Invasion Theory

The passivity with which foreign invasions are studied makes me sick and angry. Particularly in India, where Islamic invasions since 8th century and Christian proselytizing invasions since 17th century had profound and destabilizing effect on the society. Invasions are not easy business. One king trying to win more kingdoms or one religion trying to proselytize more people is some of the childish explanation to invasions that conceals the barbaric and disastrous effect of the reality.

My point is that, irrespective of the time of invasion and invaders, the basic pattern of destruction remains relatively same. There seems to be certain common thread that runs through all mayhems. There are two basic ways of destructions; ironically in this age of categorization and choices, even destructions can be categorized.

One of kind of destruction is complete annihilation of the civilization like Spanish Inquisition or Arab Muslims wiping out Zoroastrian civilization. In both cases the invaders not only changed the language, religion, customs, myths & legends of conquered people but they virtually changed the race by marrying them or by other means. The Incas Maya’s and etc of south and Central America are museumised, and Zoroastrians are dwelling in a tiny population in India after loosing their land and heritage in 7th century.

The second type of invasion, though similar to first type of invasion on the onset, but is subtler in numerous ways to conquering the society. Good example is British rule in India. With huge land and huge population under their control, their (Britishers) standard methods of changing race (the way they did in Scotland) or native populations genocide (like in North America and Australia) were useless. So, they adopted different method. First they tried to change the language and they were successful up to certain extent. Second they changed the way Indians used to work. With constantly referring Indians as “lazy natives” etc, (Obviously, lot of other methods were used but I am just giving you an example.) they induced a sense of inferiority complex among the society. They divided the society on the basis of caste, clans and most importantly on the basis of religion. Rest of the destruction is left to native to do. The natives themselves start disliking what their heritage, their history even their skin color and they do everything that is possible to distance themselves from their own culture.

What Britishers couldn’t achieve in 100 years of rule, is now, frantically attained by Indians themselves. It is a fashion, a status symbol to talk in English. A person is considered almost an illiterate if he can’t understand English. Among the Hindus’, it is necessary to distance oneself from religion, in order to be seen as progressive. Imitation of western culture is best possible innovation. From, the way to dress to the way to soap operas and films are made, replication of western ideas is paramount in order to succeed.

In post WW-II world, the role of religion in obscuring diverse cultural identities declined considerably as globalization and capitalism is doing that role in much slicker way and with considerably less resistance. It is up to the native people again to defend themselves and save their heritage and culture. The odds are against them but the battle is worth a fighting.