Number of words: 136 The East India Company had originally established itself for trading purposes, and its military establishment was meant to protect this trade. Gradually, and almost unnoticed by others, it had extended the territory under its control, chiefly by taking sides in local disputes, helping one rival against another. The company’s troops were … Read more

Number of words: 1,267 The real protagonists for power in India during the eighteenth century were four: two of these were Indian and two foreign. The Indians were the Marathas and Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan in the south; the foreigners were the British and the French. Of these, it appeared almost inevitable, … Read more

Number of words: 284 The 100 years that followed the death of Aurungzeb in 1707 saw a complicated and many-sided struggle for mastery over India. The Mughal Empire rapidly fell to pieces and the imperial viceroys and governors began to function as semi-independent rulers, though so great was the prestige of the descendant of the … Read more

Number of words: 171 The last of the so-called ‘Grand Mughals,’ Aurungzeb, tried to put back the clock, and in this attempt stopped it and broke it up. The Mughal rulers were strong so long as they put them- selves in line with the genius of the nation and tried to work for a common … Read more

Number of words: 313 Babar is an attractive person, a typical Renaissance prince, bold and adventurous, fond of art and literature and good living. His grandson, Akbar, is even more attractive and has greater qualities. Daring and reckless, an able general, and yet gentle and full of compassion, an idealist and a dreamer, but also … Read more

Number of words: 471 Akbar was the third of the Mughal dynasty in India, yet it was in effect by him that the empire was consolidated. His grandfather, Babar, had won the throne of Delhi in 1526, but he was a stranger to India and continued to feel so. He had come from the north, … Read more

Number of words: 222 The autonomous village community and the caste system were thus two of the special features of the old Indian social structure. The third was the joint family where all the members were joint sharers in the common property and inheritance went by survivorship. The father or some other elder was the … Read more

Number of words: 796 It must be remembered that while the Indian social tendency was to subordinate the individual to the claims of the group and society, religious thought and spiritual seeking have always emphasized the individual. Salvation and knowledge of the ultimate truth were open to all, to the member of every caste, high … Read more

Number of words: 372 There is an old book of the tenth century which gives us some idea of Indian polity as it was conceived prior to the Turkish and Afghan invasions. This is the Nitisara, the Science of Polity, by Shukracharya. It deals with the organization of the central government as well as of … Read more

Number of words: 631 All over India this new ferment was working and new ideas were troubling people’s minds. As of old, India was sub-consciously reacting to the new situation, trying to absorb the foreign element and herself changing somewhat in the process. Out of this ferment arose new types of reformers who deliberately preached … Read more