Main features of Indian socio-political environment?

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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.

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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.