China’s Latest Incursions – A bitter testimony of Nehru’s ‘Forward Policy’

China’s incursions in the Ladakh region are the latest in its slew of border transgressions since 1962. What gives China the edge is its continued control over Aksai Chin, a significant area North of Ladakh, which allows it easy access to the India territory across the border.

If one were to look back, the fact is that by September 1962 itself, China had begun to make deep inroads in the North-Eastern territory, following their crossing the MacMohan Line. Through the mid to the late 50s, the Chinese were surreptitiously constructing a highway linking the provinces of Sinkiang and Tibet, through Aksai Chin. The Indian position in Ladakh was insecure as in those days, there was no road link to Leh.

The amazing part was that even as early as 1959, Jawaharlal Nehru, while presenting a ‘white paper’ in the Parliament, conceded that China had taken over more than 12,000 square miles of Indian territory but tried to assuage feelings by claiming that the Aksai Chin area was untenable where ‘not a blade of grass grows’. Still with growing demands for action, Nehru rather tremulously embarked on a ‘Forward Policy’ whereby, small posts with 5 to 10 men were to be set up in the areas claimed by the Chinese as theirs, more as a surveillance measure.

Nehru went on to say that any bit of aggression by the infiltrators would be given a befitting reply by the men commanding the posts. China took this as a sign of hostility on India’s part and mounted an insurgency that caught everyone off-guard. The posts proved unequal to the task of pushing back the infiltrators.

To divert the Chinese attention, the government struck the Chinese forces across the NEFA where they believed they were better placed. But this was a tactical blunder for the heavy casualties suffered by the Indian forces here led to China’s capturing the crucial Bomdi La in the Kameng Division, the headquarters of the NEFA command and coming close to taking over Chushul in the Ladakh valley which would have led them right up to Leh, the headquarters of Ladakh. Then all of a sudden China did a volte-face by withdrawing troops without of course, losing hold on Aksai Chin, where it still maintains hegemony.

The embarrassing reverses faced by the Indian Army in 1962 brought to cruel focus that for all of Nehru’s foresight, defence measures in terms of deploying adequate forces to safeguard the sensitive North-eastern sector where the Chinese always had interests, was never high on the list of priorities of his Government. Nehru believed in peaceful overtures to settle border disputes and had a perfect ally in Krishna Menon, his Defence Minister, who too believed in conservative use of forces.

Besides a loss of face, the war showed up how a marked dependence on diplomatic maneuvers at the expense of military preparedness could have the most disastrous of consequences. The failure of Nehru’s ‘Forward Policy’ continues to haunt India even as China, much to everyone’s embarrassment, continues with its surreptitious deeds.

‘Global Cataclysm’ - Governed by Harsh Realities

The discovery of ‘Higgs Boson’ or at least, a particle in closest approximation to it, had made for prominent headlines not too long ago. Known as the ‘God Particle’ it was considered the bi-product of a mechanism by which a hypothetical quantum field is generated that gives mass to elementary particles and thus, to the matter that makes up the entire Universe. But to the common man, the mystery of how the Universe was created is nothing beyond a convoluted jigsaw of scattered clues.

 

Something very similar had happened some four years ago when an experiment was about to be conducted then in a tunnel at the French-Swiss Border to discover the elusive particle. With the most formidable of atom smashers producing collisions of protons traveling at the speed of light, one group of theorists felt that it would be a discovery to beat all others in re-enacting the ‘big bang’ that had led to the creation of the Universe, while another, said it would unleash microscopic black-holes that might well be trapped in the earth’s gravitational field and threaten the very existence of our planet. Since then, experiments & theories have continued to make the rounds but there is no sign of an apocalypse as was feared.

 

But what foreshadows a future that is perilous is that we, as the inhabitants, are finding newer ways to push the world, closer & closer to a cataclysmic edge. So, more than the extraneous factors that threaten our existence, we are in the clutches of an internal mechanism that is squeezing life out of our planet.   

 

To what extent do we justify our existence as part of nature? For generations to come, we might leave behind a legacy that strips the Earth of its natural assets. The global threat occurring with the depletion of the Earth's ozone layer, the release of greenhouse gases due to rapid industrialisation, the massive deforestation leading to the extinction of rare species are collectively impacting the eco-system, just as the increasing use of chemicals in agriculture is resulting in steadily decreasing harvests and increasing soil erosion.

 

Is this the price we have to pay to perpetuate the process of evolution? Scientific theories do matter but we find that soon after being hot topics of discussion, they are relegated to a cosseted space till another glut of conjectures & inferences are drawn forth. The Earth happens to be a tiny speck in the Universe[al] gust but as the epi-centre of human existence, it cries out for a ‘planetary’ shift in the global consciousness of thought as dictated by harsh realities that cannot be sidestepped.

 

The cosmic process of evolution says that the Universe began as infinitesimally small and then expanded. About planet earth one fears a trend in the reverse; that its vastness could shrink to a raw, diminutive core. So each of us needs to participate in a process of creating a better world by understanding the purpose of the Universe and identifying ourselves within it for common good - as we own a common destiny.

Is there ample evidence on the ancient civilizations and their origins?

From an Indian perspective, the sites at Harrappa or the Indus Valley, which flourished across what is now Pakistan and north-west India, for long provided the earliest evidence of organized community living in this part of the world. Yet, even though they are accepted by general consensus as among the oldest of mature civilisations, the evidence that has been unearthed at the main and the proximal areas still remains relatively scarce to create an exegetical argument base for itself.

Like for instance, there is no evidence of the primary economic subsistence base, the system of government and rule, the degree of social stratification or the extent of the cultural sphere that governed the communities inhabiting the Harappan settlements. All that we have is some indication of the geographical extremity, the reasonably affluent lifestyles, the well-laid out civic amenities and some inter-regional trade.

Beyond the sub-continent, we find that the civilization that flourished in Mesopotamia also stretched back by a considerable stack of years and the first such traces in the region emerged during the Ubaid period between 6500 and 3800 BC. Now even during the pre-Harappan period, it is believed, purely on the basis of evidence unearthed, that civilization flourished in some form in the region of Mehrgarh (the Kachi plains of Baluchistan) during 7000-6500 BC. So, the earliest urban sites may have existed simultaneously in the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia. Another thing that was common to the two was the creation of scripts, indicative of intellectual advancements even then. While the Mesopotamian cuneiform writing has been deciphered somewhat, the Harappan script which is essentially ‘logographic’, is yet to be decoded.

Another discovery was in 2001, when an ancient submerged settlement in the Gulf of Cambay off the West coast of India, was traced back to around 7500 BC. Based on the study of the artifacts, Indian scientists propounded the theory of a ‘lost river civilisation’ and that the Harappans were descendants of an advanced mother culture that was submerged after the last glacial (ice) age by rising sea waters. What gives credence to this is that the last glacial age coincided with the Mesolithic period that pre-dates both Harappa & Mesopotamia, when the sea levels had fallen considerably and had then risen by several hundred metres, submerging many a flourishing civilization in the process. This was because after the glacial age, the continental ice sheets that had expanded, exhibited a reverse trend and gradually melted away leading to a rise in oceanic levels.

Some archaeologists have countered the genuineness of these artifacts as they have been recovered using the ‘dredging’ technique instead of being excavated by conventional means. Thus, there is no general consensus on whether the Gulf of Cambay is actually the ‘Cradle of Ancient Civilisation’ and not Mesopotamia, as is believed to be.

Thus, arguments and counter-arguments abound but the fact remains that civilization in its incipient stage, relating to the first ever organized urban community living, is yet to be identified with irrefutable evidence to support.

Bullfighting – No Longer a Spanish Past-time

Albert Einstein had once said, ‘If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence should be injury to animals’. For all animal rights activists, a final adieu to the turgid spectacle of bullfighting in Spain  definitely is a moment to rejoice, though it is equivalent to a granular speck extricated from a copious sand-mound. In Spain, some have denounced it outright while for others it is a welcome break-away from an archaic, nay barbaric tradition. For a nation brought up on a fizzy fiesta of flamenco music & dance, decades of armed rebellion for Basque independence and the international dispute over Gibraltar, bullfighting has been an indelible cultural earmark, believed to have lasted since the reign of Emperor Claudius almost 2000 years ago. As Barcelona recently hosted the last of the controversial sport, it definitely marked a watershed in Hispanic history.

The fight itself as it unfolds makes for compelling study. In the Spanish lingo it is known as corrida de toros and the team consists of the matador and his assistants, 03 banderilleros and 02 picadores who appear during the first two stages, known as the tercio de varas and tercio de banderillas to provoke and tire the raging bull. The matador himself appears at the third stage called the tercio de muleta performing a number of passes, then jabs at the animal using sharp lances and finally subdues it using a sword or espada which is pushed over the horns and deep between the shoulder blades. If the sword goes in to the hilt, it is an estocada but if it hits the bone it is a pinchazo or media-estocada. An estocada usually results in the bull dropping down immediately and dying but if it survives, the matador takes the descabello, a sword with a protruding shaft, which he stabs straight into the bull’s neck severing the spinal cord.

Now what does one make of this scenario of unfettered blood & gore? If anything, it presents a sad picture as the Spaniards appear to take pride in the killing of a poor, helpless creature. Despite a custom having spawned generations on end, the raw and raucous undercurrents of it in making capital out of an animal’s protracted suffering cannot be justified. Going by the all-pervading law of nature, a spirit of mutual conviviality has to exist between all living species. It is again nature’s decree that man is bestowed with faculties superior to animals, so prudence dictates that we ought to be their guardians rather than oppressors. Such emotional palliatives apart, a tradition that has lasted through centuries is always going to evoke mixed reactions when it draws to a close. For the moment, Spain witnesses the dawn of a new epoch, even as the conscience-keeper of time and faith attempts to cull out a sordid chapter, whose contents no longer makes for worthy settings, from a nation’s chequered history.

Usage of Stone Tools In The Pre-Historic Age

Some interesting facts have come to light as per the latest findings of archaeologists during their latest excavations in far-off Kenya with regard to the tools used by human species in the pre-historic age.

Pre-historic classification based on Christian Thomas’ system deduces that stone, mainly flint was used as a weapon and a tool throughout the old stone (Paleolithic) and the middle stone (Mesolithic) ages. Chipped stone used by the earliest human species from Africa, were in fact, pieces of quartzite, a sort of metamorphosed rock formation. Such stone artifacts are easier to date as quartz itself is the commonest rock forming mineral resistant to chemical breakdown. As the quartz crystals themselves take millions of years to form, the stone weapons that have been located could have been chipped off rock structures extending to the earliest years of the old-stone age, about 3.5 million years ago.

The collection of picks and axes as mentioned in the report, which supposedly date back by 1.76 million years, relate to the Acheulean tool tradition, distinctly attributed to the Homo Erectus species, which existed about 1 to 2 million years ago, originating in Africa and extending beyond. However, the fact remains that the usage of stone tools had started much earlier. The first of the stone choppers that is believed to have existed was Australopethicus, a genus of extinct primates which pre-dates the hominid lineages of Homo Habilis & Homo Erectus.

According to noted anthropologists, Homo Habilis, which appeared about 2.3 million years ago, was scabrous in the use crude stone tools made from solid rock, some of which have been found in the Omo Valley in Africa. But the tools that have been recently recovered and have been in the news, definitely belong to a more complex school, requiring greater operational skills with their sharp, clean edges formed by removing flakes on either side along one face, to cut the sinewy portions of animal flesh. These have been ascribed to the Homo Erectus species as with their evolution, came the Acheulean hand-axe tradition that shaped stones to serve as scrapers, knives, hatchets & picks. The use of such tools enabled the species to move about untrammeled and occupy different habitats, leading to improved communication and better understanding among individuals. Having said so, it often becomes difficult for tools to be classified specifically to Homo Erectus or Homo Habilis, as the existence of both these species overlaps for at least 200,000 years.

Yet, the current findings establish beyond doubt that though in the course of hominid evolution, stone tools have existed in various forms almost 2 to 3 million years ago, the emergence of flaked stone tool-making constitutes a definitive evidence of a marked technological shift in the prehistoric age. Archaeological evidence has exhibited an increase in the complexity of stone technology up to varying degrees, which have helped extrapolate the more sophisticated stone-tool production modes that have evolved over a period of time.

The Twin Schools of Spiritual Hinduism

In the 5th Century B.C., both Buddhism and Jainism rose as spiritual orders that basically rebelled against Brahmanical Orthodoxy. Impregnated by the seeds of spiritual unrest, these twin offshoots yielded in the realm of history a harvest of new interpretations in religious broad-mindedness.

Both Gautama and Vardhamana who have come to be associated with the two cults as the paramount figureheads of their respective reform movements happened to be from the Kshatriya clan, who challenged the spiritual hegemony of the Brahmanas just as they refused to acknowledge the paramountcy of the Vedas. It was basically a clash of ideals between the governing and intellectual classes, each of whom brooked its own exclusivity in the social fabric of the society. Here it must be mentioned that neither Buddhism or Jainism were rigid schools of religious reform to the extent of attempting obliteration of Hinduism itself, in the sense that they never preached the abstinence of individual faith in the Hindu deities. Both existed as corollaries of the tenets enshrined in Hinduism and both alluded to a religious order that preached to the closest approximation, a chastity in words, thoughts and deeds as the means to salvation.

However, unlike Jainism which remained close to its Hinduistic origins in that it adhered to the rudiments of the caste system and ceremonial sanctity, Buddhism gradually was weaned away from the parent stock and thus, weakened its base in the country. While Jainism continues to flourish in its country of origin, spreading out of the Magadhan seat of imperial power to parts of North-West and to the Southern parts of India, Buddhism has been uprooted quite a bit and has gone on to flourish in South and South-East Asia. Several reasons have been cited for this. Even as many of the Buddhist doctrines came to be assimilated in the Hinduistic folds, the supremacy of the Brahamanic order that was challenged during the 5th and the 6th Centuries B.C., once again gained ascendancy during the age of the Guptas somewhere around the 3rd and the 4th centuries A.D., which mitigated the hold of Buddhism on the masses. Paradoxically, the neo-atheistic doctrines of Buddhism did not carry any level of conviction for the masses that was seeped in idolatory practices and sermons for centuries on end. Then of course, came the corruptible influences in the Buddhist monasteries and the religious order, followed by the horde of invasions which saw Buddhism lose much of its primal energy. The spirit of compassion and religious freedom thus, became a more potent antidote in far off lands that never required the Hinduistic crutch to flourish.

It must be admitted however, that both Buddhism and Jainism occupy a status of paramountcy in the religious orders that have flourished in India even though there is no definite period to delineate in history as either the Buddhist or the Jain period. Both are like the spiritual fountainheads that have attempted to create an outlet for human sufferings through the ever-flowing waters of purity and wisdom.

Lord Mahaveera and the Tenets of Jainism

The 6th Century B.C. witnessed the rise of the twin sects of Buddhism and Jainism in India following a period of spiritual unrest. They were both fallouts of a revolt against the orthodoxy as enshrined in the Brahamanical tenets of Hinduism and yet neither propagated the surrendering of one’s existing beliefs in the spiritual deities of the Hinduistic cult.

The founder of Jainism was believed to have been Lord Parasvanath, the 23rd Teerthankara (Prophet) of the Jain hierarchy, whose order of ascetics was governed by the four basic tenets – non-injury to life, truthfulness, abstinence from stealth and non-attachment to property. Historically, the religious sect of Jainism owes it genesis to Vardhamana (one who brings in peace and prosperity), the son of a Kshatriya noble called Siddhartha who ruled at Kundagram, Vaishali more than 2,500 years ago. Vardhamana was rechristened as ‘Mahaveera’ owing to the unusual strength he displayed at quite a young age. However, Mahaveera was not destined to be the powerful Emperor of Vaishali as everyone had anticipated for as time went by, He decided on a path of renunciation. Like the Holy Buddha, He too wanted to find a way for mankind to be rid of sorrows in a world torn asunder by the differences of cast, colour & creed. At the age of 26, He embraced the life of an ascetic and for 12 long years, led a life of deep penance, oblivious to pain or pleasure, food or starvation, sleep or awakening. It is believed that once, while seated under a Sal tree on the banks of the Rijuwalika river near the Parasvanath hills, he found ‘enlightenment’ as a ‘Jina’ - the one who understood the cause and the cure of sorrow. He acquired ‘Kewal Jnana’ or the only knowledge that is infinite and supreme. The ‘Jain’ or the ‘Jaina’ thus, was an offshoot of the ‘Jina’, the conqueror. Once he attained enlightenment, Lord Mahaveera emphasized upon freeing the soul of earthly bondage with the possession of three jewels – ‘right faith, ‘right knowledge’ and ‘right conduct’. His teachings espoused God as the extreme manifestation of all that is good in human soul. Thus, according to Him, ‘Nirvana’ or the state of final emancipation was attainable by one’s own efforts without the aid of a supreme authority, simply by controlling one’s passions and desires. The Jains came to be divided into ‘Swetambaras’, the white-robed and the ‘Digambaras’, who use no clothes in adherence to the stress on chastity, added by Lord Mahaveera as the fifth to the earlier four tenets of Jainism.

Unlike Buddhism that branched off considerably from its Hinduistic parentage Jainism kept itself closer to its origins and never really attempted any serious overtures outside India. Mostly it was confined to Bihar and parts of North India before extending to Gujarat, Rajputana and to the Southern parts of India.

During the thirty years of His teaching life, Lord Mahaveera, developed a sizeable number of followers to his religious order, before attaining immortal peace at the age of seventy-two at Pavapuri in Bihar around 527 B.C.