Upinder Singh Quotes

The wilderness was a paradisical place of exquisite natural beauty. It was an unpredictable place inhabited by fierce and belligerent tribes. It was an abode of ugly, frightening demons. It was a place of involuntary and unhappy exile from the world of power and pleasure. It was an ideal place for the release from the burden of worldly existence. In exploring the forest as a site of political conflict, killing, and violence, we have to understand all the other things that it was and was not. In doing so, we are taken to the heart of ancient Indian political processes, to fundamental ideas about political and cultural identity, and to the definition of the self and the other.

The forest chieftains were not considered part of the circle of kings by the political theorists, but they were recognized as a generic po- litical force that kings had to deal with. The ultimate triumph of mon- archy and empire involved the destruction of the oligarchies and the partial subjugation of the forest tribes. Along the way, the latter be- came recognized not only as cultural others, but also as political adver- saries as well as potential allies, although usually of an inferior kind.

The attitude toward the forest people forms an important caveat to Ashoka's espousal of the principle of nonviolence. The fact that the warning to the forest people appears in an inscription that deals with the evils of warfare and the replacement of the goal of military victory by that of dhammic victory suggests that the armed insur- gency of the forest people posed a major political challenge to the Maurya state, one that could not be ignored even by an otherwise pacifist emperor. The king who repents on the devastation of war, declares that he has abjured it, and urges his successors to do like- wise, brandishes his power in front of the forest people and warns them to fall in line if they want to avoid his wrath.

One can have local fealties, and also a sense of being part of a larger loyalty. But, the dichotomy was created deliberately, so as to debunk any claim to civilisational consciousness. An ancient civilisational footprint would lead to the verifiably factual claim that it was dominantly Hindu, and that would jeopardise the present-day need to downplay this in the interest of ‘preserving secularism’. Hence, historical objectivity must be sacrificed on the altar of a perceived sense of political correctness. Objective historians are today willing to accept this reality. Dr Upinder Singh writes: ‘One of several explanations of the name Bharatvarsha connects it with the Bharata people, descendants of the legendary king Bharata, son of Dushyanta and Shakuntala. Cosmography blends with geography in the Puranas. Bharatvarsha is said to consist of nine divisions (khandas), separated from one another by seas. But the mention of its mountains, rivers and places—some of which can be identified—suggests that the composers of such texts were familiar with various areas of the sub-continent, and perceived them as part of a larger cultural whole [emphasis mine]’.23 Surprisingly, for all his protestations, Khilnani also accepts this. He says: ‘Equally significant was India’s archive of images of political community, which related culture to polity. In the Brahminic traditions, for instance, the Puranic literature expresses a sense of the sub-continent’s natural geographic frontiers, reflected in a sacred geography mapped out by tirthas, pilgrimage points scattered across the land, and encompassed by the idea of mythic realms like Aryavarta or Bharatvarsha.’ Moreover, he contradicts himself when he seeks to confine this cultural polity only to ‘Brahminic traditions’.

History has always been connected with politics and identity. Historians cannot help looking at the past through the eyes of their present. But this is different from judging the past and manipulating the evidence to suit political agendas. All hypotheses are not equally valid; it is important for readers to understand the difference between historical interpretations that are

History has always been connected with politics and identity. Historians cannot help looking at the past through the eyes of their present. But this is different from judging the past and manipulating the evidence to suit political agendas. All hypotheses are not equally valid; it is important for readers to understand the difference between historical interpretations that are grounded on sound analysis and argument, and those that are not. This requires that historians clearly explain the methods and debates of the discipline to non-specialists and students. This is one of the major aims of this book.