Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  It was your first visit to the tropics, and for me also, but for a brief stay long ago, the memory of which had almost faded, it was a new experience. I had not been attracted to them, as I feared the heat. It was the sea and the mountain, and above all the high snows and glaciers, that fascinated me. But even during our short stay in Ceylon I felt something of the charm and the witchery of the tropics, and I came back, somewhat wistfully, hoping to make friends with them again.

  Our month of holiday in Ceylon ended too soon, and we crossed the narrow seas to the southern tip of India. Do you remember our visit to Kanya-Kumari, where the Virgin Goddess is said to dwell and keep guard, and which Westerners, with their genius for twisting and corrupting our names, have called Cape Comorin? We sat, literally, at the feet of Mother India then, and we saw the Arabian Sea meet the waters of the Bay of Bengal, and we liked to imagine that they were both paying homage to India! Wonderfully peaceful it was there, and my mind travelled several thousand miles to the other extremity of India where the eternal snows crown the Himalayas and peace also dwells. But between the two there is strife enough and misery and poverty!

  We left the Cape and journeyed northwards.

  Through Travancore and Cochin we went, and over the backwaters of Malabar—how beautiful they were, and how our boat glided along in the moonlight between the wooded banks, almost as if in a dream! Then we passed on to Mysore and Hyderabad and Bombay and, at last, to Allahabad. That was nine months ago, in the month of June.

  But all roads in India in these days sooner or later lead to one destination; all journeys, dream ones or real, end in prison! And so here I am back again behind my old familiar walls, with plenty of time to think of or write to you, though my letters may not reach you. Again the fight is on and our people, men and women, boys and girls, go forth to battle for freedom and to rid this country of the curse of poverty. But freedom is a goddess hard to win; she demands, as of old, human sacrifice from her votaries.

  I complete three months in prison today. It was on this very day three months ago—December 26—that I was arrested for the sixth time. I have taken long in resuming these letters to you, but you know how difficult it is sometimes to think of the distant past when the present fills the mind. It takes some little time for me to settle down in gaol and to avoid worrying about happenings outside. I shall try to write to you regularly. But I am in a different prison now, and the change is not to my liking and interferes a little with my work. My horizon is higher than ever here. The wall which faces me must bear some relation, in height at least, to the Great Wall of China! It seems to be about 25 feet high, and the sun takes an extra hour and a half to climb over it every morning before it can visit us.

  Our horizon may be limited for a while. But it is good to think of the great blue sea and the mountains and the deserts, and of the dream journey we took—it hardly seems real now—you and Mummie and I, ten months ago.

  22

  Man’s Struggle for a Living

  March 28, 1932

  Let us pick up again the threads of world-history and try to have some glimpses into the past. It is a tangled web, difficult to unravel and difficult even to see as a whole. We are so apt to lose ourselves in a particular bit of it and give it more importance than it deserves. Nearly all of us think that the history of our own country, whichever that might be, is more glorious and more worthy of study than the histories of other countries. I have warned you against this once before, and I shall warn you again. It is so easy to fall into the trap. It was, indeed, to prevent this happening that I began writing these letters to you, and yet, sometimes, I have felt that I am making this very mistake. What am I to do if my own education was defective and the history I was taught was topsy-turvy? I have tried to make amends for it by further study in the seclusion of prison, and perhaps I have succeeded to some extent. But I cannot remove from the gallery of my mind the pictures of persons and events which I hung there in my boyhood and youth. And these pictures colour my outlook on history, which is sufficiently limited as it is by incomplete knowledge. I shall make mistakes, therefore, in what I write; and many an unimportant fact I shall mention, and many an important one forget to write about. But these letters are not meant to take the place of books of history. They are—or at least I please myself by imagining them to be—little talks entre nous, which we might have had if 1000 miles and many solid walls did not separate us.

  I cannot help writing to you about many famous men who fill the pages of history books. They are often interesting in their own way, and they help us to understand the times in which they lived. But history is not just a record of the doings of big men, of kings and emperors and the like. If it were so, history might as well shut up shop now; for kings and emperors have almost ceased to strut about the world’s stage. But the really great men and women do not, of course, require thrones or crowns or jewels or titles to show them off. It is only the kings and the princelets, who have nothing in them but their kingships and princedoms, who have to put on their liveries and uniforms to hide the nakedness underneath. And unhappily many of us are taken in and deluded by this outward show and make the mistake of

  Calling a crowned man royal

  That was no more than a king.

  Real history should deal, not with a few individuals here and there, but with the people who make up a nation, who work and by their labour produce the necessaries and luxuries of life, and who in a thousand different ways act and react on each other. Such a history of man would really be a fascinating story. It would be the story of man’s struggle through the ages against Nature and the elements, against wild beasts and the jungle and, last and most difficult of all, against some of his own kind who have tried to keep him down and to exploit him for their own benefit. It is the story of man’s struggle for a living. And because, in order to live, certain things, like food and shelter and clothing in cold climates, are necessary, those who have controlled these necessities have lorded it over man. The rulers and the bosses have had authority because they owned or controlled some essential of livelihood, and this control gave them the power to starve people into submission. And so we see the strange sight of large masses being exploited by the comparatively few; of some who earn without working at all, and of vast numbers who work but earn very little.

  The savage, hunting alone, gradually forms a family; and the whole household works together and for each other. Many households cooperate together to form the village, and workers and merchants and artisans of different villages later join together to form guilds of craftsmen. Gradually you see the social unit growing. To begin with, it was the individual, the savage. There was no society of any kind. The family was the next bigger unit, and then the village and the group of villages. Why did this social unit grow? It was the struggle for a living that forced growth and co-operation, for co-operation in defence against the common enemy and in attack was obviously far more effective than single-handed defence or attack. Even more so was co-operation in work helpful. By working together they could produce far more food and other necessaries than by working singly. This co-operation in work meant that the economic unit was also evolving, from the individual savage, who hunted for himself, into large groups. Indeed, it was probably this growth of the economic unit, ever pushed on by man’s struggle for a living, that resulted in the growth of society and of the social unit. Right through the long stretches of history we see this growth in the midst of almost interminable conflict and misery, and sometimes even a relapse. But do not imagine that this growth means necessarily that the world has progressed greatly or is a far happier place than it was. Perhaps it is better than it was; but it is very far from perfection, and there is misery enough everywhere.

  Life becomes more and more complicated as these economic and social units grow. Commerce and trade increase. Barter takes the place of gift, and then money comes and makes a tremendous difference to all transactions. Immediately trade goes ahead, for payment by gold or silver coin makes an
exchange easy. Later, even coin is not always used and people use symbols. A piece of paper with a promise to pay is considered good enough. Thus come into use bank-notes and cheques. This means doing business on credit. The use of credit again helps trade and commerce greatly. As you know, cheques and bank-notes are frequently used nowadays and sensible people do not carry about bags of gold and silver with them.

  Thus we see, as history progresses out of the dim past, people producing more and more and people specializing in different trades, exchanging their goods with each other, and in this way increasing trade. We see also new and better means of communication developing, especially during the last hundred years or so, after the steam engine came. As production grows, the wealth of the world increases, and some people at least have more leisure. And so what is called civilization develops.

  All this happens, and people boast of our enlightened and progressive age, and of the wonders of our modern civilization and of our great culture and science; and yet the poor remain poor and miserable, and great nations fight each other and slaughter millions; and great countries like our own are ruled by an alien people. What is the good of civilization to us if we cannot even have freedom in our own households? But now we are up and doing.

  How fortunate we are to live in these stirring times, when each one of us can take part in the great adventure and see not only India but the whole world in process of change! You are a lucky girl. Born in the month and year of the great revolution which ushered in a new era in Russia, you are now witness to a revolution in your own country, and soon you may be an actor in it. All over the world there is trouble and change. In the Far East, Japan is at the throat of China; in the West, and indeed all over the world, the old system totters and threatens to collapse. Countries talk of disarmament, but look suspiciously at each other and keep armed to the teeth. It is the twilight of Capitalism, which has lorded it for so long over the world. And when it goes, as go it must, it will take many an evil thing with it.

  23

  A Survey

  March 29, 1932

  How far have we reached in our journey through the ages? We have talked a little already of the old days in Egypt and India and China and Knossos. We have seen the ancient and wonderful civilization of Egypt, which produced the Pyramids, gradually decay and lose its strength and become an empty shadow, a thing of forms and symbols, with little of real life in it. We have seen Knossos destroyed by the sister race from the Grecian mainland. In India and China we have glanced at the dim and distant beginnings, unable for want of material to know much, but conscious of their rich civilization even in those days; and wondering at the unbroken links which join the two countries culturally to their respective pasts, many thousands of years ago. In Mesopotamia we have had just a glimpse of empire after empire flourishing for a while, and then going the way of all empires.

  We have also said something of a number of great thinkers who appeared in different countries about 500 or 600 years before Christ. Buddha and Mahavira in India, Confucius and Lao-Tse in China, Zoroaster in Persia, and Pythagoras in Greece. We noticed that Buddha attacked priestcraft and the existing forms of the old Vedic religion in India; for he found that the masses were being imposed upon and deluded by all manner of superstition and pujas. He attacked the caste system and preached equality.

  We went back then to the West, where Asia and Europe join each other, and followed the fortunes of Persia and Greece—how a great empire rose in Persia and Darius, the “King of kings”, extended it right up to Sindh in India; how this empire tried to swallow up little Greece, but found, to its great amazement, that the little thing could fight back and hold its own. Then followed the short but brilliant period of Greek history of which I have told you something, when a host of geniuses and great men lived there and produced literature and art of the highest beauty.

  The golden age of Greece did not last long. Alexander of Macedon spread the fame of Greece far and wide by his conquests, but with his coming the high culture of Greece gradually faded. Alexander destroyed the Persian Empire and even crossed the borders of India as a conqueror. He was undoubtedly a great general, but tradition has woven innumerable legends round his name and he has acquired a fame which he hardly deserves. Only the well-read know anything of Socrates or Plato or Phidias or Sophocles or the other great men of Greece. But who has not heard of Alexander?

  Alexander did comparatively little. The Persian Empire was old and tottering and was hardly likely to survive for long. In India Alexander’s visit was just a raid and had little significance. Perhaps if Alexander had lived longer he might have done something more substantial. But he died young, and his empire fell to pieces immediately. But though his empire did not last, his name endures.

  One great effect of Alexander’s march to the East was the fresh contacts established between East and West. Large numbers of Greeks went east and settled down in the old cities or in new colonies which they established. Even before Alexander there was contact and trade between East and West. But after him this increased greatly.

  Another possible effect of Alexander’s invasions was, if true, very unfortunate for the Greeks. A theory has been advanced that his soldiers took back with them the malaria mosquito from the swamps of Mesopotamia to the Greek lowlands; and thus malaria spread and weakened and enfeebled the Greek race. This is one of the explanations given of the decline of the Greeks. But it is just a theory, and no one knows how much truth it contains.

  Alexander’s brief-lived empire came to an end. But in its place arose several smaller empires. Among these was that of Egypt under Ptolemy and that of western Asia under Seleucus. Both Ptolemy and Seleucus were Alexander’s generals. Seleucus tried to encroach on India, but he found to his dismay that India could hit back with vigour. Chandragupta Maurya had established a powerful State all over northern and central India. Of Chandragupta and his famous Brahman minister Chanakya and the book he wrote—the Arthashastra—I have already, in my earlier letters, told you something. Fortunately for us, this book gives us a good picture of those times in India over 2200 years ago.

  We have completed our look back, and we shall go ahead with the story of the Mauryan Empire and of Ashoka in the next letter. I promised, indeed, to do so over fourteen months ago, on January 25, 1931, in Naini Prison. I have still to keep this promise.

  24

  Ashoka, the Beloved of the Gods

  March 30, 1932

  I am afraid I am a little too fond of running down kings and princes. I see little in their kind to admire or do reverence to. But we are now coming to a man who, in spite of being a king and emperor, was great and worthy of admiration. He was Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya. Speaking of him in his Outline of History, H.G. Wells (some of whose romances you must have read) says:

  Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still honoured. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory today than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne.

  This is high praise indeed. But it is deserved, and for an Indian it is an especial pleasure to think of this period of India’s history.

  Chandragupta died nearly 300 years before the Christian era began. He was succeeded by his son Bindusara, who seems to have had a quiet reign of twenty-five years. He kept up contacts with the Greek world, and ambassadors came to his Court from Ptolemy of Egypt, and Antiochus, who was the son of Seleucus of western Asia. There was trade with the outside world and, it is said, the Egyptians used to dye their cloth with indigo from India. It is also stated that they wrapped their mummies in Indian muslins. Some old remains have been discovered in Bihar which seem to show that some kind of glass was made there even before the Mauryan period.

&n
bsp; It will interest you to know that Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador who came to the Court of Chandragupta, writes about the Indian love of finery and beauty, and specially notes the use of the shoe to add to one’s height. So high heels are not entirely a modern invention.

  Ashoka succeeded Bindusara in 268 BC to a great empire, which included the whole of north and central India and extended right up to Central Asia. With the desire, perhaps, of bringing into his empire the remaining parts in the south-east and south, he started the conquest of Kalinga in the ninth year of his reign. Kalinga lay on the east coast of India, between the Mahanadi, Godavari and Kistna rivers. The people of Kalinga fought bravely, but they were ultimately subdued after terrible slaughter. This war and slaughter affected Ashoka so deeply that he was disgusted with war and all its works. Henceforth there was to be no war for him. Nearly the whole of India, except a tiny tip in the south, was under him; and it was easy enough for him to complete the conquest of this little tip. But he refrained. According to H.G. Wells, he is the only military monarch on record who abandoned warfare after victory.

  Fortunately for us, we have Ashoka’s own words, telling us of what he thought and what he did. In numerous edicts which were carved out in the rock or on metal, we still have his messages to his people and to posterity. You know that there is such an Ashoka Pillar in the fort at Allahabad. There are many others in our province.

  In these edicts Ashoka tells us of his horror and remorse at the slaughter which war and conquest involve. The only true conquest, he says, is the conquest of self and the conquest of men’s hearts by the Dharma. But I shall quote for you some of these edicts. They make fascinating reading and they will bring Ashoka nearer to you.