Only in 1922-24, the rulers came to know accidently of existence of fully developed old society in the Indus Valley. The Art Museum at Rome had and even no had undeniable evidence in the form of pottery made ten thousand years before the dawn of the Christian era. The fine pottery was concrete evidence of not only ability of Indians to make fine pottery but also of their ability for sea faring to reach Rome with fragile merchandise on their ship and travel through stormy and unsafe ocean.
The sites at Mohan Jo Daro and Harappa were accidentally discovered when the rail link to connect Karachi with rest of India was being laid. The relics, medallions found on the site revealed of fully developed civilization with ability to build in planned manners with underground sewage system. No armament was found through the inhabitant had ability for metal casting and had their own script with writing ability. The evidence firmly indicated it to be a fully developed civilization, far superior to others then existing. Earlier it was believed to be confined to areas in the Indus valley. But two more sites in Gujarat, Lothal and Dholveera confirmed that the civilization was wide spread and not only in the Indus Valley. Later it was discovered that life and agriculture was sustained on unbroken waters flowing through major river Sarswati. The civilization collapsed as famine of 300 years before 1900 BC dried up the waters. The collapse was not due to invasion.
The fertile British mind used the information to sow seeds of enmity and bitter discord between people of north India and people south of Vindhyachal with a claim that the new comer Aryans had defeated Dravidians of four states and driven them to live in unfriendly and nature hostile region. The British followed their policy of gaining strength through their stratagem of divide and rule. However Indians did not ask and the British experts in toe with the authority did not have answers, if Dravidians were the inhabitants of the Indus Valley civilization why they did not use their ability for construction of beautiful residential quarters with use of their talents for town planning. Even north Indian did not copy the visible talents of planning their villages and towns but continued their haphazard constructions while moving to East along the River Ganges.?
Even with interruption caused by the severe famine of three centuries, Indians had continued their search to find answers to most intriguing aspects of life. They had fully developed Sanskrit as language of communications among higher classes and the masses communicated either in Pali or Prakrut. But the British attempted to deny credit to Indians for their developing and perfecting their language as means of communications. The British claimed that Sanskrit was derivate of Indo German language that the Aryan had carried with them. When increasing numbers began to show their disbelief in claims that the illiterate agriculture society was cause of defeat and disintegration of highly educated and wise society that existed for nearly eight thousand years and remained adherent to fine basis principle of not assaulting others nor tolerate attack by others. The Greek, the Romans and Arab scholars and other highly respected persons in other empires had a high praise for Indians or their insistence for truth and beauty of life. As Amartya Sen wrote in his book, Chinese were so impressed by the Indian wisdom that at one time they had eleven Indian sages as vice chancellors in their universities.
Most scholars did not miss noticing that India was the only country in the world to have democratic temperament. Their religion had given them option to select their deity of worship from among few thousand options unlike other religions in other parts with only one god and their own religion as the best and supreme. Missionaries had come in troves along with traders from England with only mission to convert poor of India to their denomination. They hated two other religions of the Middle East variety leading to permanent conflicts and violent clashes. In India the situation and attitudes were completely different the emperors opted for their choices without hampering growth of others and without imposing their choice. Chandra Gupta Maurya first Emperor of a huge empire retired as a Jain monk but his grandson the Emperor Ashok took up the cause of the Buddhism without imposing curbs on others. Six century later another Emperor took up the cause of the Sanatan Dharma, earlier version of Hinduism.
The noted scholars like F. Max Muller, Voltaire did not seek to verify veracity of historical assertion that Aryans invaded India and annihilated people of advanced civilization. Max Muller did take the lenient view that illiterate invaders could give solemn work like Veda in less than hundred years. In a private letter to his wife he asserted that work like Veda would need cogitation of at least five hundred years. His private communication affirms that he confirmed what the British authority expected of him. Voltaire’s private views of Indians were completely different from his public stand. In the NaMo government no one seems to be aware that school children are even now taught lessons denigrating ancestors.
IMAGINARY INVASION
Vijay Sanghvi - 2020-11-09 16:48
The British authorities sought to take away the reputation of the most flourishing civilization even before India was officially converted to be the settlement in the British dominion. They implanted a story of imaginary invasion of India by the illiterate pastoral tribe from the Pamir plains in the Central Asia. They descended on India through Khyber Pass on their swiftly moving horses and laced with their arrows and bows in 2000 BC. They destroyed the original Indian settlements known as Dravidians a less developed people to south and in five hundred years the illiterates gave four Vedas and other science based wisdom to the rest of the world. The invaders were described as the Aryan race. They had brought with them images of their gods. According to the British claims the other contingent of Aryans descended in Persia. Both had brought their Indo German tongue Sanskrit. The historians lapped up with scholars in other related fields lapping up the imaginary tale of invasion.