Why India needs to study its military history of ancient and medieval periods

The Doyen of Indian History, by Jadunath Sarkar has commanded a lasting maxim as far as the military geography of Bharatavarsha is concerned: “Geography has laid down some inexorable laws for the time and manner of conducting military operations in our country." Because the maxim is so evident and commonsensical, its centrality in deciding the fortunes of Bharatavarsha at critical junctures in our history has been overlooked for the most part. Geography is also a crucial aspect of war because terrain dictates both strategy and tactics and decides destiny-changing outcomes. Intertwined with terrain is climate. Together, they author and alter history, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in India.       And so, we humbly echo the profound question that Jadunath Sarkar had asked himself more than sixty years ago: “What is the practical use of the study of the history of military geography to a soldier of today? Is it an unprofitable act of pedantry?” And he answers:   “No; for if it were so, an intensely practical nation like the English would not have found chairs of military history nor made the military historian a necessary member of a Staff College. The Navy is the senior service in Great Britain, and the importance of military history in its proper functioning is clearly set forth in discussing the life of Sir Herbert Richmond, an experienced admiral and erudite scholar, who may well be called “the Mahan of England.” … History [is] not an end in itself, but as a means of learning something about strategy… Seeing clearly the need to evolve a doctrine of war if the Navy’s effort was not to be wasted when the test came, Richmond was an enthusiastic advocate of the creation of a Naval Staff. (This was done by Mr. Churchill in 1912 and Richmond was appointed to it as Assistant Director of Operations next year. The World War came on 4 August, 1914)." Jadunath Sarkar had hit the correct spot. Sometime in the mid-19th century, the British Governor General, Canning had proudly boasted that India would firmly remain choked in England’s stranglehold as long as “our Naval superiority in both Europe and the Indian Seas remained intact.”   In fact, there is a crying need to study and re-assess the manner in which the centuries-old Indian naval prowess was criminally squandered away by the Mughals to the great delight of European powers. It must be recalled that the Vedic civilisation was also a maritime civilisation as demonstrated effectively by scholars like Michel Danino, and David Frawley among others. Over time, this maritime civilisation also built up enormous military (i.e., naval) heft peaking with the Chola Empire, which was arguably the greatest naval power in its time.     This indomitable naval prowess had sunk into ineptitude, corruption and decadence during the Mughal rule. Thus, even as early as in Jahangir’s reign, substantial maritime zones in and around the Bengal region were under the control of the Dutch, Portuguese and later, the British.     But to summarise a long story, the patriot and nationalist in Jadunath Sarkar offers a precise but humble explanation for the aforementioned study: “This is a civilian’s sufficient apologia for venturing into this field. There is a practical necessity why the wars of India in the past ages should be studied by the soldiers and sailors who are to defend the free India today."         The context in which Jadunath Sarkar wrote these words is also significant. It occurs in his slim volume dealing with the military history of India, published about fifteen years after India attained political independence. It came at a time when the country was dangerously perched on the fragile branch of an ensuing skirmish with China. Giving a wide latitude, one can perhaps speculate that this was Sarkar’s scholarly method of warning the blundering Nehru Government that defending India’s borders took the paramount importance. The rest of his pet fads like socialism and world peace could come later. As recent history shows, Nehru not only overlooked the fundamental fact that geography was also war and lived to wallow in self-pity at how he had sacrificed a substantial geography of India to China. Which brings us back to an underlying fact of the history of India’s military geography: For at least the preceding five thousand years until Nehru, no Indian king had willingly handed over even an inch of his domain to an aggressor. The territorial loss or defence had always been decided on the battlefield.   The Mahabharata offers a timeless lesson in this regard. Even as events hurtle towards the inevitable climax soaked in blood, Duryodhana knows the Pandava claim to their rightful territory is true. Yet, anchored in obstinacy, he declares, “I will not yield even that portion occupied by the tip of a pin.” Geography in other words. To invoke Jadunath Sarkar again, he places terrain at the topmost of the “three cardinal factors” that decide the outcome of any war.  India’s living literary legend, Dr S L Bhyrappa in his Parva – a retelling of the Mahabharata on the realistic plane – gives us in breathing detail the strategic terrain selected by the Pandavas as part of their preparations for the Kurukshetra war. This in a way sets the backdrop for examining some brief aspects of the military geography of ancient and medieval India. To be continued The author is the founder and chief editor, The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed are personal.  Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.