Shashishekhar Gavai
It was with a mix of amusement and amazement that I read about the profuse apologies offered by the lead singer of the popular British rock band Coldplay to its huge audience in Navi Mumbai for sins of British colonial rule over India. The cynic in me couldn’t help but imagine a large dose of ‘playing to the gallery’ strategy rather than a genuine gesture – after all neither the man nor perhaps his father existed during the Raj. I also recalled that those who should have actually rendered an official apology have refrained from doing so as yet – namely the descendants of Empress Victoria and the British government. In the meanwhile London continues to be the favourite haunt of our glitterati including Bollywood celebrities who go hysterical over ‘Angrezi Zulum’ in their patriotic ‘masterpieces’.
The histories of empires and nations are an unrelenting record of invasions and egregious acts of oppression, violence and even genocide. And offenders have rarely apologised for their crimes. But how far back into the past should the descendents of the victims go in demanding contrition? Things got rather complicated as I pursued this line of reasoning with regard to our own civilisation.
The Brits of course owe us an apology, in particular for Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar where in 1919 British troops massacred hundreds of Indians peacefully protesting against British rule. But before the Brits were the Mughals, our favourite whipping boys these days.The worst political abuse that you could fling at anyone is ‘Babur ki aulad’ which translates into Babur’s brood. Babur invaded India in 1526 and established the Mughal empire which lasted, at least nominally, until 1858 when the British exiled the last emperor. Babur and some of his successors have been held guilty of religious persecution of the majority population. The Mughal line of heredity is almost extinct and certainly inconsequential. So who should be called upon to apologise for the Mughal rule? Babur came from Ferghana in today’s Uzbekistan hence wouldn’t it be appropriate to ask its government to say sorry?
Mughal rule in India also witnessed other foreign invasions into India – one by Nadir Shah of Persia (present day Iran)in 1739 and Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan in 1761( Afghanistan in the persons of Mahmud Ghazni and Mohammad Ghori is also to be held accountable for several violent incursions and the conquest of parts of north India in the 11th and 12th centuries). So I added these two nations to the list. But more would follow…..
Babur had grabbed his empire from the Delhi Sultanate whose Slave Dynasty founder Qutb ud din Aibak , one of Mohammad Ghori’s generals, had snatched his own over 300 years before the Mughal invasion. Aibak was of Turkic origin from Central Asia, possibly Turkmenistan.
And now the Arabs! In 711 CE Mohammad bin Kassim, a general of the Umayyad Caliph in Damascus, had invaded Sindh (then a part of India) and had conquered it defeating the Hindu king in battle.
The rule of the Gupta dynasty from the 3rd-6th centuries is widely considered as the golden era in India’s history. At its height the empire spanned much of north and east India over an area of 1.7 million square kilometres at the lowest estimate. The Gupta period witnessed an efflorescence of arts, literature and science where the likes of poet and playwright Kalidasa, mathematician -astronomer Aryabhatta, astronomer Varahamihira and philosopher Vatsyayana of Kamasutra fame flourished. However the late 5th century witnessed the virtual disintegration of the empire with the invasions of the Hunas under Toramana and perhaps marked the end of classical Indian civilisation – a grave blow indeed. The Hunas are believed to have come from areas in and around present day Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Alexander III, king of the Greek kingdom of Macedon is better known to history as Alexander the Great, thanks to western narratives eulogising his trail of conquests which left behind destruction and the deaths of tens of thousands. Alexander reached the Jhelum river in the Punjab in 326 BCE where he defeated Indian king Porus in a bloody battle which cost thousands of lives. Alexander’s homesick, battle weary troops however wanted to head back and mercifully India was spared the Greek’s further incursions and depredations.
Between 1800 – 1500 BCE Indo Aryans or steppes pastoralists came to India from regions around present day southern Russia and Kazakhstan. European Indologists of the 18th and 19th centuries termed this as “ Aryan Invasion” which they claimed resulted in conflict with native populations and their displacement. The invasion theory persisted well into the 20th century fuelling the Aryans versus Dravidians narrative. It has however been debunked and following detailed research, experts have come around to the view that Indo Aryan entry into India was not invasion but rather migration over several generations. This does let Russia and Kazakhstan off the hook. But I will not let the story end here.
We are told that our species i.e Homo Sapiens moved out of Africa about 70,000 years ago and spread gradually to different parts of the world with entry into India estimated at around 65,000 years back. There is enough evidence that many other hominins or human species already inhabited different parts of the globe including the Indian subcontinent at the time. But they all became extinct over 30,000 years ago. One of the reasons for this was surely conflict with our own species which as we well know is capable of immense violence. But there was also “cooperation” as is evident from the presence of a minimum of 2% Neanderthal genes in all of us with the exception of Africans. So if scientific advancement were to bring back extinct hominins with the help of their genetic material, wouldn’t they hold us guilty of genocide ? In fact if my genes possessed consciousness, the 2% Neanderthal in me would probably demand an apology from the remaining 98% Homo Sapiens. And shouldn’t Africa apologise to the rest of the world for allowing Homo Sapiens to venture out?
I know I have been pushing the envelope almost into the realm of the ridiculous. The point being made is that nurturing historical grudges and sentiments of victimhood, real or imagined, can be taken to extremes leading really nowhere. It has also been exploited by unscrupulous politicians, causing immense harm as we have seen throughout history. On the other hand gratuitously reviving such sentiments through apologies at entertainment events could rightly be seen as irrelevant and unnecessary. Coldplay’s popularity with the young fans could have been better leveraged to motivate them on some of the real issues of the day such as tolerance and global warming. And of course pollution. The three Coldplay concerts in Navi Mumbai left behind 82 tons of waste for the civic authorities to clear up. An apology from Coldplay on behalf of its audience is certainly due on this account.
India off the beaten track 