In olden times, when the Aryans came to India, there was no compact social order in the land of India. The population of India consisted of small or big tribes of Austric, Dravidian and Mongolian origin.
An absolutely different race (Caucasian Aryans) [Mediterranean Aryans from Caucasia] came to India. They brought with them the Vedic lifestyle and language; and the Vedic administration, social order and methods of warfare. They began to use the derogatory word Anárya [non-Aryan] for all the indigenous people of India.
Slowly India was divided into two clearly different mental structures. One was the sentiment born of the vanity of the victorious Aryans, and the other was the sentiment created by the inferiority complex of the vanquished non-Aryans. Thus, two nations were formed in India the Aryans and the non-Aryans.
Years rolled on. As a result of contact with the non-Aryans, the Vedic language of the Aryans underwent a change. Different regional languages came into existence. All efforts to avoid blood relations between the Aryans and the non-Aryans proved futile. Racial blending between the Aryans and the non-Aryans took place.
Gradually the non-Aryans were accepted as Shůdras or the fourth group in Aryan society, and as a result of this social blending both the Aryan sentiment and the non-Aryan sentiment lost their respective specialities. These two nations died out with the weakening of the two sentiments which had caused the formation of the Aryan and the non-Aryan nations. In other words, India again became nationless.
In this nationless age, or age of chaos, the Buddhist upheaval in India occurred. Again a section of people became united with a common sentiment the Buddhist sentiment. They formed a new nation. In the beginning the non-Buddhists were disunited, and hence they could not form a nation. But when the Buddhists, puffed up with pelf and power, began to be unfair to the non-Buddhists with the help of the ruling authorities, an anti-Buddhist sentiment grew up among the non-Buddhists, just as an anti-Aryan sentiment had previously grown up among the non-Aryans as a reaction to the oppression by the Aryans.
Towards the end of the Buddhist period, two nations, roughly speaking, were to be found in India one based on Buddhist sentiment, and the other on anti-Buddhist sentiment.
The death of the Buddhist nation was caused on the one hand by the downfall of the bhikśus [Buddhist monks], the disorderly state of affairs in organizations and monasteries, the lack of support from the government, and above all, the want of renowned scholars among the Buddhists; and on the one hand by the support of the ruling authorities for the non-Buddhists, and the appearance of the great scholar and logician Shankaracharya. These factors brought about not only the defeat of the Buddhists, but also dissension within the Buddhist community.
The new sentiment, known as the Sanátanii or Bráhmańya [Brahmanical] religion, which came into existence with the cooperation of Shankaracharya and the patronage of various non-Buddhist kings, was based on anti-Buddhist feelings. This is why, after the death of the Buddhist nation, the Brahmanical nation could not last long. Again India became nationless.
In the Post-Vedic Age, when both the Aryan and the non-Aryan nations died, no foreign invasion took place. Within the country, the Buddhist revolution occurred. Had a foreign invasion taken place, the nationless India would have been very easily conquered by the invaders. But as ill luck would have it, when India became nationless for the second time after the demise of the Buddhist and the Brahmanical nations, there was no internal revolution.
Instead there was the Muslim invasion from outside. The Muslims were able to conquer India only when Buddhism completely disappeared and shortly thereafter the Brahmanical nation also died. They were not able to conquer India before that. They had to wait for a long time after the invasion of Sind.* Although the Brahmanical nation had split up in South India also, the newly-formed small nations were not weak, and that is why they were able to resist the Muslim invasion in that part of India.
After the Muslim occupation, a new Muslim nation came into being. The Muslims had their own language (formerly Turkish and later Persian), manners and customs, dress, racial peculiarity, mode of living and religion, and on the basis of these factors a sentiment developed. Their sentiment was the sentiment of the ruling people.
It is no use denying the fact that the victorious Muslim nation played the role of oppressor and did much injustice to the inhabitants of India, as was done by the Aryans to the non-Aryans, by the Brahmanical nation to the Buddhists, and by the Buddhists to the non-Buddhists. The oppression and injustice done by the Muslims made the non-Muslims unite anew an anti-Muslim sentiment grew among them. Thus two nations were formed the victorious Muslim sentiment based on the Persian language created one nation, while the Hindu sentiment based on the Sanskrit language created another. These two nations existed for a long time side by side in India.
The sentiment with which the Muslim nation started was entirely new, but the Hindus or non-Muslims had no equally strong sentiment, and therefore they had to form a strong anti-Muslim sentiment. Just as the leaders of the Brahmanical nation had to use the anti-Buddhist sentiment as their only capital, the leaders of the Hindu nation made the anti-Muslim sentiment their capital.
The Hindus started doing the complete opposite of what the Muslims would do. While offering prayers the Muslims would not wear their káchá;* therefore the Hindus would wear it. Beef and fowl were favourite foods of the Muslims; so they were inedible to the Hindus. The Muslims would pray facing the west; therefore the Hindus were forbidden to do this. There were many things like this. I cannot say that these types of do's and don't's were harmful to the Hindus. By means of these social directives a strong anti-Muslim sentiment was formed among the Hindus, as a result of which a Hindu nation was formed.
Otherwise it would have been impossible for the non-Muslims of that age to maintain their independent existence.
As we have seen in the case of the Aryans and the non-Aryans, two nations living side by side cannot maintain their independent sentiment for long; the same thing applied in the case of the Hindu and Muslim nations. Persian, the language of the Muslims, was a completely foreign language, while Prákrta, the language of the Hindus, was born in the soil of India.
Therefore, the Muslims of the capital [the area in and around Delhi] developed the Urdu language a blending of eastern Punjabi [or Hariyánavii] of the [Demi-Shaorashenii] Prákrta language, or western Hindi, with Persian. Through this the national sentiment of the Muslims was weakened. They had to make an adjustment with the Hindus. Innumerable Persian words found a place in other languages of the Hindus, which resulted in the development of Bengali, Maethilii, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi and other languages which are common languages of Hindus and Muslims. Muslim scholars began to learn Sanskrit in order to be well-acquainted with India. The Hindus began to learn Urdu and Persian. The Hindus began to use Muslim dress (páyjámá and sheroyánii), while the Muslims began to use Hindu dress (dhoti and cádar). The Muslims began to use the Hindu titles Choudhury, Mandal, etc., while the Hindus began to use the Muslim titles Mullick, Khan, Sarkar and Mazumdar. The Hindus offered shirńii [a mixture of banana, sugar and milk] at the Dargah of Pirsaheb [a sacred place of worship for the Muslims]. The Satyanáráyańa [a celebrated god] of the Hindus became the Satyapiir [a revered saint] of the Muslims.
The previous relation of the victorious Muslims with the vanquished Hindus ceased to exist. The Hindus and the Muslims began to treat each other as brothers and sisters. The Muslim sentiment of the Muslims weakened beyond expectation. With the disappearance of both sentiments, both the Hindu and Muslim nations died. India became nationless for the third time.
It was under such circumstances that the Marathas, the Rájputs and the Sikhs declared their independence. But they were also the creations of anti-Muslim sentiment. So when a Hindu-Muslim fraternity was established, the Maháráśťra, Rájput or Sikh sentiment could not last long. For want of a sentiment, India was split up.*
When India had become nationless for the second time, the Muslims invaded the country. And when India had become nationless for the third time, the British incursion into India began.** The British very easily conquered the nationless India.
The Muslims no doubt conquered India, but they looked upon it as their mother country. Nobody would say that they only exploited India as foreigners; but the case of the British was different. They came to India not to settle but to earn money.
After conquering India they started their machinery of exploitation in full swing, and formed a strong government to facilitate exploitation. They formed an English-knowing society to run the government smoothly. The exploitative machinery of the British opened the eyes of all classes of Indian people. The whole of India was united on the basis of an anti-British exploitation sentiment. This was the first time that all India had formed a nation. The English language served as the unifying link in India. English was no longer the language of the British only it had become the lingua franca of multilingual India.
An Indian nation developed as a result of the British, though they did not intend it. India, which had been split up into hundreds of parts, became united in the form of a country or a nation, which had never occurred in the past.
India, which had innumerable languages, scripts, castes, races, manners, customs, diets, dresses, etc., had no history of its own. From time immemorial India had been divided into many kingdoms. Each had its own history. Neither the Pandavas, nor Ashoka, nor Kanishka, nor Samudragupta could form one government throughout India. But the British did.
The Indian people learned a practical lesson from the national spirit of the British, and nationalism grew in them also. The Indian nation's fight for independence against the alien British nation began. ...... to be continued
