THE ROAD TO

TAKSHASHILA

***By B R Jaitely

© B. R. Jaitely. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, in a retriev-al system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First edition published by:Mohanji Productions and Publications 2014

Dedicated to my father whose pioneering research into the history and

secrets of Takshashila enabled me to write the book he wanted me to write.

Also, to my wife who in spite of her indifferent health let me carry out his wishes.

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PREFACE

***

Situated in the Himalayan foothills 15 miles north-east of our ancestral

town, the Takshashila ruins have been evoking for archaeologists ever

since the dawn of the modern era as much curiosity as zest to delve deep

into them and uncover the secrets of India’s hoary past lying buried there.

May be, the legends about the great ancient university presided

over by Chanakya during its most glorious period about 2500 years

ago, cast a mystic spell on the listeners, my ancestors believed they did

have séances with the sages of Takshashila to know what they thought

about the present day India and its predominant populations, the Hindus.

My father witnessed these metaphysical visitations, or believed he did

and valued what the message from the grand seat of the Vedic learning

said though being an educated person he felt inclined to dismiss them as

hallucinations. But he could not and on the contrary, cherished them to

later pass them on to me for weaving into a biographical book on him.

Apart from excerpts from the occultic period of his life, he left for me

vast accounts of his adventurous career preceding the road to Takshashila.

The two intermix to present a holistic panorama of his life and have

not been ‘yoked together by violence’ as Dr Samuel Johnson would say but

occupy their slots when they reach them.

Literally brought up under the shadow of Takshashila, my father

did have the awareness of what the Capital of the Hindu Empire ruled

by King Ambhi signified: the prowess of the Vedic India which was,

in the course of time, taken to its zenith by Chandra Gupta Maurya

under guidance of Chanakya. This awareness was an integral part of

his convictions made explicit by him as a student of the Prince of Wales

College at Jammu and during the subsequent period as an employee of

His Majesty’s Government, a Hindu missionary and a freedom fighter.

The book might have remained a jumble of disarrayed material

had I not visited Takshashila for a face-to-face and received a stern

reminder of the words to my father that I would work on it to

complete it. I got on the sidelines of the Islamabad SAARC summit

I covered as a journalist in January 2004 the opportunity for a direct

acquaintance with the ‘first laboratory of nationalism’, where Chanakya

experimented with his concept ‘knowledge with power’ and raised

an army of Takshashila monks to ensure unity of Bharat Varsha.

Earlier, wandering through the excellently maintained Takshashila

museum, I felt to have been transported to the Vedic era to witness its

grandeur. And that night I dreamt a séance with the sages of Takshashila

or, so I felt the next morning. Yet, the message I received from them

was clear: ‘you have seen our karmabhoomi and felt its ambiance

and must fulfil words to your father’. I am thankful to the curator

of the museum who let me go about and see the ancient exhibits.

My gratitude to wife Ada who played the home maker long after

the Partition, helping me go through and sort out the jumbled heaps

of record maintained by my father in English and Urdu. Her decision

about the sequence of narration was always correct. My thanks

are also due to my children who allowed their mother to help me.

I trust the intelligence of the readers which will make them appreciate

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the odyssey of the protagonist from the pragmatic to occultic and then

to the pragmatic again when he finds the resolution of his conflicts

and accepts the turns of India’s destiny from ages bygone but not

without the expectation that the nation would one day find its saviour.

He wanted his life to be read and appreciated. And I owed him a

debt he left for me, that is, the accounts of his life to be decoded and

made readable. I hope the book pays back the debt. To me, fiction

is the ideal form of facts which the book is laced with at places.

B.R. Jaitely, Chandigarh

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INTRODUCTION

***

This book is a blend of history and fiction for a readable personified

presentation of the Hindu mindset which appeared in the later

half of the nineteenth century, after the demise of the Mughal

Empire and the end of the Muslim rule in India. The native psyche was

thrilled at the assumption that what emerged after the 1857 unrest,

popularly known as the first War of Independence was a Hindu India,

which would see the rise of a nationalist society to fight and overcome

the British rulers who had replaced the Muslim dictatorship. The Hindus

who had been in a state of self-oblivion because of prolonged spell of

foreign rule were suddenly reawakened by the clarion call of religious

and cultural path breakers like Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Ram

Krishna Parmhansa and Swami Vivekananda, besides a number of social

reformers ushering in a neo-Vedic era. They raised the curiosity of the

educated Hindus in the ancient scriptures notably the Vedas, Upnishadas,

epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata, particularly the divine message of

the Gita and encouraged the study of Sanskrit, recreating interest in Hindu

rituals and festivals. A galaxy of religious, literary, social and political

personalities carried forward this assumption of a Hindu India, converting

it into conviction and initiating the Hindu renaissance towards the end

of the century. The incipient renaissance consolidated considerably in

the first quarter of the twentieth century with the rise of the educated

Hindu middle class, replacing the well-to-do erstwhile feudal sections and

producing thinkers, men of letters, entrepreneurs and professionals to

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provide leadership to the community. Its enlightened youth preferred to

become teachers, medical practitioners and lawyers instead of religious

clerics, shop keepers, artisans, menials in government offices or odd-job-

men. Those belonging to the upper strata of the feudal gentry, who could

afford higher education, were being attracted towards the civil services

offered by the British government. The protagonist belongs to this gentry

that was beinggradually eclipsed by the nouveau riches patronized by the

English at a time when the status quo was yielding to a social ferment

causing epochal changes in the Indian society, particularly amongst the

Hindus.

Coming of a family which had profited from the feudal privileges,

including, jagirs (fiefs) conferred for martial services to the ruler of the

day besides administrative-cum-judicial posts, he grows up under the

influence of his reformist father’s dislike for indigenous nobility he called,

‘a school of sycophants’. His elder brother, a senior administrative-cum-

judicial officer trusted by his White superiors as an ‘important limb of

the British government in India’ gets him admitted to the Prince of Wales

College, an exclusive educational institution of the British Empire in India,

Located at Jammu, the college was founded for feudal scions and wards

of other pedigreed opulent sections close to the rulers to anglicize them in

accordance with Lord Macaulay’s plan to create ‘sahibs out of the brown

skin natives’. He soon discovers that the British authorities expect from the

Indian students complete loyalty bordering on servility, which he abhors

but cannot resist openly. A talented alumnus who is spared the entrance

test compulsory for natives because of merit reflected in his school leaving

certificate, he is not ignorantly orthodox despite being a staunch Brahmin.

He has achieved proficiency in the King’s English, reads literature and

has developed aesthetic taste to enjoy beauty, human or ideological. He

attracts attention of a Catholic missionary assigned to the College to draw

the Hindu youth to Christianity. But in this case, the priest fails in spite

of the spell of his charming sister, also a missionary, who falls for him

instead of winning him over to her faith. The priest occasionally engages

him in lengthy discussions to analyze his Hindu character and finds him

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obsessed with the past glory of his religion, culture and civilization-to

revive which is his overriding passion and for which he will make any

sacrifice. Instead of trying to weaken his resolve, the priest, an Oxford

educated Doctor of Divinity, sharpens it and tells him ‘instead of drawing

you to the Christianity, I want to embrace Hinduism myself ’.

And then an incident takes place, which brings to the fore the

nationalist credentials of the Hindu youth, for a career that will serve the

British Empire more than his being a Christian. He is engaged in a running

feud with a group of Muslim students belonging to rich land lord families

who, jealous of his brilliant academic record for which he is honoured

by the College, don’t miss any opportunity when they can humiliate him

with aspersions on his religious zeal describing him a ‘ponga Pandit (a

worthless Brahmin). He hits back saying ‘the only merit you possess is

being ‘angrezon ke ghulam’ (slave of the Englishmen)’. The remark is

played up by his rivals as highly derogatory of Englishmen and the Principal

holds him guilty of blasphemy against the British Crown. The youth

refuses to apologize and the Principal decides to rusticate him for gross

misdemeanor. The intervention of his elder brother, however allows him

to leave the College without any adverse remark in his character certificate.

All this while, the priest continues to engage him in yet another

discussion, emphasizing that the Hindus suffered because of strategic

blunders, one of which was to ignore genuine friends by submitting to an

oversized ego. They had the best of everything, rich philosophical treatises,

unmatched cultural heritage and a civilization representing an ideal living.

Yet they had to face the worst of ignominies including, a thousand-year

slavery under the Muslim rulers. Unaware that the College incident and

his traits of a staunch Hindu in thought and practice of the neo-Vedic era

were being analyzed and interpreted differently at another level, he is

astonished that the priest did not attach any significance to the Principal’s

charge against him and gets him from the library some books on history

and general knowledge to read and assess the Hindu destiny over the ages.

He also does not know that the die is being cast for a future, he could not

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have even imagined. In a well-thought, well-planned and well-executed

strategy, involving a top British General and political wing of the Empire,

he is convinced that the benign British rule is better than the Muslim

dictatorship and is morphed through a circuitous route into a combatant

officer of the Royal Indian Army to fight and defeat rebel tribal Pashtoon

elements from the no-mans-land between Afghanistan and British India,

threatening the North West Frontier Province and the adjoining upper

reaches of Jammu and Kashmir.

Led by a British General, his handlers are so impressed by his

conviction-based devotion to the duty imposed on him and the successes he

achieves that they allow him every comfort in a very difficult, dangerous,

and tension bound life on the battle front including permission for a live-in

relationship at ae non-family station with a childhood girl friend he could

not marry because of a parental mandate. The General who has a complete

dossier on him tries and succeeds to a great extent in conditioning his mind

with his own politico-martial theories and becomes his friend, philosopher

and guide. The General supports the unorthodox manner in which the

Hindu youth morphed ferocious soldier pursues each mission, and assigns

to him an assignment only ‘in consultation’ with the Army Commander.

However, the General realizes soon enough that though he succeedss in

the mission, he has overdone his duty and exceeded the brief to wreak

vengeance on the fanatic Muslims inhabiting the tribal belt. He perceives

them as descendants of the Islamic invaders who had plundered India for

aver a thousand years instead of just repulsing a serious threat to the British

Empire’s ustable western frontiers. Though promoted, he is transferred to

a less problematic area; he considers a punishment post and feels betrayed

soon entering a zone of disenchantments and uncertainties. His despair is

accentuated when he finds that the medical tests of his girl friend show,

she is barren. At his new post, he has enough time to read newspapers and

indoctrinating material sent by the General, besides analyzing the army

commander’s brainstorming theories. Here he develops political insights,

which enable him to understand that the British rule has similarities with

the perceived Muslim dictatorship. His depression mounts and becomes

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overwhelming at the Jalianwala Bagh massacre which optimizes his

disillusionment with his British employers.He resigns from His Majesty’s

Service to quietly disappear. His five-year incognito odyssey of self-

discovery brings him face-to-face with the reality of inherent and imposed

deficiencies of the Hindu society, instances of which he comes across at

Benaras (Varanasi). He returns home, a chastened, enlightened and mature

man and turns away from romantic companions, his childhood friend and

the priest’s sister, who provided him ‘only aesthetic satisfaction’ in a period

of tension and depression, to marry a girl he finds to be his alter ego,

instead of a ‘passion pill’ and embarks upon a course which passes through

mysteries of Takshashila, political upheavals, the Partition holocaust and

ends in the denouement to conflicts in his life.

Takshashila (Taxala) exerts its mystic influence on him through séances

and dream sequences. He is advised by repeated metaphysical séances with

the Takshashila sages to follow Chanakya, the master strategist, exponent

of statecraft and promoter of ‘kutniti’ (winner’s diplomacy), to avoid yet

another holocaust waiting to happen to the Hindus. He tries but fails

because of lack of following and collateral support. However, he delves

deep into history and comes up his own interpretation and accounts based

on research supported by indigenous sources not undertaken by text book

writers. By then a settled man with no economic problems, he prepares a

blueprint for reconstruction and reawakening of the Hindus in the hostile

frontier belt he resides in. Fatehjang, his ancestral place, is at a distance of

just 15 miles (about 25 KMs) from Takshashila. He carries forth research

initiated by his father into the past of his small rural habitation and finds

it to have been an extension of the Takshashila University. After a dream

séance with five ‘rishis’ of Takshashila summoning him, he visits the ruins

of the ancient Capital city of a Hindu Empire, and is commanded by them

to follow Chanakya for a better destiny. He makes the Takshashila monks

the mascot of his mission revival which he has to abandon because of

strong opposition by the dominant Muslim community reflected in the

administration’s hostile attitude and lack of support among the Hindus.

He diverts his energy to prepare the Hindus, physically and mentally, to

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counter threats of conversion in a hostile demographic environment. He

sets up a youth wing to act as the vanguard and ensure universal education

for the community particularly women and registers a great success.

Tension generated by fanatic section of the Muslim League which

demanded Pakistan and the riots on the eve of and after the Partition

overtake his efforts and he has to suspend the mission hoping to revive

it when the situation normalizes. It never does and deteriorates to reach

the inevitable conclusion, the Partition and the resultant bloodshed,

demolishing his fantastic vision of a glorious future. He reaches India

broken yet optimistic, expecting the situation to normalize one day for

him to revive contact with like-minded people he left behind in Pakistan

for the ‘repair and reconstruction of body and mind of India’ damaged

by the holocaust. For the revival of his mission, he also enlists support

of the two women who once adored him and are now spinsters past the

age of 50, settled in Calcutta. His childhood friend teaches English in an

eminent women’s college and the other is a senior functionary with an

international charitable organization. Both had been in touch with him

until a little before he was engulfed in anarchy and had to migrate to India..

He assumes that they would read his interview to an English news agency

about his adventurous journey from Pakistan to India full of exploits and

hopes they will locate him as some others had done. When this does not

happen, he telephonically contacts his childhood friend and is shocked

when instead of welcoming him she taunts him for his nondescript Hindu

mission describing it as a series of weird fantasies and wasteful exercises.

‘Don’t you realize that had you not resigned from the Royal Indian Army,

you would, because of your rapport with English employers, have achieved

the rank of a General and escaped the holocaust you were so much afraid

of. Now do something meaningful to support a large family. Just to inform

you, we have decided to terminate our spinsterhood and respond to offers

of companionship’. Separated from old colleagues and associates, he had

been adumbrating a new world in India. The two girls had walked into

his life at a time when he was struggling for a foothold and walked away

after he got it. Bewildered and befuddled, he tries to reorient to reality. ‘I

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am wrong. Yes, they have walked in again not to support me but for the

final drop-scene’. He goes to bed at night with a sick mind to find the

Takshashila sages appearing in his dream for the last time. They tell him

why the mission dear to him has failed in spite of his great experiment with

the Hindu renaissance and reconstruction and show him the way to the

denouement from a life jinxed with conflicts.

The book tries to pinpoint causes of the events in the most formative

first half of the twentieth century. They reflect actual happenings and first

hand experience of those who survived the humongous destruction of

human life during the century next to the two world wars. Past history and

contemporary developments have been interwoven and filtered through

the protagonist’s mind to present a holistic view. The book’s language in

King’s English and the diction corresponds to the usage of the period. The

protagonist’s career is biographical, except parts where fiction has been

used to present facts in an ideal form or what should they have been instead

of what they actually were. Important names and situations are factual but

with imaginative embellishments to present history in an attractive format

without destroying the basics. It is a saga in a racy narrative of the life and

time of a man who was extraordinarily intelligent, an intrepid fighter for

his convictions, a master strategist and a fearless nationalist personifying

the Hindu psyche of the post-Mughal renaissance period.

READERSHIP

The book is fashioned to attract universal readership but will have

special appeal for sections wanting to know the incidents hitherto

unpublished which immediately preceded and succeeded the partition

holocaust. They are contemporary to the existing three generations

of Punjabis spread all over India and abroad. As the milieu of the book

contains pre-partition areas of Punjab, it is likely to command extensive

readership in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asian region.

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