Poverty

[Daud R. Ali]

On Thu, 17 Aug 1995, V Jain wrote:

> Hello,
> 	I am not a historian or otherwise but it is a widely accepted
> fact in India that the invasions are the real cause of poverty.
> 	India was called a "golden bird" before all these invasions.
> People were happy. Look at all the stories about India. None or almost
> none seems to indicate people were unhappy or poor. And look at the
> stories of post-independence. You need to emphasize or explain people
> that there are still rich people in India.
> 	


I am in complete agreement that invasions have sapped India of its 
strength!  The first and most devastatating of these, from which India
has of course never recovered, was the Indo-Aryan invasion!

It seems a bit much, to assume that India has been the 'victim' of 
invasions when its whole history has been constituted as a series of 
invasions.

As for the "happiness" in Sanskrit literature, I think we need a serious 
reality check.  DD Kosambi rightly pointed out long ago that sanskrit 
literature presents us first and foremost as a "class literature."  
Whether one agrees with the specific Marxist formulations that he 
develops, this basic insight cannot be ignored.  We could easily look at 
British Romantic or Georgian poetry and conclude that all its references 
to English country gardens and idyllic nature reflected a society totally 
in harmony with itself.   What a ridiculous conclusion it would be.  In 
fact, one might argue that the seamless world of Sanskrit literature was 
in fact meant to suture the inequities that sustained the courtly 
environmnet from which it emerged.  

India of course has always had dominant classes.  We must be careful in 
countering first world stereotypes of the thrid world (India is only a 
variant here of any number of other countries) with utopic (nationalist 
or rightwing) notions of Inida.  Dominik's critique of the HT quote is 
right on the mark, not from a "westerner's" point of view, but from anti 
imperialist anti classist point of view.  Are the Tatas and the Birlas, 
are exploitative labor practices and caste dominated agrarian relations 
-- all of which lead to fortunes, things that we should celebrate?
  Hardly.