Indian apathy towards politics, a historical perspective

In a democracy every individual has been vested with power to elect a government. The very act of casting ones ballot makes him a partner in governance. This is the power that democracy bestows on an individual but this message seems to be lost on the Indian voter.

Data source Indian Election Commission

If we look the voter turn out for the last four Lok Sabha elections, you will notice that Indian voter turn out has hovered around the 58% mark and this has been the trend since the birth of the republic, give or take a few percentage points. 63.75% voter turn out the highest ever so far was recorded in 1957 followed by the second highest of 63.53% in 1984. No points for guessing why? 

Data source: www.idea.int

If we compare that to some other democracies that follow the Parliamentary system of governance for example the UK, Sweden or Belgium we will see that we have a poor voter turnout. Even Bangladesh, a relatively new country with dodgy record has a better voter turn out compared to India.  

Data source: www.idea.int

Which brings us to the question, why the India voter turn a blind eye, cloaks himself in indifference and tolerates shameless horse trading, nepotism, blatant corruption among other 'goings on' in the power corridors of the elected representatives. The common refrain is 'politicians are just like that' or '...how does it bother me' or 'who cares what they do, as long as...' or '...how does it matter if I vote or not, they all are crooks, I rather enjoy the holiday or remain at work' such apathy has no parallel in world civilisation. Bloody revolutions have been launched for lesser acts of betrayal by their rulers. Many have tried to analyse this detachment and much has been written about this passiveness towards politics, in some cases people have called the Indian citizen unpatriotic, selfish, parochial, cowards even. But no one has really found an answer to this behaviour. Its important for a Indian to understand what shapes our behaviour and makes us different.

For the better part of Indian civilisation, India has been predominantly a Hindu civilisation, a Vedic civilisation to be precise. Vedic dharma has laid the foundations of our culture, society nay the very civilisation itself. From Vedic dharma has risen Hindu religion, philosophy, customs, traditions, attitudes and behavioral patterns, which is now part of our very DNA. Some of this Vedic DNA may have got diluted in the last millennia but most of it is retained in one form or the other and some still may be dormant, ready to awaken.

From this Vedic root has emerged our political and military ethos. The Kshatriya varna was instituted with the primary duty of maintaining law and order within and arresting invasion from without and thus the Khastriya dharma was born.

"To serve the country by participating in war became the svadharma of this warrior community. This had a salutary effect on the administration of the land. The cut and dry distinction of the civil population from the military and equally clear distinction between the civil and military function of the State helped to a large extent not only the progress of civil administration but also the moral and material welfare of the land." Ramchandra Dikshitar, War in ancient India

This confinement of militarism to just a section of the society namely the Kshatriyas prevented the militant attitude spreading across the population and insulated the normal citizens from the vicissitude of politics and even war. The life of the other three varna's namely the Brahman, Vaishya and the Shudra continued uninterrupted while the kings changed or fell to the sword all around them.

'May we revel in a hundred winters rich in heroes', Atharva Veda

The people looked at the Kshatriya as the defender of the country and did not grudge them their high status and privileges. May be this is why Indians are not appalled by the corruption of our politicians, we feel its within their right to loot the country for the services rendered. Even the politicians may be feeling like wise for doing so.

Besides insulating the society at large from politics, the Vedas also codified conduct of war under dharmayudha. All's fair in love and war or 'Total war' was not a phrase known to ancient Indians. This had a profound effect on how civilian population behaved to changes in power. 

War did not eat into the vitals of the society as it has done in recent times. Society pursued the arts of peace, trade and commerce unaffected by the war. Ramchandra Dikshitar, War in ancient India

Conquering kings never disturbed the civilian life and in most cases reinstated the defeated king on payment of indemnities and tribute. The Greek ambassador Megasthenes (4th century BC) noticed a peculiar trait of Indian warfare.

"Whereas among other nations it is usual, in the contests of war, to ravage the soil and thus to reduce it to an uncultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighborhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for the combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they never ravage an enemy's land with fire, nor cut down its trees." Megasthenes, Indika

In fact using fire in general and flaming arrows in particular was forbidden.

"The Hindu laws of war are very chivalrous and humane, and prohibit the slaying of the unarmed, of women, of the old, and of the conquered." Professor H. H. Wilson

"At the very time when a battle was going on, the neighboring cultivators might be seen quietly pursuing their work perhaps ploughing, gathering crops, pruning the trees, or reaping the harvest." 7th century AD Chinese pilgrim to Nalanda University, Hiuen Tsiang

With so much security and assurance of safety its not very difficult to infer from the above that civilian society stayed aloof, untouched by politics and war, which may also explain the Indian indifference to politics today. This attitude remained unchanged even during the Muslim invasion and occupation followed by the British occupation. People went about their lives nary a thought about who governed them, some even collaborated with the occupiers. Thus the common refrain "who cares what they do as long as..." or ...how does it matter if I vote or not, they all are crooks, I rather enjoy the holiday or remain at work' has its roots in an age old attitude ingrained in our psyche.

I believe with education, break down in varna rigidity and over all increase in awareness and nationalism, Indian's will be able to break down this age old isolationist fence they have built around them and participate more purposefully and responsibly in the governance of India.

Source:

War in ancient India by Ramchandra Dikshitar

Indika by Megasthenes

Atharva Veda

Shanti Parva, Mahabharat

Travels of Hiuen Tsiang in India

Unfeterring the Hindu Mind - Part II

In one of the most scientific anthropological research ever to identify the origins of the Indian population, researchers in Harvard Medical School and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Hyderabad have proved that Indian people always lived here since pre history and all the developments and wisdom - scientific, scholarly, linguistic, religious and social are indigenous and a tribute to the genius of our ancestors.

This has again blown a hole big to sink the already floundering and rejected Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) first concocted by arm chair history theorist Friedrich Max Muller between 1846 and 1860 CE in his search for a glue to bind German nationalism by using shallow linguistic similarities as proof. This theory was readily accepted and propagated by the British to justify their rule in India as the second coming of the Aryans. The rejection and mocking of this particular theory is beautifully portrayed in the 1982 Richard Attenborough movie 'Gandhi'. The Mahatma ridicules it by not meriting it with a reply and gives a cold stare to the speaker during the Quit India movement negotiations. This incident goes to prove that the AIT was always flawed with great thinkers like Swami Vivekananda and Philosopher like Shri Aurobindo rejecting the theory outright. More recently it has been under critical review from researchers world wide by historians, researchers and scientists such as Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, Subhash Kak, Navratan Rajaram to name a few.

Incidentally Max Muller himself accepted the flaws in his theory and worked to make amends in his letters and later books but by then it was too late. The seeds of AIT was sown world wide and till now vested interest groups like the leftist Congress, the Communist party and the DMK in India have continued to use this theory for their own brand of divide and rule politics.


http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_who-came-first-indians-or-europeans_1294860

http://www.indianexpress.com/storyOld.php?storyId=70297

To bust a few myths allow me to state the meaning of the much maligned word 'Dravida'. A word introduced by the British with little understanding which has gone on to become a divisive word. Dravida or 'Thravida' in Sanskrit means 'land bounded by three seas'. Its a word coined by Jagat Guru Adi Shankaracharya and his disciple Mandana Mishra to refer to themselves as Thravida Shishu or 'children of the lands bounded by the three seas' as they traveled the length and breadth of the country in their single minded pursuit of Sanatana Dharma revival and espousal of Advaita philosophy. With wicked intentions and half baked understanding of the Vedas, the British missionaries and educationists took it and used it as a race type to delineate south Indians from the rest of the country who by another flaw were called Aryans.

Today political parties like DMK and marxist scholars use this word to define all non Brahmins in the south. Its a irony that it was a Brahmin who coined it to refer to himself.

Another important element which shakes the very foundation of AIT is the the works of the Megasthenes the Ambassador of Alexander in the court of Emperor Chandragupta between 250 and 298 BC. I am surprised this book has not found mention or has not been used as a very valid hard hitting evidence against the AIT. At any rate, Megasthenes was a traveler and geographer who recorded his memoirs in his book called Indika. A book which went on to become a reference guide to great Greek historians and philosopher such as Arrian and Strabo. In later centuries a travelers guide, equivalent to today Lonely Planet.

In his book Indika Megasthenese minutely describes the people, customs, traditions, festivals, hair do, jewelery, attire, food, religion, laws, geography, fauna, flora and all other possible details which he encounters from the moment he entered India via Pentapotamia (five rivers) and traveled into the land of Magadha (Ayodhya and Bihar) from whence he traveled south as far as Madurai and Serendib (Lanka) and back up the western ghats to his embassy in Patliputra.

In his description of the people of India he clearly states that the people of India across its length and breadth are tall but light on their feet which means they are no bulky, dark skinned with long black hair which they tie in a bun on the top. All men have beards and shaving is not popular. Men and woman love jewelery of which there is abundance of all types which adorns hair, arms, wrists and ankles.

Now, if we look at the AIT theory it states that the so called large bodied, light eyed, blonde haired Aryans invaded India from the western passes via Afghanistan and settled mainly in the five river region and then slowly spread east and south controlling the lands and the people therein establishing a discriminatory rule. But if we analyse the description of Megasthenese it becomes evident that there is no evidence of such fair skinned, light eyed, blonde haired, size XL people. Given that in the intervening 1250 years since the arrival of the Aryans and Megasthenese's travel there was some racial intermingling causing some of these attributes to be diluted but even this defense is not justifiable because as new entrants the level of discrimination would be high and would not allow much intermingling. Secondly if these people were present even in some numbers lording over the dark skinned Indians then Megasthenese would not have failed to notice it and would have subjected it to much scrutiny and description even comparing their skin tone to his. But no such description was given in his entire travelogue.

From the above additional deduction that I have added to the thousands of others already existing that have torpedoed the AIT, its fair to assume (pun intended) that the AIT was nothing but figment of imagination of half baked British imperialist scholars. But then it leaves us with another puzzling question. Who are the fair skinned people residing in north west India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in current times.

To answer this we have to turn to Roman history and their conquest in Asia minor after 50 AD (i.e. Caspian Sea and middle east and present day Turkey region) and the advent of the Huns in 370 AD in central Asia and eastern Europe. Routed by the Romans, various tribes like Sarmatians, Bactrians, Scythians known as Shakas in India, Kushans and other lesser tribes hurtled headlong eastwards. While many dispersed and settled along the way many still arrived in India. Being animist or shamanic and probably having lesser developed customs and religious beliefs adopted Hinduism or Buddhism as the case was with Kanishka a Kushan King around 120 AD. Further still the Hunnic invasion of central Asia and eastern Europe in 370 AD set up a domino effect of tribal migration with a few tribes or remnants funneling into India. In fact medieval India called these fair skinned immigrants as 'Shweta Hunna' or white Huns. At any rate the current people residing in the north western part of the subcontinent are a recent addition, somewhere between AD 200 to AD 1400 or even later, arriving from their central Asian homelands as refugees and adopting Hindu religion, customs and belief systems. This explains the presence of fair skinned people in the north west of India than what the AIT purports. The mix was further complicated by the arrival of another wave of people the Arabs, Turks and the Mongols (Mughals).

And from this mix of population and with foggy ideas the half baked British and European scholars and missionaries schemed the Aryan Invasion Theory. Add to this the leftist Congress and Marxist scholars who use it to divide our people based on race, religion and region.

Thus the idea of AIT is as dead and dumb as a Dodo and now lets all get over this Aryan race theory. Because there was never a Aryan race and if someone is telling you this, then he has ulterior motives.

I will really appriciate if readers would leave their comments

Reference Material:

You can download the Indika by Megasthenes from the following link

http://2020ok.com/books/36/ancient-india-as-described-by-megasthenes-and-arrian-44836.htm

Also follow the following titles

In Search of the Cradle of Civilisation by David Frawley, Georg Feuerstein and Subhash Kak,

http://books.google.be/books?id=Ermk_FmwcS4C&lpg=PP1&ots=jKbzZPv3yP&dq=in%20search%20of%20the%20cradle%20of%20civilization&hl=en&pg=PA36#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Sarasvati River and the Vedic Civilization by NS Rajaram