India mothered democracy, tradition dates back to Vedic times: Indian Council of Historical Research

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, December 24

Indian democratic traditions go back to Vedic times and evidence of structures of people’s self-governance, including sabhas, samitis and khap panchayats can be traced back to at least 5000 BCE.

These conclusions are part of ‘India: The Mother of Democracy’, a project the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) undertook as part of the Indian presidency of the G-20.

The book, which Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, ICHR chief Raghuvendra Tanwar and ICHR member secretary Umesh Kadam, presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, features 30 research articles by historians and archaeologists who studied the nation’s past from what they call a “geo-cultural” rather than a “geo-political” perspective.

“The geo-political perspective came from colonial historians who sidestepped any stress on our civilisational democratic ethos and reduced everything to the Mughals and British history. It is time to look at the past through the geo-cultural prism. This book traces Indian democratic traditions back to Rakhigarhi (the largest Harappan site in India, in Haryana) which not only reveals the existence of people’s self-governance structures but conclusively debunks the Aryan advent theory,” Kadam told the Tribune.

The ICHR expert said the book also traces India’s influence over Greece, Rome and the Middle East.

Referring to the dynastic alliance between Chadragupta and Greek general Selecus Nicator who gave his daughter’s hand in marriage to the Mauryan king, Kadam said, “Indian practices went to Greece, the Middle East, Rome and Europe just as Cholas inspired Indonesia and the regions beyond.”

The book has chapters on cultural interconnectedness of the Indian people, a thread that kept them united despite invasions.

“We find the mention of the word Bharata Varsh, Bharat Khand repeatedly through ages,” said Kadam.

ICHR is also working on a project to celebrate the contributions of Indian kings between the 8th and the 14th centuries, a period it says the colonial historians altogether skipped.

“This period reveals how Indian governance structures were democratic and not autocratic as painted by some,” said the ICHR expert.

The book further argues that the Vedic term for law is Dharman and consciousness of a sense of justice and democracy existed in India much before the Magna Carta.