We, The People of India
Let us begin our story by asking, "Where did we Indians come from?" What were our origins? Who were our ancestors? We are flooded with Indian history books propounding scores of theories. However, all historians unanimously agree on one thing that all Indians came from foreign countries, beyond the Indus Valley. The dispute is only on the probable dates of arrival and on the ethnicity of the migrants.
To know our origin, we need to look at the origin of humanity itself. Where did man himself originate? All historians agree that man had an origin. One of the world history books is titled. The Bible, according to which all the peoples of the world including we Indians came from the first man Adam and his wife Eve who were created by God.
The history of mankind can be traced back with reasonable confidence to the Paleolithic, i.e, at the end of the last ice age. about 8000 B.C (Before Christ). But the Jewish calendar showed 2016 as 5777th year from the creation of man. And in the 17 century, Archbishop James Ussher calculated that the creation must have been in 4004 B.C. There have been other estimates as well.
According to the Biblical narration, Adam and Eve disobeyed God their Creator and thus were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Later, Adam and Eve had children and the human generations came out of them. Over the years, population grew but they too became morally corrupt and violent and rebelled against God. And the entire humanity, except one family of Noah, perished under the Great Flood that covered the whole earth.
One Language
Noah built an Ark and thus survived the flood of forty days and forty nights. Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives were saved. The sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth Children were born to them after the great deluge. People multiplied and later, nations were divided on the earth after the flood.
At that time, all the people spoke the same language and used the same words. As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. They began saying to each other "Let's make bricks and harden them with fire and let's build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world. But their plans were thwarted". The tower construction was stopped by the confusion of their language. This led to the multiplicity of languages in the world.
Thus, slowly these inhabitants moved to other parts of the earth and established different nations. History records ten major nations/empires of the world. They are: Canaanites (including Phoenicians, Philistines, Ammonites, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Hivites), Sumerians/Akkadians, Philistines Egyptians; Babylonians, Assyrians; Persians; Greeks; Romans and Israelites. Today, there are over 200 countries in the world.
Indians: Potpourri of Foreigners
Thus, the entire population of the world including that of India descended from the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Therefore, we Indians are a nation of immigrants. The Indian history is believed to have begun with the Indus Valley migrants, where people known as the Mediterranean or Dravidian are said to have established the first people group settlement of India. They came all the way from the Babylonian area after the confusion of language at Babel. This Harappa Civilization was from 3000 to 2600 years BC.
Later, scores of invaders from foreign countries migrated to India, fought against the Dravidians and established their rule in different parts of the country, from time to time. Over the centuries, several tribal communities from distant lands successively established themselves in India. Some of them were collectively known as the Aryas or Aryans.
The Aryans and Dravidians had mixed marriages and they were then referred to as the Indo Aryans. From 10th century B.C onwards Jews began to arrive from Israel and from 1st century AD. onwards Christians from Syria began migrating to India. Muslims and Parsees also came as invaders and eventually settled in our land. Later, these migrants replenished themselves in mixed marriages, thus making today's Indian population a potpourri of various foreign nationals. This happened over the past four thousand-five thousand years.
Six Ethnic Groups
The Indian population is thus a melting pot of various races. According to anthropologist and historian Dr. B.S Guha, we Indians came from six main ethnic groups: 1. Negrito, 2 Proto-Australoids or Austrics, 3. Mongoloids, 4. Mediterranean or Dravidian; 5. Western Brachycephals, and 6.Nordic Aryans (Manorama Year Book Malayala Manorama, Kottayam, 2014).
Linguistically, India is a 'Babel of tongues', with 1652 mother tongues of which 33 are spoken by people numbering over a lakh (100,000). The earliest language of India was the language of the Indus Valley civilization, but due to very low availability of their script, they have not been deciphered properly. However, the four major language groups of early India are: the Dravidian, the Sino-Tibetan, the Austric and Indo Aryan.
Social Divisions
Politically, India was a laboratory for a number of ideologies We experimented and received some and the rest we rejected. Socially, the foundation of Indian society is the unalterable concept of the inequality of man. The Aryans propagated and practiced the idea that all are born unequal. Thus the Aryan domination perpetuated caste and class divisions and exploitation, which continues even today, though now legally banned. The division of society into four classes was imposed as divinely ordained The four classes are Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra.
The Brahmins claimed superior position and demanded that each caste under them must serve the Brahmins like slaves. The Kshatriyas as protector of the people were fighters of battles. The Vaisyas had been agriculturists and were considered much lower to the Brahmins and Kshatriyas
The position of Sudra was very much that of a second-class citizen. There were two kinds of Sudras, 'pure' and 'impure", a division dictated by custom and profession. The impure were the same as untouchables. Sudras had very few rights and great many duties. According to Brahmanical texts, the Sudra should eat the remains of his master's food and wear his discarded clothes. Below Sudras existed groups of people who carried out various necessary but unpleasant tasks. They were called Candala or Chandala. They were not allowed to live in Aryan towns and villages, and their main task was to dispose of and burn the dead as well as act as executioners.
Slaves, Lepers
As historian Michael Edwardes says, "it is possible that the institution of slavery in early India originated in the position assigned by the Aryans to the people they conquered. Certainly, the word given to them, dasa, in later time came to mean a slave. Slaves played no position in the community but were normally employed as house servants. They could be bought and sold."(Edwardes, Michael, Everyday Life in Early India, B T Batsford, London, 1969)
Also, summarizing how Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi historically recorded the facts about the Indian society of 18 and 19th century A.D, in their research work, The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for Transforming a Culture, Lorren Cunningham comments in The Book That Transforms Nations (YWAM Singapore Publishing, Singapore 2006, p. 45) "Lepers were buried alive or burned to death to ensure a better rebirth in the next life. If a baby got sick, he or she will be hung in a basket for three days without giving any care to see if he would overcome the evil spirit. Every winter, parents pushed their children down to mud-banks where the Hooghly River meets the sea, to either drown or be eaten by crocodiles. People considered mothers to be highly devout for sacrificing their children to Mother Ganges in this way. This was India two hundred or more years ago.
Sindhusthan
Into this environment entered the Bible translators and servants of Christ proclaiming that 'all are created equal" Of course, this generated opposition from the upper castes. Even the East India Company and the British Empire banned the Christian servants from entering India. The ban was lifted only in 1813.
As Sundar Yesuvasdian says, (Research on History of the World, Anaryan Publications, Mangad, 2002, P38). "Indus Valley civilization is one of the most ancient, most advanced and amazingly developed urban civilizations of the Dravidians. Between 6 century BC and 4 century AD, white skinned foreigners, namely Persians (6th century B.C), Greeks (4 century BC), the Scythians (Bactrians, Parthians, Sakas (2 century B.C). Kushans (1" century AD and Huns and Gujaras (4 century A. D) invaded India. During this period, white skinned Romans also came to India for trade. The dark-skinned native Dravidian Indians called these six groups of foreigners together 'Aryans'....
Unlike the Negro race or the Dravidian race, the term "Aryans does not indicate race... The river Indus was called 'Sindhu' river. The people living in the land of Sindhu river were called 'Sindhus' and their civilization was called Sindhu civilization or Indus civilization. Foreigners like Persians who could not pronounce the sound 'S', pronounced the word 'Sindhu' as Hindu That is how the Sindhu people became Hindus' The term Hindu has everything to do only with geography and has nothing to do with any religion. The term Hindu or Hinduism used for a religion is only an aberration and a misnomer. The land of the Sindhu River is only Sindusthan and not Hindusthan."
Outcasts without Rights
The tribes that remained as forest dwellers and the castes that performed unclean jobs like scavenging, cremating the dead, flaying and curing leather were put outside the pale of society They were 'outcasts' without any rights or privileges. But they had to pay taxes on which the Brahmins and Kshatriyas thrived.
The new sects like Jainism and Buddhism denounced animal sacrifice and laid stress on personal purity and merit. Also, at this time, new ideas about the individual soul were developed. The idea of transmigration, the constant rebirth of the soul in a different body, led to the concept of karma which argued that what was done in one life affected the next.
The period from the 5th century A. D to the 10 century AD is that of early medievalism, when feudalism started to displace centralized rule, resulting in the decline of urban culture. In this era, caste proliferated to hundreds. However, the Age of Reason of the 18th century Europe and the egalitarian ideals of the American and French Revolution did not take very long to reach the Indian shores.
Enter Reformers
Along with Indian reformers, Bible translators and Christian servants triggered the modernization of India. The Indians included Jyoti Rao Phule of Pune (1827-1890) who demanded justice for the lower castes and untouchables who were discriminated against, not only in matters of religion but also in matters pertaining to law, education and their recruitment to government jobs, and to representative bodies like municipal boards. These demands became part of the freedom struggle against colonial rule. Religious practices were also made more rational.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) also wanted the end of social atrocities. He called the untouchables Harijans or God's people. Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) of Maharashtra, moved by the plight and exploitation of children, orphans and women, launched one of the first social revolutions in India's history.
Mass Education
In 1556, the Christian servants established the first printing press of India, in Goa, and later hundreds of mission presses helped the spread of literacy, education and publishing. Thus the modernization of India began with the establishment of schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and health care and health education facilities from the 18 and 19 century onwards by Christian servants. Enlightened and empowered by these institutions, the Indian people began to challenge many evil traditional practices of the society.
The introduction of modern administration and education system led to the emergence of an Indian intellectual class that soon began to demand democratic rights. The construction of an enormous railway network, which opened up in 1853, connected the interior of the country Better roads and reliable postal system, a unified national legal system and a single currency was introduced. Indians qualified as officials, lawyers, and teachers. The first university in Asia was opened by Serampore missionaries in Serampore in 1818. Universities of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta were opened in 1857
Nationalism: One Nation
Thus the new generation of Indian intellectuals increasingly absorbed ideas of democracy and nationalism with the help of Christian educationists.
Several invasions by foreign forces also impacted the socio economic, cultural and spiritual life style of Indians. Every invasion was also followed by migrations from those countries. People from China and all the neighboring South Asian countries also enriched the Indian population. Thus, India today is a melting pot of a variety of cultures.
However, there is an irony of history that there was no unified India at all till the British ruled us. In fact, when the East India Company came here as traders or later when the British Empire began to rule India, there were about 600 native rajas or rulers. There was no concept of India as a united nation. It was the British who through battles and treaties annexed most of these native states as one. In fact, when on 15 August 1947 India was declared an independent nation, all the 562 states except Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagarh were incorporated into the new federal union. Later, under the leadership of Sardar Valla Bhai Patel, other states also joined the Union of India. The Indians are grateful to the British in this regard. Today, we are one nation with many cultures, faiths, practices, and political hues, laboring together for a bright future.
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