India’s Foreign Policy: An Analysis

bylleya#208:

You could perhaps call it a ``hindu`` civilisation if it had ended after the advent of Islam in India and India entered a period of darkness thereafter. This is a position only of some extreme hindu nationalists. The continuum of civilization continued; for example, while Urdu is a product of Indian civilisation, it cannot be called a product of the hindu civilisation by any stretch of imagination.

Maharana # 200

{{Probably the most renowned scholar in the area of cultural and civilizational studies of the entire world is Joseph Needham Campbell.}}

You’ve conflated two different people … you probably meant Joseph J. Campbell, the scholar of comparative mythology.

Joseph Needham was a scholar of Chinese civilization and particularly of its allegedly unbroken record of scientific and technological achievement.

dost-mittar #211

{{ Last summer, I visited a huge lake (130 kms long) in Ladakh straddling the border of India and China.}}

Probably Panggong-Tso.

{{we were told that the area was once part of the sea.}}

… called the Tethys Sea.

Re: # 203

chacha akhmad:

wah bhai wah!

kya lecture zhad rahe ho.

anyway........
I thought that earlier you were arguing against indian civilisation talking only about ``indian history``. is it that you have now accepted that there ``could be`` something called as an indian civilisation?
maybe i missed some of your posts.

Not withstanding the efforts of NDA govt. to prove that mohenjodaro was linked to vedic religion, every tom, dick and harry in india knows that indian civilisation/culture is rich tapestry of different religions, cultures, traditions, languages...

even thousands of years back different religions were the different sects within hinduism, jainism, buddhism and so many other religious thoughts of the day.

no one is equating indian civilisation solely to ``hindusim``. it never existed even as a word thousands of years earlier. but it could be a way of life....

may be that why even though you (pakis) converted hundreds of years ago but still blame the ``hinduness/banianess`` for the evils in the society.

do you know i know many people who are agonist by faith but hindu by culture.

Ijaz:

I don`t know if this fits into your analysis but I am reminded of two episodes during my travels. Three years ago, I went to Jaisalmer in India, probably not far from the areas that you visited. The general belief there is that there was a sea there before it became a desert. The souvenir shops sell artifacts (shells, stones, etc.) believed to be remnants of the sea there. The local words `maru` and `thar` both are said to mean `dead` and people believe that the desert was once a sea.

Last summer, I visited a huge lake (130 kms long) in Ladakh straddling the border of India and China. This lake, at a height of 16000 feet above sea level, is not of fresh water but a salt lake. Once again, we were told that the area was once part of the sea.

These are, of course, not scientific facts, merely legends quoted to us.

#205 jang: as long as one has a place to take a shower after the dip in the ganga. :-)

ijaz gul: You have certainly gone off the beaten track here!! I wasnt aware of these caves.
There was indeed an ancient sea that formed I think about 250 million years ago (when India was floating towards the eurasian landmass) and lasted till (I think, around 50-60 million years ago, when the subcontinent closed the gap and the sea-bed was inverted to become the himalay mountains - I am writing the timeline from memory since I need to go somewhere now and dont have time to double check). That is where the sea-shells are from. They have found such remains of a sea-bed in the himalays thousands of feet above sea-level!!

I would very much like to learn about your travels in these areas. Would you consider writing a chowk article describing these caves, particularly because I dont see much on the internet on it??

...i think the question comes back to the main point, i.e. can a civilization be defined by relgion alone.....if yes, then india is a singular civilization and always was one (from the time that hinduism arrived in the region)...as hinduism been the majority religion.....

....however, if religion is not a singular criteria, then india is not a civilization, nor was it ever one, as there were too many differing factors between the various groups that constitute the area.......it is a combination of many different civilizations, which differed in all areas, except religion....pakistan is the same.....

...one can then get into the technicalities of whether hindiusm is not a religion, but a dharma etc. and islam is not a religion but a way of life, etc.....however, generally, both hinduism and islam are both considered religion by everyone....

dm/vrv: Thanks for your posts. Since you touch upon a common theme, let me take the liberty of replying to both here - the common theme is the term India. Sure the ancient greeks and romans (as vrv points out) referred to the term ``India`` to mean the entire sub-continent. The romans got this term from the greeks who got this from....er...Pakistanis. :-) Or at least, people who lived in what is now Pakistan but was then (around 600 BC I think) the easternmost province of the persian achaemaean empire (which, btw, was larger even than the roman empire), and ``India`` is from Indus. Nothing to do with ganges, sorry to say.

But we, the original Indians, dont mind letting you use the name. After all, one of our illustrious sons of the indus valley - painini - also gave you the sanskrit grammer. :-)

PS: Just kidding. But these are indeed facts that I present in the spirit of breaking this logjam where hindu extremists try to equate India with hinduism while muslim extremists try to equate Pakistan with islam.

tahmed32,
Yes, I have visited the caves both in Dera Bughti and Dhanasar (Zhob). These are Cro Mognon caves. It appears that around Dera Bughti, a sea once flowed as one can easily find fossils of crabs, herring abd sea horses not to mention various types of shells. Archeologists theorise that the constant pressure of tectonic plates has over time changed the landscape.

Yes, some opine that Harrapa predates Mohen Jo Daro by about 2,000 years.
As for Sarasvati/Nara/Ghaggar/Reini, I have traveled the entire lenght of the course in Pakistan. Last year I travelled the entire Nara Desert on foot came and cross country vehicles along this course and ended at Nagar Parkar. This was once a green plain irrigated by the lost river but a sequence of Tsunamis and shifting of tectonic plates destroyed it. Allah Wala bund trapped the sea inland and desertified the area. Water is extremely brackish in lagoons and still harbours crocs etc.

Some Biblical scholars think that this is the actual river of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve lived before they were banished.

I intend posting a comprehensive article on this sometime soon.

Cheerios

#204 attaboy tahmed, come let us take a dip in the ganges and eat some bhangwale pakorey.

swarrier #198 No problem sir. We all get carried away a bit during a heated discussion. What is important is that we can appreciate all civilizations in the subcontinent while at the same time having a special interest in the traditions we are born into. Whether these civilizations are hindu, muslim, buddhist, harappan or greco-buddhist. :-)

DrDr: I thought we are chillin` when we come to chowk to begin with. :-)

I am not saying exactly what you say I am, I hasten to add. I am saying is that Indian Civilization is not congruent with Hindu Civilization by any realistic stretch, and BJP propaganda and the popularity of mahabharata plays in India since the 1980`s (I think) notwithstanding. Indian Civilization is a vastly richer mosaic of religions, cultures, traditions, languages, scripts than hinduism alone.

#201 drsab, this is not such a benign argument. this argument in future will be used for wars.

This is a very easy argument 2 settle - 4 swarrier & dost-mittar thers an injun civ - 4 tahmed & bulleya there aint - like beauty its in the eye of the beholder.
None of these bullshit arguments affect the facts on the ground so chill out everybody!

Probably the most renowned scholar in the area of cultural and civilizational studies of the entire world is Joseph Needham Campbell. He is the author of many books and his conversations with Bill Moyers on the mythologies of various cultures and civilizations are available online.
He refers to indian civilization - be it hindu, buddhist or jain as a continuum rather than as separate entitites. This mindless need to call indian civilization not as a single continuity in space-time is a mere justification for separatists` existence.