The pains of
partition, preceded by a millennium of barbarian
invasions, insignificant kingdoms, impact of a
new religion, upheaval of ancient values, civil
wars, colonization, and the painful partition of
a united nation based on religion seemed to have
been soothed by time.
This
is not to say that all of the last millennium
was useless. In this era of downturn, the
country saw the emergence of the Chola, Mughal,
Maratta, and Nayak empires. Their unique
contributions to visual and performing arts,
military, nation building, culture, science, and
religion laid a strong foundation that the
peoples could draw from to overthrow the yoke of
colonization. These bright luminaries in
an otherwise dark millennium drew from their
ancestors and they from theirs for several eras
before.
The large scale sacrifice of the last 150 years
before 1947 to fight colonization is
unparalleled in Indian history. Hundreds
of thousands of Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims
bonded together to seek freedom from a colonial
master over 10,000 miles away. Those who
drew such inspiration from the past were many.
They sacrificed their lives so we would live!
They showed us a way forward but got left behind
with their supreme sacrifice.
We
need to build on what our forefathers built for
us the last 200 years. Centuries of
conflict, decades of infighting, an explosion of
population, a contemporary ineffective
democratic leadership steeped in corruption, a
selfish bureaucracy, an overburdened and
clunking judiciary, a partisan outdated press,
and countless challenges we have many. The
nation seems exhausted. The people cynical
and disenfranchised from politics.
Yet,
despite such hopeless odds, India has
transformed itself from a social, economic, and
Constitutional basket case. It is now
synonymous with democratic principles, economic
progress, rule of law, information technology,
self-reliance, scientific development,
agricultural self-sufficiency, and optimistic
outlook. That a nation and its people have
recovered from such a recent past speaks volumes
of the resilience of the culture, values, and
its people.
Future
generations will stare in awe at such
achievement. Students of history may spend
their lifetime trying to figure out how is it
that this nation can succeed when all its peers
seems to struggle or fail. However, how is
that India is always portrayed as a nation that
has no vision? Why is it that any news
worthy of India is always about scores of people
dead, maimed, or other horrific incidents?
Why do countries frequently make policies on
India that is against the nation? How is
that, despite a history of tolerance,
co-existence, and secularism, the nation
continues to be highlighted as a nation of
communal violence and intolerance? What
information do nations and their people have on
India that is positive, historical, factual,
truthful, insightful, and constructive?
Founded
by Aravind Sitaraman, a Computer Scientist, an
earlier instance of What is India was created in
1995. It was the first Internet-based
info-base on India. Actively seeking to
change how India-related policy is conceived,
created, and implemented, it sought to create a
continuing body of constructive information on
India so that policy makers, academicians,
researchers and investors can make informed
decisions. It assisted several researchers
world-over and was a prime source of information
on India.
Renamed
whatisindia.com, the site has now taken a much
broader role in influencing India policy and
opinion. It continues to provide indexed
articles, opinions, analysis, and editorials
from published media through its topical and
issue based portals. In addition, its
not-for-profit research project also produces
original and hard to access content. One
recent effort is to provide translations of
inscriptions available in South Indian temples
on the Internet. With this huge body of
Archeological Survey of India (ASI) information,
historians and researchers can find several
centuries and millenniums of historical fact on
the Internet.
Other
projects in the pipeline include several topical
research eJournals that researchers will find
useful when researching on India. This
will bring together distributed and
uncoordinated research on India into a virtual
network where intellectuals can share topical
information on India. The organization
also funds India research and will bring out
topical documentaries in the near future.
We
welcome you to browse What is India, and to send
us your thoughts on its content and
presentation. You could also fill out our feedback
form or sign our guestbook.
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