A string of nomads with their jingling bells, bleating goats and grumbling but powerful Bactrian camels emerged from a narrow, treeless gorge in the mountains, lurching forth in search of greener pastures. They were headed into plains below with no particular destination in mind. Their footsore but ferocious sheep dogs trotted along, bored and uninterested. These nomads had determined faces, their shouts to keep the animals in line were urgent, but there was no hurry in their gait or an itinerary apparently in their thoughts. A state of mind like that is rare and normally a great liberating feeling but also a greater responsibility as the lives and wellbeing of those he has been placed to lead depend largely on his stewardship. All that was important at the moment was to reach a safe camping place before the sunset where there was water to drink, fodder for the cattle and firm ground to pitch their tents and unhitch their horses. As they crossed a dry bed of a ravine, the caravan elder climbed up a clay mound, cupped his palms around his eyes and gazed far into the dusty plain, crisscrossed by rutted dirt tracks, searching the distant hazy horizon from end to end with infinite care. He decided to march on for a little longer, perhaps he had sighted a suitable place.
The sun had started to travel towards the west and its rays had begun to pale. They reached a small cluster of trees on the bank of a gurgling freshwater stream where grass was in abundance and ground appeared sufficiently firm to camp for the night. Birds were already circling overhead in anticipation, tweeting, picking berries and worms for dinner, and settling down on branches in their family bunches. Soon smoke began to rise from cooking fires, dogs lay down to a deceptive snooze while camels and mules were being unloaded and tents were being pitched. Camels had ceased grumbling, and surveyed the surrounding landscape in philosophic disinterest, with majestic sweeps of their large heads.
The sheep huddled quietly for the night. Except for the occasional shuffle of a sheep or swift swishing of a horse’s tail a hush suddenly fell over the camp as the sun went down. Soft, woody smoke hung over the camp in the mellow Indian dusk. Pitch darkness and absolute silence descended together. Darkness was rent briefly by flying sparks as someone tried to shake off ambers from the un-burnt wood.
They stayed on longer than what their habitual practice. This is how a small hamlet in the vast fertile plain must have come about in our part of the world: the forerunners of Peshawar, Multan, Lahore, Delhi, Varanasi, or Patna for that matter.
When people decide to settle down communities are set up. Hamlets, villages, towns and cities come into being. A morally and materially interactive and mutually dependent living begins. Once the settlement takes on the signs of permanence, artisans, craftsmen and indispensible men and women of arts and daily skills join the community. Invariably the first to arrive and set up shop are the butcher, the baker and the candle-maker. They are closely followed by the blacksmith, the carpenter and the mason. The teacher, the musician, the painter and the saint are the last of the social enablers to arrive, and also the last to leave should the settlement face extinction, as they are moral craftsmen whereas the former are material workmen.
By now the hamlet is buzzing with healthy human activity and expanding into a small trading outpost. This is the time it begins to need order and somebody to mediate, adjudge matters between men and an enforcement mechanism, or shall we say, an authority. That brings around another set of men as administrative and security apparatus. The settlement begins to look like a well-rounded and throbbing outfit where more and more outsiders begin to visit as merchants and settlers. As the settlement thrives and prospers a different breed of men start hovering about; these are thieves, robbers and swindlers in search of opportunity to steal, rob or deprive. Their menacing presence thereabouts creates an immediate and real necessity for a central authority with sufficient coercive power to protect and deter. However for our little hamlet a headman with a few able-bodied tough men were enough. This humble beginning may be regarded as the first seed of dynastic rule and standing armies in a larger sense.
Stakes rose as farm produce started to become surplus, cultivable land extended and cattle multiplied. Water sources became stressed, grain storage insufficient and natural calamities like heavy rains, floods, famine and pest attacks threatened to cause losses. Slowly but inexorably a market economy was forming in this little village. Larger clans had bigger holding and those fewer in number or the ones who migrated from afar held lesser. Land, property and cattle had started to become a private property and family ownerships established. Society was evolving and so were its needs as the quality of life improved. The village connected with neighbouring settlements through business exchange, transfer of menfolk and through marriages. A larger community or the outlines of a little state began to appear. One may as well be talking of a little village on the banks of the Hakra River under the Indus Valley Civilisation. There are hundreds of mounds along the parched banks of the waterless Hakra, Indus and Sutlej rivers where just such a human activity might have taken place centuries before Alexander the Great’s invasion of India. Taxilla, Harappa and Moenjo Daro were similar thriving dwellings, which disappeared into the haze of history leaving us wondering what happened.
Sadly, our butchers, bakers and candle-makers have left already. No smoke rises from the smithy’s smelter and the potter does not thump his wet clay anymore. There are very few Nergis Mavalvalas, Malala Yousazais, Dr Abdus Salams and Abdul Sattar Edhis around. Our Hakra is drying up, and plains have become arid, where rapacious Bramble bushes grow, tossed up with other litter by flurries of dusty whirlwinds, dancing insanely after one another, going nowhere. What guarantees that our bland towns and insensitive cities will not meet a Harappan fate or even worse?
By all intent and every evidence, those who set up great Indus and Gangetic Civilisations in the subcontinent and created magnificent empires of the yore were men of much superior calibre, vision and enterprise. Their beginnings may be humble, their households could be loaded on a single camel’s back, but their foundations were solid and deeds noble. They were not stung by a lazy mind’s nostalgia for past glory or a distant land but driven by pioneering spirit and inclusive impulses. None of the illustrious emperors and their equally talented chiefs and craftsmen showed a predisposition for self-immortalisation. Ashoka’s public service edicts and not his statues can still be seen inscribed on rock faces in many places of the subcontinent. Those grand ancient men were focused on empire-building, and providing security, peace and fair opportunities to their subjects. These are the fundamental elements for evolution of a peaceful, prosperous and just society, an enlightened nation and a constructively engaged country. Nowhere in this mosaic should there be any shade of religious persecution, subterfuge and racism.
That nameless nomad elder on the lonely mound on the bank of an unknown river was not looking for a lofty place for his palace or the priest’s temple but a safe and plentiful space for his fellow men and women when gazing deep into the vast plain. If there is anyone who deserves our abiding gratitude and a monument in honour, it is him.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan army and can be reached at [email protected]