Explaining the evolution of communal politics and tracing its origin to British colonialism, Dr.Ram Puniyani, a renowned historian, said “The Monarchies (Rajshahi) are largely counts on ruling the people through collecting tax and making expansion of their territories. The little known fact is that the monarchic rules are not based on religion but largely counts on holding sway over the people while kingdoms have no boundary lines which even changed with the change of guard at the ruling level.”
He was discussing the evolution of communal politics and traces its origin to British colonial rule during a program “Dharm, Rajneeti Aur Aaj Ka Bharat” as part of a public lecture series being rolled out recently with a theme of ‘Reimagining India.’
In a monarchic rule, he said, the primary objective of the ruling king was to give expansion to its territory. From Samrat Ashoke to Aurangzeb the same old legacy prevailed only to evolve with the onset of British Rule on Indian Territory. “The British Rule was largely based on exploitation and suppression of native people to plunder the local resources and find new markets as they were going through the period of industrial renaissance with surfeit production,” he explained.
“The new culture of Modern Nation State was sets into motion in Europe that brought hand in hand the industrial revolution in the West,” he said adding that, “Introduction of machinery to boost the production has resulted into surfeit outcome that stirred a sense of competition among European countries who took o time to search suitable markets in the East to sell their produce and this has led many of them to head towards Asia.”
“As a part of this campaign the French made inroads into Asian markets first followed by Portuguese but their stay was marked with a limited period. Then the British stepped into the Indian sub continent under the guise of the East India Company and gradually held their sway over the land with a tenacious grip,” asserted Dr.Pinyani.
Though the British came here as a trade company, it later formed an army to conquer the monarchies that were busy infighting with each other. The East India Company was blazed with a great expertise of forging ties with one monarchy to swallow the other. They were very excelled in ‘divide and rule’ policy ever since they set their footprints in India territory and this has led to consolidate their position every moving day.
On the other hand, Dr.Piniyani said, the Muslim monarchies that reigned Indian territories remained affable with the native populace as their courtyards were studded with several artists and experts besides prominent figures of different religions.
“The misinformation about Mughals being broadcast through the televisions these days labelling them as ‘Plunders’ is just a myth. All the kings lay their mighty hand over the people to collect taxes to run their dominions. Collecting taxes ruthlessly from farmers was the basic principle of the monarchies those days as no king has any exception to this predominant concept of ruling the people with iron feast. They never did communal politics but collection of taxes ruled the roost in any monarchy those days besides attacking the neighbouring territories as an expansion campaign. Blaming King Akbar for committing atrocities on farmers to collect taxes holds no weight as every king goes the same way the Akbar did. The Muslim rulers, who ruled the people from the throne of Delhi and Agrah, never shifted the local wealth to anywhere else. They lived here, died here and decomposed in the land but never deceived the motherland,” he reiterated.
