A Never Ending Conflict- Episodes From Indic Resistance

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Amit Agarwal is an engineer from University a Roorkee (now IIT Roorkee). Currently working in a prestigious Maharatna PSU, he took his time out for the subject he is passionate about. He is an avid marathoner and mountaineer too.

This is his second one after a widely appreciated book on Indian Medieval history titled Swift horses Sharp Swords.

If you do not learn from history, you will be history.

So, here I am. Penning my second book. While researching for my first book, I came across many tales and accounts which are barely known to Indians. This book is an attempt in this direction. In India, history is normally studied as a tedious lot of non-coherent facts and dates, not as an actual tale told in a scintillating manner. Thus, students are generally deprived of the complete story of their ancestors, the prevailing social, religious and economic conditions, the end result being that students are left without a sense of history. They also end up ignorant and misinformed of their precious ancient knowledge. This phenomenon has resulted in an unnatural craving for respect from the West while suffering from an immense inferiority complex. This has amplified the tendency of acute self-flagellation in the Indians. Salman Rushdie once wrote that we were all mysteriously handcuffed to history; it has become all the more important that someone tells it with requisite gusto and hunger. The book is a sincere attempt to fulfil that vacuum.

As with my first book, I have strived to use simple English with some crisp writing which will possibly catch the unwavering attention of the readers. I have covered those chapters of history that are relevant even today, and hopefully some lessons can be drawn out of it. Further, I have made all the efforts to make it as interesting and informative as possible, and for this very purpose, I paced like thriller which can be finished in a day or two.

Most of the Indian medieval history is indeed disturbing a depressing and so in this volume, a morale boosting story Alexander's fete a tete-a-tete with the sadhus on the banks of Indus included Stephen Dedalus, a character from James Joyce's famous 10** novel Places, save: History is a nightmare from which to trying to awake! This exactly is the purpose of the book, to awake the readers from the everlasting slumber. Moreover, I wish to prove Henry Ford wrong when he famously said: 'some things are be-ne forgotten the brutality unleashed by the different invaders on our civilization has to be exposed rather than forgotten.

George Santayana’s famous dictum, echoing Euripides and Thucydides that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, stands so true for us Indians. My efforts are geared towards this not to let the readers forget our history, no matter how violent it is. The idea is to give the readers hope by reminding them of our past idiocies, and at the same time, putting down to experience. Another motive is to make our sense of history Integrated and unbroken, to come to terms with the horrible past and the present, and hopefully to draw some lessons for the future.