G.S. Cheema in his book ‘The Forgotten Mughals’ posits a compelling idea – and I quote him…
“That a nation of such ferocious warriors should ever be defeated seems incredible but the caste-ridden nature of Hindu society ensured that the masses were never involved in the struggle. The Rajputs, in reality, were only the thin upper crust of the warrior aristocracy which held the land in feudal tenure from their chief who was usually the head of their clan and, at least theoretically, of common descent. The mass of the population, consisting of the innumerable different castes and sub-castes of Indian society were seldom involved, and rarely felt the need to lift the sword in defence of their king, and indeed were not expected to do so. Thus the Rajput armies, even with their semi-barbaric tribal auxiliaries, were never able to match the armies of the Tukish, Mughal or Pathan rulers of Delhi in manpower, even though the foreign invaders constituted but a tiny fraction of the teeming multitudes of Hind”.
In contrast to other cultures, their ideas of nationhood and their martial spirit – India’s subjugation has always been a mystery – as to how a handful of foreigners could lord over the hundreds of millions of Indians so easily, and for so long. It turns out the answer is quite simple. The hundreds of millions were never called up for service, ever. Only the tax collector changed and life went on. There never really was a loyalty to King & Country, only to God & Tribe – with the tax collector being a pragmatic reality 🙂
For the most part, Indians – and Hindus at that – remained rooted to their caste & tribe at a local level, and to God Almighty at a philosophical level. Amazingly, after hundreds of years of foreign rule, these two aspects haven’t changed. We remain Hindu as do our caste & tribe affiliations. We were never really converted en masse to another faith. The concept of nationhood is relatively recent – post independence really – and even that idea fragments in the face of regional state politics.
Is it conceivable that India could again disintegrate into the hundreds of petty kingdoms that we’ve always been? We have the requisite DNA…but mercifully, the connective tissues of economics & technology should carry the day!
SAMEER NAIR 