Freedom of Expression
Bharatvarsh? What Bharatvarsh? Which Bharatvarsh?
A study of concept of nation
We always talk of our country as Bharatvarsh meaning India with grand respect and that is fairly understandable. We often consider that when we say Bhaharvarsh it is today’s India but one historian corrected me on this point by showing that our beloved Baharavarsh is not the same country every time we mention it in different contexts particularly when we refer to historical and also mythological matters. He showed me that there are many Bharatvarsh versions and they each are so much different from today’s India or to put it more correctly British India and referring to those different versions as same as today’s India is grossly wrong.
He told me that according to the records there are eleven different Bharatvarsh versions. Because of differences in the nature of each Bharatvarsh when we refer to them many confusing conclusions are made. Each Bharatvarsh has totally different map. Most ancient Bharatvarsh is Vedic then Ramayana, Mahabharata, Ashok, Harshvardhan, Gupta, Shalivahan, Mogul, Maratha and last two are British India prior to independence and British India after independence.
When we talk of integration of India which India can be a question? This question may be taken by some as trivial but in actuality it is not trivial. Another point he mentioned is also very important in today’s context. He said, up to Mogul Bharatvarsh (or India) this land was mentioned by different travelers as Bharatvarsh but after Mogul period it was mentioned as Hind. This “Hind” was further changed in “India” when Europeans came in this country.
Surprisingly, I found that we have not named our nation but both the names given to this piece of land are given by outsiders, Arabs and Europeans. First mention of word Bharatvarsh is found in Vishnu Purana which is supposedly a product during Emperor Ashok. In that it is clearly mentioned that a land confined between South Seas and north icy mountains is the land of Bharat. Now Bharatvarsh became India. British carved out a piece of land as their empire and that included many lands which today are not included in present day India. At the time of Independence that large Pre-independence British India was cut into pieces. Pakistan was created Ceylon, Burma was separated and we got today’s India. This elaborate description is given to show that what we call our India is not developed by any one of us but created by previous rulers, British people created it. Today’s India is a British legacy, what we are doing today is only trying to keep that as it is and for that we call it integrated India. Why we call it integrated India? Let us see that.
When we see history of many lands in this world, we see that the maps of all these so called nations have changed so often that one sees no sense in attaching any undue importance to those maps; recent example is that of Soviet Russia, then why should we insist to be so proud of a particular map? I could not answer the question raised by that Historian. Can you?
Why to be proud of a particular map of the nation? This question gives out another question. What is the natural character of a nation? If nations keep changing their map, is it worth to bother about any particular map of a nation? For whose benefit should we be proud of a particular map of a nation? This enquiry is not with reference to only India but this pertains to all nations. A study was conducted by a group of amateur investigators to find out if there is any possibility of natural nation. Here I say natural nation because what nations we are talking of are all based on those formed by some ruler or the other. And so they are all artificial nations with changing maps by political significance.
First hypothesis was put up to differentiate natural nation from artificial nation and that says, maps of natural nations do not vary much but by natural causes while maps of artificial nations keep changing as per the changes in the political environment of that place. Some artificial nations can even vanish from the map of the world in case of wars. Natural nations are permanent and artificial nations are not so permanent. For example, if AlQaeda supported Taliban forces win war against both Afghanistan and Pakistan they are going to make a new nation called Talibanistan! That means both Afghanistan and Pakistan shall vanish into oblivion.
Second hypothesis was put up to define a natural nation and that could show whether that part of land is natural nation or not. Many artificial nations can be shown to be not natural nations. To define natural nations two basic characteristics of human society were used. Language and culture were those two basic characteristics. With this the definition of a natural nation was prepared; that says a piece of land where language and culture are same that is natural nation.
Third hypothesis was put up to define artificial nation. That says, a piece of land held by force or by understanding as a political unit irrespective of its status as natural nation or otherwise, is called artificial nation. With this definition we see that all politically formed nations are definitely artificial but they may or may not be natural nations. Corollary of this says a natural nation may be a politically formed artificial nation also. This gives a very interesting presentation that a nation could be at the same time both natural as well as artificial.
Some nations such as UK, USA, other countries of Europe, Japan, Australia come under natural as well as artificial nations. Such nations should be considered as PERFECT NATIONS.
Some investigators wanted to define on the line of geography and others wanted to use historical background but that was discarded on the grounds that both these things have no relevance to present human society. Using religion to define a nation was also ruled out because already there are many natural nations with same religion but different languages and culture. A nation is made of human society and so those things that make human society are the characteristics which should be and must be used to define a nation. Language and culture are the characteristics that make the nation and not its geography and history. Finally above given definition was accepted and we decided to study various human societies with reference to this definition.
We first of course, took India for the study. Presently we consider India as a whole nation which was given to people of India by British rulers who left this land almost fifty years ago. With the definition of natural nation according to which we were studying nations of today, all over the world, it was found that present political India is not a natural nation but artificial one. India is made up of many natural nations. India does not have same culture all over. Every linguistic state has distinctly separate cultural values. So India is an artificial nation.
Linguistic states were formed by an act some years ago in our country; that was to recognize these natural nations within the artificial nation of India. Today we see that present political masters in this country are trying to undermine the natural nations in the name of integration of India. This experiment is disturbing the structure of natural nations like Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Bengal and Assam etc. Since we know natural nations cannot be destroyed by any attempt we can say that this experiment will boomerang and will ultimately distort India which is an artificial nation. It may even cause disintegration of this artificial nation and natural nations within, will become independent nations. Present day rulers show utter disrespect for the natural nations and that is because, one opinions says, our ruling party leader as well as prime minister and also opposition leader are all not actually belonging to this India but by some adjustment they are accepted as Indians. I mean Manmohan Singh and Advani are refugees from Pakistan and Sonia Gandhi is an Italian migrant.
This revelation pin pointed to many other political nations in the world such as Pakistan, Russia, China and many more. They were all made up of many natural nations. This clearly explained the types of strife we see in all these nations. When natural nations of different languages and cultures are forcibly put together these problems are bound to be showing up there presence and the problems of clashes between different language groups and cultural groups are unavoidable.
Following questions were asked to the investigating group and I request the readers to give their views, opinions, suggestions on them. Even you can try to give solution to them. You can join the group also.
1) Why we must allow formation of artificial nations at all when natural nations can exist successfully as perfect nations?
2) How artificial nations are formed? What causes that?
3) Compare perfect nations (natural nations who are also political nations) with artificial nations (who are only political nations). Comparison should be on the bases of identity aspect only.
4) What other characteristics should be considered to decide a natural nation.
5) Tibet is an example in point. This natural nation did not have its defense mechanism and so China forcibly occupied it. Does it mean a nation is made of defense mechanism? Is defense mechanism an essential part of a nation whether natural or artificial?
6) What are other essential parts to make a viable nation?
7) Is patriotism essential to make a nation?
8) Is political aspect an essential element of a nation?
9) How an identity of a nation is decided?
10) How a national language gives the nation its separate identity. Can a nation be without a national language? India is in fact a nation without a national language! I am told by a UP man that Hindi is nobody’s mother tongue! All so called Hindi speaking states are actually Bhojpuri speaking and so why we should call Hindi as a language at all? Others speak Rajasthan, Marwadi, Chhattisgady and so on.
11) How culture gives the nation its separate identity.
12) What decides the size of the nation?
13) Financial power, military power, intelligence and other competencies decide the strength of a nation. Do you agree or not?
14) Some say a nation means a political identity a mere geographic piece of land cannot be called a nation.
In the second part of this exercise we shall compare Europe and India to find out plus and or minus points of a perfect nation against an artificial nation. There are many similarities in these to parts of the world and so they are taken for comparison. Europe is an example of many perfect nations preferring to accept common economic identity. India is an example of many natural nations combining to form one artificial nation.
As usual I request the readers to send in their comments and let me know how they feel about my rendering on this subject.
To see many versions of Bharatvarsh see page “Bharatvarsh versions”, go to my other blog (http://kothareashok.blog.co.in/ ) since Siliconindia doe not have page facility.
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