Caste: the new civil conflict in India

Part I:The background.

The resolution of civil conflict is an important ingredient of nation-building. India, despite its sixty years of independence and an age-old hi story, is still a nation in the making.

Ethnic, religious and linguistic differences apart, caste has emerged as the latest of the divisive issues that need an equitable resolution. So much disinformation exists on the subject, that I would like to present my views on the political and economic aspects by starting at the beginning: ancient Indian civilization.

The ancient river valley civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates in Iraq, the Nile in Egypt and the Sindhu (miscalled the 'Indus' by the Greeks) in Pakistan together form what is possibly the basic underpinning of European civilization and culture as we know it.The first two are well researched and documented; the third ,which was also the largest, has great areas obscured in shadow. Visit this website for a fascinating account.

Part of the problem is that there were not one, but two separate 'ancient civilizations' on the banks of the Indus (I bow to modernity while using this name). The earlier, or 'Harappan' civilization flourished probably around 2500 BC.

The Harappans left behind astonishingly well-constructed and laid-out cities complete with buildings ,baths, walls and drains. There is evidence (corroborated with archaeological records in Iraq) of extensive maritime trade conducted by the major port cities:Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.The Harappans wrote: there is an abundance of terra cotta seals bearing inscriptions which have not been deciphered even today.In addition to script, there is an abundance of well-crafted animal figures, of which the bull and the "unicorn" were in plenty.( When I look at a picture of a "unicorn" sculpted in bas-relief on a seal, it suggests a view of a species of long-horned cattle, used, perhaps for religious or sacrificial purposes.

The Aryans, who entered the Indian sub-continent around 1500 B.C. were a completely different people.They had no urban tradition, did not build, so left no archaeological evidence.They did not write.The animal they spoke of was the horse, and they referred to chariots.They seem to have been basically rural people, much less advanced, it would appear, than the Harappans.Yet they left behind a rich oral tradition in language, religion ,music , philosophy, mathematics and science that persists in India to this day.

The puzzle for me is: why did the Harappan (or "Indus Valley") language die out without any trace? What happened to the Harappan people?Why did such a flourishing civilization disappear?Why are their traditions not entwined in the legends of contemporary India like those of the Aryans?

Historians discount the factor of war with the invading Aryans as a reason, because, for one thing, in the rich Aryan literature that remains with us till this day, there is no account of any war with established urban populations.A stronger evidence arises from the fact that the Harappan civilization appears to have covered more than a million square kilometers in its heyday, extending from Afghanistan in the North, and covering the whole of Pakistan and the northern and western Indian states of Punjab,Haryana,Rajastahan, and Gujarat. There was no one kingdom: there appear to have been many "janapadas" or small republics that constituted this civlization.It was never going to be easy for a small group of invaders to subjugate this region within a short time.

I will cover a resume of existing evidence and speculation in my next post.