As per the discoveries made by archeologists, lithologists, anthropologists, geneticists, scientists and historians, and by analysing the findings, it had come to establish that about seven thousand years back, some Homo Sapiens (the first of whom having got out of Africa approx. seventy millennium ago), have been moving on as hunter-gatherers across the planet and some, as pastoralists, having got settled, domesticating animals and going into agriculture. Eventually the Sapiens settled down and group dynamics started coming into play as sects, societies and later religion, caste and countries.
While all these were happening, from the beginning, by evolution, earth’s tectonic plates were moving slowly but continuously, and the land mass was also moving apart and re forming into continents. The weather was playing upon it and making its impacts on the inhabitants accordingly, depending upon which side of the globe the land had come into being.
As per the findings and studies, on the subcontinent land mass now called India, from 3500 till 1500 BCE, the Harappan civilisation (also called Indus Valley) flourished and it was joined by huge mass of hunter gathers moving across from east Europe and Central Asia (which wasn’t called so then but identified as ‘Steppe’) and scientists confirm the mix as the present Indian (also later joined by austrolasians but in lesser proportions). The Vedas, Upanishad, the Sutras and the Gita developed thereafter, of course, based on the accumulated knowledge of these three distinct groups from the past many millennia. Some of the finest humanitarian thoughts were established by this joint culture as, “vasudaiva kutumbakam” (world is a family), “Loka samasta sukhino bhavantu” (may all being be happy and free), “aano bhadra krtavo yanthu vishwataha” (let noble thoughts come from all directions) and many similar empathetical human considerations of global relevance. Such was the approach of the civilisation that existed here which continued being so to the current era (CE), accepting and tolerating the differences that came on its way.
The erstwhile subcontinent India, originally addressed in its folklore as “Bharatvarsh” is today 8 different nations, most of which coming into being only in the last hundred years. Each of these countries now go by its own hard-core parochial, nationalistic feelings, completely forgetting the earlier emotions of acceptance and tolerance which made its people in the first place. And they do not blink an eye to annihilate each other (and that include it’s own citizens) at the slightest provocation, in the name of very narrow minded philosophies and ‘isms’ that had developed lately and merciless acts are heaved upon the people of Kandahar, Baluchistan, Kashmir, Assam, Bastar, Madhes, Chittagong, Rakhine, Jaffna; to name a few; in the form of intra and inter country conflicts.
So, today, we humans are getting devoid of any global humanitarian considerations in us. We are discriminating each other based on religion, caste, place of birth, language, colour of skin etc. Our scriptures of the yore that propagated ‘vasudaiva kutumbakam’ that was followed throughout the subcontinent once, is totally forgotten or new meanings are taken out of of them to behave the way as we do now. And, we are forced to spend disproportionate amounts to protect such uninhabitable terrains as Siachen, Ladakh, Doklam & Tawang as these areas have developed into strategic locations for the safely of the country.
A less than hundred year old thought on nationalism influencing all these nations, is splitting us, killing us and disintegrating the huge legacy of global village concept that we held once. All the commonalities that we have had, that kept us together, is being given up for discriminating each other. If history is any proof, going by the trend, all these emotions could go down to split the cultures that hold each of our geographies together as one entity.
I dread imagining such a state of affair!
