Rivers of blood

Acivilisation is like a river. It starts as a trickle, gathering speed and volume as it courses along, collecting new ideas, and creating new influences along its path. Over time, civilisations change course, or even come to an abrupt halt. This could happen because of the vagaries of nature; droughts have been known to wipe out entire civilisations. Often enough, however, the destiny of a land and its people gets shaped on the battlefield. The sword can carve out empires with greater speed and a sharper edge than geographies can.

India has had its form and destiny sculpted repeatedly by the sword. This land, bounded by the mountains in the north and waters in the south, has drawn invaders and colonisers, through passes and ports. Many invaders became rulers, an initiation that called for massive bloodbaths. While those like Babur did this through one swift battle, others, like the English, bided their time and then bled the locals, one gory battle after another. Their rule, like all other foreign rules before them, was ushered in at knifepoint.

India's contours have changed over millennia; the present-day nation states of south Asia are only the most recent carve-outs of a dynamic process.

The destiny of India has not always turned under the foreigner's sword. It has also been contoured by the clash of desi blades. The Mauryan empire, the largest 'India' ever, was largely forged through battles with neighbours. Also, the definition of the Indian and the foreigner has been as fluid as the river of Indian civilisation. Babur was a foreigner, who defeated the desi Ibrahim Lodhi (of Afghan descent). Whereas his descendant, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was the Indian emperor in whose name India revolted against the British. India's most recent form has emerged, not by battling the foreigner, but by carving away its own body. Any wonder then, that the bleeding still does not staunch?

It is a landscape soaked over centuries in the blood of valiant soldiers and hapless civilians. Those rivers of blood have not clotted. They continue to course through every new Indian generation. The bloodline manifests itself, sometimes atavistically, sometimes subconsciously. From across two thousand years, the Battle of Kalinga still nudges India towards non-violence. From an even earlier time, a king reminds us that fighting the foe in war is one thing; earning his respect is another skill altogether.

Much of our thoughts, love and hate, and even the languages in which we feel these emotions, are legacies of the battles that have been won and lost here.

These battles have not just shaped India; they have also shaped its people.