Nawab !: Recent Episodes
Nawab Bahadur
The dominant theme of ancient Indian history is anything but non-violence. The myth of a perfectly peaceful and non-violent society in ancient India was deliberately created by men like Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru during the days of our freedom struggle against the Britsihers. Here, I have attempted to look back on ancient Indian warfare, and to that end, what better source could be than the work of our own Machiavelli, the legendary Kautilya's Arthasastra!
Qandahar, an impregnable fortress in Southern Afghanistan, was the nucleus of many a bloody confrontation between mighty power blocs. Being the bone of contention between two powerful empires, with occasional forays by a third, Qandahar, inspite of its rugged landscape and remote location, directly or indirectly shaped momentous political events that in turn influenced the whole of Asia and even beyond it.
We trace the journey of a man much reviled in contemporary India, and in the process, shed light on his character and temperament, particularly in connection with religion.
For far too long, the religious policy pursued by the Mughals in India has been debated and discussed. Essentially modern terminology has been used to analyse pre-modern events : from Babur to Aurangzeb, succesive Mughal emperors were drawn into the binary polemic of "Secular-Communal". The results haven't been encouraging — the Indian society today is more polarised than ever before. Therefore, we decided to strike at the root of the entire affair — to unravel and decipher what exactly was the religious policy pursued by the Mughals, what shaped it, and how it impacted the subcontinent at large.
The history behind our national emblem — a subtle effort that seamlessly amalgamated our past and present.
How often do we give in to our circumstances, not least when the circumstances are adverse ?