The Unsaturated Reader

Tag: Indian History

  • #ai1 – IH – Birth of a Civilisation

    The geological time scale is a reference system that classifies different strata (rock layers) of earth on the basis of the time during which they bestrode the land. The timescale is divided into aeons which are further subdivided into eras, periods and finally epochs. Now, an epoch is the time during which a series (or simply rock layers) is deposited. We currently live in the Holocene epoch– of the Quartenary period– which began around 11,700 years ago (approx. 9700 BCE). The humans who thrived during this period are generally referred to as ‘modern’ humans / homo sapiens. The other members of the Homo species namely Homo Habilis, Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis — our closest evolutionary cousins — went extinct by then.

    300,000 years back, modern humans began emerging in Africa. Roughly 70,000 years ago, their first ‘successful’ Out of Africa (OoA) migration took place; thus being entitled as the ancestors of today’s non-African population. 5000 years later, they reached India and thereafter leaving generations behind who would later mix with zagrosian agriculturists who had migrated from Iran. Together, they give birth to one of the most advanced civilisations of its age which took root by the basins of the Indus River — the Indus Valley Civilization (also called Harappan civilisation). The monsoon river Ghaggar-Hakra too fed the settlements.

  • How Islam came to India

    Islam came to India through a number of channels. To confine the onset of this religion in the subcontinent to merely invasions has become a habitual testimony yet the truth speaks otherwise.

    Giving a brief summary below of some of these “channels”
    First, as is expected, through invasions. Set off in the 8th century in Sind by Arabs. Next on the line are the Turks and Afghans, both of whom invaded the North-west in the 11th century and dominated northern India. Lastly, the Mughals in the 16th century.

    Secondly, commerce. Afghan and Turkish traders conducted transactions in Northern India and settled there.

    That covers only the northern parts. What about other regions, especially the south west which has a significant Muslim population and a distinct culture of its own?

    People hailing from Arabia and East Africa traded with those residing in the western coastline from as early as 8th century and eventually settled there by 9th century.1

    These intercultural alliances birthed the various religious groups of Islam, particular to its own geography, such as the Bohras, Khojas, Navayaths and Mapillas.

    Third, army recruitments. Mercenaries from the central Asia and especially East Africa, incidentally regions with a significant Muslim population, were recruited in the armies of Indian kings. Likewise, soldiers from India too were recruited to fight for Afghan and Turkish kings; a pertinent example being that of Mahmud of Ghazni, who had a Hindu general in his army named Tilak. Mahmud’s empire spanned as wide as to include Kashmir and Punjab.

    Now fourth, Sufis. The Sufis, most of whom hailed from central Asia and some from Persia, carried out religious missions in the subcontinent. Most held an eclectic outlook and were seldom orthodox, borrowing and interspersing with the local religions and traditions, and subsequently flowering into a syncretic form of Islam.

    An attempt has been made here to only recount the salient ways in which Islam reached the subcontinent. Indubitably, there ought to be other sources too, which has been omitted here with due regard to maintaining the brevity of the piece.

    Notes

    1. Trade was not an anomaly; as per records, Kerala is said to have had good trade relations with Rome as well during the zenith of the latter’s empire; all of which was made possible because of maritime trade via Arabian sea. Kerala is the state that has the longest coastline, the tidal waves billowing its rocky banks.

  • IH – The Beginnings

    A brief of India’s physical features

    A tangerine-hued semi-molten core, jacketed by a mantle and a crust. The smudged image that forms in one’s mind when asked of the cross-section of earth. Indeed, it’s a retreat to sixth grade geography lessons but nevertheless insignificant. For as we embark on this seemingly pallid journey gliding by the contours of the Indian subcontinent’s less-than-mundane past, it beckons that we run our eyes over the genesis of this landmass.

    Now, coming back to the point. Owing to currents that emanate from the aforesaid core, the crust fractures into plates which jostle against each other; in precise terms the geological process named tectonic shift.

    As one whole, the plates are called Pangea which consists of two parts– the Laurasia and Gondwanaland, India being a scrap of the latter. She slid north-eastwards through the Tethys sea, to finally lunge beneath the Eurasian plate, the push leading to the bulge of the Himalayas, ‘the youngest, largest and highest mountain range on earth.’ Note that these tenacious movements spanned millions of years.  

    The Himalayas, running along the northern periphery is home to the highest fourteen peaks in the world, the most prominent one among them being the Mt. Everest (roughly 8.8 km). Parallel to the Great Himalayas are its less taller counterparts, the Middle Himalayas and Outer Himalayas. In the north-west we encounter troughs in the mountainscape, which marks the many passages to India – the Khyber Pass , the Bolan pass and the Gomal Pass.

    Though writers contest that the Himalayas bear a significant influence in the subcontinent, in all its sententious aspects, Basham opines that the point has been a tad too much overstated. No more than shaping the climate of the region should she be accredited for. That the Himalayas gave India an advantageous seclusion may seem geographically and even politically appealing yet the truth lies in that these ranges were cut through by travellers, traders and settlers of different sorts for many years. The guard hasn’t always been up.

    The precipitate of the moisture-laden clouds that drifts over and the melting snow of the Himalayas birthed the rivers Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra, rolling down to its foot and forth, sedimenting a broad strip of alluvium that would become one of the most fertile regions in the world, the Indo-Gangetic plain. Naturally, it was here that humans and their aspirations blossomed.

    The Indus springs in the Tibet near the Manasarovar lake, traverses along the north-west and sheds into the Arabian sea. The Ganga, alongside Yamuna, both of which rises from Himalayan glaciers (Gaumukh and Yamunotri respectively) wade together to finally wed at Allahabad and join its mate, the Brahmaputra, before gushing into the prodigious Bay of Bengal.

    Nestled between the Indus and the Northern plains is the Aravalli hills and to its left, the Thar desert.