The Moghul court became the nucleus for a many-sided culture. There had always been two trends, the orthodox and the humanist, in the long history of the Muslims in India. The Hindu Bhakti (selfless, intense devotion to God) and the Muslim Sufi movements brought together men on a common platform of humanism.[5] Hindu and Islamic mysticisms were blended and written in Hindi. There is a galaxy of names of enlightened rulers such as Skandar Lodi of Delhi (1489-1517),Zain-ul Abidin of Kashmir or Moghul Emperor Akbar and writers like Malik Muhammad Jaisi(1493-1538), Abd-ur Rahim Khan-e Khanan (1556-1627) or Faizi (1547-95) whose lives were devoted to the values of composite culture. Emperor Akbar commissioned the translations of the Hindu classics, on whose illustrations the Hindu and Muslim artists worked together in the royal atelier. The greatest contribution of Akbar, a conscious integrator, was his undermining of differences in religion and his offer of equal opportunity of advancement to all Indians. Toleration was forced on these Turkic rulers by force of circumstances. Akbar’s religious eclecticism may have formulated an unsophisticated probing for some sort of a ‘secular’ approach [6] fitting the Indian milieu. The Din-e Ilahi (the Religion of God), a new worldview, was his attempt at syncretism. The semblance of so-called ‘secularism’ under the moghuls varied in nature and depth according to circumstances. Free of forced conversions put aside, the  spiritual dialogue between the Hindu and Muslim elites did not achieve the kind of community of sentiment that would being the lowly classes of these two religious together, but it did not prevent secular cooperation between the ruling groups of the two communities. The moghul rule might have reached almost the maximum through which individuals and groups in pre-capitalist societies could interact with each other. It should also be added that Moghul achievements in architecture, other arts are literature were immeasurable. Especially in architecture, the Moghuls left a great legacy, and it is an Indian legacy now. The imperial workshops created  very high standards in production whose excellence may be gauged from the impressive monuments in the whole Sub-continent and also the scattered specimens in world museums.[7] While Emperor Akbar repudiated the  theocratic conception of the state, Nanak and Kabir founded two new religious to end  communal discord. From Guru Nanak(1469-1539), who established a community of the followers, called Sikhs or ‘disciples’, came the cryptic words that there was “no Hindu and no Muslim” but a new faith transcending both. The initial Sikh belief was integrative to the core. Not only the noble Brahmin and the miserable Pariah. But also the Kafir (infidel) and the  mlechha (foreigner) ate together in the langar or the community kitchen. Likewise, the first planned city of India at Fatehpur Sikri, under Akbar, expressed a synthetic philosophy of life. The Red Fort in Delhi bore this couple: Agar Firdaus bar ruy-e zamin ast,/ Hamin ast-o hamin ast-o hamin ast (If there be a Heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here).[8] The majority of the Zoroastrains[9] of today are also Indian citizens. While the Parsis (previously spelled as Parsees) now number about 150,000, theirs is a very ancient tradition, absorbed by the Old Testament. Indian pluralism  had areas of tension as well as accommodation, but it represented an integral whole with  a slow development, throughout centuries, towards a pattern of coexistence.

Understandably, India is one of the world’s biggest centers of Muslim life and culture.[10] Although it is impossible for a foreign observer to distinguish between a Bengali or a Punjabi  Muslim and a Bengali or a Punjabi non-Muslim, the forces of history have also created great centers of Muslim life in Hyderabad, Locknow and Srinagar, and in metropolitan areas like Delhi and Bombay. The Muslims constitute the second biggest religious group in India and surpass in numbers all the other groups put together. It was in the name of the last Muslim Emperor Bahadur Shah(imperabat:1837-58) that the first war of Indian independence, which the British called the “Mutiny”, was fought (1857-58).[11]

British Contribution

The British brought with them a completely alien culture, that of Protestant Europe, communicated through an alien language-English, superimposed on India, initially through the conquest of Bengal in the 17th century. The Christians can pride themselves on having added no small enrichment to the sasme cultural heritage.[12] There are as many Christians India as the entire population of Belgium or as many Catholics as in Britian. Christianity in as much a part of the country as the temples that the West has been reading of in the renowned British wirter Rudyard Kipling. Moreover, in a country as ancient and vast as India, it is only natural that the Christian scence should not be uniform as well. There are Anglo-Indian, Goan, Naga, Kerala or Tamil Christians. Christianity in India never knew the kind of persecution it experienced during the early centuries of its existence elsewhere. Dr. Rajendra Prassad, a former President of India(1950-62) repeated the contention that St. Thomas the Apostle had come(A.D. 52) to India when many of the countries of Europe had not yet become Christian.[13] It was the Portuguese, however, who brought the initial Christianity has longest tradition. One of the first acts of St. Francis Xavier who arrived(1542) from Europe, was to throw the Jesuit College of St. Paul at Goa open to Indian students. Deeply concerned to find a solution to the religious division of his country, the Moghul Emperor Akbar sent to Goa for Christian priests to instruct him in the doctrines of their faith. It was not until the British entry that the great age of evangelisation dawned. The Christian community in India has been outstanding for its efficacious social conscience. The founder of the Missionaries of Charity was simple-looking contemporary woman better known as Mother Teresa.[14] The genius of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) found in Christ’s recommendation to turn the other cheek a promising weapon.

The British, an alien race, dominated Indian life for two centuries. Their ruled to a number of new developments. They brought their language which eventually became an official one. Some other groups, long migrated into India, had adopted local languages. For instance, the Syrian Christians in Kerala spoke Malayalam, the Beni-Israel Jews in Maratha used Marathi, and the Parsis employed Gujarati. The tribes of India speak languages which are different, not only from those of non-tribal India, but also from each other.[15] The British emerged as the dominant power, ruling first through the East India Company and finally directly(1857-1947) under the Crown. As heirs to the Magna Carta, the Cromwell an puritanical revolt, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the Industrial Revolution, they established a rigorous law and order, introduced the railway system, improved the postal service, and opened schools and hospitals, but superimposed the class set-up of Europe on the caste structure of India, Bu the time they became dominant in India, the Industrial Revolution was already in full swing in the British Isles. To extract tribute from a vast colony, the British introduced an altogether new corpus of laws and institutions of administration, just as they transformed  the values of the new subjects. They eliminated the aristocracy and the gentry and established contact with the peasant-proprietors as well as the rural small landlords for purposes of surplus extraction. While rail and road networks reached the interior from the great ports of Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi and Madras, market linkages broke down the isolation of the rural communities. Growing industrialization of Britain was bound to disrupt India’s unsophisticated rural economy. Britain exported cotton goods, opened up factories and created industrial towns. While the latter attracted workers gained some self-confidence, and  Western education shattered the walls of dogma.[16] The vast colony was tied to the economy of the metropolitan heart of the British Empire, industrial products and technology flowing into India and serving the traditionally affluent and the newly-enriched classes.

In spite of a host of rationalizations such as the civilizing mission of Christianity, Jeremy Bentham’s view of utility as the most rational basis or order[17] and Social Darwinism[18] sanctioning the domination of the stronger, the British rule was established to extract material resources from the subordinate Indian community for the benefit of the dominant economy. Is spite of such justifications for conquest and exploitation, the British rule, without any plan, accelerated the democratic process. The rule of law developed while industrial centers increased the sense of equality, and the people challenged the position in which they found themselves instead of accepting it as fate. While Sir SyedAhmad Khan (1817-98) led his co-religionists to accept Western education and Raja Ram Mohan Roy(1774-1833) started a Hindu reform movement, the Indians, who tried to add some tenderness to the imported capitalist civilization, later challenged the morality of the latter which considered socialism as the only source of dictatorship. Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan(1888-1975) formulated a Hindu faith more intelligible and acceptable to the Western mind. The British impact had, indeed, changed the traditional Indian outlook almost in every sphere of life.

For the benefit of their imperial rule, the British administrators exploited the tensions between feudal principalities and religious communities. Apart from dividing India into directly administered “British India” and indirectly governed “Princely States”, they basically perceived the people as members of religious communities. When the latter became the outstanding consideration for representation in local bodies or recruitment for public service, religious distinctions were transformed in time into political cleavages. While the British classified the people as Hindus or Muslims, not only rallying them around religion to express basic demands, but also for voting, candidacy, election or appointment, politics was turned into ’communalism’, which opposed secular politics and fractured national unity.

It was this process of imperial rule, later reinforced by the Hindu and Muslim extremists, as well as the colonial authority pushed aside the time-honoured heritage of inter-communal coexistence, thereby rupturing a sui generis composite culture that had evolved through centuries of synthesis. The indefensible supposition that religion alone would suffice to identify a nation and build a state lost sight of other realities concerning regional and linguistic variations in both the Hindu and the Muslim communities, hard facts felt in coming decades. The first consequence of the British legacy of communalist rule was the creation of Pakistan, where the theologians, the military, high bureaucracy and the commercial sub-class turned their backs to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s statements after independence favouring a secular society. While the hard-core religious groups sought to satisfy their political ambitions under the garb of Islam, often disguising themselves as ‘Muslim nationalists’, other members of Pakistan’s elite had difficulty in creating a consensus on a far-reaching and all-inclusive identity for the country.

The second consequence of the British legacy may be evolving drive to make communal politics, albeit as a repercussion, legitimate in basically secular India. Militancy in Kashmir, India’s North-East and in Punjab have much to do with the spill-over from Muslim communalism as well as the promotion of terrorism from Pakistan. Partition has divided British India, first in terms of territory, and also in the idiom of politics. When British colonialism set foot on India, there had been cultural diversity but unity, sufficient to erect a pan-Indian national identity. Indian   philosophy, described as a darshan (vision), is inevitably a fascinating story.[19] Long British rule ground down much of that unique legacy.

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