There are some moments in life where you take pride in being something. Different people have their different pride moments as they are affected by different things in their personal life. Similarly my heart swells with pride when I see India or Indians making their presence felt all around the world as they did in ancient times. In ancient times people from every civilization on earth wanted to come to India to see her wisdom and wealth by their own eyes. As such wonderful stories by travelers who visited India were really hard to believe to majority of the population of other countries. From Pythagoras to Socrates from Fah-E-Yang to Al-Biruni from Christ to Umar Khayyam from Buddha to Guru Nanak India inspired every aspect of the life in ancient world. Proudly having the seat of the world’s Guru. You just have to go through the writings of all these people to understand how India has influenced their work. I am boastful for ancient India’s achievement and its justified since Indians gave a lot to this world in every aspect of its life.
Everything good started to change as invaders from all around the world lured by India’s famed wealth set their eyes on her. It started with Alexander and ended with British. Alexander had a very little success in India and his soldiers after hearing frightening details about Magadh’s (Ancient Bihar) army didn’t wanted to proceed further. Every small province of India except TakshShila (Taxila) gave Alexander and his soldier a very tough fight. It was the major cause for Alexander not to proceed further in India. His dream of conquering the whole world became a shattered in India. While returning back from India he murdered and looted different small Indian cities but got severely wounded by Malavs in India. Please go thorough this link to understand what I am saying http://yangtze.cs.uiuc.edu/~jamali/sindh/story/node7.html.
Well Alexander was not the only general whose dreams got shattered by bravery of the Indians. Islamic invaders who conquered mighty Persia and larger part of the Europe with in matter of years had to fight for approximately 500 years to gain control of Delhi. First Islamic attack was on Sindh by Muhammad Bin Kasim in 710 CE and control on Delhi was finally established in 1193 CE by Kutubuddin Aibak after murder of Muhammad Ghori. The muslim control on India was never complete as much of the southern India never came in control of any muslim king. Muslims became part and parcel of India in later years. Islam lost its militant and jehadi touch as it came in contact with Vedanta. That’s why islam wasn’t able to penetrate majority of China and other south east Asia. It was cooled down by superior philosophy of Vedanta. Mugals are as much Indian as any other Indian king. Except Aurangzeb all the mugal rulers weren’t that much fanatics. Whatever Mugals earned in India they kept it here, as it was their land. Off course they also destroyed temples and built mosques over them but that was medieval time and so I am ok with that. Some of the finest architectures in India were constructed by Mugals. Looting of India was first started by Nadir Shah of Iran. After him came the British and these British are actually responsible for all the poverty you see in India today.
Since it was not their land they looted money from here and sent it back to London. They destroyed all indigenous businesses. British used India as just raw material producing destination for their industrial revolution. They dumped their goods here. They forced Indians to buy the British goods. India became depended on British for everything. It was actually like the clouds were being created on the banks of Indus and Ganga and they were giving rains on the banks of river Thames in London. Moreover they tried to destroy Indian culture. They created biased literature and made Indians feel inferior on their heritage. It was moral and cultural destruction of India for which I blame the British.
It’s a well known fact that till 18th century CE India’s contribution in world’s GDP was more or less same as of USA today. Till the finding of the diamonds in Africa, India was the only source of diamonds in the world. I have many reasons to believe that 200 years under British were the darkest in Indian history. India saw the famines and was unable to feed her children. In those testing times some Indians stood up to shake the soul of the nation. The likes of Ramkrishna Paramhamsa, Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Maharshi Aurbindo, Jamshed Ji Tata are just few names. They started taking part in rebuilding the damaged castle of mother India.
Jamshed Ji Tata started first textile mill in India in 1868. He wanted to create a steel mill in India but wasn’t given the necessary technology by the British. He took help from a US based Company and built India’s first steel mill in 1904 in Jamshedpur. I take here some liberty to say that Tatas are the finest example of the migrant success stories. Tatas are the Zoroastrians who had to flee Persia when muslim’s attacked and conquered their land. India gave them shelter. Till this day these Zoroastrians are following the code which their ancestors set with Hindu King Jadav Rana of Gujarat. These Indian Zoroastrians have made very large contribution in progress of modern India. From Jamshedji to Ratan Tata they are making every Indian’s heart swell with pride.
As in the beginning of this blog I told you that I am feeling proud today as Tata has acquired most British brands of all i.e. Jaguar and Land Rover. Tata has already acquired British Tetly tea and see the poetic justice in taking over of the remnants of the famed British Steel by Tata a few months back. This same British Steel has denied Jamshedji Tata the know how to make steel and now after a 100 years this same company is serving under the Grandson of Jamshedji Tata. The global change in mindset towards India was started by Indian IT companies where the whole world got first hand experience of India computing brain. Well after all we Indians are the ones who gave this world the number system and it was really fitting for us to make best use of the thing which we all young Indians strive for in their life i.e. education. Than came the big takeover of Arcelor by Lakshmi Nivas Mittal and suddenly the whole world started seeing the same India and Indians in new light. This same shock continued when India clocked 9 % GDP growth rate for past 5 years, launched satellites for other countries and recently by creating a Nano revolution. I owe my some of the proudest moments to Ratan Tata and he has become a hero for me. My heart wants to put him in the same league of Swami Dayanand and Vivekanand but it would be really foolish for me to do so as their’s area of work is totally different. Now Ratan Tata ji should aim his sight on British Telecom, Vodafone and few other British Financial Institutions. All other Indian business tycoons should come forward for this cause of buying the British Businesses as most of these businesses are built by blood and sweat of we ordinary Indians. It’s poetic justice in every sense.
The Tata group is setting nice examples for whole corporate India to emulate. This group is well known for not paying bribes to corrupt Indian officials. Even though the total turn over of the Tata group is over 70 billion USD none of its clan features in richest person on earth. You want to know why? Its because all of the Tata group companies now 100 of them till now are owned in majority by Charitable trust set up by Jamshedji Tata. These trusts invest heavily in development of India through educational institutions, scientific research centers and hospitals. They give hope to millions of Indians to believe that golden age of India is coming soon. "We all consider ourselves capitalist socialists," said R Gopalakrishnan, a director of Tata Sons. "I find it very energizing to be able to go to work to earn profits by being more efficient and decent about the way of doing business. For all that sins that I must be doing to think that 30-40% of the profit is going back to help other people. That's why we do the job."
Such a clean corporate thinking, doing ethical business and still gaining profit is what Tatas showing to all of us Indians. I am fortunate that I am living in the time of India’s revival to get back its ancient past. I am seeing that transformation with my eyes to pass it on to next generation. India’s time has come now. God has again given us opportunity to lead the world. We must not miss the chance. We all Indians must strive hard to get back what actually belonged to us. I can feel that day is not far. Till than I will continue to celebrate the success of Indians. Come join the party with me. Say proudly I am an InDiAn…
Hemant Dubey www.himalayan-swastika.blogspot.com
