While
book presents interesting bits for anyone who wants to understand our culture
and heritage, here are some of them –
- Our origins in form of
Indus valley civilization was more advanced (stemming from city planning,
houses, trade and law) than similar civilizations elsewhere but probably
didn’t get noticed because European researchers who came up studying in 18th
century focused more on the later (the Greek, Roman etc.)
- Our civilization has been
based on security and stability via joint family etc. and that makes it
successful than any other in West. Indian philosophy is “individualistic
under a social structure” which means perfect freedom to think and believe
what one liked while adhering to the social norms
- While there are many theories
of how caste came into being but one theory relates to Aryan conquest of
India. Instead of terminating or enslaving the entire population, as was the
norm those days, they created a caste system assigning lower caste to people
here and upper caste for themselves. While the system had its own shortcomings,
caste system allowed people from new conquests to be merged into
respective castes.
- Coming on to Akbar,
Nehru says while he was a great ruler, what surprised him was his lack of
sea knowledge, no focus on scientific research, no training of people
abroad, and no book printing. This legacy carried forward by later Mughal
rulers was exploited by Europeans to bring in their rule in India
- An interesting take on why
we find certain skills confined to certain religions only. The reason for
this is that religions conversion those days were group conversion and not
individual conversions and hence the entire village (the villages in those
times being organized around skills) would convert
- Rise of British is attributed
to multiple reasons including conquest of Bengal which gave them enough
money to proceed to other regions and then keep adding, possible fluke as
individually each of the Sikhs, Marathas, Tipu had defeated them but never
together, infighting amongst Indian states and finally fall of Mughal
Empire and disintegration of country into smaller states
- With British rule, for
first time, center of gravity fell outside India and with people who felt
that they were superior and that the ‘new’ people didn't want to Indianize.
- All talk of great infra
development and running of government during British raj came at
significant cost. For example, the railway was guaranteed by government of
India at 5% return on capital invested
- 1857 revolt was essentially a feudal outburst and it was only in 1900s that the real struggle from masses began to oust British
