THE RATIONALE BEHIND THE SELECTION OF MY GREATEST TEN SINCE PLASSEY ... [1]
INTRODUCTION :
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Comparisons are odious and are often better not engaged in. But the human mind has this inbuilt tendency to analyse, compare and synthesise in its bid to comprehend things and arrive at conclusions. Hence, despite the adage, comparisons keep men busy as they figure out in their minds the relative strengths and weaknesses of eminent personalities and historical figures of epic contributions to human society. In keeping with this mental propensity I entered into this adventure in reflection about the greatest ten Indians that have trodden the soil of our motherland.
WHY TEN?
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INTRODUCTION :
------------------------
Comparisons are odious and are often better not engaged in. But the human mind has this inbuilt tendency to analyse, compare and synthesise in its bid to comprehend things and arrive at conclusions. Hence, despite the adage, comparisons keep men busy as they figure out in their minds the relative strengths and weaknesses of eminent personalities and historical figures of epic contributions to human society. In keeping with this mental propensity I entered into this adventure in reflection about the greatest ten Indians that have trodden the soil of our motherland.
WHY TEN?
---------------
A list of eminence must be kept to an optimal numerical strength for it to have prestige and for it not to fatigue the reader. The number ten [ 10 ] has strange associations with the human brain ever since the zero [ 0 ] was invented in ancient India. It opened up the wondrous world of numbers and mathematics was suddenly catapulted into a vast domain of exploration whence it has never looked back. These greatest ten also exceeded ordinary human limits in their attainments. Hence, perhaps, both for reasons of decimal symmetry and the unlimited nature associated as stated, I instinctively decided to select just ten greatest Indians since Plassey.
WHY PLASSEY?
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'Plassey' is the English degeneration of the name 'Palashi'. Here in 1757 an epoch-making battle took place which altered world history. The defeat of Bengal's Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah that day at the hands of the treacherous Robert Clive of the English East India Company precipitated the gradual loss of India's independence over the next hundred years and brought in its wake the reaction of dependent India by way of a renaissance and a resurgence that threw up a galaxy of great men and women who raised India once more 'into life and freedom'. Hence, in listing these great personalities here, Plassey seemed to be the defining moment in India's debacle that inspired her resurgent response to overcome it en route to freedom and all-round national glory.
Plassey remains the contact point in cultural conflict between the European colonist and the colonised native, the point of confluence of the Occident and the Orient in the midst of the tumult of war and conquest. Plassey marks the death of free India and the birth of the India aspiring to excel in every discipline of national life as it emerges in the wider world beyond her territorial waters both in geographical terms and in thought terms. And the renaissance that followed in Bengal post-Plassey has no parallel in Indian history in the last millenium or so. A wave of consequential cultural emergence that built up to the tune of a symphonic movement and dazzled the nation in its sheer brilliance must be attributed to the conquest and capitulation India suffered at Plassey. India modernised post-Plassey. Hence Plassey.
End of Part 1
Written by Sugata Bose
WHY PLASSEY?
-----------------------
'Plassey' is the English degeneration of the name 'Palashi'. Here in 1757 an epoch-making battle took place which altered world history. The defeat of Bengal's Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah that day at the hands of the treacherous Robert Clive of the English East India Company precipitated the gradual loss of India's independence over the next hundred years and brought in its wake the reaction of dependent India by way of a renaissance and a resurgence that threw up a galaxy of great men and women who raised India once more 'into life and freedom'. Hence, in listing these great personalities here, Plassey seemed to be the defining moment in India's debacle that inspired her resurgent response to overcome it en route to freedom and all-round national glory.
Plassey remains the contact point in cultural conflict between the European colonist and the colonised native, the point of confluence of the Occident and the Orient in the midst of the tumult of war and conquest. Plassey marks the death of free India and the birth of the India aspiring to excel in every discipline of national life as it emerges in the wider world beyond her territorial waters both in geographical terms and in thought terms. And the renaissance that followed in Bengal post-Plassey has no parallel in Indian history in the last millenium or so. A wave of consequential cultural emergence that built up to the tune of a symphonic movement and dazzled the nation in its sheer brilliance must be attributed to the conquest and capitulation India suffered at Plassey. India modernised post-Plassey. Hence Plassey.
End of Part 1
Written by Sugata Bose
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