The most significant aspect of the political history of India,
right from the times of Mahavira (6 century B.C.) upto the present
day, is that India has rarely been politically united. The periods
witnessing political unity have been extremely short in the face of
prolonged history of thousands of years. The second remarkable
aspect of political history of India is that when politically
united under one rule, our country prospered and earned a
respectable place in world community. The third and the most
important aspects of our history is that even though our political
leaders failed us, mostly in achieving political unity, we retained
our national unity mainly because of our cultural unity which our
people have developed through ages by their inherent sagacity and
wisdom. This cultural unity is expressed through our way of life,
our spirit of tolerance and accommodation and our capacity of
endurance and patience which we have been able to exhibit commonly
irrespective of our castes, creed or religion. The main
contributing factor to these virtues is the power of assimilation
possessed by the Aryan race, settled in the country. Aryans learnt
in plenty from the more civilized, original settlers of this land
but they also made their own original contribution to enhance the
ideas which they learnt. When Mohammedans came to India, they,
unlike the previous invaders, came with their own religion and
culture, with the result that they could not be assimilated in the
existing Indian culture. On the contrary, they tried to impose
their own by forcible conversions and political, social and
economic repression. But by the passage of time even Islam was
influenced by Upanisadic thoughts giving birth to Indian Sufism
which attracted both Hindu and Muslim masses. Today an average
Muslim's social and ethical attitude is not fundamentally different
from that of an average Hindu or Jaina or Christian. One can find a
difference only in degrees. But an Indian Muslim or an Indian
Christian is more an Indian than his co-religionist elsewhere. Thus
our culture, developed by the people of our nation through ages,
has saved our national unity, inspite of our political leaders'
failure and inspite of the partition of our country on the eve of
our political independence.
The roots of above analysis are found in the socio-political
environment, prevailing during the time of Mahavira. Those were the
times when there was no paramount power to control the whole or
even a great bulk of the country. There were small states and
republics having monarchical as well as non-monarchical forms of
government each trying to dominate the other. Political leadership
in both the forms of government had failed to unite the country as
a one whole. Even in the regions not having monarchy, the political
structure was mainly oligarchical in character, power vested in the
hands of the elite. Socially, on account of the belief that gods
can be pleased to make our life comfortable only by sacrifices, a
priestly class with great vested interests grew up and the growth
of Brahmanical scriptures, prescribing intricate and highly
specialized rules for sacrifices, made the services of the priestly
class inevitable even for the ruling princes and political leaders.
However, the thinkers like Parsva, Kapila, Uddalaka Aruni,
Yajnavalkya and many other Rsis of later Upanisadas had started
making dents on stronghold of sacrificial priests and princes.
These great thinkers had already started a thinking process which
was given a revolutionary push by Mahavira and Buddha and which
eventually proved to be a cementing force of cultural unity inspite
of the internecine quarrels between the political leaders of the
day. A cursory look at the political situation in the time of
Mahavira will show this.