Indian History - I

            Am sure that each of us, Indians have read laboriously the volumes of history books during high school, slept very peacefully during those classes where the teacher talked at length about kings, how they built wells, trees etc. I being a intrigued by history remember them very well. I also remember the  initial chapters of the history textbooks (plural used since I, out of curiosity managed to read history books of different boards) where they mention a few scant references to Indus Valley and other civilizations of the ancient past. 

            Regarding the Indus Valley Civilization, it is usually mentioned that the society was divided into 4 groups and how Aryans came from the west and immigrated into India and gradually established themselves. This was referred to as the Aryan Invasion theory and as of 2003 it was accepted by all until probing by some historians, archeologists, geologists etc revealed severe inconsistencies in the theory. Initially this came with the finding that Saraswati which was usually referred to as 'The Mythological river' is in fact not so out of the world and was once a vast rich river in the Indus valley. The finding of the river led to the understanding that Indus valley civilization ended due to drying of the saraswati river around 1900 BC which corroborated with the end of the civilization. So now we know how the greatest civilization of early period with more than 1500 settlements around the basin came to an end. One interesting note is that there haven't been much written word that could be found in the ruins to decipher the language used then. So I would like to make clear that the language of the Indus civilization is not known. 

            But as for the river saraswati, the Rig veda talk at length about the river, its waves, its vastness and celebrates it. It also mentions that the river swells from its various tributaries, is 14 km wide at some point and flows from The Himalayas to the great sea. Scientific evidences regarding the river saraswati and the course of  it getting dried is well documented and is proved that the river drained into the sea only until 3067 BC, then started drying and got completely dried by 1900 BC. So what does that suggest about the Rig Veda. Obviously when Rig Veda was composed, the river had been in its prime which means the Rig veda's date is definitely before the year 3067BC. Further evidences point to the fact that Rig Veda, the oldest of vedas should have been composed somewhere before 3500BC. Some would like to believe it definitely predates before 4000BC ( I personally find it awesome if that’s the case).  These findings undoubtedly makes it certain that Rig Veda is by far the oldest surviving written manuscript in the world.

            This would be first of many of my ideas and thoughts connecting it to the current day world etc.

Finally I would also like to give a link to the video by Dr. Nicholas Khazanas, a vedic researcher who did a great amount of work to make certain that Aryan Invasion theory is complete non-sense.

Aryan Invasion Theory disproved and dating of Rig Veda

P.S: I would like to make myself clear at this point that I feel highly elated to know the rich and ancient history of our country. Though it is partly because, I myself am a Rig Vedhi, it is also true that I am an Indian and am sure that as an Indian everyone would like to be proud of our lineage. Again, this doesn’t mean dravidians has nothing to do with this. Indians, we, are all part of this rich tradition and irrespective of our language, culture, tradition and religion, we must acknowledge our past and I would like to push my surroundings a little bit into that through the blog series

India, A democracy??

     I am confident that anyone would agree to the fact that India is a democracy. In fact, India is the biggest democracy in the world. Well, that's what we have been told till now as students. And it is one of the proud aspects when we call ourselves an Indian. But is it? Is India really a democracy? Did we truly overcome the 2500 years  of dynasty rule?  I am afraid that it's not the case. Though we have officially abolished the 'Raja' 'Maharaja' and all such royal titles it is an undeniable fact that we are still under the dynasty rule.  For some reason, even though the citizens have been given the option to rule by themselves, we still choose to be ruled the sons of daughters of the previous rulers.  

Sadly, this is not an individual scenario happening only in one part of the country. This phenomenon is as widely prevalent as poverty and illiteracy. Not only is this observed in 'The ruling class' but also in all strata and domains around the country. It is so common in all fields from politics and cricket to entertainment and all over the country from the centre to state.

     If a single family runs the country for more than 50 years... If a single family runs the country for four generations, is it still called democracy?  The predecessor is the one who gladly chose to split India into two halves so that he could rule his half and let his family reign for half a century. An incompetent who couldn't solve the Kashmir issue which still looms around the head of India. His successor, the famous person who almost became a dictator who finally had to pay for their deeds with blood. The grandchild of the predecessor who gave India the legacy of being ruled by an alien. Thus stands the story which in a few years would continue to grow as interesting as it had till now.

                An octogenarian living his last few months, the famous atheist who secretly prays to God near his home, the guy who couldn't even pay his house rent and had to run away from his home town to city but now owns billions ( and if asked how he got the wealth innocently replies that he obtained it by writing script for films), the leader who is supposed to be a living example but juggles between his wives, the party president who removes candidates and then reconciles depending on his whims is the leader who proudly said that his son would be his successor when there are grey hairs all around the conference hall waiting for a blocked chance. This sect of family reigns (once reigned) over one of the important states in the country.

                What is it that makes us run around the cyclic pit of dynasty rule even when we are given reigns to ourselves?