India in History - Affluence, Decay and Rejuvenation - Part II

A sea route to India for trade became an obsession in Europe in the first half of the second millennium. The Italian sailor Christopher Columbus supported by the Queen of Spain bumped into the US in 1492 in his westward journey to reach India.  The Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama did reach the southern tip of India by sailing around Africa in 1498.  Coincidentally, Babur, the Turk, invaded and occupied India in 1526.

The Portuguese were followed by the Danes, the Dutch, the French and finally the British.  It was a time of  Europe's effort in colonization.  The French and the English came to North America, the Spaniards and the Portuguese were in South America, Africa was variously shared and then all looked at the prize India.  East India Company was a trading unit incorporated in London in 1599, "to venture in the pretended voyage to the East Indies." The British tradesman Thomas Monroe took advantage of Mughul Emperor Jahangir's weakness to drinking and luxuries to gain blanket trading rights in India.  By 1650, the company was entrenched to "trade"in India's shores.

 

Bengal had developed to be an economic center by the Mughuls but the local rulers had developed divided loyalty.  The British moved in by fighting a war. The year was 1757.  The Mughuls collapsed in another war near Delhi in 1761.  The food grain exports had begun in a massive scale.  India suffered her first major famine in the modern times in 1770. More man-made famines followed.

By the time the British were being forced out from the US in 1776, their trading company had taken a good foothold in India.  The defeated soldier from the US, Earl Cornwallis went to India to create the new colony.  He succeeded. They were not traders any more, they were the rulers. The Company operated as a subsidiary to the Crown of England with an Act of the Parliament.  

How India and Indians succumbed to the ruthlessness of Cornwallis is a topic of historical introspection.  India was divided into many regions, each rich and prosperous, but there was no central command.  There was no collective defense.  The British took advantage and applied deceit.  The techniques adopted by the East India Company do not reflect well on the character of the British people.  The goals were self-serving at the cost of exploiting the innocent countrymen in India.  Possibly the food shortage in England made them act reckless. The story is sad.

England was going through technological innovations through Industrial Revolution.  East India Company found India as the supply house.  Massive exports of cotton, indigo, coal, iron ore and forest goods along with food grains left Indian ports for England.  The farmers were coerced to produce indigo and cotton in their food producing fertile lands causing the land to lose its fertility.

Added to the coercion, came taxation.  Taxation was a Mughul and Maratha legacy, but now it was orchestrated to let the farmer's land be usurped by the tax-collecting middle men.  The creation of this new class of middle men as proxy to the Administration has been a legacy of the British in India. Then came the racist Macaulay who pretended as an educationist.  Through his recommendation, English was instituted as the official language. Subsidy for all local educational and cultural institutions was eliminated.  The tax-collecting middle class learned English in Jesuit schools and the common people languished in helplessness and in total devastation.  Some in the middle class got into the administration-approved money-lending business increasing the owe for the common man.

The Company had committed "law and order" to the people in India.  The Parliament created "Acts".  The Company imported officers from England with massive salaries and a large entourage of "servants" to enforce the "Acts".  The "natives" were only good to be Assistants, Clerks and Servants.  Exclusive clubs and cultural societies developed creating an Indian apartheid system.  The arrogance of power did get a jolt with the rebellion among the troops in 1857.  Indigenous forest dwellers also resisted encroachment in to their natural habitat through armed revolts.   A series of famines in the 1860's caused millions to perish.  More rebellions followed.

Among the educated people, the Islamic community rebelled first.  They united their community with the slogan of purity against the British.  The nationalists in Bengal took steps to create privately funded research institutions as opposed to the clerical degree granting academic institutions funded by the British.  English language and travel abroad helped Indians to learn of the struggles in the world.  The Government allowed the formation of Indian National Congress to help arrest the discontent.  But the urge for self-rule had already ignited. 

More privately funded research institutions showed up to create engineers for the steel and textile industry.  Native industries did compete with the imported goods, but the Indian cottage industry was annihilated.  Various thinkers in different parts of the country joined together to discuss techniques and strategies to gain freedom.  Indians excelled and won prizes in the sciences, mathematics and literature.  The Islamic community did join in the common cause for freedom.  Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi returned back from South Africa to lead the grass root movement.

Gandhi's technique of experimenting with spirituality in political negotiations became a model of liberation movement in the world.  Supplemented with common man's sacrifice, Government-ordered impulsive massacres and a grass-root mobilization of a Nationalist Army, India marched towards freedom.  Amidst the chaos, Gandhi persevered on his path of nonviolence. He continued to challenge the conscience of people as India did through the ages.

The Second World War weakened the Empire, but the British were not done yet.  They did a final division of the country to continue to foment the sentiment of the Muslim minority.   The final stroke of breaking up the country remains as the colonial legacy of British rule in India. The legacy of bureaucracy, the disparity of wealth and the privileges of the managerial middle class would possibly not wash away easily.

It is good to note that new literature, art, music and media did develop through the creative minds in people.  The story teller Indian found the new medium of printing, photography, movie-making as interesting tools. Many experimented with the media.  More experiments are continuing.  Fundamental scientific research did continue in various research institutions, but India's wisdom and call to the world on the divinity of humanity is yet to pass through the shields of the new world order.

We will reflect on the current state of India in a later segment.  We have not studied it fully yet.

  

India in History - Affluence, Decay and Rejuvenation - Part I

It is not easy for a person like me who left India being scared of the political wrath to imagine that his own people a hundred years ago were more scared that he was in 1973.  While he could sneak out to a different shore, his own kinsmen had nowhere to go.  Some died out of starvation or cholera, and many did whatever they could to appease the "officers" to get a bowl of rice.  Most would have become fatalists looking blank to the sky. Some could be showing off that they can write the English alphabet to gain attention.  Their Mother India had changed.

The decay of liberal India is not easy to understand. It has not been researched.  There was a time where India was the land of plenty and the land of the free.  It was not only the political freedom, it was social freedom, intellectual freedom and more importantly freedom of existence through plentiful supply of food.  Though the latter was a blessing from the land, a nature-based conservation culture helped sustain the land and nurture the people. 

Indian social philosophy through the local empiricism did discover that all individuals are controlled by their psyche and the latter does help create an aptitude.  Like the tastes in nature, all aptitudes have a purpose and they are important components of sustaining the nature.  We would need aptitude to climb a tree to pluck the fruit and a different aptitude to preserve the seed and sow it in the ground to breed a tree. The former needs strength, the latter needs perseverance.  The society works best when they operate in harmony.

In a society operating on aptitudes, it runs on negotiation and mutual appreciation.  India became the most opulent nation on the earth through the process.  Each person knew his/her role in the society and each person was respected.  There was no disparity.  Aptitude ruled the land,  anyone could be productive.  Everybody had food, everybody had freedom.  Anybody could be a poet or a philosopher or a king or become a tradesman and a jeweler.  Mothers could be cared for to create healthy babies. Each excelled in his/her own work, there was space for all.

In the work with aptitude, the skill is internal and the training is personal.   One does not climb a tree by reading a book.  The book reference did invade India through the external influence of codes.  Codes are prescriptive, skills are innovative.  Codes did help create civil engineering structures like temples and palaces, but individual artistry still retained its value and esteem.  Managers and sponsors did exist, but the artist and the worker retained his/her freedom.

The codes, documentation and regimentation had made the Chinese the greatest economic powerhouse in the world.  In following a code, one needs to sacrifice the personal freedom.  The latter was hard in India.  A code is repressive, it tries to enforce generalization, a hierarchy.  No formula code could work in India, the codes became multi-fold.  There was space for all codes, various denominations.  Unlike China, there was freedom of expression.

The Mongols and the Islamic people arrived to plunder.  The theft was local.  The land had enormous resources to sustain the loot.  However Babur, the Turk, entered India in sixteenth century in search of a home.  India sheltered him, but was too fragmented with its multiple competing thoughts and regions.  Babur and the Moghuls tried to establish a new code which was alien to the land.  The new code allowed execution if one disagreed.  The enforcement was brutal.  The "free thinkers" had not prepared defense against the sword and the gun!

The Moghuls usurped all land in the country to curtail people access to food security.  However they continued to expand the cultivable areas and created "factories" to produce textile and silk.  Indian artisan showed his mantle and India competed with China as the economic powerhouse, both

maintaining a 25% of the world GDP in 1700AD.  China had a dynastic rule by the native rulers, India had a clan rule by the foreign rulers.

The massive bureaucracy of the government laced with bribery, flattery and distrust killed the Mughal empire in two hundred years.  Some local Marathas rose up.  They were good warriors but rather poor administrators.  India got into sad disarray. The most ominous period in India was lurking

with the arrival of the pirates from the west, who pretended entry as traders.       

I will continue in the part II of this article. 
      

India in the British Period

It is not easy to comprehend that two hundred years of British rule could manage to destroy two thousand years years on Indian culture transforming it in its sociology, relationships, education, language, manners and conduct.  The only good part is that old India could survive in the villages through old traditions but mired in poverty, insecurity and arbitrary fatalistic hopefulness.  The indigenous people in the hills did rise up and fought out the British but the latter maneuvered with the help of the urban elite, who at times became partners in the exploitation.

The story of the British in India is a drama of human deceitfulness achieved in concert with land usurpers, money lenders and small time speculators employed by the East India Company.  How did a parasite moneyed class develop that could be used to torture and exploit the farmers is a larger story of understanding human character under intimidation and insecurity.  The Moghuls had started creating a zamindar, subedar and a hierarchical class, that found its culmination under the patronage of British.  The latter managed to change the education system in the country to foster this new class of privileged "officials" who looked down upon the old Indian values in many possible ways.

The Moghuls had instituted heavy punishment system to disrupt the society, but they did succeed in maintaining the economy and food-supply by bringing new land under cultivation.  Though there was religious bigotry, there was market supply of food grains as a part of the administration policy.  The East India Company had a tack of exporting food out of India to support their own homeland and support the large number of colonies they had created.  In addition to exporting the food out, they coerced the farmers to convert grain-producing fertile lands to the cultivation of cash crops like indigo for export.  When synthetic indigo became available in Europe, the Indian farmer was stuck with land that had no crop value neither any cash value.

The irresponsible food exports and lack of facilities to reach out to the interior caused back to back famines for several years in the 1860's  The British administration completely failed in reaching out to the famine stricken areas.  There was massive corruption and artificial market pricing by the food retailers.  The administration operated on bribery and patronage.  There was horrendous loss of lives, in some of the areas one third of the population perished. Cholera and dehydration became rampant.  It became obvious that the British was engaged to destroy India than give her governance as they had been claiming.

A little something good happened through this catastrophe in waking up a few individuals to think that the inertia of inaction among the middle class must be broken.  Such awakening happened in Bengal which also had taken the lead in instituting the British rule through their own participation in exploitation.  There was perception that the new education system was inadequate to fully exploit the student's intelligence and diligence.  The British had succeeded in denying any position of privilege to the new college educated Indians claiming that they were of inferior intellect.

The Islamic people succeeded to create their own educational system with a view to create new leaders in industry and to foster business.   An Indian physician helped establish a scientific institution to encourage research and free thinking.   More institutions followed around the country and many "clerks" of Indian origin did get respite by doing scientific work during the evenings after completing their daily office work.  Politically, the British allowed assembly of Indian National Congress to give an opportunity for the activists to present populist causes to the Crown.

The rest part of the story is the arrival of Gandhi and the strategy for self-rule.  We will take up the details in our seminar on November 30.  Please do join by registering at
https://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org

India’s Cultural Evolution – What do we find?

For almost seven years now, about a dozen of us have been meeting bi-weekly to reflect and analyze our own personalities in the large mosaic of India’s traditions and culture.   It is a difficult exercise since the elements of it require us to objectively analyze our own conduct.  But at the same time, it has its own value since we don’t observe others but probe our own conduct in the process of analysis.  We become our own subject of study.  Both men and women participated in the group.  The ages ranged from mid-thirties to seventies. 

Our goal is to create an educational document communicable to our children and the future youth on behalf of us.  Being immigrants in the US, we feel that the parents would be the major resource for cultural education, so we undertake the exercise.  We have studied India’s culture from the available sources from the early times up to 1800AD.  I take the opportunity to summarize the chronology and the salient features in the evolution as we observed.

 (1) Community settlements in India began about seventy thousand years ago and multiple influx of people has happened.  Archaeological evidence of population migration is sketchy.

(2) India has been a land of fertility and good climate.  Various techniques of agriculture were invented and applied by people. Domestication of many crops happened in the land.  India remained as the food basket for the world during the known history up to 1700AD.

(3) Self-sufficiency in food enabled people to engage in creative arts and philosophical reflections.  No early written document has been discovered except the seals in the Indus period.  We conjecture popularity of massive oral literature in native languages in different regions.  Dramatic productions and wooden engineering structures were apparently quite common.

(4) Agricultural productivity brought in an empirical cause and effect relationship, alluding to the notion of a cosmic cause to drive the universe.  We hold the opinion that all native philosophy developed empirically through years of observations and collective analysis.  While the philosophical speculations brewed in people, the documentation came later.

(5) Poetic renderings of empirical findings and beliefs became the Vedas.  There was a rift between the literary poets and the dynamic farmers.  It possibly took millennia for the two groups to merge and create a unified social structure based on aptitude of different groups of people.

(6) The new social structure was effective in streamlining trade and commerce.  The excess produce helped bring wealth to the country.  India’s prosperity continued to ascend until 1700AD while it has been estimated to be contributing 25% of the gross GDP of the world.

(7) The prosperity and stability brought in new thoughts and further progress in analytic literature.  Scientific analysis of language, speech, music, drama and economics was achieved.  Observational astronomy and mathematics developed independently.  Massive literary explosion created masterpieces in world literature.  Discovery of iron technology and metallurgy paved way for rock carving, scripting and sculpting.

(8)  Analytic reasoning that each individual life is free led to explosive spurt in creativity developing new creations in the art, painting, music, dance, poetry and the sciences.  India became a land of opulence.  Trade and commerce flourished.  Indian goods became popular worldwide.

(9)  Prosperity created complacency and idleness.  Internal rivalry developed among different regions and divisive tendencies were triggered through Islamic invasions.  Gradually India was occupied piece by piece from the north.  The new rulers mobilized people in large scale construction projects but gradually weakened the economy through massive taxation.

(10) Some rebellions erupted but died down. The British took advantage of the weakness in the country and occupied as the new rulers. We will explore the British period in our next seminar.

The following is a summary of our own findings through our studies:

(a)    Indian culture in indigenous, empirical and distinctive.  Self-sufficiency in food and ease in agricultural production helped create a culture of caring of the planet and of each other.

(b)   The stated wisdom that “World is one family” was empirically deduced through farming and food production.

(c)    Indian civilization is just the human path of development where human beings are provided with natural abundance thus having time to reflect and explore individual creativity with freedom of expression. India has been lucky geographically to have this privilege.

(d)   Philosophically India champions personal freedom and mutual existence.

We have a number of unsolved issues that we would try to address as we wrap up the series.  The important among them is the class hierarchy that got built into the society.  Class hierarchy did produce economic disparity and strong social divisions.  The latter was exploited by the invaders and the situation did aggravate. The middlemen developed to maintain the society in an economic model have institutionalized themselves with the help of the royal and official patronage.

The second point that we don't understand is the massive degradation in a short period of time after 1700AD.  Starvation, disease and famines have occurred.  The question is if India can reconstitute an operational model where her population can be well protected in food and sustenance such that she can flourish with new contributions like that happened in the first fifteen hundred years of the present era. 

Our next seminar on the British-Sikh period 1800AD-1947 AD is scheduled for Saturday, November 2, 2019, at Bemis Hall in Lincoln, MA.  All are invited to join.

Nature of Man - India's Discovery

Man has an innate curiosity to know.  Man discriminates information, organizes, and decides on an action.  Man innovates and man adapts to the environment.  Man realizes that the nature is a benefactor and life has value.  Man understands that there is a difference between happiness and unhappiness and also that happiness is a function of one's own interactions.  Man discovers that respecting another life is the key to human happiness!

The above is a sum total of India's story as people created habitat on India's soil.  The discovery need not be unique to India, but because of her location and plentiful food supply, India had the privilege of retaining people who came to live.  India became a living civilization where the man evolves than escapes.  India discovered that each man is inherently creative and the creativity is an endowment that must be explored and manifested.

Some people ascribe the name "God" to the endowment of creativity forgetting that creativity is natural and built-in.  Lack of food, disease or distress can be impediments on human creativity.  Creativity is a mental function and it operates when the body functions are sound and normal.  India had the privilege of resources to offer health to her people such that they can maintain a creative life.  Good health is a function of good water, good air and clean environment.  Cleanliness became the cardinal principle of living in Indian eco-system.

The discovery that Man is free is a deduction, but is never fully realized.  We form a society when our own freedom does not clash with another's freedom.  The universe is large enough and can hold us all endowing each our own freedom.  We accept than we encroach.  We exist and allow all to exist.  We consume what we need not because we can.  While such practice might appear logical, its development in human society took thousands of years. It survived in India in its grass-root level.

What does the Man do?  Man takes care of the universe.  Man offers his services for the betterment of others who might be handicapped, who cannot move or who might be weak.  These others could be trees, animals, birds, sick people or people in old age.  Man does not start the day in search of personal survival, but Man feels secure that his sustenance is available to him at home.  He uses his skills to create new products, produce new composition, generate new literature or think of engineering methods for the betterment of the health and happiness in the universe.

This tranquil philosophy of a cultivated view of life was marred by Islamic invaders to India, who
were wanderers and were looking for easy access to food.  In search of Man, India had forgotten the enormous task of defending herself against intrusion.  Man also can betray in the threat of life and family to turn against each others.  While the initial invaders came to plunder and go away, the later ones thought to occupy and stay.  Thousands of people were butchered, many more were converted to Islam under the threat of death. 

Defiance did develop, but was sporadic and slow.  The Maratha Shivaji built up his own militia to fight against the intruders.  The Islamic Army was harassed through guerrilla warfare, militia hiding in the hills and the jungles.  The local people eventually gained advantage but Shivaji did not live through to enjoy it.  The Mughal Empire eventually collapsed and the Marthas did rule a major part of the country.

The period 1500AD to 1800AD is the period of faith and perseverance in India.  India survived through the atrocities.  It became richer in culture through adopting the new traits of splendor and grandiosity, but it became weaker as a nation, loose among its people.  While art, architecture, music, dance and literature thrived in various regions, the Indian nation looked insecure and unstable.  There were too many middle men, too many small kings, there was little national defense.

These topics would be our points of discussion our next seminar entitled "The Study of Mughal-Maratha Period, 1500AD-1800AD" on Saturday, May 4, 2019 at Bemis Hall in Lincoln.  I take the
opportunity to invite you all to join,  Please register at https://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org

The Story of India upto 1500AD

The goal is India Discovery Center is to map the distinction and identity of a person of
Indian descent as we witness through the evolution in history.  All of the India's history through millennia is not fully documented, much has been extrapolated.  One has to sieve through the literature to check what we can identify as a trait that can be taken as the base.  All human beings need survival, but the conduct is produced through habitat and security.  Ours is an exploration
to help the future generations to research more and understand the growth of human civilization.

India has been privileged in one particular sense because of her fertile land and ample supply of water.  Agriculture was natural and food production was easy.  We believe this was the key to the
original flourishing Indus Period civilization.  Through thousands of years, people had developed
the understanding of crop production through the use of irrigation.  Gradually the Indus area
used the surplus grains for trade and produced items of interest using raw materials obtained
from the foreign lands.  Other areas in the world also became trade centers, but the surplus of
agricultural production gave longevity and spread to the Indus civilization.  The compete story of Indus still remains to be fully told because of the inability to decipher the Indus script.

The technology of Indus civilization did not appear to transfer to the Vedas, which seem to have
been well preserved through oral recitation and transmission. The Vedic compositions are poetic
and seem to develop a faith-based society.  The agriculture and agricultural technology possibly
did move to the middle India, which also had developed crop production as a staple earlier.  It
appears that the Vedas used the language used in the middle India and developed it to make
communication in context.  The original language was most likely purely object-based and used
without the sense of time.  But the principles of living as the freedom of existence, concept of righteousness, and the character of truth are most likely old empirical concepts, and not poetic.

The Vedic hymns did teach the value of human possessions and the creation of wealth.  Though conduct and character were also part of the teachings, the pursuit of wealth did cause misery and wars.  This led to reflection and introspection.  The period 700BC to 200BC called the Classical
Period saw enormous strides in human knowledge by dissecting the Vedic literature.  India discovered grammar, mathematics and music.  Dramatics and human psychology were encoded
along with the nutrition and health principles.  New religions in the forms of alternative
faiths showed up enriching the India's landscape.  An economist Chanakya formulated a capitalist
economy that thrived in India for fifteen hundred years.  The Kings did appear but they were
by definition were in State to serve the people.  India was opulent through production and political
stability.

Opulence added freedom of thinking and creative literature developed in the form of epics.  Philosophical debates were popular and analysis of life through mathematics and astronomy
took a scientific turn.  The functioning of human mind was explored through possible physical
experiment and the techniques of restraint, mindfulness and yoga became the part of average
life.  Sophistication in art, language, dress, ornamentation, aesthetics, and human conduct
labeled the period 200BC - 500 AD as Golden in history.  The regimentation of the Vedas was reduced through the establishment of educational institutions and education through books and written texts,  Monks from China were attracted to learn and helped propagate Buddhism in
China and the Far East.

Technological discovery and the production of iron helped change the Indian landscape into
massive structures and monuments.  The period 500AD to 1500AD saw large scale expansion of trade producing increase in wealth in local regions.  The centrality of India's administration was reduced with the development of local economy fueled by maritime trade.  Regional languages
developed which propelled regional literature.  Further sophistication and creativity occurred
in food, dress, art, music and dance.  While the diversity blossomed in the country the apparent
non-centrality weakened the nation making it easy for the invaders to break in and plunder.
Though some resistance was offered, an artistic nation could not defend itself against the
brutal terrorists who were looking for food and shelter using force and sword!   

So is the story of India upto 1500AD.  Please join us in a survey seminar at Lexington Public
Library on Sunday, March 31, at 2 PM.  Let us discuss the story at length!

IDC Spring 2019 Seminars

Our goal in India Discovery Center has been to understand the distinction or difference a person of Indian origin might bring to a table of nations.  All human beings have general needs of food, housing and survival.  What does India offer if any to the world civilization?  I want to summarize
our findings so far.

Through our studies and observations, we have come to believe that besides survival, the human
being is also creative.  Creativity lives in the brain and operates through imagination and intelligence.  It is a process through which we adapt to the environment in stead of breaking it down.  We understand that the natural resources are helpful to us and we learn to economize.  We appreciate the role of sun and water.  We appreciate co-existence and harmony.  We understand the power of the society and its constraints.  We understand that we don't live by ourselves but we live with the help of nature and the grace of the universe.

The above is not a profound revelation but is not realized unless one reflects on life for a long time. Any reflection needs security of food.  This is where India as a land has been blessed by nature.  Whenever the first man arrived in India, he discovered that he does not have to explore any further.  Food, water and good climate were all there.  India became a base for all people who arrived.  They all adopted the empirical principle of respecting the nature since they appreciated the landscape and realized that the nature was providing the nourishment.  Later they discovered that nature also healed. Food hygiene was declared claiming that longevity was a human right!

Security of food and good health propelled people to devote time into music, dance and art.  People had time to create elaborate social festivals and spend long hours in preparing for artistic productions. A grass-root culture developed based on artistic expressions, fashion and design.  It went to the extent that the performing arts were coded and put together for people to learn and be trained. The code became the only resource of its kind in the world.  People discovered the play of the mind and the role of speech.  The study of speech and articulation became an obsession among the Indian people.  Analysis of speech led to better communication and precision in messaging.  The latter helped in creating better quality of life. All productions took a stamp of finer aspects of expression.

India produced the first and the only grammar book in the world and empowered people to express freely.  Freedom of expression led to massive literature in all subjects.  They become the glory of India two thousand years ago.  Gradually literature became more focused, lyrical and musical.  Technology developed to depict the finer aspects visually through paintings or carvings.  The regimentation of religion was removed to allow individual freedom which engineered further creativity in food, textiles, individual makeup, living style and faith.  India became a dynamic country throbbing with creativity building massive temples, elaborate frescoes, intricate designs which
made the country the most opulent nation in the world.

We have come so far in our studies.  We will offer our observations in a survey seminar on March 31,
Sunday, afternoon 2 PM at Lexington Public Library. We will cover the five periods: Indus, Vedic, Classical, Golden and Hindu in twenty-minute segments.  We will have a Q&A session.  We will make this free survey seminar educational for all. The siting in the Library large meeting room is restricted to eighty people.  Please register by sending mail to indidiscoverycenterusa@gmail.com to reserve your seat.  Please visit http://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org to learn more.

Then we will continue on our exploration to go further.  India would be occupied and would be ruled by various foreign elements.  We will explore the splendor of the Mughals and the resistance of the Marathas in our series seminar VI at Bemis Hall in Lincoln on May 4.  We will announce further next month.