LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 80. RUINS TEACH!

LITERATURE-  LIGHT AND DELIGHT

80. RUINS  TEACH!

Delhi- city of ruins and tombs!


India Gate, Delhi. Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim.
GNU Free Documentation Centre.

When I first saw Delhi in 1965, I was overwhelmed by a sense of history. It was actually one big township plus a cluster of villages.  Lutyen's  New Delhi was like a gandharvaloka- sheltering people who led  privileged lives.. They were privileged, and they showed it in their manners. The whole area was peopled and dominated by officialdom. The politicians were only seen periodically, but the officials were all-pervasive.They would move only among themselves.They lived for themselves. Even the peon in an office would behave as if he was a Badshah!

But the Old Delhi area was warm. People were friendly and spontaneous. The contrast was striking. New Delhi was so open, so vast with broad roads, bungalows standing on huge plots separated by compound walls. But more than the walls, they were separated by hearts and minds. The relationship and interface was purely official. Nothing existed for them other than their official role. I thought how people in big places had such small hearts and narrow minds! People in the Old Delhi area lived in crammed streets, old houses, there was not much of privacy for any one. There was so much of movement ,crowding, noise, colours, smell- that was the human touch, sign of flowing life!

And life there was still traditional. Yamuna was still flowing, though the Okhla barrage was there.  I used to shiver in the severe winter in the office, wearing two sweaters and a coat.Local friends used to  laugh at me! One week-end, a friend took me to his home in the Nai Sarak area for stay. In the morning, he made me take  bath in cold water! But it was really warm! The house had a well from which water was drawn and it was warm! He told me that once they took bath like that , they did not feel so cold! Their lifestyle was still old-fashioned, their food was substantial but somewhat rough- thick roti and a  seasonal vegetable and dal, with a raw onion piece and a green chilli to go with it, with a huge glass of lassi with sugar or salt added! This boy remained my friend all 35 years of service, along with two others who did not take promotion as they did not want to leave Delhi. 

This boy took me to all the historical places every week-end. I noticed that Delhi was full of tombs !  The whole city was a memorial.As a student of history, I recalled the very first lesson: empires rise only to fall! Sic transit gloria mundi! And I wondered about the modern Indian govt occupying that very ancient place with so many ruins and tombs: how oblivious these new nabobs and badshahs were of the history of the place! 

Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

- James Shirley

And a contrast struck me: in the South, kings built temples or often, enlarged ancient ones. One could not find a single samadhi of an old king. In Delhi, under Muslim rule, there were only tombs!  Delhi outside the official orbit was still predominantly local, and our bus to Qutab Minar would take us through green fields!  The area surrounding it was still open and that open area with that monument standing there strangely stirred you! Many years later, I experienced a similar but stronger feeling near Bhubaneswar, the site of the Kalinga war!

Toynbee and study of history

Later, I read that such was the magic pull of the old ruins. I read that Arnold Toynbee, who wrote about the decline of 21old civilisations in his monumental 12 volume work " A Study of History", completed over 40 years, was set on his quest by what he saw and felt among the ruins of Greece and Crete. And it made him think: why did they fall? Or did they fail? They fell because they failed to meet the challenges of the day. Despite the word  'history' figuring in the title, the book is not about history, as academics understand and teach but an interpretation of the way the civilisations lived and declined. There were some parts where I did not agree with him- as in his treatment of Buddhism-vis a vis the ancient Dharma of India. But this is a misunderstanding most Westerners have..  The greatest service of Toynbee to humanity is to make the West realise that they were just a small part of humanity. He said: " What I am trying to do is to explain to the West that we are only a small minority in the world." Only a philosopher can have such a basic realisation, during a time when the West was still expanding in power.

Arnold J.Toynbee
See page for author[CC.BY-SA 3.0 nl.creative commons.

During subsequent visits, I found that real estate sharks had gobbled up all the open spaces. The monuments do not raise that awe now.

Sad end to Mughal Empire

Old Delhi area tells its own tale. There were actually 7 small townships in that area, with the Red Fort as the centre. Bahadur Shah 'Zafar' the last Mughal Emperor was made the titular head of the rebels of 1857, both Hindus and Muslims. After their defeat, the British behaved most brutally and killed all the Muslims they could lay their hands on, fishing them out of their homes. Bahadur Shah was also captured, while trying to escape and hiding in Humayun's tomb, which was at that time in a village outside Delhi proper.Two of his sons and a grandson were killed in cold blood by the military commander on his own and he presented their severed heads to Zafar! He could only react with shocked silence; he was a poet, and had already become philosophical. exclaiming, "Who has  ever felt fulfilled in this futile world? My heart does not lie in this despoiled land.". 

Humayun's tomb :ASI

He was exiled to Burma, with his wife and some remnants of his family, kept confined to his cell. He was not given pencil or paper to write, but he kept scribbling on the walls with pieces of charcoal or whatever was available. His tomb was also unmarked- with the intention that no one should be able to find it subsequently. Bahadur Shah lamented in Urdu verse that he could not even get two yards space in his beloved land for his burial!

Umr-e-daraaz maang kar laaye char din

Do aarzoo mein kat gaye, do intezar mein.

Kitna  hai badh-nasib "Zafar" dafn kay liye

Do gaz zamin bhi na mili kuu-e-yaar mein.

I asked for a long life, I received  four days

Two passed in desires, two in waiting.

How unfortunate is "Zafar"- for his burial

Not even two yards of land were to be had

in the land of his beloved.

The irony of it all! In that city of tombs, the last Indian Emperor could not get his tomb! He had desired to be buried along  the tomb of some Sufi saint.


Bahadur Shah Zafar: indpaedia.com

But there is a greater twist in history. The British mercilessly and brutally  chased and killed the Muslims of Delhi in the aftermath of the 1957 rebellion. Yet, in less than 90 years, the same Muslims became  ardent supporters of the British in India, became  true loyalists of the Raj and were rewarded with the creation of Pakistan, at which the British had connived at every stage!  Gandhi and Co could not see through this game and counter it!

The fates of Indira Gandhi and her two sons were bad too, in their own land. But leaders don't seem to learn anything from history!  Delhi makes me sad. It is not always natural death that levels.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.


Every country stands on ruins!


If we think deeply, every country in the world is today is living on old ruins! In the last 2000 years, Christians and Muslims have, in the course of their expansion, destroyed all the ancient civilisations of the world. The Christian nations of Europe nearly destroyed themselves in the two world wars! Now it is the turn of Muslims to kill each other. The European Christians did it in the name of some secular political ideas, the Muslims are doing it in the very name of their religion. Both these Abrahamic religions believed in expansion by the sword. They forgot the Biblical wisdom: All those that take the sword shall perish by the sword! (Often, their own! Krishna got his own powerful and unruly Yadava clan to destroy themselves, before His departure, and thus made the place safe for the people.)


Ruins of a Roman temple, built before 115 AD found in Banias . Source: www.biblewalks.com

But there has been another kind of destruction going on- destruction in the name of development. We are now busy destroying our planet , and rendering it a little less fit to live each day,and call it by the grand name of economic development and scientific advance. Science considered Nature an enemy to be conquered, and even Biblical interpretation helped it do so. But even old civilisations did it, without knowing it!

In his 1957 book, "Which Way Lies Hope?", Richard B. Gregg, American social philosopher and follower of Gandhiji pointed out:

Nearly every empire throughout  history has ended in deserts. What is now denuded Morocco,Tunisia and Algiers was once the wheat-growing area of the Roman Empire. The dreadful erosion in Italy and Sicily is another product of that Empire. The present desiccated lands of Mesopotamia,Syria,Palestine and parts of Arabia were the sites of the great empires of Ur,Babylon,Sumeria,Akkadia and Assyria. Persia was once a great empire. Now it is largely desert. Greece under Alexander was an empire; now its land is mostly barren. The soil of the land of the empire of Tamerlane now only produces a  small fraction of what it did in his day. The three empires of modern times, British,French and Dutch, have not yet produced deserts, but they have done much to help exhaust and despoil the soils and mineral resources of Asia, Africa,Australia, New Zealand and North America. The cutting of timber in Kenya,Uganda and Ethiopia may presently destroy the massive even flow of the Nile. In this, these empires have, of course, been much aided by the modern developments in transportation,mould-board ploughshares, farm tractors,finance,commerce communications.

Richard B.Gregg
Creative Commons 3.0 licence

He quoted W.C.Lowdermilk  from a publication of the United States Soil Conservation Service titled 'Conquest of the Land through 7000 Years' :

If civilization is to avoid a long decline such as has blighted North Africa and the Near East for thirteen centuries and for centuries yet to come, society must be born again out of an economy of exploitation into an economy of conservation.

Yet we have gone on merrily with even more extensive and intensive exploitation. 

I have observed how Bangalore and Madras have completely destroyed their  surrounding villages and their ecology in the last 50 years. Most trees have been cut, all the small streams have disappeared, all the lakes have been converted into bus stations, stadia, commercial areas- the remaining ones are highly polluted and dying. All the agricultural lands have been converted into sickening suburbs with all the modern trappings like tarred roads, in various stages of imperfection and ugliness. Recently, the govt declared that Bangalore Rural district was no more rural- the agricultural office was closed down! This is what has happened to all our towns too! Has any one stopped to count the acreage of good agricultural land thus lost?

Most people are not aware that food security comes not just from the amount of food grains grown, but from how they are grown. People have been led to believe in the magic of mechanical-chemical agriculture by the combined lobby of economists-chemical companies- govt, officials and commercial interests. Yet all impartial scientific studies have been showing that:
as the use of chemical fertilizers increases, the number of beneficial soil organisms decreases,plant diseases increase,insect pests increase, the nutritive and keeping quality of  the yield goes down, and farm expenses for fertilizers and insecticides and fungicides increase.

A recent report (28 January 2015) reveals  "worrisome decline of many pollinator species" like bees, which are responsible for up to 40% of the world's supply of nutrients. This decline is clearly associated with the increasing use of all kinds of chemicals in agriculture- fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides,etc- which curiously the report does not make clear.

Unable to bear the conditions ,farmers simply commit suicide. Yet the govt produces statistics to show that we are 'growing' at some percentage. Who measures the growing misery and decline in real food security?  At this rate, we will all live in sky scrapers and  get our food from Mars or Moon, via the PDS! It is clear to all serious students that our soil is going to rack and ruin- a condition that has preceded the decline and collapse of all civilisations so far! Our agricultural lands are shrinking, yet the govt legislates for easy acquisition of lands! Toynbee showed that 21 civilisations destroyed themselves by habitual resort to warfare!  Richard Gregg has shown that the collapse came through war on the soil! Both resulted in ruins of great old civilisations. What is to prevent our going the same way unless we learn the lessons and reverse our steps before the 29th Day!


Note:

These pictures are shown here purely for educational purposes. No commercial motive is involved. I have acknowledged the sources. No violation of copyright is intended. If any objection is conveyed, I will instantly remove them.