India and its Many regions
Introduction:-
It often said , as well as written in our constitution that India as – Union of India. Historians claim that unlike united of states ,where states surrendered their sovereignty to form United States Of America; India was a whole and divided in to pieces, hence Union of India not United states of India.The claims aside, India, remained and still remains a union of states or , to put it more geographically Unions of regions.Political unity was never achieved in India in the past,though British came close to it, still central India and extreme regions in the peninsula remained far from the influence of any great political power.
Regions have been delineated on the basis of language or culture or physical geography.However the regional frontiers broadly correspond and appear to be co-terminus.The boundaries of the physical and the natural regions converge. The natural regions happen to be independent cultural areas with their own configurations of language, caste, family and kinship organization and historical tradition.Physical isolation led to development of various cultures and cultural practices and thus rendering India as a land of diversity.
Vindhya, Aravalli, Uneven topography in North east acted as limits to cultural integration in various parts of India.For eg- The culture of to the north and west of the Aravali line appears to be different from the culture east of Aravalli i.e Gangetic Valley culture . Only some areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat responded to the mainstream of cultural development of the Gangetic valley in the early historical period.This can be further explained by Punjab Paradox: –
Punjab Paradox :-
- After the Rig-Vedic period there seems to have been arrested growth In the Punjab. The persistence of non-monarchical janapadas in the region till the Gupta period suggests autonomous development. It also indicates weak property in land and poor agricultural growth. The absence of land grant inscriptions. a feature common in Gupta and post-Gupta times in the rest of the country, from the Punjab plains strengthens the assumption.
- Brahmanism never had deep roots in the Punjab plains, nor for that matter did the Varna structure become wholly acceptable. The Brahmanas rarely played an important role in society and the Kshatriyas soon faded out. The Khatris who claim to be Kshatriyas are usually found in professions associated with the Vaisya.Thus Punjab remained and still remains outside from the realm of Brahamanism and its influences , majorly due to the Aravalli barrier.
The Punjab paradox is that every invader came through this route to India, but no one really ruled it extensively from the Indian seat of power-Delhi.It was always ruled by the regional power largely and it remains true to this date.
Gangetic Basin:-
- The Ganga plain by virtue of it high agricultural productivity and rich population base has enjoyed a dominant position in the Indian subcontinent. No other region has had a comparable power base.However , the entire plain is not a homogeneous geographical piece.
- The gangetic plain can be divided into 3 sub regions – Upper, Middle and Lower . The difference is explained hereafter.
- Upper Ganga Plains:-The Upper plains in western and central Uttar Pradesh largely include the Doab. This has been an area of conflict and cultural synthesis. There is increasing evidence of the extension of the Harappan culture into this zone. This was also the centre of the Painted Grey Ware Culture and the scene of pulsating activity in the Later Vedic Period.
- Middle ganga Plains:- At the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna at the terminal point of the Doab is Allahabad (andent Prayaga). The Middle Ganga plains correspond to eastern Uttar Radesh and Bihar. This is where ancient Kosala, Kasi and Magadha were situated. It was the centre of city life,money economy and trade since the 6th century B.C. This region provided the basis for Mauryan imperial expansion and it continued to be politically important till the Gupta period (5th century A.D.).
- Lower Ganga Plains :-The Iower plains are co-terminus with the province of Bengal. The wide plains of Bengal are formed by the alluvium brought by the
Ganga and the Brahmaputra. High rainfall in low-lying plains created forest and marshy conditions which made early settlements in Bengal a difficult proposition. The fertility of the heavy alluvial soil could be exploited only with greater utilization and control of iron technology. Urban culture spread into this region from the Middle plains relatively late. Given the kind of environment, ponds have been an observable feature from ancient times in Bengal and fish has become a part of the diet of all sections of people. - Middle Ganga plains, for a variety of reasons, emerged more successful than the Upper and Lower plains and by the time of the Mauryas had attained undisputed hegemony in the subcontinent. During the Rig Vedic period the centre for this was the Indo-Gangetic divide. In the Later Vedic: period, around 1000 B.C., the geographical focus shifted to the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. With it the eastward improvement of the Vedic people had begun. However, the more important developments were the beginnings of settled agrarian life, with the help of the plough yoked to oxen, and consequently the emergence of the idea of territory and territorial kingdoms (rastra, janapada).Kuru and Panchala are good examples of such territories. By the 6th century B.C. the process of the emergence of janapadas tended to accelerate. For the first time we come to see the growth of mahajampadas which incorporated smaller janapadas and contemporary literature puts their total number at sixteen.
- Agricultural surpluses helped in the rise and growth of towns. The distinctive pottery of the period was the NBP which appeared around 500 B.C. Simultaneously we come across the first system of coinage. The need for it was generated by regular trade and commerce. The spread of the NBP from Kosala and Magadha to such far flung areas as Taxila in north west, Ujjain in Western Malwa and Amaravati in coastal Andhra suggests the existence of organized commerce and a good communication network, which linked these towns among others.
- The gram (village), nigama (a bigger settlement where commercial exchange also took place) and nagara (town) were the usual components of the Janapada. Woods and Jungles (vana) were also parts of it. A Janapada was basically a socio-cultural region. It provided the basis for state formation which actualised in the 6th century B.C. Together with the rise of the Mahajampadm we notice the growth of Mahanagaras.
- State society had thus arrived and the state was willing to make use of powerful religious systems such as Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism and so on to maintain itself and the social order. With these developments Gangetic northern India emerges into the full view of history.
The Tamil Country and Sangam Literature :-
- The anthologies of early Tamil poems collectively known as Sangam literature provide a vivid account of the transition to a state society in the ancient Tamil country (Tamilakam) from an earlier tribal-pastoral stage
- They indicate simultaneous existence of different ecological regions and suggest how different but interrelated lifeways ranging from food gathering, marginal agriculture, fishing and cattle-tending to intensive agriculture co-existed.
- In the fertile river valleys (Marutam regions) of the Kaveri, Periyar and Vaigai agricultural surpluses were produced and these precisely were the stronghold of the three ancient clan chiefs, the Chola, Chera and Pandya.
- The cult of war catapulted the warrior groups under their chiefs to a dominant position. The peasantry looking for protection and immunity from raids and plunder tended to be absorbed into a system in which a rudimentary state came into existence. The process of state formation was accelerated by the:-
- Roman trade
- Rise of towns
- Penetration of Aryan Culture
The Deccan : Andhra and Maharashtra :-
- In Andhra and the Northern Deccan, the iron-using Megalithic communities which followed the Neolithic-Chalcolithic cultures provided the base for settled agriculture and helped in the transformation of these regions. High yielding paddy cultivation was resorted to in the occupied coastal tracts of Andhra during the 5th-3rd century B.C. The Megalithic burials have produced evidence for :
1) rudimentary craft specialization,
2) a rudimentary exchange network, which transported mineral resources to the NorthernDeccan
3) status differentiation. - Black-and-Red ware was profound in these regions
- The emergence of localities seems to be a significant development by the time of the Satavahanas. They provided the basis for early historic state formation in
the Deccan. From the 2nd century B.C. we see the gradual expansion of agricultural settlements and the integration of new communities. - First, the monasteries and Buddhism and later the Brahmanas and Brahmanism helped the process of social integration. There developed a triangular relationship between the settled communities, the state and the monasteries and or the Brahmanas. The historical process advanced further under the Ikshvakus in coastal Andhra, the Kadambas in Karnataka and the Vakatakas in Maharashtra. By the middle of the first millennium A.D. the two regions registered their distinct individual presence.
Kalinga -Ancient Odisha:-
- The history of Odisha is one of internal transformation of the tribal society.
- The transition was partly autonomous and partly stimulated by contacts with the Sanskritic culture of the Gangetic plains, the beginnings of which can be traced back to the times of the Nandas and Mauryas.
- The large concentration of tribals and the physiography of the land prevented a repetition of the Gangetic socio-economic pattern. Caste society within the Varna structure was late to emerge in Odisha and when it did there was a difference in the broad essentials. In terms of social structure Odisha presents an interesting case of regional variation.
Conclusion :-
- A general survey of the problem of regions and regionalism in our history and the above examples trying to explain the process of the formation of reginns very clearly show that the socio-cultural differentiation of regions is historically old.Emergence of natural physical regions as historical/cultural regions can be traced back ta the formative period of Indian history. Subsequently these regions evolved their distinct socio-cultural ethos leading to the emergence of separate socio-political entities. Some regions surfaced earlier and faster than others owing to the early convergence of certain historical forces in them. Developments in other areas were triggered off by interaction with and cultural diffusion from these primary centres. This may partly explain. the differential traits of the varied regions.This concludes the India of regions and regions of India.
P.S. – This is rather a long article.We have tried to cut it as short as possible for easy reading, however certain aspects must be read in detail so as not only to understand them fully but to replicate on our answers.More often, we might know the key words but fail to put it in a good perspective and hence for a chapter like this long sentences are inevitable.Kindly bear with us on this one.
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The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.