while reading a book on India's history ,I thought what could happen if East India India company wouldn't have arrived here.Some might argue that then India could have been one of the most developed nation in the world considering its abundant resources and unmatched talent.But i have some serious objection with that opinion. We shouldn't forget that when britishers arrived here at that time India was ruled by many rulers and had many kingdoms,there was no sense of Indian-ness,
people seldom talk of something called nationality. Infact it was this weakness that allowed few thousands of them to rule over millions of us. It was their atrocity which unites extensively disintegrated diverse society of India against a common enemy.A unity which is very difficult to think without foreign intervention.Our condition could have been very similar to that of egypt or syria where we can see many uprising against autocratic government for the demand of stable democracy.
Actually recent research has revealed a sense of unity and nationalism (not in the sense we define it now) existed since Mauryan times.
ReplyDeleteThough ruled by invaders or kingdoms, the peak of every rule was characterized by the same extent of territory under control (from Hindukush mountains in Central Asia in the west to Burma border in the east, Himalayas in the north to deccan in the south). Even the Turkish and Mughal invaders who came and occupied the territory tried to maintain that boundary. There are other cultural evidences as well.
This argument of British contribution towards forming nationalism in India is mostly a British one, put forward to hide their purely economic approach of colonial drain.