Praveen Kishore Development | Public Policy | Economics | Governance

Understanding History, Community and Society in South Asia

22 Oct 2017 0 comment(s) Opinion Pieces

(This essay was first published on wordpress blog-site on 22 October 2017)

I. Identities in south Asia: National, Regional, Religious and Others

Continuing from my previous analysis of religious versus other identities, the key to understanding many facets of south Asia is to appreciate that religious identity is mostly subservient to other identities peculiar to the subcontinent. It is mostly the result of more than five thousand years of shared historical, cultural, social and religious traditions and practices. For example - it would be difficult to distinguish Hindu, Muslims, Buddhist or Christian of a region/state in India by just looking at them - but it may be easier to distinguish a north Indian from a south Indian. Further, on the whole, there is something called 'Indian' being result of complex intermingling of faiths, tradition, cultures, beliefs, social norms, ethnicity, languages, food, music, and dresses etc. over thousands of years. This fact becomes eminently evident to most south Asians when they are abroad, as Europeans or Americans easily make out that someone is from south Asia, what they then need to further confirm is whether the person is from India, or Pakistan, Bangaladesh, Sri Lanka or some other country. Furthermore, this is a dynamic process - constantly changing and evolving, though still retaining that uniqueness of south Asian identity, which is kind of self-evident to an outsider/foreigner. It has variously been given different names by thinkers and philosophers - a quite popular being 'Unity in Diversity' (Khilnani, 1999).

Another example of one such unique characteristic of south Asian identity is that even religions like Christianity and Islam in this region have incorporated social and cultural characteristics peculiar to the sub-continent. One very relevant example which comes to my mind is incorporation/adoption of the characteristics of the caste system even among Muslims and Christians. This has resulted in the sorry state of affairs where the persons converting to these faiths from Hinduism in the hope of getting rid of their caste identity and its related oppression and exploitation, have largely failed to do so. Certainly, identity in pre-colonial India was dependent on various features such as caste, occupation, language, sect, region and location and has been highlighted and analyzed by various researchers and historians, and many such age old social practices continued into the nineteenth century (Sharma, 2009), and do continue even today. As late as eighteenth century; caste was often given primacy over religion, although caste and religious sect could overlap (Thapar, 2002a). Even now, caste and regional identity could be the most important identity in many parts of Indian sub-continent, including in urban areas, as well as in Islamic Pakistan.

Let me give a personal example from my village in East Champaran district of north Bihar. I still recollect our sharecropper (he doubled up as an agricultural labourer too) - no one could have identified him as Muslim, his predominant identity was his class status and poverty. For all throughout my childhood, and even during my youth, I never knew that he was a Muslim. He was always called by his nickname ( it was 'Jaie' - which incidentally is the Hindi/Bhojpuri word for Oat) and that was suffixed with the word 'Kaka', a Hindi word showing respect, also meaning uncle/elder. Perhaps no one cared about his real 'Muslim' name. It was perhaps in my thirties that I came to know of his religious identity. He died few years ago at a very ripe old age. His wife who used to be (and still is) regular at our home, and used to do odd work, was a cheerful talkative lady. The case of identity was same with her. So, this family and few other Muslims families have lived peacefully in my village and I have not seen or heard of any serious friction due to religious believes or identities. Their priorities, concerns, struggles and world views were, and are, different and in the journey of their life, religious identity was always subservient to other identities, goals and concerns. And I am sure that there are innumerable villages like mine across length and breadth of India, and South Asia.

This does not mean that there have not been religious riots in India, or for that matter, some friction in my village. There have been many, in different parts of India at different times, but again, they were mostly localized and contained quickly, and there have been riots/disturbance due to many other divisive tendencies as well. Though it may sound trite, I should also mention visiting my Muslim job-supervisor on Eid and sharing the food and laughter together and his visit to us to enjoy colors of Holi with us. And I can continue citing! These examples, which may sound, as I said, cliche, are being given to highlight one point - there are many sub-national, regional and social identities in India, and religion is mostly not the predominant one across the sub-continent. And during the pre-British time, this was even more so. Indian democratic uniqueness lies in its rather successfully reconciling these identities and social diversities. Some of these, including religious, have acquired serious overtones occasionally, but were always localized in space and time, and ultimately have been tackled successfully.

On the other hand, Pakistan's society can still be usefully analyzed in terms of regional identity and power play beneath the apparent religious homogeneity of Islam. The linguistic schism leading to birth of Bangladesh has already been discussed by me. Even in today's Pakistan, it is regional/linguistic/ethnic identity of Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashtun/Pathan etc. which guides the social-interaction and play a dominant role not only in polity but also in day to day existence. Punjabis dominate Pakistan - culturally, linguistically and of course in numbers. Though Urdu is officially the national language, Panjabi is mother tongue of as many as 47% of people whereas Urdu is the mother tongue only for 8% of people (Census). Further, close proximity can be found between Urdu and Punjabi - Urdu being a derived language of recent origin (Mughal period) from Punjabi, Hindi and Persian. In a diverse country (yes, Pakistan is diverse too, though not as much as India), democracy can play a very crucial role in giving a platform for different people to share the governance and a medium through which differences of all sorts can be reconciled through dialogic and consultative process peacefully and productively.

Absence of democracy in Pakistan has largely devoid it of such opportunities and has perpetuated the dominance of one region/community/ethnic group at the cost of other minorities. The hegemony of Pakistan's resurrected and refurbished 'Punjabi tradition' has been nationalized in an unequivocally authoritarian Pakistan (Stern 2001). Today, Pakistan is ravaged by serious fragmentation along ethnic-national lines which is being exacerbated by the great power conflict that is unfolding across the region (Sajjad, 2010). It has been argued that identification of the state in Pakistan with the Punjabis, to the exclusion of all others, has contributed to the intensification and even militarization of ethnic conflicts in the country (Mohammad, 2002). Again, the contrast with India is quite telling! And the potential which a democratic polity and politics holds for reconciliation of such socio-ethnic conflicts through peaceful means is immense.

Of late, Pakistan appears to be making some promising move towards some form of sustainable democratic polity, though I should be very careful in drawing such early conclusions. However, I would like to mention one thing; the recent removal of Pakistani Prime Minister by Supreme Court on corruption charges (name of his family members appearing in Panama Papers) is a decision which may point towards evolving institutional independence. However, delving deeper may also point out that higher judicial institutions and armed forces in Pakistan are still dominated by powerful elites, and function in largely non-transparent and arbitrary manner, and the removal of the Prime Minister may not be as straight as it seems. Nevertheless, I am pointing out the contrast because in India, we have yet to see any action against big and powerful elites on the basis of revelation of Panama papers.

II. Dividing and Periodizing History: Hindu and Muslim

Here, some further comment on history of Indian sub-continent is necessary to put the issue in proper context. For advocates of Pakistan (as well as for Hindu-nationalists), it was imperative to view the Indian history in terms of Hindu Period vs. Muslim Period – based on the notion of who was ruling the sub-continent. The naïve, though catchy and popular, colonial/religious-nationalistic periodization of Indian history in to Ancient (from antiquity until about 9-10^th century), Medieval (until about 17^th century) and Modern – which can also be identified as Hindu, Muslim and British periods – on the basis of the religion/persuasion of most important kings and ruler has been a handy tool for many. This is the result of early historiography dominated by British and German Indologist like William Jones, James Prinsep, Max Muller and many others, whose first point of contact and first acquaintances with Indian history and its past was through study of ancient texts like Vedas, Upanishads and epics, mainly through Brahmins who knew Sanskrit (Keay, 1981). The simplistic interpretation also suited well with colonial interests and their framework of understanding of Judaeo-Christianic world, where religion always was crucial in politics and statecraft.

Historical causes were explained as arising almost entirely from matters of religion, which were frequently assumed to be confrontational. Ultimately, thus, for some if the 'Hindu' period was unblemished Golden Age, the 'Muslim' period was Dark Age, and this imagery has been reversed by those of the alternative persuasion (Thapar, 2002b). In fact, for much of the history, the whole Indian sub-continent was rarely under one empire/ruler; there were different kingdoms in different areas. Even during the so called Muslim period, there was large number of Hindu kings interspersed spatially and temporally. Further, during Mughal rule, large number of regional Hindu princes/kings populated provincial kingdoms like Rajputana, Punjab, Malwa, Rajasthan, Deccan, Tamil, as well as in Mughal Emperor's court as Ministers, Advisors, Chief of Army etc.

In fact, India was effectively under one king/regime during its long history only when the state policy was more of tolerance and acceptance of the diversity and heterodoxy (Eraly, 2000). The two great emperors of India – Asoka and Akbar – one Buddhist another Muslim (yes, none of them were Hindus!) -who ruled almost whole of Indian subcontinent in 3rd century BC and 16th Century AD respectively – have the declared state policy of religious tolerance, respect for cultural and social diversity and they vigorously propagated peaceful coexistence (Thapar, 1998; Lahri, 2015; Truschke, 2016). When Aurangzeb effectively reversed his great-grandfather Akbar’s policy in 17^th century, the mighty Mughal Empire effectively disintegrated within few decades (Sen, 2005). Furthermore, India being effectively a decentralized sub-continent with many layers and complex social pattern and practices, the religious persuasion of the king was often not an issue for masses – unless it affected their day to day life. It has rightly been said that the assimilative Indian society and culture has always been able to 'conquer the conqueror' over its long sweep of history - whether it was immigration of Indo-Aryan speakers during second millennium BC; of Huns, Parthians (Pahlwns), Shakas, Kushans (Yueh-Chi), Jews and others during close of first millennium BC or of Muslims (of Afghan, Turkish, Persian and Mongol origins) during close of first and second millennium AD.

The British could be cited as an exception. But they came in a very different historical time, with very specific purpose of trade and commerce. This only gradually transformed into their being the colonial powers. However, British were perhaps never interested in permanently settling and mixing in India. Although no empire was larger or more diverse than the British, yet no empire -except the Russian - disappeared more swiftly, within a generation (Brendon, 2007). Let me not explore this issue further, as it is in itself a vast area of scholarship, research and discussion.

III. The Idea of Aryan

Instead of British, let me examine the concept/idea of ‘Aryan’ in some more detail. The word 'Aryan' is very sensitive, even dangerous, and in any case, much misused. It would be wrong to attach a 'racial' identity with the word 'Aryan'. It was a linguistic identity, referring to groups of people speaking Indo-European and then Indo-Aryan (or perhaps Proto-Sanskrit) languages (yes, its plural) who migrated to Indian sub-continent, perhaps over a long duration sometime during second millennium BC. Indo-Aryan (or Indo-European) also migrated to areas now called middle east, east Europe and further west and east of their original homeland. In the south Asian context, please note that I am using words ‘migration perhaps during long duration’, not 'invasion by Aryans leading to destruction of Indus valley/Harappan people'. The recent historical scholarship of past quarter of century have now led to some modification and revision of the earlier idea of invasion, though there are still scholars who think it was more of a violent invasion then a peaceful, gradual migration. This violent invasion theory seems to carry some weight in light of still unexplained reasons for a rather quick decline and disintegration of Harrapan civilization during the same time-period of history when this 'migration' happened. The still un-deciphered Harappan script/writing perhaps will throw valuable light on these issues, and will greatly help in unlocking and unraveling these secrets. In fact, Harrapan is the only major ancient script which has not yet been deciphered.

Even this line of theory of gradual migration of Aryans, which is largely (though not universally) accepted by the most erudite and learned of world historians, linguists, archaeologist and experts, has been attacked by those who want Indian past to be presented and understood in a particular manner. However, any such criticism which is not founded on evidence and lacking in logic and reasons is bound to be taken as what it actually is, an attempt by vested groups to distort and misrepresent Indian history, its past and ideas of identity for propagating their parochial narrow interests. Though there is some recent research which has brought more interesting facts to light about the Harappan civilization and Indo-Aryan people, there is nothing corroborating these parochial points of views.

I will not further delve into this topic, and would instead suggest two good books for more information, one edited by Thomas Trautmann, titled The Aryan Debate (Trautmann, 2007) and the other edited by Edwin Bryant & Laurie Patton titled, The Indo-Aryan Controversy (Byrant, 2004). It should also be kept in mind that the idea of Aryan and of Indo-European languages, their origin, their migration and movements have wider repercussions about how history of not only India, but of whole Europe, Asia and even Africa is further explored, understood, interpreted, reinterpreted and revised.

IV. The Idea of Hindu

Looking back to the earliest times, India has been home to many faiths and beliefs. It has been birth place of at least four world religions - Hinduism and Buddhism (which have large following today) as well as Sikhism and Jainism - three of them predating the Christianity. It would be wrong to interpret that before the advent of Islam, religious identity of Indian sub-continent was a standardized canonical 'Hinduism' as is now often is being claimed, and also being attempted by Hindu fundamentalists. Further, it may be incorrect to call 'Hinduism' as a 'religion' in the western sense - it did not has a single prophet or founder, did not has 'a' holy book, did not and does not has a single authority/institution and no fixed set of rules and ritual structure - it always meant different things to different people with regional variation in rituals, practices, beliefs, myths, pantheons and philosophy. If fact the 'Vedic Brahmanism' of before Christ (based on ritual and sacrifice) was very different from the 'classical Hinduism' of first millennium AD (philosophical, espousing dharma and karma (duties) and bhakti (devotion) to personal gods), or from the popular 'Hinduism' of modern times. Vedic Brahmanism had already given way to Buddhism (espousing middle-path) as the most prominent faith by around 3rd Century BC which remained dominant for around a millennium in the sub-continent and during which it spread to far corners of Asia (Eraly, 2000).

The religious dispositions in India always accepted heterodoxy of faiths and believes and they were part of parcel of everyday life. Even during Vedic times and thereafter, what we now know through literacy records is perhaps not what was actually practiced by most of the people. It only shows what a particular social class (the highest - Brahmins and Kshatriya) believed and practiced and desired that all others would practice. In fact, Buddhism and Jainism originated as orthodox sects in reaction to excessive ritualism and other tenets of Vedic Brahmanism. The 'classical Hinduism' which emerged from 4th century AD onwards, can be understood as product of intermingling of Vedic-Brahmanism and Buddhism (Eraly, 2011). In short, what is important to appreciate is that the social and cultural intermixing has been a common feature in Indian subcontinent since time immemorial, and the experience with Islam (or for that matter with Christianity) was not much different. Islam came to India in 8^th century and by 11^th century; it was the religion of the kings/sultans in north and north-west of India.

V. Experience of Islam in India

The spread of Islam in Indian sub-continents and its interaction with Indian culture and religion need to be distinguished with what happened to Islam in other parts of the world – the spread was not all pervasive as happened in Middle East and even in some areas of South East Asia. In India – it was much more complex, mixed and the influence was in both directions, as always. Perhaps, a long tradition of religious thinking and the fact of India itself being birthplace of important religions and philosophy were the crucial factors. It also needs to be distinguished with the interaction of Islam and Christianity – which was often much more violent and animistic. On the Indian sub-continent, the intermingling of Islam with pre-existing traditions produced Sufism and new religion like Sikhism and many other minor traditions and practices, often called 'sects' – not Crusades! Islamic interaction further spread the ancient India knowledge to Europe via Islamic Middle East - like the concept of ‘zero’, place value numeral and decimal systems (Ifrah, 2000)- which played crucial role in European renaissance.

If one looks at the world map showing Islam's spread eastward upto South East Asian islands, the break in Indian sub-continent is immediately visible. However, I must say that a deeper and nuanced understanding is quite important here - because such kind of arguments can easily lead one to the erroneous view of dominance of 'Hindu' religion on Indian sub-continent to the exclusion or subservience of other faiths. And such approach has been taken by Hindu rightist groups, more often in recent past, with some substantial political and social gains (Nassbaum, 2007). One of their ideal is to harp on to attain a state where all Indians follow 'Indian' culture, value and tradition - of course for them 'Indian' means 'Hindu', for them the golden period of India was before the 'invasion' of Muslims, for them the ancient India was the purest India, classical Hinduism is the Indian belief systems, and of course Indian culture has been able to withstand all invasions and attacks to retain its essential feature - and it needs to be preserved and propagated!

Further, viewing medieval India as ‘Muslim India’ came in handy for 'Muslim right' also and to advocates of Pakistan who propagated the view that Muslims, who were rulers of India for hundreds of years, have lost power and they needed it back – somehow – even by dividing the country. Of course, it was (and still is) mainly the view of a section of elite, powerful, feudal and rich Muslims, mostly in Pakistan – and should never be considered as the view representing the Muslim masses not only of Pakistan but all over Indian subcontinent. Sadly, the idea of Pakistan has remained hostage to this divisive and fundamentalist ideal. No doubt, even on Indian side – there were (and are) fundamentalist ideologues - Hindu as well as Muslims – but they have failed to get the support of masses, except at certain times and in certain regions. They have largely remained on the periphery of Indian psyche, though of late political emergence of Hindu rightist groups, their growing appeal to rich, urban and elite classes of Indians may be a worrying sign. This has also found reverberation in what has variously been called a rising conservatism across the world, though there are strong counterarguments also against any such understanding of recent world historical and political paradigm.

VI. Syncretizing Diversity

A very recent trend getting more and more attention of prospering middle classes is to often downplay, even denigrate, the roles played by founding fathers (Nehru is a favorite here) of India in laying a strong bedrock for a robust democratic, plural and progressive country. The contribution of these innovative, synthetic and cosmopolitan thinkers, like Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore and Ambedkar (others too) – each of whom turned to diverse sources, including Buddhist literature, Bhagvadgita, Sanskrit poetry, edicts of Ashoka, architecture and administration of Mughals etc, to fashion an original sense of Indian selfhood, with a keen sense of subcontinent’s diverse, syncretic historical heritage - cannot be overemphasized. This analytic and synthetic process leading to foundation of Indian polity and democracy has been beautifully and vividly explored by Ananya Vajpeyi in her book (Vajpeyi, 2012).

On diversity and assimilative nature of Indian culture, society and polity, I cannot resist citing Ramchandra Guha here (Guha, 2007a). America has often been called the 'melting pot' of different cultures. It may be tempting to call India a better example of melting post. But a more apt description of India would be to call it a 'salad bowl' - where each conceivable diversity has retained its flavor, taste and distinct identity, despite being constituent of a larger unified whole (Guha, 2007b). Perhaps, Pakistan also need to realize that despite being an Islamic state, it also needs to be a 'salad bowl', or at least a 'melting pot', though of a smaller size than that of India, which can take it quite far on a successful democratic journey.

VII. Teaching History in Pakistan (and in India too)

I wonder how history is taught in Pakistan! I wanted to know more about it, and tried discussing it while at Harvard, but it was not easy to elicit comments or reactions. There is no denying the fact that India and Pakistan (and for that matter Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc, and to some extent Afghanistan also) share a common historical legacy. I was told that in Pakistan, history teaching starts from 712 AD when first Muslim hoards attacked/reached Sindh. Although I could not access any school/college textbook of history from Pakistan, I accessed few books on general history of Pakistan in the Harvard library. One was titled The History of Pakistan by Iftikhar Malik (Malik, 2008) which first discussed Indus Valley Civilization very briefly, in only 20 pages, and then from there it directly jumped to advent of Islam in Indian subcontinent, thus omitting around 3000 years of history in between, yet discussing and describing medieval India and Mughal period. The other book titled Pakistan - A Modern History (2nd ed.) by Ian Talbot (Talbot, 2010), as the title itself suggested, was not at all concerned with early periods, it talked of modern Pakistan only since its birth in 1947. Even a scholar like Stephen Cohen has not been able to appreciate this issue in his popular book, where he narrates a short history of Pakistan (Cohen, 2004) - perhaps he can take the unconvincing excuse of being constrained by space limitations to start his history of Pakistan from 1100 AD!

I am sad that history in Pakistan has been colored in terms of Hindu vs. Muslim, I am sad that children in Pakistan are not taught that Ashoka was as great a king as was Akbar, that Taxila (near Islamabad in Pakistan) was a great center of Sanskrit learning where Panini compiled his great grammar of Sanskrit in 5th century BC (Keay, 2010) and it was also a grate center of Buddhist learning, art and culture; that Buddhism spread to central Asia and China through these places in Pakistan, that Mughal dynasty was more Indian than Muslim, that almost all the great Mughal monuments and architectural heritage are in India, that great Harappa civilization was centered in Sindhu catchment area of today's Pakistan and that South Asia's (including Pakistan) known historical tradition has a continuous history starting as back as in 3300 BC, not in 712 AD.

Am I unfairly pointing out Pakistan? Am I being too complacent about my own country while being rhetorically sarcastic about Pakistan? Should I start bothering about India too? To imagine that I may be needed to say something similar for India sometime in near future, for Indian history books, for the way many Indians may like to start identifying India only as Hindu, is a terrible thought for me. Despite some recent disturbing episodes and incidents, where attempts have been made to modify and color the school textbooks in the same way our Pakistani brothers do, I am quite positive that we, as a nation and society, will be ultimately able to resist any such attempts.

This feeling of mine is buttressed by the fact of our past 70 years of experience, wherein we have largely been successful in dealing with such divisive tendencies. Nevertheless, I do not want us to be complacent, because such issues of identity, culture and history are much more, much much more important than we often think them to be. They affect subconscious in more ways than we can even imagine and recognize.

VIII. Where Do Indians Stand Today

My positive feeling is despite the fact that of late, I have seen people much more concerned with preserving the ‘holiness’ of cow than to know for example, what actually was achieved by renowned mathematician-astronomer Aryabhatta or Brahmagupta.

Kusumpur, a place near Patna in Bihar, where Aryabhatta lived and worked during 5^th-6^th century is an unknown village today. This place, around 30 km from Patna, presently is a typical agricultural village, know as Taregna (adjacent to a small kasba Masaurhi), and hardly any of the villagers know about Aryabhatta. For that matter, hardly any Bihari (or if I may say, even Indian) knows that Aryabhatta was from Kusumpur, Patna. Perhaps the precise location of his laboratory is presently being used for milking cows, tending to goats and for growing vegetables! As one report goes, few years ago, in July 2009, the Chief Minister of Bihar visited this place to observe a solar eclipse (supposedly, some foreign scientists, including few from NASA, were also there), as it offers a vantage position and location, some say in terms of latitude and longitude for astronomical calculation and observations, and perhaps that was one of the reasons which motivated Aryabhatta to live there. However, nothing much happened after Taregna's brief encounter with fame, and the village quickly went back to its usual status of being a nondescript anonymous place.

I hardly find any commentary or modern book analyzing the contribution of Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta or other ancient Indian scientists, whereas I increasingly hear claims that Indians had already invented airplane as early as during the age of Lord Rama (haven't you heard of Pushpak Viman), and similar other gibberish! I must further point out, as another example from our recent past, that even in case of modern Indian geniuses like mathematician Ramanujan, his biography has to be written by Robert Kanigel, an American science writer (Kanigel, 1991). What Indians are doing then, in addition to neglecting Ramanujan, Aryabhatta and similar others?

Many Indians today like to believe that they are already on the path of regaining their country's (lost) glory and power, and therefore instead of wasting their time on Aryabhatta or Ramanujan, many of them (an increasing proportion of recently prosperous urban middle class) are giving more importance to discovering the ‘real’ glorious past of India and preserving and protecting its most essential features! Just to take only one example, this is often being done by (if not directly, then by supporting - through various types of convoluted arguments, or ignoring and underplaying - acts of) lynching people who are alleged of eating or carrying or storing or even of thinking of eating beef. Of course such people thereby commit a heinous crime against ‘holy’ cow, and thus against Indian culture and identity, as cow is India’s most important, essential and sacred cultural symbol! Therefore, perpetrators of such acts fully deserve these barbaric and cowardly mob-judgement by supremely civilized Indians! What importance Aryabhatta or anyone else has before our holy cow!

This precisely is the power of identity played through history and their uses and misuses for shaping the course and discourse of our society and nation.

Let me end the essay by mentioning Dipankar Gupta who exhorts us as to whether and where we stand with Gandhi. Would we rather line up behind a ‘cultural Gandhi’ who can easily be cast as a Hindutva partisan? Or are we going to stand firm and unfazed by the principles of ahimsa (Gupta, 2013), and let me specifically add, of secularism, liberalism and progressivism.

References

(As I mentioned in the first essay on South Asia, many books can be (and have been) written on each of the issues discussed in every paragraphs of this essay. The long list of 30 references which have appeared in this second part of the essay, as below, is a potent testimony of this. Further, it should not at all be taken as comprehensives, at the most it is only indicative)

• Akhtar Aasim Sajjad (2010): "What Is Really Happening in Pakistan", Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai, (Vol XLV, No. 10, March 6, 2010)
• Brendon Piers (2007): The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997; Vintage Books, London; xvi-xx
• Bryant Edwin & Patton Laurie, Ed. (2005): The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History; Routledge, New York
• Census: Taken from http://www.census.gov.pk/MotherTongue.htm
• Cohen Stephen (2004): The Idea of Pakistan; Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC; 5
• Eraly Abraham (2000): The Gem in the Lotus-The Seeding of Indian Civilization; Penguin Books, New Delhi; 3-6, 22-25
• Eraly Abraham (2000): The Mughal Throne - the Saga of India's Great Emperors; Phoenix Orion Books, London; Ch.6,
• Eraly Abraham (2011): The First Spring-Life in the Golden Age of India; Penguin Books, New Delhi; 3-12
• Guha Ramchandra (2007a):, India After Gandhi- The History of World's Largest Democracy, (Harper Perennial, New York; 773
• Guha Ramchandra (2007b): India After Gandhi- The History of World's Largest Democracy; Harper Perennial, New York; 755
• Gupta Dipankar (2013): Revolution from Above – India’s Future and the Citizen Elite; Rainlight Rupa Publication, New Delhi; 67
• Ifrah Georges (2000): The Universal History of Numbers- From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer; John Wiley & Sons, New York; Ch. 24, 25, 26
• Kanigel Robert (1991): The Man Who Knew Infinity- A Life of the Genius Ramanujan; Little Brown Black Group, New York.
• Keay John (1981): India Discovered-The Recovery of A Lost Civilization; Harper Collins India, New Delhi; 35-40, 50-53
• Keay John (2010): India - A History From the Earliest Civilizations to the Boom of the Twenty-First Century; Harper Press, London; 60
• Khilnani Sunil (1999): The Idea of India; Penguin Books India, New Delhi; Ch. 1
• Lahri Nayanjot (2015): Ashoka in Ancient India; Permanent Black-Ashoka University, New Delhi; ch1
• Malik Iftikhar (2008): The History of Pakistan; Greenwood Press, Westport.
• Nussbaum Martha (2007): The Clash Within - Democracy, Religious Violence and India's Future; The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, USA; Ch. 5
• Sen Amartya (2005): Argumentative Indian - Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity; Picador, USA, p 25, 32, 287-93
• Sharma R. S. (2009): Rethinking India’s Past; Oxford University Press, New Delhi; ch 6, 7
• Stern Robert (2001): Democracy and Dictatorship in South Asia - Dominant Classes and Political Outcomes in India, Pakistan and Bangaladesh; Praeger, Westport; 15
• Talbot Ian (2010): Pakistan - A Modern History, 2nd ed.; Palgrave Macmillan, USA
• Thapar Romila (1998): Ashoka and the Decline of the Maurya, 2nd ed; Oxford University Press, New Delhi; Ch.1,
• Thapar Romila (2002a): The Penguin History of Early India - From the Origins to AD 1300; Penguin Books, London; 20
• Thapar Romila (2002b): The Penguin History of Early India - From the Origins to AD 1300; Penguin Books, London; 21
• Trautmann Thomas, Ed. (2007): The Aryan Debate; Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
• Truschke Audrey (2016): Culture of Encounters - Sanskrit at the Mughal Court; Penguin Random House, New Delhi; 5-10
• Vajpeyi Ananya (2012): Righteous Republic – The Political Foundations of Modern India; Harvard University Press, USA,
• Waseem Mohammad, "Causes of Democratic Downslide", Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai (Vol 37, No. 44, November 2, 2002)

Photo Credit: BBC

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