Economics: An Open Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister,

You must get many letters from people all over India. You are a very busy man, I am sure. I am just a fellow Indian citizen. I will not say that I am a “concerned” fellow citizen, because that would be hypocritical of me. Like most of our fellow citizens, I have been spending much of my time securing my own financial future, and frankly, I have done precious little to serve our great nation.

Much like most of our politicians, wouldn’t you say? The difference of course, is that I am a private citizen, and have not taken an oath to serve our nation. Our politicians have, and most of them abuse their sacred oath the minute they get into government office. But the purpose of this letter is not to remind you of such unpleasant facts, since you have to deal with these disreputable people every day. You know this much better than I do.

So what is the purpose of this letter, you may ask? I am getting to that. As a reasonably well-educated and socially aware fellow citizen, I feel I am entitled (and qualified) to make a few suggestions regarding how our country can be better governed. As a participant in our great if chaotic democracy, it is my right. I genuinely believe that I have something useful to say and that my views probably reflect those of the “silent majority”, those Indians who work hard, pay their taxes, and fervently hope that life will somehow get better for them and their families.

Over the last ten years or so, our country has made great strides towards prosperity. I read recently that the poverty rate has fallen from approximately 35% about twenty years ago to about 22% today. That is a very impressive achievement – not of the Indian government, but of the hard work and commitment of the Indian people who have seized the opportunity that partial economic liberalization presented them with. Of course, you were in some ways the architect of this, when as Finance Minister in 1991, you opened up the bankrupt Indian economy to the prevailing winds of globalization. Of course that decision was not made voluntarily, but under great duress, as the Indian economy at the time was tottering on the brink of collapse. Doomsayers (from your own party and of course from those “protectors of the poor” our leftist parties) said that Indian companies would not be able to compete. They said that Indian industry and entrepreneurs would be wiped out.

Fifteen years later, we can safely say that they could not have been more wrong. The Indian economy has been growing at a tremendous pace. Indian private sector companies have not only survived competition from their global peers, but in many cases, have beaten them. There are enough examples of this, as you are well aware. A new confident educated middle class has been created – people who study hard, work hard, pay their taxes and contribute immensely to the growth of this great nation of ours. I like to think of myself as one of these many millions.

However, there is much to do, as you are aware. Governmental reform is still non-existent. The government (which you represent) is still, lazy, corrupt, inefficient and unaccountable – a huge drain on our country’s resources. Why is that? As the Prime Minister, I strongly urge you to focus on governmental reform and not get diverted by non-issues such as how much Chief Executive Officers of private sector companies are making. I realize that this will not be easy – but then nothing worthwhile is.

One of five Indians still lives in abject poverty. A large proportion of the Indian population is functionally illiterate – they can sign their names, but that is about it. Our government-run primary education system (especially in North India) has ceased to exist. Our road, rail and port infrastructure remains in a shambles, obstructing economic growth. You must have noticed the pathetic state of the roads in Mumbai, our nation’s commercial capital, during your visits. A large proportion of our population does not have access to safe drinking water. The power situation in all our states is a disgrace. Apart from greatly inconveniencing us, it acts as a hindrance to economic and industrial growth, as many parts of our nation have to go without power for as much as eight to ten hours a day. I also know that despite this, electricity tariffs in certain parts of our country (my hometown Mumbai for example) are the highest in the world. Our forests and wildlife are vanishing at a rapid rate, many of our rivers are polluted and our environmental track record is a mess. Our judicial system is such that even the simplest litigation takes years (sometimes decades) to resolve.

The objective of this letter is not to blame you or your government. The objective is to suggest a few “high-impact” areas that you and your government could focus on to improve the living standards of a billion people. Of course, there are many vested interests involved who would not want this to happen – from politicians in your party and the opposition, our bureaucrats in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), and others such as your leftist allies. They are all part of the conspiracy to keep India poor and backward, because they benefit from it. By the way, I feel that our bureaucrats are much like the eunuchs in the ancient Persian and Roman empires. These eunuchs had no direct power and they fought no wars, but they had enormous influence on the way these empires were administered. They were “file-pushers” and the ones responsible for the downfall of these mighty empires. Sorry – as a student of history, I could not resist drawing that parallel. I am sure you see the similarity, dealing with stone-walling bureaucrats every day.

So what are the broad areas of policy that I request you to focus on? There are many. But I realize that it is not possible for you (or anyone) to focus on too many things. The three that make the most sense to me are: Infrastructure, Foreign and Indian Direct Investment and Primary Education. These are not radical suggestions and will not upset the apple-cart too much. But they will make a huge difference to our lives. They have been elaborated below:

1. Infrastructure: Here I request you to focus on and “fast-track” three things. They are:
a. Completing the “Golden Quadrilateral” highway system that was initiated with so much fanfare by your predecessor, Mr. Vajpayee. I also request you to find some way to improve the pathetic state of the roads in our major cities. I know that this is the responsibility of the municipalities involved, and most of them are extremely corrupt. However, there are ways that this can be done – by tying Central funds disbursed to actual results delivered on the ground, etc. You know how the governmental machinery works much better than I do. As a PhD in economics, I am sure that your grasp of economic history is very sound. You must know how the United States government introduced the “Food for Work” program in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. Millions of unemployed Americans were provided food and dormitory style housing in return for which they helped build America’s national highways. This highway network is still the most comprehensive one in the world – seventy years later. This “Food for Work” program provided food and employment to millions and also helped pull America out of the Great Depression. Why can we not start a similar program here in some of our more backward states?
b. Reducing power transmission and distribution losses - As you know, the business of providing electricity to consumers has two parts to it – power generation and power transmission and distribution. Adding new power generation capacity is a time-consuming and expensive business and will require much effort in attracting the necessary private direct investment. However, the second part – power transmission and distribution can be resolved much more easily. I have heard that about 30% of electricity generated in India is either stolen or not paid for. This is a staggering statistic. This is because of corrupt officials who take bribes from consumers who do not want to pay their electricity bills. How can this be stopped? Quite easily – turn over power bill collections to the private sector and pay them a small commission on the amount of money they collect. If Reliance Energy, for example was responsible for collecting outstanding power bills, I am sure that power theft (and distribution losses) would come down significantly. This would mean more money to invest in new power plants, building of new capacities, availability of uninterrupted electricity – a nice “virtuous cycle”.
c. Work is already being done on a “super-fast” rail freight corridor between our major cities, and that is a good step your government is taking. I know nothing about ports, so I will not venture an opinion on the modernization and enhancement of our ports. I am sure you have qualified experts in this area.

2. Foreign Direct Investment, Special Economic Zones and opening up the retail and insurance sectors:
a. Your allies in the ruling coalition government the leftists, have been fighting you tooth and nail on this. I am sure you are thinking – with friends like these, who needs enemies?? But the fact remains that if India’s economic growth is to be permanent, it needs to be all-inclusive and benefit people all across our vast land. The best way to do this is to set up Special Economic Zones in the hinterlands and offer companies tax breaks to set up shop there. Another way to ensure all-inclusive economic growth is to open up the retail and insurance sectors to private investment (Indian and foreign). This would create millions of jobs where they are needed most – in the Nandeds and Bhagalpurs of our country. It would provide a quantum leap to our economic growth and reduce the migration of millions of people to our large cities – which of course are already over-burdened, dirty and crowded.

Opening up the insurance sector would also provide huge sums of long-term funds that can be used for large nation-building projects such as irrigation, power generation, afforestation, etc. There is no down-side here; it is just a question of mustering the necessary political will to do it. Clear, transparent land acquisition policies need to be put in place as far as acquiring agricultural land for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is concerned. The problems we have faced in this area are largely due to the lack of such a policy.

3. Primary Education For All: Most of us have watched with dismay as your government has repeatedly put its foot in its own mouth as far as education is concerned. We have watched with disgust as time and again, the topic of caste-based reservation has become a major political issue. If either you or your loved ones are ill, would you prefer to be treated by a sub-standard physician who shouldn’t have gotten into medical school in the first place? I do not think so. Reservations are valid – for economically challenged students, irrespective of caste, gender or religion. The caste system in India is a national disgrace and should be abolished, not perpetuated. It would be far better to focus time and money on overhauling the primary education system as it is currently exists. But you know the nature of the problem, I am sure. Even a layperson such as me has seen programs on the BBC and various Indian news channels showing how government-run primary schools (especially in Northern India) are bankrupt and without even blackboards or roofs on buildings. Many teachers do not even bother to show up at school.

How will our millions of young minds be educated if this is the case? How is the performance of these government-run primary schools currently being measured? As a taxpayer, I know that I have to pay something called an “education cess”. I have no problem paying this. But I would like to know how the money collected is being utilized. This is a reasonable request. This is also a problem that is easily corrected. The running of these schools in rural areas should be handed over to the village “panchayats” (councils). No parent would like to see their child illiterate. There should be financial incentives for parents to encourage them to send their girl children to school. I am sure you will hear howls of protest from the people currently responsible for running these governmental schools (the “eunuch” bureaucrats). But you need to cut the Gordian knot here and make a decision. It is also very important to focus on English being taught at the primary school level. 175 million Chinese kids (and adults) are learning English because it is the future as far as jobs and careers are concerned. This is true for India as well.

There is much more that can be done to benefit our great nation, especially in reforming state and municipal governments, since they are the ones ordinary people such as us have to deal with. That would be the subject of another letter. I realize that none of the changes I have mentioned above will be easy to bring about. But you have chosen to become the Prime Minister of our country and that job is difficult. You owe this to us – all one billion of us. If you can accomplish just these three things, we will be in your debt forever.

Also, I am not just an armchair critic. Show me evidence that you mean business in these areas – especially in primary education, where I feel I can contribute, and I will join you. I am not yet a parent, but I have friends who are, and I realize how difficult it is for young children to get admitted to good schools in India. If I ever choose to have or adopt children, I would want a better education system for them. So my decision is based on rational self-interest – just like the great economist Adam Smith used to say. I hope that rings a bell.

Sincerely,

Sandeep Gupta

Music: Your Favorite Beatles Album

Which is your favorite Beatles album? Everybody in the world has heard of (and heard) the Beatles, whether you like them or not. And they came up with such melodious songs and “hooks”, that almost everybody loved them – from grandparents down to toddlers. That of course, was part of the problem. Rock purists often felt that the Beatles weren’t “rebellious” enough, and that they coasted along (at least initially), content to be popular icons, not taking risks.

Nothing could be further from the truth, which was that the Beatles were ground-breaking pioneering artists in every sense of the term. Even their early “boy band” albums, where four kids are staring out at you from the album sleeve, even those albums – these guys were taking chances to come up with music that was different. They were putting it on the line. There was rebellion aplenty – enough to keep young malcontents such as me interested.

Apart from the melodies and lyrics (which were uniformly great), listen to the sound on these albums. It is enormous. They are a four piece band that sounds like a four hundred piece band. And even back then, in the early 1960s, when they had teenage girls going berserk over them, they sounded different from everybody else. For one thing, they invented a large part of what we call rock ‘n’ roll music today. They did not play the blues or soul or a mixture of the two (like their near-contemporaries the Rolling Stones and the Who were playing at the time). They played rock ‘n’ roll – it was a new art form, because these guys were inventing it. And they were making up the rules of the game as they went along. They sounded fresh and unique, even in the very beginning. Certainly, they had their own set of heroes who influenced them – Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Elmore James. But they didn’t make any attempt to sound like these guys. They always sounded just like…well…themselves.

By 1965 of course, they were heavily influenced by another pioneer – Bob Dylan. Their albums started sounding far more mature, dealing with sex, love, drugs and politics in a whole new way. But just as Bob Dylan influenced them, they influenced Bob Dylan, who had initially started as a folk singer. By 1965, Dylan plugged in his electric guitar and a whole new genre of music was born – folk-rock. But I digress.

The Beatles were very different from the Stones and the Who. Initially, the Stones tried very hard to sound like their blues idols - Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, etc., with some degree of success. The early Who tried to sound like the Godfather of Soul himself– James Brown, and failed miserably. Instead, they sounded like what James Brown would have sounded like - if he had been born white, English and hopped up on amphetamines. The Who looked and sounded like a bunch of anarchists – at least initially. A bunch of menacing looking fellows, not guys you would encourage your teenage son or daughter to hang out with. But -it was all fascinating stuff anyway. Of course, both the Stones and the Who found their own distinctive voices by the mid 1960s, and forged what we call “rock” music today. Not heavy metal, but rock (I hate it when people confuse the two).

But the Beatles sounded unique, right from the very beginning. They are not my favorite band– the Who is, and will always remain so. But I still respect and love the Beatles enormously. They never rested on their laurels. They always pushed the boundaries of whatever they were doing. From late 1964 onwards, every album sounded different from its predecessor. No two albums sounded the same. They were taking chances. With every album, they were defining and redefining the boundaries of popular music, pushing the envelope. And every time, they took their audience with them. It was a leap of faith that millions of people around the world were willing to make. They created the notion that popular music could be much more than disposable noise. They proved that popular music could be high art and at the same time, easily accessible and understood.

So which is your favorite Beatles album? I am sure you must have one. For me personally, it is a toss-up between three albums – “Revolver” (released in August 1966), “White Album” (released in November 1968 after their return from Rishikesh , India ) and “ Abbey Road ” (their last album in the studio, released in September 1969).

“Revolver” is something else entirely. It is the first “drug” influenced album. You knew these guys were going where nobody else had gone before with the music. It was that fresh, that exciting, that exhilarating. Even if “Revolver” came out today, it would be an artistic breakthrough. It sounds new and timeless at the same time. Lennon’s songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” are scary and he is taking you down a road where nobody (not even himself) has been down before. You know the ride is going to be very exciting, but unpredictable. McCartney’s songs exhibit a new level of maturity – songs like “Eleanor Rigby” and “For No One”. And you know that George Harrison is beginning to challenge the Lennon-McCartney songwriting combination. He is beginning to come into his own as a songwriter and a guitar player on songs like “Taxman” and “I Want to Tell You”.

The double LP “White Album” came out in 1968 and was the beginning of the end. It is a Beatles album in name, but in reality, it is three guys making their own solo albums using the rest of the members as their back-up band. They have different, incompatible personalities by this point. McCartney is still consumed by being at the top of the charts, and remains a supremely gifted songwriter and musician with a genius for knowing what will sell - a true music professional. Lennon by this point wants to be an artist – he wants to be avant-garde. Harrison is resentful that his songs are not being allotted space on Beatles albums, because of the domination by the other two. He is also getting impatient and more and more confident in his own solo abilities. And Ringo? Well, Ringo is just happy that the Beatles are still together. In terms of its musical vision and diversity, no album ever made comes close to “White Album”. Every single musical genre of the 20th century (and earlier) is present on that album – rock and its various derivatives – rock ‘n’ roll, folk rock, blues, heavy metal, art rock, psychedelia, ballads – even vaudeville. It is an encyclopedia of modern day music, and is awesome in its scope and ambition.

Pretty much every song on that album sounds like it has been made (and played) by a different band. It is impossible to categorize this album – it is beyond definition. How many albums in the history of music can you say that about? No other band in the history of the world could have made this album. Once again, the Beatles were redefining the very concept of popular music, including what constituted the word “popular”. And once again, the audience took their lead and followed them down that road. The Beatles’ confidence in their own abilities was supreme. Their audience’s faith in them was nothing short of miraculous – and touching.

“ Abbey Road ” was the last album the Beatles made in the studio (though “Let It Be” was the last album they ever released). By this point, it was pretty evident that these guys were not going to last much longer as a band. Both the Stones and the Who had also matured, and were snapping at the Beatles heels – in terms of musical and artistic ability. But “ Abbey Road ” still has its moments where the Beatles leave every single band in the world behind – from the shimmering harmonies of Lennon’s “Because” to the entire suite of McCartney’s songs on Side B of the album, which pretty much invented glam-rock and paved the way for David Bowie, Elton John and Queen later. And George’s guitar playing on Side B of that album - I could write a book on it, and it still would not do justice to his guitar-playing prowess. The man grew in leaps and bounds between 1966 and 1970. By 1970, he (rightly) considered himself the equal of Lennon and McCartney – as a songwriter and a musician.

“ Abbey Road ” was also the first rock album I heard when I was fourteen years old. I remember how intriguing and different it sounded. Unlike much of the disco stuff that was floating around at the time, it sounded like it had real value, real heart. It meant something. It sounded like it was being made by people who cared deeply about what they were doing. It engaged the listener’s heart and mind. It sounded like it could sustain the listener for a long time to come. I still dust that album off now and again and listen to it, more than twenty five years later, to remind me how and when I got introduced to great modern music. It stands up to the test of time.

And that’s all she wrote. August 20th, 1969 was the last time that all four Beatles were in the studio together, for the recording of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. More than anybody else, they changed the world. The whole thing was a grand, audacious experiment that failed. But they changed the world anyway, and it was worth the effort. When John Lennon said in 1962 that the Beatles would be bigger than Elvis, he was right. When he bragged in 1966 that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, he was right. In 1970, when the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards, he said “We came out of the fuckin’ sticks to take over the world”. He was only telling the truth.

Thank you, John, Paul, George and Ringo, for the music that has always sustained us, and that even today, after all these years, still touches and enriches our lives in so many ways.

I will always love the Who, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Clash, Roy Orbison, Chrissie Hynde and many others. But - which is your favorite Beatles album??

History: The Golden Age and What Makes India Special

The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear

- Ovid’s “Metamorphosis” (circa 8 A.D)

The ancient classical world dawned around the 8th Century B.C., when the great Greek, Indian and Persian empires were born. Of course, human civilization as we know it had been around for thousands of years before that. The Egyptian, Mesopotamians, Indians and Chinese had very evolved, sophisticated civilizations by 2000 B.C.

But the ancient classical world as we know it was born somewhere around the 8th Century B.C and lasted more than a thousand years. It was an era of great empires and philosophers, poets and prophets. Three great Indo-European civilizations were born – the Greek, the Persian and the Indian. In Greece, Homer wrote the “Iliad”, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle contemplated the human condition and philosophy was born, and Pythagoras proposed his mathematical theorems.

In Persia, Cyrus the Great created the first world empire – a mosaic of many cultures, religions and races, wrote the first Charter of Human Rights and Universal Law, and Zoroaster founded the world’s first monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism, with its concept of duality – good and evil, heaven and hell. All modern-day Judeo-Christian religions have borrowed heavily from Zoroaster’s writings and teachings.

In India, the Vedas were recorded, the great epics the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were written, and the Buddha walked through quiet country lanes in Northern India preaching the principles of worldly renunciation and the concept of enlightenment. Ajatashatru and Chandragupta Maurya’s military campaigns created the first pan-Indian kingdoms. Ashoka the Great’s reign circa 220 B.C. ushered in India’s first “golden age”.

The ancient classical world represented one of the high points of human civilization – a time when humankind made great strides in science, philosophy, literature, poetry, music and military technology. It is a fascinating time in our evolution, and the explosion of ideas that took place then was unrivalled until the Renaissance, which came along nearly two thousand years later.

So was there ever a “golden age” of humankind as the Roman poet Ovid so beautifully writes about, or is this just romantic historical nonsense, propagated by those nostalgic for a past that never really existed? Was there ever a time when large numbers of people were at peace, prosperous and happy? Many different civilizations and countries proclaim that their own glorious past represents the “golden age” of humankind. I may be biased, but the Indian Empire of the Guptas was probably the most enlightened empire the world has ever known. Certainly, Indian history repeatedly refers to the Gupta Empire as the “golden age” of Indian civilization.

Why the Gupta Empire, you may ask (and you should). Because the Gupta Empire represented a near-ideal civilization that was strong yet compassionate, humane yet objective, traditional yet intellectually contemplative and curious. Accomplishments in art, philosophy, poetry, science, mathematics and astronomy reached new heights during the reign of the Gupta kings.

A brief run-down of the accomplishments of the Gupta Empire is warranted (to substantiate my claim). The Gupta Empire was established in 320 A.D. and lasted about three hundred years. It covered all of Northern India as well as modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. The rulers of the Gupta Empire included Chandragupta, Samudragupta and the great Vikramadiyta (who became one of India’s three greatest rulers, along with Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka, both of whom had ruled the Mauryan Empire seven hundred years earlier).

The Gupta Empire excelled in the arts, literature, music, mathematics and most importantly for the welfare of their subjects, administration. They were no slouches when it came to defending their borders either. For three hundred years, they held off and consistently beat the Saka (Scythian Huns from Central Asia), their main enemies. The Gupta Empire’s army was very well organized, and they relied on the two instruments of warfare that stopped Alexander’s Macedonian armies in their tracks six hundred years earlier – the war elephant and the powerful Indian longbow. The Indian longbow, as I have mentioned in my blog on Chandragupta Maurya, was six feet long, and fired arrows that pierced the thickest body armor. The Gupta Empire’s armies also invented the highly tensile steel bow, which was the most powerful weapon of its time. The disciplined infantry bowmen of the Indian Gupta armies beat their marauding Central Asian foes – time after time. Of course, the trained war elephants and armored cavalry also played a part in their victorious campaigns.

In the field of arts, music and mathematics, the court of the Gupta kings had the “navaratna” or nine jewels – individuals whose contributions in their areas were outstanding. In the field of astronomy and mathematics there were Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, who invented the concepts of zero, infinity and the decimal system. The trading Arabs took the decimal system to Europe, where it replaced the existing Roman numerical system. Aryabhatta also calculated Pii to the fourth decimal. In the field of astronomy, he calculated the length of the solar year and the movements of stars and the planets. Nowhere else in the world was the study of mathematics and astronomy as specialized and advanced as at the Gupta Empire’s court.

In the fields of literature and poetry, there were legendary poets such as Kalidasa who wrote the play “Shakuntala” and Dandi. The exquisite rock sculptures and paintings at Ajanta and Ellora were also part of the rich cultural heritage left to us by the Gupta Empire. These are quite simply the most sophisticated, delicate and beautiful rock paintings and carvings in the world. They are now a UNESCO World Heritage site. In my opinion, they should be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – they are that beautiful and exquisite.

The Gupta Empire’s trade with South-east Asia meant the spread of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and culture to Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and beyond. The motifs used in the construction of the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia borrowed heavily from the concepts of the Gupta Empire’s artists and architects. The spread of Buddhism to Japan, China, Thailand and other countries can be directly attributed to the Gupta Empire.

The Gupta Empire kings were also humane and excellent administrators. They set up free hospitals for the poor across the empire. Many advances were made in the field of medicine – with doctors performing bone settings, caesarian sections and bone grafting. Many of these innovations in medicine were carried to the West by the Arabs, who traded extensively with the Gupta Empire. The major universities of the time at Taxila and Nalanda were also given grants and funding.

Last but definitely not the least, the “Kamasutra” or “Art of Love” was written and published during the reign of the Gupta kings. The Empire was known for its tolerance, open-mindedness and enlightened attitude towards sex.

The end of the Gupta Empire was part of the end of an era – the end of the classical world. Around the same time, the power of the Roman Empire was broken, as it finally succumbed to constant warfare on its borders. The Goths on the empire’s northern frontier and the Sassanid Persians on its eastern frontier battered away relentlessly, and the Roman Empire finally crumbled around the 7th century. A thousand years of history were at an end.

By the 5th century A.D., Rome had ceased to be an important city in the empire anyway, as the Goths under Alaric sacked and pillaged the city in 396 A.D. The Western Roman Empire ceased to exist in everything except name by the 5th Century A.D. The Eastern Roman Empire with its capital at Byzantium (also known as Constantinople and now as Istanbul) gained prominence, since it was the gateway to rich and populous Asia.

The Romans and the Sassanid Persians were mortal enemies for four centuries, and fought each other to a standstill. By the 7th Century A.D., the Persians were finished too. There was a new power rising to the South – the Arabs. The Persians were exhausted and fatally weakened by centuries of constant warfare with the Romans, and were in no position to withstand the Arab onslaught. The great Sassanid Empire collapsed suddenly without so much as a whimper, and more than a thousand years of Persian domination of the Near East came to an end. The Persians would never again be a dominant empire-building force.

The explosive growth of two new religions, Christianity and Islam, with their radical new ideas, saw the end of the classical world in the West. The new religions were proselytizing religions – a new phenomenon, since the pagan religions of the classical world were not. The zealotry of the early Christians and Muslims meant that some of their leaders were determined to wipe out all traces of what had existed before. This was a pity. Much that was great in the ancient classical world vanished forever, never to be recovered. However, sometimes great ideas never really die – they only come back in different guises. By the 10th Century A.D., Persia had a new set of poets and writers such as Rumi and Firdausi, who extolled the old Persian ways and heroes in his epic book “Shahnameh” (“The Book of Kings”). He wrote stories of Darius and Cyrus, Shapur and Khusrau – the forgotten heroes of another time – a time when Persia was great. Christianity also incorporated many of the principles of the old “pagan” religions into their own, such as the worship of the Holy Trinity and of saints (this was a substitute for the worship of the pantheon of gods in older pagan religions).

But the “Shahnameh” and other recollections of the classical world were only faint echoes of the true glory of an epic past. The past itself died forever everywhere – except in India. Only India was and continues to remain unique. Only in India does the ancient classical world continue to live, breathe and indeed flourish. While the ruins of Persepolis, Pasargadae and Ctesiphon (in Iran) and the Parthenon and the Coliseum (in Greece and Rome) are mute testimony to the greatness of the ancient classical world, the old ways and old gods are gone forever. The goddesses Anahita and Aphrodite no longer laugh and sport in the rivers and springs of the Persian highlands and Greece. The voices of Zeus and the Greek gods have been silenced forever. Delphi is a ruin and the Eleusian mysteries of Demeter no longer reveal the profound secrets of the after-life to eager seekers. The temples of Hermes and Helios have fallen into ruin and the smoke from a thousand sacrificial fires no longer obscure the azure skies of the Mediterranean. The ancient Zoroastrian fire temples in the snow-striped Zagros Mountains in Iran are in a state of disrepair.

The remaining monuments in these countries are just tourist attractions that draw people from all over the globe, reminding them of how graceful, beautiful and interesting the classical world really was, a time when our species was young, and the world was full of interesting discoveries and inventions, waiting for us to find them.

But in India, the ancient classical world continues to co-exist with the modern. Many of the symbols and monuments of “Golden India” are gone forever, such as the magnificent palace complexes of Pataliputra and Ujjain, Kanauj and Indraprastha. But the spirit of the classical world still survives and flourishes. Take a train ride from Mumbai to Delhi on the Central Railway in winter, and on a fog-bound morning outside the town of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, you will suddenly see the “chhatra” or roof of the main Sanchi Stupa rising from behind the tree-line by the side of the tracks. The roof of the Stupa appears to float in mid-air, thanks to the heavy early morning fog. The Stupa is a marvelous complex of buildings dating back to the third century B.C. Its construction was started in the reign of Ashoka the Great – India’s greatest king. But this beautiful complex of buildings is more than just a dead monument. It is still home to hundreds of Buddhist monks who wake up with the rising sun and chant ancient Sanskrit “shlokas” (verses) in memory of the Buddha – just like they did more than two thousand years ago. It is a living testament to another time in the world.

The classical world still lives and breathes here and elsewhere in India, a link to a great and ancient past and to India’s first golden age. It is a reminder of the thoughts and ideals that shaped our modern world and thinking. Remember that, because it is what makes India special.

Happy Independence Day!!

Music: Album Review - Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska"

Released in 1982, this is easily Springsteen’s most heartfelt and in some ways, bleakest album. It is also his least known album. Recorded at home with only an acoustic guitar and a harmonica for musical accompaniment, it is an American “dust-bowl” folk album in the tradition of Springsteen’s folk music heroes Woody Guthrie and the young Bob Dylan. The songs themselves are about ordinary working class people in tough situations in Middle America – a man who takes up a contract killing to pay his debts (“Atlantic City”), a policeman in a small town whose brother is a petty criminal (“Highway Patrolman”), a Vietnam War veteran who comes home to a dead-end job and a nervous breakdown (“Johnny 99”), a man remembering his dead father and his old home that no longer belongs to him (“My Father’s House”).

It is Springsteen at his most somber and earnest, and the songs are riveting. There are a few brutally honest albums in rock music. John Lennon’s 1970 “Working Class Hero/Plastic Ono Band” is one, the Who’s 1975 album “The Who By Numbers” is another, as is Bob Dylan’s portrait of a broken marriage – 1974’s “Blood On the Tracks”. This album falls into that category of honest, riveting albums.

There are no fist-pumping arena rock anthems here. Instead, in the tradition of Bob Dylan’s early work, Springsteen builds and breathes life into the gray, sometimes amoral characters in his songs. These are not just songs, they are short stories set to music. And like most well-written short stories, they can be mesmerizing. That is the beauty of folk music – it tells stories of ordinary people, folks like you and me.

The ambience is intimate, since Springsteen recorded all these songs at home without a back-up band. This album was released two years before his blockbuster “Born in the USA” album, which sealed his reputation as a superstar. Listening to this album, you feel that Springsteen is sitting in front of you on your living room couch on a cool fall night, with the fire roaring in the fireplace, singing his heart out – singing about hard times, ordinary people and the strength of the human spirit.

Sometimes, there are no easy answers to the horrors of life. The lyrics on this album are evocative, spare and sometimes chilling. On the title song “Nebraska” a murderer is about to executed, and is asked by the judge why he killed innocent people. He says:

“They declared me unfit to live,
Said into that great void my soul be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did,
Well, sir, I guess it’s just the meanness in this world”.

Springsteen may not be the best lyricist in the world, but he has always had a gift for capturing the spirit of working-class Middle America and its inhabitants. He builds a very convincing portrait of the quiet desperation that is the highlight of so many people’s lives. Most of his albums talk about hard times and redemption at the end of the road. On this album, he sings (quietly) about the hard times, but also about the fact that redemption is sometimes just not forthcoming. That is what makes this album compelling. Life can be hard, and sometimes, it just gets harder.

But human beings will always look for a reason to believe. And on the last song on the album, “Reason to Believe”, Springsteen is just like the rest of us in our vulnerable, weakest moments. He sings about the cycle of birth and death that is life and our never-ending quest to find meaning in our own lives and how we fit into the larger scheme of things:

“Take a baby to the river,
Kyle William they called him,
Wash the baby in the water,
Take away little Kyle’s sin
In a whitewash shotgun shack,
An old man passes away,
Take the body to the graveyard and over him they pray,
Lord, won’t you tell us,
Tell us what does it mean,
At the end of every hard-earned day,
We can still find some reason to believe”

We are all human, we are all flawed, and sometimes, in our darkest moments, when hope seems so hard to hold on to, we all need reason to believe – believe that life will get better, believe that the hard times and heartbreak will come to an end soon, that there is a grand purpose to our lives. Belief that there is a good future in store for us, belief that a kind hand gently guides our individual destinies. This song is a heartfelt yet ambiguous prayer to a deity that may or may not exist.

This is a beautiful, austere album, written and performed from the heart. Great art is always an unflinching reflection of the truth. The beauty of rock (and folk) music is its simplicity – great ideas, thoughts and ideals can be communicated in a simple way that makes it easy for people to understand, to connect. This is not true of many other art forms – even jazz and classical music are harder to understand, to interpret, to connect to. This is why I feel that rock music and its offshoots (folk music, blues music, even rap) tell stories in a way that are heartfelt and easy to understand.

Springsteen has always had a big heart and something interesting to say. He is not high-brow, he doesn’t try and impress you with his lyrical virtuosity, though his lyrics can be very well-written indeed. Over a long thirty year career, he has not just cranked out rock anthems for the sake of being popular. He believes that there is more to life than just being a superstar. He believes that in this day and age of instant (and often unworthy) fame and celebrity, good music can still make a difference and sometimes, save your soul. He is still willing to take chances and risks with his music, still willing to go out on a limb. He is a man with intelligence, character, grit and a conscience, and cares deeply about the world around him.

How many people in the entertainment business can we say that about?

Environment: Saying Goodbye To Us

The latest issue of TIME magazine has an article on the probable extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin, one of the four freshwater river dolphin species in the world. This highly intelligent, human sized mammal was long considered auspicious by Chinese fishermen. Now it is gone, forever. It has the dubious distinction of being the first marine mammal to be driven to extinction solely because of humankind’s destruction of the environment.

Why is this so important? Why is the death of a seemingly unimportant species of river dolphin so important to us? The Yangtze River dolphin was a barometer of the health of China’s Yangtze River, a river that sustains four hundred million people or six percent of the world’s population. The extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin bodes ill for the survival of the river itself as well as the millions of people who live on its banks.

China’s phenomenal economic growth over the past twenty years has gone hand in hand with unparalleled destruction of that country’s environment and natural resources. The Yangtze River is now a river highway that resembles rush hour traffic – parts of the river have a boat density of sixty boats per kilometre. The Yangtze River is also highly polluted because of the discharge of untreated sewage and industrial effluents into the river. Industrial pollution combined with over-fishing has led to huge declines in the numbers and species of fish in the Yangtze – remember that four hundred million people depend on the Yangtze River for drinking water as well as food.

Old established methods of fishing have been replaced by those using sticks of dynamite. This “dynamite” fishing was one of the causes of the demise of the river dolphin. River dolphins are blind and rely on sonar to navigate the waterways. Dynamite fishing interferes with the dolphin’s ability to navigate the river. The confused and blind dolphins tend to panic, and get entangled in the nets of fishermen.

China is not the only villain as far as irreversible environmental degradation is concerned. India is also a culprit. The Ganges River dolphin is also at risk – it is listed as an endangered species and only four thousand are still left in the wild. The risks and dangers it faces are very similar to those faced by its Yangtze cousin – over-fishing, too much human activity, shrinkage of its habitat and pollution. The Ganges River, like the Yangtze, is dying a slow death, and water levels have reduced dramatically in the past few decades. The consequences of the death of the Ganges for India’s vast population are unthinkable – and very real.

The Indian national animal, the great and majestic Royal Bengal Tiger, is on the verge of extinction, with its natural habitat fragmenting and shrinking every year. Tiger bones are also a staple in traditional Chinese medicine, and the illegal market for tiger parts is a huge and lucrative one. Already, the Sariska Tiger Reserve in the Indian state of Rajasthan has fallen silent. The tigers there have been poached and hunted into extinction.

The Siberian Tiger, the most graceful and largest cat of them all, is also on the verge of extinction in Russia. Only three hundred Siberian tigers remain in the wild in a protected biosphere near Vladivostok. The biosphere is under threat, there are talks to construct a road though it to help revive the flagging Russian logging industry. This move would be an environmental disaster, to say the least.

It is not much different in the rest of the world, either. In the African country of the Congo, racked by poverty and civil war, the great African silverback gorilla is being indiscriminately killed and driven into extinction. Eating African bushmeat has become “chic” in the gourmet cafes of New York, London, Hanoi and Beijing. A total of thirteen thousand pounds of bushmeat (from animals illegally hunted and slaughtered) arrive in the US and Europe every year.

The American grizzly bear is hanging on by the skin of its teeth in Alaska and elsewhere. The world’s insatiable demand for petroleum products is putting increasing pressure to open up the Arctic Refuge in Alaska for oil drilling – this would be a death knell for the American grizzly. The world’s wild places are falling silent, in many cases forever.

And we have not even touched upon the effects of global warming yet. That is a whole different disaster waiting to happen.

Humans are the only species that play God with Mother Nature. We believe that humankind as a species is a measure of all things. This is what the ancient Greeks called “titanism” – equating man with God. Remember the old Greek legend of Icarus, the man who wanted to become like a god and fly? Icarus did fly, but he flew too close to the sun. His wings melted and he fell to the ground and died.

In our attempt to become gods, we are flying too close to the sun. Unless we stop now, we will soon be saying goodbye to another species – us.

Music: Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” (Symphony No. 9)

This is my first attempt to review a piece of Western Classical music, so I am understandably nervous. Unlike rock music, where I consider my knowledge to be second to none, Western Classical music is a different matter altogether – especially when I have a family member whose knowledge and expertise far surpasses my own. I am talking about my father here. I better get this right, because if I don’t, he will never let me live it down. And don’t worry, gentle reader, I will not bore you with stories of the intricate details of E-flats and B-major notes, since that is beyond me. I will also not bore you with details of what different movements in a composition mean – these I understand, but they are not relevant to our point of discussion here. What, you ask, is the point of our discussion here? The point of discussion here is how Western Classical music has the unexpected power to move the listener in unforeseen ways. How it has the power to catch you off-guard, and rake up emotions and feelings you thought were long extinct. Allow me to explain.

The older I get, the more I am drawn to Western Classical music. Rock music (good rock music anyway) still appeals to the rebellious teenager in me. Give me a freeway in the Rocky Mountains (the Mumbai-Pune expressway will do just fine too), some great tunes, a cool, sunny day, and (hopefully) a beautiful woman by my side, and you could not ask for a happier camper than Yours Truly. But the older I get, the more my own mortality gets in the way – I know for a fact that I am not immortal, something I did not realize till about ten years ago. Someday at a time and place of his choosing, the Grim Reaper will walk up to me, tap me on the shoulder and say, “Let’s dance”. In the springtime, a middle-aged man’s thoughts turn to his own mortality and the nature of the legacy (if any) that he will leave behind.

So the older I get, my thoughts turn to more “spiritual” things, if that is the right word to use, without getting pretentious about it. And Western Classical music has that peculiar ability to move the listener in ways that sometimes cannot be anticipated. Some classical music pieces such as the one I am writing about have the ability to move people to tears, unexpectedly. And I am not an overtly emotional man. These are not tears of sadness, they are tears of contemplation, tears shed because someone (in this case the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak) has the ability to capture and interpret the human experience so beautifully through music. Without saying a word, using only the medium of music, he can suddenly capture what I am thinking and feeling at a particular moment. Truly amazing.

I have been listening to Western Classical music ever since I can remember. When I was very young, my father had those precious LPs that are still part of the family collection. I would not sell them for all the money in the world. They are part of my heritage and a family heirloom. I can remember listening to Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto at the age of four, and being mesmerized by the wonder and beauty of it all. It is a defining memory. I will write about the feelings that particular piece inspires in me in another blog.

So now that I have introduced you to this particular blog in my own inimitable, roundabout fashion, it is time to get to the point. Antonin Dvorak (pronounced “Vorjak”) was a Czech composer who was born in 1841. I will spare you the details of his life, since they are not particularly relevant and may bore you, gentle reader. Suffice to say that he was already moderately famous before he went to America in 1892 at the age of 51. America of course, is the new world in the “New World Symphony”. He had already composed the famous classical piece “Slavonic Dances”. In America, he landed in that great melting pot of cultures, New York City and took up a job as a teacher of composition and artistic director at the recently established New York National Conservatory of Music. He spent three years in America, and it changed him in ways he never expected. Coming from the comparatively cloistered, insulated Old World city of Prague, New York City in all its cosmopolitan glory must have taken him by surprise.

In New York, he must have met people from different social, economic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. He was exposed to American blues music, what in those days, they called “Negro spirituals”, songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. He also heard for the first time, the other-worldly yet hypnotic Native American chants. From this bewildering mosaic of musical styles, Dvorak fashioned the epic New World Symphony. The music captured the optimism of a young country, where the opportunities seemed limitless and where the constraints of Old World Europe did not apply. America was all about optimism and the freedom of the open road, where everything seemed possible if only one tried hard enough. The stifling conventions of Old Europe did not exist here. The New World Symphony reflects that.

But there is an underlying element of sadness here. We do not know Antonin Dvorak’s position on slavery or racial segregation. Although slavery had been abolished almost thirty years earlier at the end of the American Civil War in 1865, racial segregation was still strictly enforced, and the treatment of African-Americans and persons of other non-white races was still appalling. Dvorak must have had an opportunity to listen to those beautiful “Negro spirituals” with their yearnings for a just and better world in the after-life. He also must have had the opportunity to listen to the chants of the Native American tribes, whose last desperate attempts to save their own cultural heritage and civilization took place in the 1890s. Indeed, part of the symphony reflects Dvorak’s attempts to put American poet Longfellow’s epic poem “Hiawatha” to music. These songs and chants must have moved him immensely, because he incorporated them into his new composition.

What Dvorak paints then is a picture of America as a flawed paradise – a Garden of Eden, a land of plenty where the image of perfection is only skin-deep, and where tragedy and suffering lurk below the seemingly perfect surface. It is a compelling portrait that is happy and sad, realistic yet dreamy and yearning, optimistic yet somber, all at the same time. It is a masterpiece. America left a deep imprint on Dvorak. Listening to the New Word Symphony brings out these conflicting emotions and feelings in the discerning classical music aficionado.

Listening to the New World Symphony also reminds me of America – a country I love next ony to my own – India. The country is still young, it is still optimistic because it is not burdened by thousands of years of history. Everything is still new, and everything can still be looked at from a fresh perspective. It seems possible to make a fresh start to life, no matter how old one is. And there still is the promise of eternal youth and glory when you drive down the freeway in the Colorado Rockies on a sunny, summer day in an open-top convertible, with Dvorak’s New World Symphony blaring from the speakers on your car stereo.

History: Chandragupta Maurya - India's First Emperor

In my last few ancient history posts, I have written about Hannibal (the great Carthaginian general), Cyrus the Great, Darius I and Xerxes (the great Persian emperors of the Achaemenid Empire) and briefly about Alexander and Julius Caesar. What about Indian kings, someone asked me? What about our own glorious history and heritage? Why are you not writing about that? All very valid questions – and they are right. India’s ancient history is at least as glorious and noteworthy as that of the Persians, Greeks or Romans. After all, we have produced such great spiritual leaders and philosophers such as the Buddha, Mahavira and Shankaracharya as well as great emperors such as Bimbisara, Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka the Great and Vikramaditya.

H.G. Wells in his book “A Short History of the World” observed that Ashoka’s rule circa 250 B.C. was the true age of enlightenment. Ashoka was an enlightened ruler, especially after he embraced Buddhism. The Mauryan Empire that he ruled has been compared to the Athenian Golden Age under Pericles (circa 440 B.C). The difference is that Ashoka ruled over many more people, and his reign was compassionate and benign. The Mauryan Empire ruled by Ashoka was also far larger and richer than the Athens of two hundred years earlier.

Sadly, no magnificent ruins of Pataliputra remain to remind us of the Mauryan Empire’s greatness, like Persepolis or Pasargadae in Iran or the Parthenon in Greece. In addition, western historians (propagandists actually) such as Strabo, Plutarch and later Livy and Virgil painstakingly documented (and greatly exaggerated) the achievements of their own Greek and Roman monarchs. Alas, no such detailed accounts exist of the Indian empires of old. But that does not mean these empires did not exist. So I will try and recreate the splendor and glory of what was ancient India in this blog.

So apart from the ancient Indian epics the Mahabharata and Ramayana, what is a good starting point to begin understanding ancient Indian history? A difficult question. The Magadhan kings Bimbisara and Ajatashatru circa 500 B.C. could be a good starting point. But even more interesting (and easier to write about from my point of view, since more documentation exists) is Chandragupta Maurya. Why Chandragupta Maurya? Because he was the founder of the first Indian Empire – a huge empire that stretched from Burma to eastern Iran, from Central Asia to South India. This empire was quite as large as Alexander’s empire, as culturally diverse and as rich. Chandragupta also was a hero, a great administrator and only twenty years old when he created this empire. His empire also lasted two hundred years, while Alexander’s broke up within a few years of his death. Chandragupta Maurya lived in very interesting times – circa 340 to 298 B.C., when the Western world was undergoing a seismic geo-political shift. What seismic geo-political shift, you may ask, and why is he using such big words? I am using big words because major world events justify their use. Allow me to elaborate.

In 333 B.C. Alexander the Macedonian invaded Asia and took on the Achaemenid Persian Empire. He beat the Persians at Issus in what is modern-day Turkey. In 331 B.C. he beat them again at Gaugamela in what is modern-day Northern Iraq. The Persian Achaemenid dynasty had established the first world empire more than two hundred years earlier, under Cyrus the Great in 560 B.C. Unfortunately, their last king Darius III (not to be confused with Darius I who is also called Darius the Great) was a coward and fled the battlefield at both Issus and Gaugamela. Because of his cowardice, he lost to Alexander when he should have won. Alexander inherited a stable, rich, enormous world empire that stretched from Northern India to Greece. To give you a modern day comparison of the changes this brought about in the ancient world, imagine if the United States went to war with say, Venezuela tomorrow - and lost. The world was turned on its head. The old established world order was abruptly destroyed and new power equations suddenly emerged.

After beating the Persians and consolidating his hold over the Persian heartland of Iran, Alexander decided to pacify the troublesome Central Asian Scythian tribes to the north and east of Iran. He got hopelessly lost in the mountains of the Hindu Kush (modern-day northern Afghanistan) where many of his soldiers died of frostbite and starvation. He finally emerged in Northern Punjab on the Indus River, sometime in 326 B.C. Here his army was challenged by the local king, the brave Porus. Alexander and Porus fought a series of closely contested battles. Alexander was impressed with the military abilities of Porus’s small army.

With a modest army of twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, Porus managed to beat off the much larger Macedonian army twice. The Macedonians were demoralized by the presence of war elephants (which they had never seen before) as well as the powerful Indian longbows. These longbows were six feet in length, and fired arrows that were capable of piercing even the thickest Macedonian body armor. Porus finally lost only because he was ambushed by the Macedonians on the Indus River. Porus (I will call him by his good Indian name Paurava – I am Indian and he was someone we can be proud of) was a giant of a man in both physical stature and courage – he was nearly seven feet tall. When his massive war elephant was brought down by the Macedonians, he dismounted and continued to fight. He continued fighting when his entire army was cut to pieces around him, and refused to give up, standing alone on the battlefield, sword and shield in hand, badly wounded and bleeding profusely. It is said that Alexander was impressed by Paurava’s bravery and that after the battle, they became friends.

Exhausted after a bitter winter in the Hindu Kush and so much fighting, Alexander’s army refused to press ahead into the rich and prosperous Indian Gangetic delta. Alexander was distraught but could do nothing about it. The reason the weary Macedonians were reluctant was because they heard that the king of the Nanda Empire (Dhana Nanda) awaited them across the Ganges, ready for battle, with a huge army - 100,000 infantry, 50,000 cavalry and over 300 war elephants.

The Macedonians were terrified of elephants which they saw for the first time in their battle against Paurava. They had no desire to fight and lose their lives in what was probably a lost cause - fulfilling Alexander’s desire for world dominion. They also had a healthy respect for the fighting abilities of the Indians, since they had fought against them in their battles with Paurava, as well as the Persians. A large Indian infantry and cavalry contingent had also formed part of the Ten Thousand Immortals – the elite bodyguard of the last Persian king Darius III. They had fought Alexander fiercely at both Issus and Gaugamela and had remained undefeated until Darius III decided to flee.

Why is he giving me so much of a background and when is he going to get to the damn point, you ask. Be patient, gentle reader! I am giving you such a detailed background because it has a great bearing on my story of Chandragupta Maurya – the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, and the first ruler of all India (and beyond).

And now to Chandragupta Maurya. His origins are shrouded in mystery. Who was he and like so many great men, how did he emerge from obscurity to create an empire that encompassed all of modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and eastern Iran? There are many different accounts. The one believed to be true is that he was a bastard son of the last king of the Nanda Empire (Dhana Nanda) and a palace maid whose name was Mura – therefore his name became Chandragupta Maurya. He was probably born in 340 B.C. He was a very intelligent, charismatic young man and as a child, had a hold over his playmates who treated him as if he were a young king. At a very young age, he attempted to usurp his father’s throne. He was exiled from Pataliputra and sent to Taxila on the north-western frontier of the Nanda Empire.

Here he met the famous Chanakya (also known as Kautilya), author of the world’s first comprehensive treatise on politics and statecraft, the “Arthashastra”. This was a fateful meeting. Chanakya spotted the young Chandragupta’s “empire-building” potential. He also realized that he could become powerful himself and Chandragupta was a willing instrument who would help him succeed. Chandragupta for his part, realized that Chanakya was a man who could help him take revenge against his father and gain control of the Nanda Empire.

The relationship between Chanakya and Chandragupta was similar to the one between Aristotle and the young Alexander. Chanakya was teaching at Taxila University in northwestern Punjab when Alexander arrived there. Worn out by his crossing of the Hindu Kush and his battles with Paurava, a weary Alexander stayed longer at Taxila than he had originally planned. This gave Chanakya the opportunity to introduce Chandragupta to Alexander. What an important and historical meeting that must have been!! Chandragupta tried to convince Alexander to go to war with his father Dhana Nanda, the ruler of the Nanda Empire. But he failed. Alexander’s army was exhausted, and they had no desire to fight Dhana Nanda’s army. Their attempt to conquer India had been unsuccessful. Since Chandragupta had been exiled and could not go back to his father’s kingdom, he decided to stay in Taxila with Chanakya.

History has it that Chandragupta quietly studied and learned the secrets of how Alexander had overrun the Persian Empire. The young man must have spoken at length to the Macedonians and understood their military strengths and strategies – the power and cohesion of the heavily armored Greek phalanx, the battle gear of the Macedonian Companion cavalry, the use of siege towers and engines, etc. All of this knowledge was to come in very useful later. This meeting between Alexander and Chandragupta probably took place in 325 B.C., right before Alexander finally gave up his dream of conquering India and headed west back to Babylon, where he died two years later, probably of malaria. Alexander’s death and lack of a successor caused a power vacuum in the Old Persian Empire.

When Alexander died in Babylon in 323 B.C., his Macedonian lieutenants gathered around him like vultures, all hoping to be anointed his successor. Legend has it that when Alexander was asked who the chosen successor to his empire was, he raised his head from his deathbed and whispered in his fevered voice “krateros” – which meant “to the strongest”. This story may or may not be true. What is true is that Alexander’s young empire, inherited from the Persians, fell apart just ten years after his conquest because of Alexander’s poor administrative skills and the lack of an appointed successor.

The power vacuum created by Alexander’s death meant a mad scramble for power among his lieutenants (“satrap” in Greek, “kshatrapavan” in old Persian). One of Alexander’s satraps Seleucus (known later as Seleucus Nicator or Seleucus the Victorious) wrested control of the eastern portion of the Alexander’s empire – from eastern Iran to the Indus River in the Punjab. Seleucus was a very capable and fascinating man in his own right and established the Seleucid Empire in Iran and Iraq, which was later overthrown by the second Persian Empire of the Parthians.

But back to Chandragupta!! By 325 B.C. Chandragupta had an able guide and mentor in Chanakya. Having failed to convince Alexander to invade India, Chandragupta and Chanakya resorted to an alternate plan. Together, they planned and schemed to take on Chandragupta’s father, Dhana Nanda, the king of the Nanda Empire. Chandragupta was still a teenager. He was resentful that his father had exiled him to Taxila. He considered himself the heir to the Nanda throne, though he was a bastard son. Over the next few years, Chandragupta planned meticulously. He built an army of his own. He also formed strong alliances with powerful enemies of the Nanda Empire, including Paurava’s successor, the Himalayan king Parvatka. Your enemy’s enemy is your friend, remember? One of the basic cornerstones of politics and statecraft. Guided by the clever Chanakya, Chandragupta finally put together a formidable army and a powerful alliance of his father’s enemies. Then he proceeded to go to war with his father – the ruler of the Nanda Empire. Here, unfortunately, historical accounts are hazy and unlike in Western history, there are no clear accounts of the battle that took place between Chandragupta and his father’s army.

What is known is that Chandragupta beat his father’s general Bhadrasala in a series of battles, the last one ending with the siege of the city of Kusumapura on the Indo-Gangetic plain. We also know that Chandragupta beat his father Dhana Nanda and killed him. He had gained his revenge. He then became king and ascended the throne at Pataliputra in eastern India (modern-day Bihar). He supplanted the old Nanda dynasty and founded one of his own - the Mauryan dynasty. This was in 320 B.C. Chandragupta was only twenty years old, and the ruler of a large, rich empire that stretched more than a thousand miles from east to west, and eight hundred miles north to south.

Chandragupta then proceeded to pick off the weaker states in southern India. By the time he was twenty two years old (about 318 B.C.), he was ruler of all India – the first ruler of India, our first Emperor. Chandragupta was an excellent administrator as well (most warriors are not). Crime was almost unheard of in the Mauryan Empire in his reign. The empire was prosperous, and Chandragupta’s penal system was harsh – evasion of taxes meant a death sentence and perjury was punished by maiming. The empire was divided into three provinces, each managed by a viceroy. A palace guard comprised of well-paid foreign mercenaries guarded the royal presence. This ensured that no disaffected local elements tried to kill him. Chanakya set up a secret police agency and an excellent intelligence network that protected the empire from enemies, within and outside the empire.

How prosperous and stable was the Mauryan Empire under Chandragupta? We have to rely on accounts from visiting Greeks here. Megasthenes, Seleucus’s ambassador to the Mauryan Empire had this to say about the power and opulence of Pataliputra, the capital of the Mauryan Empire and the royal palace there - “It has wonders which neither Persian Susa in all its glory nor the magnificence of Ekbatana can hope to vie; indeed, only the well-known vanity of the Persians could imagine such a comparison”.

At the time of Chandragupta Maurya, the city was surrounded by a wooden wall which had slots from which to shoot arrows. This wall had five hundred and seventy towers and sixty-four gates. Beyond the wall was a deep trench which was used for defense and as a sewage system. The city was mostly built of wood. This changed when Chandragupta’s grandson Ashoka the Great ascended the throne. He converted the city from a wooden one to a city of stone and granite (much like Augustus did with Rome two hundred and fifty years later).

The royal palace at Pataliputra is reported to have covered an area of four square miles. Ashoka also built universities and monasteries. Pataliputra was the largest, richest and most civilized city in the world in its time. No Greek or Persian city could match it. Sadly, very little of this great city remains to remind the modern visitor of its splendor and magnificence.

Chandragupta now turned his attention to the west in a bid to expand his empire. As a teenager, he had spent several years studying the military strategies and tactics of the Macedonians. This knowledge now proved to be very useful. He decided to take on Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Seleucid Empire, the man who had taken control of the eastern portion of the erstwhile Persian Empire. While Seleucus Nicator was a great empire-builder in his own right, he was no match for the young Indian conqueror.

Chandragupta went to war with Seleucus in 306 B.C., a man he must have met nearly twenty years before, when he was a young exile at Taxila. Chandragupta adapted Macedonian battle tactics to suit Indian conditions and comprehensively beat Seleucus in the field. Again, no accounts of the battle survive, so sadly no details are available. But it must have been one humdinger of a battle!! Seleucus was forced to cede huge territories east of the Indus River to Chandragupta. All of modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and eastern Iran were handed over to Chandragupta as part of the peace treaty after Seleucus lost.

Chandragupta now ruled over the largest empire in the world – from Burma (Myanmar) in the East, to Iran in the West, from Sri Lanka in the South to Uzbekistan in the North. This empire was quite as large, rich and culturally diverse as the erstwhile Persian Empire conquered by Alexander the Macedonian.

Chandragupta Maurya abdicated his throne in favor of his son in 298 B.C., and died shortly after. He was only forty two years old.

Like most conquerors, Chandragupta was intelligent, ruthless, opportunistic and charismatic. But he was India’s first emperor, and founder of a great empire and a great lineage. His grandson Ashoka the Great expanded the boundaries of the Mauryan Empire even further, and became the greatest king in India’s history. Let nobody belittle India’s history and heritage. It is quite as great as the history of Greece or Rome. I hope this blog has in a small way brought alive the first man who united India under a single banner, the banner of the great Mauryan Empire – Chandragupta Maurya, India’s first emperor.