family conquered Tanjore (in the middle of Tamil Nadu) and declared himself a king in the middle of the 9^th century AD.

The first important ruler to emerge from the dynasty was Rajaraja Chola I (985-1014AD) and his son and successor Rajendra Chola (1014-1035AD). Both father and son put their heads down and campaigned in almost every direction. Rajaraja started with annexing large areas of the Deccan, defeating a powerful alliance between the Cheras (of Kerala region), the Pandyas and the rulers of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). This effectively broke the monopoly that these kingdoms had over the trade routes to Southeast Asia.
The Cholas had an effective navy and Rajaraja, with a view to control this trade route completely, led an attack to the Maldive Islands too.

Rajendra I ruled together with father for two years before going solo in 1014AD. He aggressively continued his father's imperialist policies with the annexation of the region around modern Hyderabad which was controlled by the Chalukyas at that time. He also turned his attention northwards where he reached right upto the Ganges valley, Orissa and west Bengal areas.

However, these were not areas that Rajendra held, or even seriously expected to hold, for long. What were really ambitious were Rajendra Chola's offshore expeditions, involving both the army and the navy against andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Malay Islands and Sumatra.
However, these were not colonizing forays, for he never tried to seriously consolidate or move in on his gains in these regions; they were in main campaigns to protect his trade routes with the Southeast Asian nations.

Rajendra Chola I was killed in 1052AD, in battle against his old foes the Chalukyas. The successors of Rajendra I were far too occupied with their problems within the peninsula to worry about overseas expansion. Almost throughout they remained at loggerheads with the Chalukyas, with both carrying attacks and revenge raids against each other.


¤ Declining of The Great Dynasty

However, by the middle of the 12^th century Chola power was already deep into decline. The south was simply far too divided and no one kingdom stood out as a clear leader. The scene was again rapidly shifting to the north where much liveliness had occurred by this time.


¤ Islamic 'hordes' Made Their First Appearance

This is the time which saw the emergence of Delhi from the mists of obscurity that it had sunk into since it was first inhabited as Indraprastha.
It was what the historians call the 'early medieval' period of India – about the 11-12^th century AD – when the much travelled Rajputs were floating restlessly around looking for a home before finally finding shelter in the Rajputana area.

Here the strategic location of Delhi came to play – it was the doorway to both the fertile Punjab, the fabled land of the fiver rivers, and the fertile Ganges valley.

But first, just who were these Rajputs? We come across the word 'Rajput' for the first time in the 7th century AD. There is no previous record or reference of it and it is certainly not a Sanskrit word. There are as many theories as there are historians about the origin of the Rajputs, including an opinion that they were descended from foreigners, from one of the Indo-Parthian, Indo-Bactrian, Indo-Scythian, Saka, Kushana or Hun strains that were already present in India for quite some centuries.

This might just be true, considering the elaborate genealogies that the Brahmans (the priest of the Indian varna or caste system) created to accord them the Kshatriya (warrior) caste. This was a status they always insisted upon, and still do, with surprising and almost undue vehemence. The Rajputs traced their lineage from a mythical fire atop Mount Abu, a mountain in Rajasthan, (Agni Kula or the Fire Family), the sun (Suryavanshi or the Sun Family) and the moon (Chandravanshi or the Moon Family).


¤ Ascent of Rajput Power

The time between the fading away of Harsha Vardhana (606-646AD) and with it the Vardhana might and the rise of Islamic power in India was occupied with the ascent of Rajput power. This, however, was a very short-lived period, mainly due to the in-fighting among the fiercely divided Rajputs.

As can be imagined, India under the Rajputs was not exactly what one could call a single and completely unified unit. Delhi and Ajmer, under the Chauhans, were the most powerful states of this period. However, the first Rajputs to hit Delhi were the Tomaras. In fact, the second city of Delhi, Lal Kot (the Red Fortress) was built in 1060A.D. by Raja Anang Pal, one of the earliest Tomara rulers to settle in Delhi. Their rule was pretty short-lived, though, and soon the Chauhan Rajputs under the generalship of Prithviraj Chauhan seized control of Lal Kot in the 12^th century.
There were other states where Rajputs were gaining prominence. Like Kanauj (in present Uttar Pradesh) where in this period ruled Jaichand, a Rathore (another Rajput family) ruler, who was a bitter rival of Prithviraj Chauhan. In Bundelkhand (in M.P), the chandravansi (of the moon family) Chandelas were ruling. Malwa and Gujrat were were under the Paramaras (the most important ruler was king Bhoj) and Chaulukyas (who are supposed to descendants of the Chalukyas) respectively.

This was a very troubled time in Indian history. There was no clear central authority in sight and each petty ruler was daring to dream the mad dream of ruling all over the country – which at that point in time meant basically the Gangetic plains and the Deccan. This is the main reason why no ruler was able to hold Delhi long enough to establish a kingdom here, and also the principle reason why the Arabs and Turks didn't exactly have to sweat to the bone to stamp their authority all over them.


The Advent of Mahmud Ghazni

and then it happened. In 1000BC, as if on cue, the crescent appeared for the first time over the Indian horizons.

In 1000AD, Mahmud of Ghazni (Afghanistan) encroached upon Indian territories for the first time and then made these invasions almost an annual feature. What with no strong central power, looting the wealth of India to replenish the coffers of Ghazni must have been as easy as finding it. In all, Mahmud invaded India eleven times and the wealth he looted from here went into funding his campaigns in central Asia and mosques, libraries and museums in Ghazni.

Strangely enough, no confederacy appeared to ward off his invasions. After Mahmud's death in 1030AD, any chances of such a mutual consensus being reached among the rulers fizzled out since the significance of his raids as forerunners for others to follow was never quite grasped.


¤ Rajput Hero- Prithviraj

The Rajput clans remained almost constantly and thoroughly at war among themselves in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. It had become a matter of pride to use every supposed slight as an excuse for war, and the prevailing chivalric code allowed no place for either long-sightedness, clear thinking or strategy.

This was around the time that Prithviraj had married the daughter of the king of Kanauj Jaichand – in true Lochinvar style, by carrying her away in the middle of her wedding. The pride of the Kanauj had been stung and had to be avenged.

It so happened that an Afghan ruler Shihab-ud-din Muhammad Ghuri or Mohammad of Ghur (between Ghazni and Herat) was gathering his forces at the frontiers of India, this time in preparation for forcing his way through to Delhi. Even before his forces had rallied around him, the Afghan was surprised by an invitation from Jaichand who offered his help in any way possible to rub out Prithviraj Chauhan from the face of the earth.

However, the Rathore ruler had made one of the grossest miscalculations of his life – in supposing that Ghuri was just another invader looking for dipping into India's bottomless pit of wealth, he erred badly.

Ghuri wanted to establish a kingdom here, and in 1185AD he sent the Rajputs abuzz by taking Lahore. The rulers of north India then half-heartedly threw in their lot with the ruler of Delhi Prithviraj and were able to defeat Ghuri in the Battle of Tarain in 1191AD.
Unfortunately, here is where the foolhardiness of the Rajput code of honour came into play. Prithviraj had Ghuri captured and, when the latter appealed to his better nature, made the grand gesture of actually setting him free. If he had thought that Ghuri would go out and sin no more, he must have been much disappointed for the Afghan simply sent for reinforcements and launched another attack the very next year.

The battle of 1192 was fought at Tarain too; this time Ghuri crushed the Rajputs with one of those clinical and sound defeats that only the Central Asians knew best how to inflict. and when he had Prithviraj he didn't do any such fool thing as letting him go.

This difference in the psychological approach to war, more than anything else, was the undoing of the Indian rulers.

The Afghans and Turks regarded war as a serious business, a matter of life and death.
But for the Indian princes war seemed to have been a form sport, with its own rules of gallantry and chivalry, to show off their bravery and skill. Man to man, no doubt, the Rajputs were better warriors than the Afghans but, when it came to using their resources, the latter were superb at making each man count. The Rajputs failed to understand the crucial distinction between a battle and a war; strategic retreat, which was the strength of the Afghans and Turks, would have been scorned by them. On the other hand the Afghans were a more patient lot, and were willing to lose a battle to win the war.


¤ Muhammad Ghuri

The conquest of Delhi by Muhammad Ghuri would change the future of Indian history radically. A word here about the much-maligned 'Islamic hordes' who conquered India and 'stamped out' the so-called 'Hindu' culture.

With the coming of Ghuri came the long rule of Islamic rulers in the country, and for the first time India saw a succession of proper dynastic rule which it had not really seen uptill now.
There were no more gaps in rule anymore. No more hundred years of no central authority, and certainly no chaos like the one India had just witnessed before the Islamic conquest of India – until deep into the 18^th century AD, for a very brief period before the British took over.

Even at their weakest the Islamic rulers were able to provide India with a strongly centralized government. This was largely due to the fact that the Turks stuck together, at first within themselves, and later reluctantly also with the Afghans. and even when the king was weak the Turks saw it as their duty to maintain a strong face and keep the show going.


¤ The Islamic Rule Over The Region

of course there were bad times, especially when the ruler suddenly decided to go more Islamic than thou and break temples (which were remodeled as mosques) built by the Hindus, a term which started being used around this time. However, this needs to be put in perspective. Muslims saw idol worship as a blasphemy against Allah and were shocked that the Hindus would think differently. Religious tolerance, especially under the Mughals, was practiced quite actively and even under the infamous Aurangzeb who had lots of political compulsions forcing him to act the way he did.

Also the 'long rule of oppression' under the Muslims for the Hindus is largely a myth. First and foremost the Turks and Afghans were shrewd rulers and even shrewder politicians; they were not really much bothered with God and godliness when it came to ruling. This is evinced by a proclamation from Ala-ud-din Khalji, one of the most powerful rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. He had decreed the state (i.e., himself) to be above the priesthood, and when the latter claimed this as un-Islamic and against the Sharia laws, he said, "I do not know whether this is lawful or unlawful; whatever I think to be for the good of or suitable for the state, that I decree; and as for what may happen to me on the Day of Judgement that I do not know." Clearly he was not losing much sleep over displeasing Allah.

If Qutub-ud-din Aibak and Altamash broke temples to use them in their own buildings, it was largely because they were rather short of both time and building material. Also, these rulers urged their troops on to fighting by raising the banner of jehad (Holy War); just like the kings of the Middle Ages urged on their armies to loot the treasures of the Byzantine empire under the cloak of the Crusades. So they had to give their troops some evidence and justification for raising the cry of a Holy War.

At least no mass destruction of books, wisdom and ancient treasures (as occurred in Constantinople, Egypt, the Americas and elsewhere) happened in India – the Arabs, Afghans and Turks, who were quite a scholarly and well-read lot themselves, knew when to stop. The destruction of temples stopped as soon as the Delhi Sultanate settled down and the sultans had more time and money in their hands, which in turn let them free to follow styles which suited their own tastes better.

Anyhow, Delhi and Ajmer passed on to Muhammad of Ghur, who then returned to his own country after leaving Qutubddin Aibak as his viceroy in Delhi. In 1206, when Muhammad was assassinated, Aibak crowned himself Sultan of Delhi, thus laying the foundation for the so-called Slave dynasty of Delhi (the founder having once been a slave), or the Delhi Sultanate.


¤ The Regime of Delhi Sultans

The Delhi Sultanate had a much longer reign in Delhi than any other dynasty that had come before it. In fact, it remained in power throughout the period between 1190 and 1526. The state's boundaries kept shifting, and at different times included Afghanistan and the Deccan, but the central dynasty did not budge till the Mughals arrived.

For the first some years the Sultanate was largely individual-driven, and given the rather communal tribal nature of the Afghan-Turk polity dynastic rule took its time to take hold. The first to begin the consolidation work the dynasty was Altamash (1211-1236AD), who was the son-in-law and successor of Qutub-ud-din Aibak. The Slave Dynasty is also famous for having given India its first woman king, Raziya Sultan (1237-1240AD), the daughter and successor of Altamash. She was followed by a very tough customer, Ghiyas-ud-din Balban (1266-1286AD) who gave the Delhi Sultanate its character and finished the consolidation work.

Balban left a strong base for his successors to build upon, and thankfully, the times got the right rulers. Now the Sultanate saw the rise of the Khaljis, together with Jala-ud-din Khalji (1290-1296AD) and Ala-ud-din Khalji (1296-1316AD), who were its first real dynasty. They were followed by the Tughlaqs who produced three strong rulers – Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq (1320-1414AD), Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq (1325-1351AD) and Feroze Shah Tughlaq (1350-1388AD).

After Feroze Shah’s death, the luck of the Delhi Sultanate ran out and it was sacked thoroughly and absolutely by Timur the Lame, the famous Persian ruler. This was however not the first time that India had been invaded since the Delhi Sultanate took charge. Almost throughout its history, the Sultanate was troubled by repeated invasions from the persistent Mongols (see History of Delhi for more on Mongol invasions). Although the sultans were able to successfully repel all Mongol advances, these invasions took their toll especially since entire armies had to raised and defense budgets allocated for frontier security. To raise the money to fund these, the sultans had to be almost continuously in battle with other areas of India.


¤ The Last Dynasty of Delhi- Lodis

. The ruler in Delhi was Ibrahim Lodi (1517-1526AD), who was a very unpopular king. Not only was he not in with the people of Delhi, who often had a mind of their own about who should rule them and did not shy away from expressing it, he actually fell out very badly with the Maliks (nobles).

Ibrahim believed in keeping his nobles firmly in their place – which was, according to him, much beneath the royal throne. In fact, so horrific were his dealings with those that displeased him in any way, real or imagined, that in the end his governor in Punjab, Dilawer Khan, appealed to the latest runaway from Samarkand who was camping in Kabul at that time for help.
The latter heeded this SOS with an alacrity that showed that such a campaign had been very much on his mind too. The voice of Dilawar Khan was strengthened by those of the Rajputs, especially Rana Sanga, the Rathore ruler of Mewar, who decided to use this new invader to get rid of the autocratic Ibrahim Lodi.

¤ Arrival of Mughals

Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur
Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (1526-1530AD), who had the blood of the great central Asian families of Chingez Khan from his mother's side and that of Timur from his father's, had been hunting for a home to call his own since he was a teenager. He had been driven out of Samarkand, his home, and forced to set up a kingdom elsewhere by his cousins and uncles. Babur looked at Kabul in Afghanistan to start afresh. It was while he was here, building a kingdom for himself, that the Indian princes got in touch with him to help him rid of Ibrahim Lodi.
Much to his delight of course, for the ink was, so to speak, still wet on the pen with which he had written in his autobiography, Tuzuk-i-Baburi, "From the time I conquered the land of Kabul till now, I had always been bent on subduing Hindustan." That very year, in 1526, he crossed over the Indus to reach Panipat, where he defeated Ibrahim Lodi in one of the most significant battles of Indian history.
It was curtains now for the Delhi Sultanate. The Mughals had arrived.

Babur was a military general of formidable credentials and his troops would follow him everywhere, and indeed did for thoroughly battle-scarred his tenure. The first person he defeated was Rana Sanga who was perhaps appalled at Babur's obvious intentions of getting comfortable and staying on in Delhi. After taking Mewar, Babur moved on other battlefields, defeating many kingdoms with a speed which was astonishing.

By the end of it all, Babur had managed to firmly establish the Mughals as the new order to salute in India. He died in controversial circumstances. Some say he was poisoned. There is a more romantic version – apparently, his son and successor Humayun had taken ill, and Babur appealed to God that He should spare the son and take his life instead.

Humayun
His son Humayun succeeded him in 1530AD, and ruled till 1556AD, in between which there was a break of 16 years when Sher Shah Suri (1540-1556), an Afghan noble, overthrew him. However, after a long struggle Humayun was able to take back his kingdom when Sher Shah Suri died. Not for long though, for Humayun died the very same year by slipping from the staircase of his library. Babur had been a great man, soldier, poet and writer; his son was a poet and remained one till the very end, despite the mantle of kingship being thrust upon him.

Humayun's troubled life, in which he was constantly at pains to reconcile his erudite scholarly nature with the demands of kingship (a struggle which in the end resulted in a severe opium addiction), in the end seemed to justify a couplet which he liked quote:

"Oh Lord, of thine infinite goodness make me a part;
Make me a partner of the knowledge of thy attributes;
I am broken-hearted from cares and sorrows of life;
O calls to thee thy poor madman and lover;
Grant me my release."

Akbar The Great
With the passing away of Humayun, came to end the teething problems of the imperial Mughal dynasty for his son was undoubtedly the greatest ruler India ever produced. Soon after ascending the throne as a mere kid of 14, Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (1556-1605AD) started to prove why he earned the epithet of Akbar the Great. When Akbar came to throne all his father had left behind were poor fragments of military conquests for him to make sense out of. While Humayun would have given up, Akbar thrived; challenge became him, whether physical or metaphysical.
Every ruler in India at that time knew that Humayun had just barely managed to take his kingdom back and all eyes were on young Akbar – Sikander Sur, Sher Shah Suri's grandson was still around trying to get the kingdom back; the powerful Rajputs from behind their invincible fortresses, the states of Gujrat and Malwa; even the southern kingdoms – they were waiting for his next move.

The Famous Battle of Panipat Took Place
In 1556AD 14-year-old Akbar led his first army to battle in the famous old battlefield of Panipat which no doubt was a sentimental moment for him because, like all Mughals, he was fiercely clannish. The Second battle of Panipat was fought in between him and Hemu, the Prime Minister of the Sultan of Bengal, who had set out against Akbar the moment he heard the news about Humayun's death. This battle was to decide the future of the young Mughal for Hemu was a formidable antagonist. The Sultan of Bengal, Muhammad Shah Abdali, was but a cipher in the state of affairs in Bengal and Hemu was the l'homme principle. On the way to Panipat he had scared away the Mughal governor in Agra and occupied it. In the battle with so many odds stacked against him, Akbar managed to decisively beat Hemu. What helped him was that Hemu got a little carried away and arrived in battle on an elephant, which made him a pretty much a sitting duck; Akbar shot him an arrow right into the eye. As soon as this occurred Hemu's army panicked and ran away, and Hemu himself was killed by Akbar.
If the first battle of Panipat signalled the arrival of the Mughals, the second was of greater importance. All the pretensions to sovereignty which the Afghans had clung on to since the days of Sher Shah Suri were finally crushed under the advancing Mughal heels.

With this victory Akbar sent a clear signal all over India – he was undoubtedly the Mughal king and intended to be, and was taken seriously. Akbar fought battles all over India, and at the end of it all had an empire that stretched down to the present Karnataka in the south, touching right upto the Hindukush range in the north, all of Rajasthan in the west and after taking in Kashmir and Bihar going on to Bengal in the east.

Akbar ruled the greatest empire that India saw before the British and ruled it with far more authority. One man sitting in his Red Fort in Agra ruled this entire empire with an iron hand.

Akbar - A Great Diplomat
Akbar was not only a good military man but he had a great head for diplomacy and statesmanship as well. He is famous for his Rajput diplomacy, which included some strategic matrimonial alliances (an idea he was the first to use), that turned the fiercely independent Rajputs from his bitter enemies to staunch allies who were ready to lay down their lives for him. He also made many reforms in administration and army management, and started many innovations.

Diplomacy apart, Akbar was a great visionary in many other fields – like art (painters of his court studied styles from far and wide), philosophy and religion (in 1581 he started a national religion which was an amalgam of Hindu, Islamic and Zoroastrian tenets called the Din-i-Illahi or the religion of God), music, literature and so on. Akbar also held deliberations in religion and philosophy with Buddhists, Jains and Christians, in particular the Jesuits. His court was famous for its nauratan (nine gems) or nine experts chosen over the years from various artistic fields, like Abul Fazl the historian, Raja Birbal the wit, Mia Tansen the legendary singer and so on. There are many stories about Akbar and his nine gems; the ones involving Raja Birbal and him are still popular all over India.

Jahangir
In 1600AD, his son and eventual successor, Jahangir rebelled against Akbar when he away in the Deccan engaged in battle. In the confusion of events to follow, Abul Fazl was killed, which made the great Mughal emperor livid with his son. In fact, he started toying with the idea of making Prince Khusro, his grandson, the heir apparent.

This Khusro was a big favorite with the army for his valor and also with the people for his good looks. Realizing his folly Jahangir threw himself at his father's mercy in Agra. The latter, being in no mood to forgive and forget, took his time in coming around but eventually did.
In October 1605 Akbar fell ill and in November that same year that small boy who had stared so many years ago at the battlefield where his grandfather had won such a famous victory, died as king-emperor, the greatest king to have ever ruled India.
Jahangir was crowned emperor by his father when the latter had been on his deathbed in 1605. He had to face the usual share of revolts and rebellions. The very first one being from prince Khusro, in which he was in good company – for Khusro revolted when Jahangir's son, Shah Jahan, came to the throne as well. The single most important person in Jahangir's life was his wife, the enigmatic Nur Jahan, whom he married in 1611.

Nur Jahan - The Queen With Marvelous Talents
Nur Jahan was the real power behind Jahangir. She was a great queen, and a woman of amazing gifts. She was quite a beauty and set many trends in designs of clothes, textiles and jewellery. The attar (perfume) of roses was just one of this great lady's innovations. She was also a very capable and shrewd administrator. No detail, however small, escaped the queen's attention. Her ability to keep a cool head was almost legendary and she amazed even battle-hardy generals with her calm and poise in the middle of crisis. She has been accused of nepotism and of giving rise to a class of nobility which composed entirely of her kith and kin, but that she was entirely in control is clear from the fact that she rebuked even her brother when she thought so fit. Jahangir often remarked: "I have sold my kingdom to my beloved queen for a cup of wine and a bowl of soup."
However, Nur Jahan was not without failings and her biggest was ambition, not only for herself but for her child – a daughter from earlier marriage. She tried her best to keep the king and the rightful heir Shah Jahan separated and to make her daughter's husband the king. However, this was one project that Nur Jahan could not complete with success.
Jahangir was not a mere figurehead in his kingdom. He led his armies into battle a number of times and extended the frontiers of his empire further down in the Deccan, although he lost Kandhar. This loss, however, was not his fault but that of the bitter in-fighting between Shah Jahan and his stepmother. Nur Jahan ordered Shah Jahan to move in battle against a rebellion there, but the prince, suspicious of her motives, refused and revolted against Jahangir instead. The emperor got so occupied with his family affairs that he simply forgot about winning Kandhar back, even though it would have been a matter of just a few days siege.
Things became so bad that Jahangir had to resort to the extreme measure of kidnapping his own grandchildren away to Kashmir with him to stop his son. Depsite all this however Shah Jahan, being a huge favorite with the nobility, safely ascended the throne in 1627, when Jahangir died.

Shah Jahan
The reign of Shah Jahan has been widely acclaimed as the golden period of the Mughal dynasty. There are many reasons for this. Thanks to the firm base left by his grandfather and father, Shah Jahan's reign was relatively peaceful and hence prosperous.

Except for one drought in 1630 in the areas of Deccan, Gujrat and Khandesh, the kingdom was secure and free from poverty. The coffers of the state were brimming with the right stuff. So it's no wonder that Shah Jahan was the greatest and most assiduous builder of the Mughal dynasty.

In 1639, he decided to shift his capital to Delhi and construct a new city there on the banks of the Yamuna, near Ferozabad. It was to be called Shahjahanabad and the famously spectacular peacock throne (the one that Nadir Shah took away) was transferred from Agra to the Red Fort, the new seat of the Mughal rulers, on April 8, 1648.
Military and building genius apart, Shah Jahan's capacity for hard work was legendary. Within a year of his taking reins, the revenue of the state had went up in leaps and bounds.
However, his greatest and most memorable of achievements of course was the breathtaking Taj Mahal, which he built in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in child birth.
There were downsides too. He was a bigoted Muslim and a confirmed nepotist. He provided for the imperial princes before anyone else in the matter of administrative and judicial postings regardless of age, capability and talent. He also started the practise of conferring the cream of the offices on each prince; like Dara Shikoh was made the governor of Punjab and Multan, Aurangzeb was appointed governor of all the four provinces of the Deccan and so on. This might have been just a clever way to keep them occupied, but that was not how the nobility viewed it. The nobles saw this, and rightfully so, as an obstacle in the path of their promotions.

End of Shah Jahan
However, the end of Shah Jahan's reign did not live up to the beginning; it saw one of the messiest battles of succession (also see History in Delhi) that Indian history ever witnessed. In September 1657, Shah Jahan fell ill. The prognosis was so unoptimistic that the rumors had it that the emperor was dead. This was enough to spark off intense intrigue in the court. All the four claimants to Shah Jahan's throne were the children of the same mother – although one would never have guessed that from their temperaments and their determination to make it to the throne.

In 1657, Dara Shikoh was 43, Shah Shuja 41, Aurangzeb 39 and Murad 33. All of them were governors of various provinces: Dara was the governor of Punjab, Murad of Gujrat, Aurangzeb of the Deccan and Shah Shuja of Bengal. Two of them emerged clear frontrunners in the battle for the throne quite early: Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb.

Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb was with doubt the ablest of Shah Jahan's sons and a clear favorite for the throne. His credentials both in battle and administration were legendary. He was also an orthodox Muslim of the oldest school possible, which made him a hot favorite with the clergy.

As stated earlier, the actual events which unfolded around Shah Jahan's illness were confused. Aiding and abetting the confusion with every word and gesture, for his own aims and purposes, was the favorite son Dara Shikoh. Aurangzeb did not waste much time. Acting on Dara Shikoh's behalf, Aurangzeb along with Murad met the Mughal armies twice in battle, and beat them each time while moving on relentlessly towards Agra, where Shah Jahan was convalescing.

When Shah Jahan heard of Aurangzeb's advance, he expressed a wish to meet Aurangzeb and talk to him. It was the emperor's belief that upon seeing him alive, his son would turn on his heels and go back. Clearly the old king had been ailing only in body and not in mind, for certainly the appearance of Shah Jahan himself would have laid to rest the whole issue of succession. Even the most ardent of Aurangzeb's supporters would have had second thoughts about defying the great Mughal's authority openly.

However, Dara Shikoh lacked the potentate's easy confidence in his son. He was not so convinced that Aurangzeb would meekly go back to where he had come from once he had been reassured by the king. In panic he also gave out that he was the heir-apparent.

So with suspicion and rumours ruling the day and power having the last laugh, Aurangzeb was the most amused of them all. Within a year he had all his brothers out of the way, father permanently in custody in the Agra Fort (where he hung on for eight years before dying in 1666) and was firmly entrenched on the Mughal throne.

If Shah Jahan has been over-romanticised by scholars, his son and successor Aurangzeb has been unduly denigrated. Aurangzeb, it seems, could do nothing right. Later writers were to contrast his bigotry with Akbar's tolerance, his failure against the Marathas rebels with Akbar's successes against the Rajputs; in fact he has been set up as the polar opposite of everything that earned one the Akbarian medal of genius. One writer has said about him, rather tongue-in-cheek, "His life would have been a blameless one, if he had no father to depose, no brothers to murder and no Hindu subjects to oppress."

Aurangzeb Ruled India As A Single Largest State
This picture of him has left such an impact on popular imagination that even today he is regarded as the bad guy of the Mughal regime, the evil king who slayed all Hindus and Sikhs. Hardly anyone remembers that he governed India for nearly as long as Akbar did (over 48 years) and that he left the empire larger than he found it. In fact, Aurangzeb ruled the single largest state ever in Mughal history.

Aurangzeb's rise to the throne has been criticised as being ruthless. However, he was no more cruel than others of his family. He succeeded not because he was crueller but because he was more efficient and more skilled in the game of statecraft with its background of dissimulation; and if it's any consolation, he never shed unnecessary blood. Once established he showed himself a firm and capable administrator who retained his grip of power until his death at the age of 88. True, he lacked the magnetism of his father and great-grandfather, but commanded an awe of his own. In private life he was simple and even austere, in sharp contrast to the rest of the great Mughals. He was an orthodox Sunni Muslim who thought himself a model Muslim ruler.

Aurangzeb's Reign Divides To Two Portions.
The first twenty-three years were largely a continuation of Shah Jahan's administration with an added footnote of austerity. The emperor sat in pomp in Delhi or progressed in state to Kashmir for the summer.
From 1681 he virtually transferred his capital to the Deccan where he spent the rest of his life in camp, superintending the overthrow of the two remaining Deccan kingdoms in 1686-7 and trying fruitlessly to crush the Maratha rebellion. The assured administrator of the first period became the embattled, embittered old man of the second.
Along with the change of occupation came a dramatic metamorphosis of character. The scheming and subtle politician became an ascetic; spending long hours in prayer, fasting and copying the Quran, and pouring out his soul in tortured letters. It was in the second or the Deccan phase of his career that Aurangzeb began to drift towards complete intolerance of Hindus.

Earlier his devotion towards Islam had very rarely taken the form of any religious bigotry. Now all that changed – the very king who had ordered in February 1659 that "It has been decided according to our cannon law that long standing temples should not be demolished… our Royal Command is that you should direct that in future no person shall in unlawful ways interfere with or disturb the Brahmins and other Hindu residents in those places" became a total fanatic.
In this zealousness to promote the cause of Islam, Aurangzeb made many fatal blunders and needless enemies. He alienated the Rajputs, whose valuable and trusted loyalty had been so hard won by his predecessors, so totally that they revolted against him. Eventually he managed to make peace with them, but he could never be easy in his mind about Rajputana again, a fact that hampered his Deccan conquest severely. Then, he made bitter enemies in the Sikhs and the Marathas. Things came to such a head that Guru Teg Bahadur, the 9^th Guru of the Sikhs was at first tortured and then executed by Aurangzeb for not accepting Islam; a martyrdom which is mourned to this day by the Sikh community. The 10^th Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Govind Singh then raised an open banner of revolt against Aurangzeb.

End of Aurangzeb's Regime
No, Great-grandfather Akbar would certainly not have approved or been amused. He would have raised his imperial eyebrows at such a royal mess and sharply rebuked Aurangzeb for squandering away what he had worked so hard to achieve. Deccan or no Deccan.
Aurangzeb ended his lonely embittered life in Aurangabad in 1707. Perhaps with relief, but surely with much grief too for surely he knew that with him set the glorious sun that was the Mughal dynasty.
The gallery of the great Mughals is completed by Aurangzeb's son Bahadur Shah, commonly neglected because his reign lasted barely five years. He was an old man (by contemporary standards) of sixty-three when he acceded, yet his achievements in time would have done credit to most men in their prime. He made settlements with the implacable Marathas, tranquillised the Rajputs, decisively defeated the Sikhs in the Punjab, and took their last Guru into his services. He was travelling throughout his reign and only came to rest in Lahore in the last few months of his life.
From here on, the Mughal dynasty begins to disintegrate, and with surprising speed. Many directly blame Aurangzeb and his destructive policies which eroded the faith of the subjects in the Mughals for this. However, this is by far an overstatement. Whatever might have been Aurangzeb's policies, he remained very much the emperor till his dying breath in 1707. True, his policies did lead to resentment; even at the end of Shah Jahan's reign the rot had set in. Aurangzeb in fact tried to stop it and did a good band-aid job for a little while, but then things just went haywire with his persistent Deccan devil.
Deccan wrung Aurangzeb the man, the king, the father and the believer out of all softer emotions and decorum. He simply lost all sense of balance. He alienated a sizeable portion of his subjects along with allies and employees and made completely unnecessary enemies which cost his successors dearly. He tried during his lifetime to put down rebellions all over his empire (the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Satnamis and the Rajputs) by one hand while trying to take Deccan with the other. However, it was like trying to put out a wild fire. Ultimately, it was these alternative power blocs which were cropping up all over the country that sped up the fall of the Mughals. Not to mention the foreign powers who were already among those present: the British stretching their legs in Calcutta, the Portuguese in Goa and the French testing waters in the South.
of course, it did not help matters that the successors of the great Mughals were weak and unworthy of their forefathers. But that was bound to happen some time or the other, wasn't it? So, from the late-18^th century the field was wide open for any new power that wanted to try to set up shop in India.
This was the time when a certain East India Company suddenly realized that they had stumbled upon a gold mine.

Modern Indian History

¤ European Influence Over India

The period from 1707AD, the year when Aurangzeb died, to 1857, the year of the Indian Uprising, saw the gradual increase of the European influence in India. The Europeans had been filtering into India for a long time before they actually decided to set up shop here. Even though the British got away with the jackpot, the real pioneers to reach India were the Portuguese.
Full of crusading and commercial zeal, Vasco da Gama was the first known European to reach India in 1498, even before the Mughals arrived here. When Vasco da Gama docked his ship in Calicut, he announced that he came in search of "Christians and spices" and the very first people he met here were Christians, who were descendants of those who had settled in India way back in the 4^th century AD.


¤ Portuguese Rule

Religious fervor forgotten, the Portuguese eventually settled down to a very prosperous trade in spices with India. The Muslim rulers in Delhi and then the Mughals never really warmed up to the idea of a foreign power continuing trade on the seas under their imperial noses. What's more, they were not exactly very honest traders too, since they thought that no word that was given to an infidel need be kept. So much so that the word phirangi, or foreigner in colloquial, came to be a hissing and a byword among locals. In fact in Goa, where the Portuguese ruled, intolerance levels ran high and even the building of Hindu temples was banned.

Alberquerque (1509-1515), who was the second Portugese viceroy in India, encouraged mixed marriages with the sole object of creating a mixed race who were Portuguese Catholics, and who would be bound by race and culture to the Portuguese. They were known as Luso-Indians at one time and now simply as Goans. One of main reasons why Portugal was never able to go anywhere further than Goa was that Spain took over the country in 1580AD.

¤ Advent of Dutch

The Dutch came shipping in the East for the first time in 1595. However, they did not come to India initially, and established themselves at the helm of things in the spice trade in Jakarta. India came into the picture for them purely as a route to Europe, as part of a great Asian trade route that they developed which went through Ceylon and Cape Town.
Although the Dutch had their factories dotting all over (in Cochin, Nagapatam and even up in Agra) they did not attempt to gain military power, being quite content to gain in cash.

¤ French Invaders

Although the French King Loius XII had granted letters of monopoly to French traders in 1611, it wasn’t until December 1667 that a French company was actually set up in India. This was at Surat (in Gujrat) with Francis Caron as its Director-General. Soon, in 1669, another French company came up in Masulipatnam, thanks to a grant by the king of Golconda which exempted the French from paying import and export duty. In 1672, Caron's place was taken by Francis Martin, who is regarded as the real founder of the French.


¤ English Formed East India Company

The English formed their East India Company on the last day of 1600 and entered the East Indies hand in hand with the Dutch. Their foes were common – the Portuguese and Catholic Spain – and this brought them closer. However, familiarity breeds contempt, and soon the English realized that the Dutch were not willing to share their space in Spice Islands (East Indies) with them.

Things became grim enough for the British to finally run away and find refuge in India. It was this success of the Dutch to hang on, with characteristic tenaciousness to the Spice Islands that finally made the British to settle on India as the second-best; because spices in India were essentially only in the south where the local rulers and other Europeans already had a monopoly.

of course, they ran into trouble in their very first step, so to speak, with the Portuguese. However, here the British luck turned; perhaps the Raj was destined, after all. As said earlier, the Portuguese were not winning any popularity contests in India, and then with Spain coming into the scene they were hard pressed for resources. Finally what won the east was that old trump card of the British, their naval supremacy.
In 1612 the Mughal emperor Jahangir received Sir Thomas Roe, the first ambassador of the British to Indian aristocracy. Roe’s diplomacy with the Mughals was so successful that by a treaty in 1618 the East India Company became their unspoken, unsaid, naval aide. By 1674 Bombay came to the British as part of the dowry of Charles II's Portuguese queen Catherine, and from here they never looked back. 1708 or the dawn of the Modern Indian Era found them quite comfortably placed in India, commercially that is.


¤ Declining of Mughal Regime

Post Aurangzeb the decline of the Mughals was shockingly swift . A confused state of affairs reigned supreme in India before the British finally took control. It is hardly surprising that the more insular Brits thought it was their divine right or the Whiteman's burden to set the house in order for the natives who seemed to be their own worst enemies.

Powerful nobility was ruling the day at the Mughal court whose grandiose and power had fallen into disarray and disgrace. Nautch girls, poetry and wine flowed; unfortunately so did the gold from the coffers of the treasury. Clearly it was that twilight zone; when dynasties just linger on for want of anything or anyone better.


¤ Invasion of Nadir Shah

Then there were the inevitable, though disastrous, invasions. The first of these was led by the famous Persian king Nadir Shah in 1739. At this time the court in Delhi was busy fighting the Marathas and one of their best generals, Nizam-ul-Mulk was in war against them.


Nizam met Nadir when the latter arrived near Delhi and succeeded in changing his mind about sacking Delhi by offering him a booty of Rs 50,00,000. However, here again court politics had the upper hand; one of Nizam's rival generals convinced Nadir he was settling for too little and the fabulous riches of Delhi were to be seen to be believed. So Nadir marched over to Delhi in time to have a khutba read in his name. Unfortunately, around this time a rumour started doing the rounds that Nadir was dead, which was not only celebrated by the inhabitants of Delhi, but everyone got bold enough to actually attack a few Iranian soldiers.

The result was that on March 11, 1739 an order went forth from Nadir Shah, and yet another one of those terrible massacres that Delhi was a regular witness to took place. The areas of Chandini Chowk, the fruit market, the Dariba bazaar and the buildings around Jama Masjid were burnt to cinders. Each and every inhabitant of the area was killed as an example. The people of Delhi will still point at the Khooni Darwaza (Blood Gate) in the old city and tell you about the massacre which happened here as if it were only yesterday. The royal treasury was sacked and its contents seized. When Nadir Shah left Delhi after 57 days of staying here, he also took along the fabulous Peacock Throne of the Mughals with him. and along with it also the final vestiges of the Mughal pride.


¤ Afghans Invaded Delhi With Ahmad Shah Abdali

The next invasion that rocked Delhi was led by the Afghans, with Ahmad Shah Abdali, an ex-general of the same Nadir Shah, as their commander. Abdali led as many as seven invasions into India between 1748-1767.

After the plundering that Delhi received by Nadir Shah, the Mughals seemed to have just given up. Abdali was all over the place ransacking Lahore, Punjab and so on, but it seemed like the Delhi court couldn't care less. It was left to the powers-that-be, the Marathas, to face the Abdali challenge. He promptly reduced the Marathas to the powers-that-had-been in the third and final battle of Panipat on January 13, 1761.

That was one of the reasons why the British found India completely at a loose end when they came here – most of the rising powers had been ground to dust by invading armies before they could amount to anything.


¤ Abdali Captured Delhi

In January 1757 a carnage of the Nadir Shah vintage was repeated. After pillaging Delhi the Afghans marched on to overrun most of Northern India. It is said that following the ransacking of the cities of Mathura, Brindaban and Gokul, for `seven days the waters of the Jamuna flowed of a blood-red colour.’
An outbreak of cholera in his army forced Adbali to withdraw; but not before he had made the Delhi court cough up around 120,000,000 rupees (that the Delhi court still had that kind of money speaks for the unbelievable riches which the Mughals once commanded). Also he demanded, and got, Kashmir, Lahore, Sirhind and Multan. This was unfortunately not the last time that Abdali invaded India.
It was left to the powers-that-be, the Marathas, to face the next Abdali challenge. Seeing the ruins of a powerful kingdom and the immense riches that Hindustan had in its womb in Delhi, Abdali thundered in again. On January 13, 1761, he took on the Maratha confederation under Bhao Rao, promptly reducing them to the powers-that-had-been in the third and final battle of Panipat. This was the end of the Maratha power in the north, for they stayed away for the next 10 years.

Abdali returned in 1764, driven once again by a hunger not for power but for gold. His sixth invasion had the Sikhs (who had by then carved out a kingdom under the famous Maharaja Ranjit Singh) up in arms. The determined Sikh power had put up a stiff challenge not only for Abdali, but were the main reason why the Marathas were never able to be very successful up north. When Abdali invaded India for the last time in 1767, they managed to inflict defeat on him and the Sikhs took Lahore and Central Punjab. However the areas from Peshwar up remained with Abdali.

It was an India exhausted with war and battle; an India badly in need, and indeed glad, of someone who could take charge. She had gone around a circle in the cycle of history. It was a great leap too – from the cultured, sophisticated and erudite civilisation under the Mughals to the power hungry and superstitious dark ages of the late 18^th and 19^th century. The status of women in society fell like never before: Huge weddings which were a drain to the bride's family took place; oppression reared its nasty head in the form of a rigid caste system (even with the Muslims); and Sati, the Rajput ritual of a widow being cremated with her dead husband, and so on which were never a part of Indian 'culture' became so now.

No, we were not putting on out best faces for the phirangis.


¤ British Rises To Power

Against this troubled backdrop the British rise to power was slow, but remarkably steady. Slow because the path was far from smooth; first there were the French to deal with. The commercial rivalry that cropped up with such a vengeance amongst the British and the French had roots in the prevailing political situation in Europe, and even then as long as the French carried on business in a small way in India the British left them to themselves.

The real trouble started between 1720 and 1740, when the French company's trade with India increased by about ten-fold to come up to half the volume that the English company was generating at that time. Now the stakes were just too much for each to ignore the other – especially taking in the factor that this Indian trade amounted for more than ten percent of Mother England's revenue.

This was the time when the War of Austrian Succession (1740-48) had broken out in Europe, following Fredrick the Great of Prussia's seizure of Silesia in 1740. The French and British found themselves in opposing camps in this war. Later, during the Seven Years War too (1756-63) both were at loggerheads with each other, supporting rival camps. These two wars of Europe, by Europe and for Europe in the end totally changed the balance of power as India knew it.


¤ The War Between French and English Arose


Between 1746-48 the French and English finally came to blows in the first Carnatic War (1746-48) in the Deccan. There were two more of these skirmishes and they were to seal the fate of the French company as far as India was concerned. The first Carnatic War was merely an echo of the Austrian War of Succession as said earlier. The fight was over Madras and though the French captured it, it was given back to the English as part of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748.

What had happened in the meanwhile was that the British and the French had got their fleets upto the Indian mainland, an important development as the balance of power was now shifting fast in the favor of the Europeans. and Dupleix, the French governor of the time, decided that this power could be used to gain a support base within the country.


¤ Dupleix The French Governor

Dupleix was a very shrewd and resourceful character, with great diplomatic skills, and his understanding of local politics was formidable, though flawed by a hyper temperament which made him extremely difficult to work with. The perfect opportunity came in 1748 when the Nawab of Arcot (in present Tamil Nadu) died and the question of who would succeed him arose.

Dupleix was so successful in his intrigue that he succeeded in enthroning a Nizam of his choice, Chanda Sahib. The new Nizam was supported by the old Nawab's grandson Muzzafar Jung and backed up by French troops under the able command of De Bussy.
The idea was to close in on Madras by surrounding it with French territory. The plan would have developed pretty neatly but for Robert Clive, sent away to Madras by his family to become a clerk, who turned out to be a brilliant strategist.
His seizure of Arcot in 1751 with a mere 210 men upset all of Dupleix's subtle strategies. Chanda Sahib was killed and a British nominee was put on the Arcot throne. Two years later Dupleix was recalled to France.

Dupleix was succeeded by Godeheu, who sued for peace with the British. By the new treaty both the French and the British agreed not to interfere in Indian internal matters and went back to their old positions. But though the British got a town the French agreed to give up everything they had taken so far. Godeheu was denounced for having "signed the ruin of the country and the dishonor of the nation," but the damage was done. The British emerged much stronger after the second Carnatic War.

The third and final phase of this Anglo-French war for supremacy was brought on by the Seven Years War in the shape of the third Carnatic War (1756-63). However, despite some heroics by French generals like De Bussy and Lally, the British were able to decisively beat the French who eventually lost practically everything they had in India. With the close of the third Carnatic War, the French were finished as far as India was concerned. Thanks to their superior sea-power, greater resources and steadier support from Europe, the English were able to vanquish the dream of dominion de l'empire de la France in India forever.


¤ The Revolt of 1857

Since then the story of the British rise to power in India became sort of predictable. Except for one small hiccup in 1857 during the Indian Uprising. Debate has continued and will always go on about whether 1857 was actually the first Indian War of Independence or simply a mutiny. Well, a little of both, we conclude. It was far too limited in its scope and aims to be dignified as the first Indian War of Independence; but nor was it that restricted that one can dismiss it as just a mutiny.

There is enough evidence to support the fact that the Uprising had been planned for months before the actual outbreak. What the revolutionaries did, apart from the fact that they failed to spread the word beyond Central India and Delhi, was that the Uprising did not go according to plan. It broke out before the appointed date; if D-day had gone according to schedule the Uprising would have broken out in many areas simultaneously, and then it would have been very difficult for the British to control it. However, as things were, trouble broke out sporadically in various places in May 1857 and there was little, if any, co-ordination about the whole thing. So, the British were able to curb it with relative ease.


¤ Cultural Revolution In Progress

For a long time before 1857, a cultural revolution had been in progress in Indian society. As a result of this Sati was banned, new religions like the Arya Samaj were formed, education for women was encouraged and a whole new breed of intellectuals – mostly from Bengal – came to the forefront.
This new breed of rich Indian was well-read and also well-travelled; of course, this meant that a new age of political awareness was rising out of the mists of the turmoil that had immediately preceded. As a result the British, or rather an administrator called A O Hume, convinced the then Governor General of India Lord Dufferin that it might be profitable to have roughly a sort of His Majesty's opposition comprising of Indian politicians in India who would advice the government.
Though Dufferin was not exactly convinced of what good the idea would do, he okayed it and so in December 1885 the Indian National Union (which would soon be renamed Indian National Congress) met in Bombay. Seventy-two delegates came from different parts of India, and presiding them was Dadabhai Naoroji, an eminent lawyer and political leader.


¤ Indian National Congress

So was born the party that must surely have given the British government much cause to regret that they had ever thought it up at all. For, much to the British government's chagrin, the Indian National Congress took its job seriously. In its early phase, which is called the phase of the Moderates (1885-1905), the Congress was thoroughly loyal to the British.
Its members were British in all aspects except where it mattered the most, in colour. They were a class of elite erudite men who were into philosophy and intellectual discussions; the much more popular `peoples’ leaders’ were to follow. Dadabhai Naoroji, the most prominent among their leaders observed: "Let us speak out like men and proclaim that we are loyal to the backbone; that we understand the benefits the English rule has conferred upon us."

Understandably, the man on the road was hardly aware they were alive. and nor, if their attitude is anything to go by, was the British government.


¤ The Policies of British Government Leads To Dissatisfactions

In 1907 there was split in the Congress as those members who were unsatisfied with the scheme of affairs under the Moderates, including popular leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, parted company with them. This hardly helped their cause because for the next eight years the Congress, for all contents and purposes, went into hibernation.

This was the time when extreme nationalists came into the scene, especially after the controversial partition of Bengal into west and east Bengal in 1905 by the highly unpopular and obnoxiously highhanded Lord Curzon. The decision evoked sharp reactions from all over India and there was violent agitation against it.

October 16, 1905, the day on which the partition came into effect, was observed as a day of mourning and fasting throughout Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore, the famous Nobel-laureate and writer, spoke out against it through a passionate poem. This was the time when the Swadeshi movement was first launched; that is, Indians burnt foreign clothes, cigarettes, soap and anything made across the seas in huge bonfires and turned to Indian made articles instead. Many factories manufacturing indigenous clothes, textiles and whatever else was required were set up. Lots of earnest young leaders of Bengal took up the task of educating people. On August 15, 1906, a national council of education was introduced under the educationist Aurobindo Ghose.

The government came down heavily on the demonstrations, choosing to break up meetings, insult leaders and beat up peaceful protestors. In 1907, leaders Lala Lajpat Rai and Sardar Ajit Singh were deported from the Punjab. In 1908, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was arrested and sentenced to six years imprisonment. Aurobindo Ghose was arrested, prosecuted and though acquitted, chose to retire to Pondicherry.

The agitation to oppose the partition of Bengal (although the partition was reverted in 1911) saw the coming of age of Indian nationalism. India was together like never before and the country was bristling with nationalistic fervor. However, the idea of independence from the British was still not an option that nationalists were considering.


¤ Home Rule Movement Started

When Great Britain was deeply enmeshed in the World War I, India's national movement though intermittent continued to throw up surprises. One of them was the Home Rule Movement. In December 1915, Tilak, who was one of the first nationalist leaders with a following and deep understanding of the grassroots of India, voiced the thought of Home Rule (instead of `swadeshi’, that being a word the British were wary about). It was for the first time that someone had mentioned the word Home Rule as being the goal for the Indian National Movement. On April 28, 1916, the Home Rule League was set up with its headquarters in Poona (Pune). Tilak went on a whirlwind tour of the country, appealing to everybody to unite under the banner of Home Rule League. Anne Besant of the Theosophical Society fame also assisted him in this task.

Under face of this attack, the government fell back to that old reliable – stricter laws. Laws were formulated to prevent agitations, to prevent `undesirable aliens’ from entering India, propaganda came under government control, and so on.

The importance of the Home Rule movement was that for the first time the independence of India came to be clearly the goal of the Indian national movement. The public at large was first an audience and then terrorist nationalists who bombed parliaments and blew up railways, and they must have further scared the middle class away from the movement. and history will tell you no movement for independence was ever a success without the involvement of the bourgeoisie. So, while the idea of freedom was gaining ground, the populace at large was not really involved.

and then, as Jawaharlal Nehru would later say, Gandhi came.


¤ Gandhiji

Suddenly everything changed. The man dressed in a dhoti, kurta and pugri with a lathi in hand (initially) and mingled with elegantly dressed British-Indian moderates. He was not a rabble-rouser; he would have been loath to do a Demosthenes. Nor was he anyone's idea of a charismatic leader. Just a short, thin, shrivelled man, with what Sarojini Naidu called `Mickey Mouse ears’ and a twinkle in his eyes. He talked of peace. of loving his enemies, not of bombs or murders. of non-violence, ahimsa. That was his only weapon; and, as the British were to find out to their expense, boy did it work!

When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came back to India from South Africa at the age of 49, he had already built a tremendous reputation for himself as a political leader. Almost immediately upon docking in Bombay, he was offered to lead the national Movement.

Gandhi, however, begged out, opting to travel and know the country thoroughly first. The first causes he chose to associate with were minor local affairs and it would almost seem that the nationalist leaders of the time did not know what to think of this almost too-mild, too-moral and too-impractical maverick.

During 1917-18, hectic political moves were being made by a worried British government. One of the results of this was the Rowlatt Act proposed by Justice Rowlatt. Among other things this act gave the courts the right to try political cases without a jury and provincial governments, apart from the centre, the power of internment without trial. Gandhi, in his typical style, said that the Rowlatt Act raised issues of trust and self-respect, and hence should be met by a moral response in shape of a hartal, or a traditional Indian way of protest involving cessation of activities for a day.


¤ The Massacre At Jallianwallah Bagh

The flash-point came in Punjab. On April 12, 1919, General Dyer, who had taken over the troops in Punjab the day before, prohibited all meetings or gatherings. So of course a public meeting was announced to be held the very next day, April 13, in Jallianwallah Bagh (a park enclosed on all sides with only a single narrow entrance) at 4.30pm. We all know what happened that day.
It has been repeated in emotion-charged words in books and in poignant scenes in movies. That day 6000 to 10,000 people, including women and children, were shot dead in that park as an example of what happened to people who disobeyed the orders of the British Raj. In the court martial which followed later, General Dyer coldly observed that he had fired only 1600 rounds of ammunition on the crowd; that was because that was all he had. He added that he would fired more if he had so seen fit.

The brutality of the Jallianwallah Bagh tragedy shocked the country. It also woke up the moderates.

What was more important was that it brought Gandhi out in the open.


¤ The Beginning of Non Co-operation Movement

In 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian National Congress launched the first of his innovative movements of protest, the Non Co-operation Movement. It involved surrender of all titles, honorary offices and nominated posts in local bodies.
People stopped attending government functions and darbars. Parents were requested to withdraw their children from government schools and colleges. British courts and the army was boycotted. Indians were to stand for elections to any government body or legislature. Ahimsa or non-violence was to be observed strictly.

The hugeness of the idea of Non Co-operation amazed every political leader in India, who started realising that Gandhi was not so meek after all. The idea captured popular imagination and suddenly, in one sweep, the National Movement was taken to every man on the street.

People came out in their thousands to support Gandhi and his movement. The government machinery did not actually break down, but came under visible strain.


Unfortunately, in the time when the movement was showing signs of real success, an incident occurred in Chauri Chaura, in which a mob of 3000 people killed 25 policemen and one officer. Similar tragic events had happened earlier on November 17, 1921, in Bombay and on January 13, 1922, in Madras. Gandhi, who was the last of the ethical political leaders, immediately withdrew his movement. and got arrested in the bargain, on March 13, 1922. However, the Mahatma did get his way, the Rowlatt Act was repealed.

Gandhi was severely criticised almost everywhere for disassociating himself from the Non Co-operation Movement; for certainly the moment he went, so did the masses. This was not the first difference of opinion that was to happen in the Congress about Gandhi's actions. Many more such occasions were to crop up, though everyone invariably gave in to the Mahatma. Gandhi was already the invisible ruler of the country.

A committee was set up in 1927 to review the status of Indian affairs by the British government, under Sir John Simon. So far, so good. However, the committee did not include even a single Indian, a situation which convinced the Congress that action was called for.

This was time when young radicals like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose were insisting on total independence being the goal for the Congress. The new Viceroy Lord Irwin had got the Labour government in London to agree to a declaration that dominion status was the goal of British policy and a round table conference was called to consider the next step. After coming out one of his famous thinking breaks, Gandhi was for the offer. But the mood in the country was totally contrary to this. So rather than let the radical element take over, Gandhi decided to control the situation by leading a non-violent movement himself.


¤ The Demand of Complete Independence - Purna Swaraj

At midnight, on December 31, 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the Tricolor on the banks of the river Ravi in Punjab and the Congress called for complete Independence, purna swaraj. January 26, 1930, was declared as Independence Day. From February 14 to 16, 1930, the Congress Working Committee met at Gandhi's famous ashram in Sabarmati and vested Mahatma Gandhi with launching his Civil Disobedience movement "at a time and place of his choice."

On February 27, the plan of agitation was announced. The entire nation was in ferment. Everyone was waiting in eager suspense about what would the Mahatma do next; none more than the British government, though not so eagerly, one presumes.

On March 12, 1930, accompanied with 78 colleagues of the Sabarmati Ashram, Mahatma Gandhi embarked on a 60-mile march to the sea coast of Dandi. He intended to defy the Salt tax, paid indirectly by every peasant. The first instinct of the government was to let him walk as much as he wanted, and ignore him. However, the Gandhi magic worked. Soon protests, hartals, processions were taking place all over India. Gandhi was arrested on May 5, 1930, and his place was taken by Abbas Tyabji as the leader of the movement. When Tyabji was arrested, Sarojini Naidu, the famous nightingale of India, replaced him. All over India, the mood was ablaze, the atmosphere tense and the people were on the streets. Louis Fischer wrote about the Civil Disobedience: "The British beat the Indians with batons and rifle butts. The Indians neither cringed nor complained nor retreated. That made England powerless and India invincible."


¤ First Round Table Conference

When the first Round Table Conference was held in London from November 12, 1930 to January 19, 1931, it turned into a failure for not a single Congressman attended. The British now appealed to the Congress to work with them. Lord Irwin also declared that Mahatma Gandhi and the other members of the Congress Working Committee would be freed soon to consider the matter "freely and fearlessly."

The Mahatma was persuaded to meet Irwin and the result was the Irwin-Gandhi pact under which the Civil Disobedience Movement was withdrawn and a second Round Table Conference with Congress participation was agreed upon. This peace did not last long. Gandhi attended the Second Round Table conference in London in 1931 as the sole representative of the Congress. He demanded control foreign and defence affairs, and there was complete deadlock over the matter of minorities, thanks to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, His Highness the Aga Khan and Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar. Gandhi returned to India on December 28, 1931 empty handed.

By May 1934, the Civil Disobedience Movement was completely withdrawn.

During the second World War the Congress decided that India should co-operate with Britain on the understanding that complete independence be granted to India after that. The British, however, stuck to the policy of `no change during war and whatever you want will be discussed after that’. This attitude did not exactly ease the minds of the Congress members as to the intentions of the government. Now also was visible a wide open split between Jinnah's Muslim League and the Congress' aims and demands. Early in 1940 Jinah declared Pakistan as the goal of the league.

After the fall of France in 1940, Gandhi declared, "We do not seek independence out of Britain's ruin." The British reply to this was an offer that an Indian constituent assembly as well as Dominion status would be discussed `after the war’. The offer was spurned. The result? A deadlock which was not to unlock till 1947.

Gandhi, with his usual skill for the innovative, now rallied the country and Congress behind him with his Quit India movement. The threat was the launch of a Civil Disobedience movement which could have coincided with the Japanese advances from the far-east towards India. "After all," he said, "this is open rebellion."

The movement was launched on August 8, 1942 in Bombay. Gandhi declared: "I want freedom immediately, this very night, before dawn, if it can be had. You may take it from me that I am not going to strike a bargain with the Viceroy for ministers and the like… Here is the mantra, a short one, that I give you… Do or die. We shall either free India or die in the attempt."


¤ Independence Was Just Ahead

From 1942 onwards it was quite clear that independence of India was only a matter of time now.

NEW DELHI, the new capital of India, was hardly seven years old then. The British did not live long in the beautiful New Delhi they created. Thus, again fulfilling the age-old prophecy about those who build Delhi don’t live in it for long.

In 1946, Lord Mountbatten arrived in Delhi amid a buzz of political activity. The British, following their World War II concerns, wanted to basically wash their hands off India. Also, the Indians wanted to get back what was rightfully theirs. However, there were too many emotional ties – the British and the Indians went too far back together for the British to just pack up and leave. They had a responsibility. Unfortunately Mountbatten, although a favorite with the Indians because of his youthful good looks, was the wrong man for the job. He was in such a hurry to get back to England that he seemed to just go along with the first proposal that found favor with both the Congress and the Muslim League without taking into account what the people really wanted.


¤ Partition of India

The rest is history. Partition, one of the worst mass movements of people in recent history after that of the Jews in the World War II, happened. Two republics were born from one nation on August 15, 1947 – Pakistan and India.

Gandhi, the father of the nation, did not join the celebration that followed. He was in Bihar working in riot torn areas, praying for peace. For him independence, in the shape that it came, meant failure. With this in mind, Gandhi withdrew from active politics.

Accusations by Hindu fundamentalists that he had sided with the Muslims in giving away Pakistan too easily dogged Gandhi since the day the state of Pakistan was declared. On January 30, 1948, a Hindu fundamentalist called Nathu Ram Godse shot and killed the man who was the Mahatma.