History Repeats Itself

Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man cast a ver large shadow.

History has shown us that there are always who rule and others who are ruled. But what makes a different is how one sitting on the throne ruled. Hundreds of kings and queens are recorded in the pages of history but there are only two whom we have accorded the epithet of being “the Great”.

Fourth century BCE (Before Common Era) was the time in the history of Indian subcontinent, when there emerged first Empire in the subcontinent under Mauryas. Chandragupta Maurya and Bindusara were efficient rulers as they were able to build a pan-Indian empire, but the final nail in the coffin was struck by Ashok the Great. And there is a reason why he is called a Great ruler. Not that he won many wars, but what he did on the ideological level is the reason why today every child knows his name. He only fought one major war in his life (which he of course won), but his biggest achievement was to propound the state ideology of Dhamma (Prakrit word). This is loosely translated in Hindi as Dharma. Ashok’s empire was full of diversities in terms of language, culture, religion, nationality, etc and he needed something to unite his empire yet keep the distinct identities of people. Dhamma was a response to this political need. This worked in favor of Ashok and he is known as the best ruler in early Indian history.

There are two ways to keep a large empire united- use of force and uniting on subconscious level. Either the ruler chooses to rule his empire with an iron hand and crush all the opposition or he choose to subdue their hearts with deciding in favor of an ideology. Emperors who chose the second option were more successful than those who chose the former one.

Another example of a great ruler comes from sixteenth century. He was a Mughal ruler and was crowned as the emperor at the age of thirteen. But when he became a man, he was a man of honour. He too conquered people on the ideological level and propounded a state ideology named Din-i ilahi. He too was very much successful as a ruler in his times. His name is written in golden letters in the pages of Tarikh (Persian term for History). And his name was Akbar the Great.

While these events took centuries to occur in historical times, in modern times we have seen a number of efficient and able rulers (Prime Ministers) in a very short span of time.

Our Nationalist movement gave us our first Prime Minister, who was a charismatic leader and commanded the respect of a wide range of population. His daughter Indira Gandhi was also a strong leader and was the first Prime Minister of India and remains so till date. Twenty-first century has also given us such a leader in the form of Narendra Modi.

But what I want to point out through all this is very aptly summarized by Varys (GoT) “Power resides where men believes it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow.” History is what gives us patterns of how things have worked and are supposed to work. This is just an example of where power resides. Other facets of life can be predicted if one keenly observes what past has in its stores for us. It’s all here in front of us, only if one has the eye to see it.