ORF Chennai Chapter Interaction

Attended an interaction “Great Power Rivalry over Indian Sub-Continent” by Dr Vepa Kosla, Director, Indic Studies Foundation, Pleasanton, California, US.

It was a long walk through Indic History (The term as he used it) and the a plethora of information about how divisive policies were used by foreign powers for vested interests and how some policies percolated the administrative system and plagues us even today.

It was indeed very encyclopedic! One of the questions that kept being raised was the justification for the need of such Inward looking study and another point that was never touched during the course of the discussion is the impact on India because of this power rivalry (I was hoping this would have been addressed).

One of the reasons why we need to study history is to understand the events that shaped our country. This however is interpreted as backward looking and not forward looking! History has the terrible habit of repeating itself and specially in the case of International divisive politics the knowledge of past strategies of foreign powers used in India would make us look at the future with a sense of preparedness.

The caste system is a classic example that was maserminded by colonial powers (Kings move we should say!) that has to this day created a visible and sometimes invisible divide in our society.

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