Prashant Pole
World renowned economist Prof. Angus Madison in his “The History of World Economics” has written on the basis of evidence that in the year 1000, India was the leader in world trade. India had a share of more than 29% of trade in the whole world. This is also important because today China, the number one country in world trade, has 14.4% of the world’s trade. India was the richest country in the world…!
But perhaps this was the culmination of our prosperity, wealth and opulence. After this, the condition of India continued to decline. The country was defeated by the Islamic invaders. Social distortions started increasing. The united society started disintegrating getting divided into castes.
By the way, saying that ‘the social fabric of our country disintegrated only after the Islamic invasion’ is a half-truth. The truth is that our social disintegration had already started. And that’s why such a powerful India got defeated continuously in front of Islamic invaders. Slavery was an offshoot.
The reason for this was only in the prosperity of the Hindus. We have seen in the previous articles that our sages had synthesised the threads of unity and equality among different communities and groups of this vast nation. ‘We are all Hindus’ this formula was there. Everyone’s language may be different, but the contact language was only one – Sanskrit. From the pass of Khyber, only Sanskrit used to run till Cambodia, Java and Sumatra. Sanskrit was the language of knowledge, the language of business, the language of the people. Then there was the formula of equality. There was harmony despite the Varna system, because ‘Varna’ was not decided on the basis of birth. Varnas were different classes of doing work.
And on this basis, Hindutva had established itself in the whole world. The entire South Asia had become Hindu without a single attack. And here on the north-west border, we had not only faced attacks like Sikandar, Shaka, Kushan, Hun, but had defeated or driven them away.
King Yashodharma of Malwa completely defeated Mihirgul, the king of Hunas, in 528 AD. After this, no power in the world dared to attack India for about five hundred years. In between, Mahmud Qasim attacked Sindh. But he remained confined to Sindh province only. It did not affect the rest of the country. The period from the year 600 AD to the year 1000 AD was the golden period of Indian history. We were in a very luxurious, prosperous and powerful situation. And this is where the mistake of our forefathers started. We got procrastination. The society is not afraid of anyone.
In front of opulence and prosperity, the elements on the basis of which sages had organized and united our society, those elements started disintegrating. The caste system is no longer determined by virtues, but by birth. Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra all these became on the basis of birth. Due to this, the feeling of high-low became stronger. Those Brahmins who had knowledge in their hands, started putting the talk of caste supremacy in our scriptures. Due to this social disintegration, this mantra of ‘nation first’ also became blurred.
The result was obvious. At that time Dravid, Asura, Nag, Rakshasa, Nishad, Yavan, Kirat, Kaivart, Kamboj, Dard, Khas, Shaka, Kushan, Pani, Andhra, Pulind, Mootib, Pundra, Bharata, Yadav, Bhoj, etc groups were united. While living, they started disintegrating. In 980 AD, Islamic invader Sabuktgina conquered Punjab by defeating Jaipal. For the next few years he, and in later years his son Mahmud of Ghazni, continued to attack India. And such a powerful Hindu empire started collapsing like a pack of cards. In the next 150 years, Islamic invaders covered India. They also brought their religion, their language, their way of life with them. Bakhtiyar Khilji burnt and destroyed many universities including Nalanda in the year 1193 AD Sanskrit language kept going. Our entire education system started getting disintegrated.
And this insecurity and ignorance filled many types of distortions in the Hindu society, which we are carrying till today. Equality, co-operation, freedom and knowledge based system… all these got to be destroyed. Inequality has confirmed its place in our society. “Dharma eva hato hanti, dharma rakshati rakshitah,” this promise came true. We could not protect our Dharma, that’s why we were destroyed.
Dalit atrocities, untouchability and supremacy of upper castes – such perversions pervaded the society. And we started considering this as religion. The form of Hindu religion has changed. The definition of religion has changed. The ostentation increased. Hinduism was defeated. Seeing this condition of India, the Hindu dominated areas of Southeast Asia also started changing their religion.
The country kept going into the dark darkness of slavery.