drrajpalsingh
New member
Friend,
Thanks for reminding me about my signature; I assure you I stand by them come what may !
I know that this is history section and I am putting the following line of thought for kind consideration of the participants if they want to understand the period under reference.
As I have stated earlier also there were wars waged by ruling elites invading India and the earlier well entrenched ruling Indian elite from time to time during those over 12 centuries and large scale destruction of men and material occurred. On cursory reading it seemed that invaders and earlier inhabitants remained busy all the time for elimination of one or the other religions and the cause of their fight was to eliminate their rivals by force. But this is just one element of the fight of political elites in those days. The real factor working all the time behind these fights was to fight snatch political power by force of sword, then consolidate the political gains with the external and internal help to keep it intact as well as to expand further with the help of the local people and by adopting India as their motherland, they tried to oppose the outside aggressors irrespective of their religious beliefs [see fight between Babur and Ibrahim Lodhi Panipat 1526 between Humayun and successors of Shershah Suri in c1555 or Battle of Karnal against Nadir Shah 1739 and Battles against Ahmad Shah Abdali]. In these battles followers of Islam clashed against one another, killed their opponents irrespective of their religious affirmations. The motive was snatching/capturing/ keeping political supremacy intact.
The contribution made by Indians during those days in peace times in the field of fine arts, paintings, music, architecture, literature by people belonging to followers of Islam and various faiths constituting Hinduism [Jains, Buddhists, Shaivas, Shakats etc] is there to prove that in peace times the people did not bother to discriminate the individuals' on the basis of their religious faith.
The absence of communal violence in the country during peace times also points to peaceful co-existence and harmonious relationship between the people of those times.
The nature of Mughal State remains an enigma for many, but one fact is discernible: It started to give grudual precedence to indigenous population over the foreign elements entering India. Kindly see composition of political elites present at the Mughal Court in which people belonging to diverse religious faiths and groups/communities find mention in the lists of the ruling elites. Rajputs, Brahmans, Marathas and others were the pillars of the strength of the Mughal ruling elites starting from Akbar onward. Read about the elite compositions of native rulers like Maharaja Suraj Mal, Rulers of Awadha,Maharaja Ranjit Singh or any other rulers and co-existence of people is testified. Presence of temples and mosques in the same village or towns, paintings and sculptures on muslim buildings by Hindu artisans and vice versa testify peaceful and harmonious relationship between masses. These examples can be multiplied to any extent, if one likes to present true picture of the times.
It was the object of starting the thread to discuss both the positive and negative aspects of the foreign invasions on India in Medieval Times but the object seems to be difficult to be attained because of insistence by a few friends to see the blackest events to be portrayed and not to allow even slightest mention of the other side of the coin.
Hence, I stop with an appeal:
The present must not colour our analysis of the past . Both the aspects of history of this period may be taken care by the participants in their posts please to arrive at a fair appraisal of the life and times of those days !
