Wherever we make our multimedia presentation or discuss any of the subjects of the Bharath Gyan capsule, one question that invariably comes up is, if India had all this culture, education and prosperity, why and where did we lose it all.

This set us thinking to do an exclusive capsule on the various factors which led to the downfall of India.

Some of them being :

1. Life cycle- Anything and everything that does well has to have a slide. In Tamil, we call it 'kalathin kolam'. This is depicted by the kala chakra or the wheel of life which has its ups and downs. Even in modern business management and marketing, there is a concept called product life cycle. However good a product may be, it does have its own life cycle. Similarly, India has had a truly glorious past spanning for well over 5000 years. It is only in the last 500 - 700 years, it has gone through a traumatic decline.

As the wheels of fortune change which is happening now, we are bound to see a resurgent India.

2. Caste stratification
3. Repeated onslaught- first from the Northwest and later over the seas. The brutal onslaught from the northwest was primarily through the two notorious mountain pass, namely, Khyber and Bolan. Inspite of repeated onslaught over a period of 1000 years, we never learnt or got around in unifiedly guarding these 2 entry points.

The European traders gained foothold in India through successive deceitful manoeuvres. As a nation of people, we never got round to counter their manoeuvres. Similar manoeuvres are being imposed on India through trade negotiations which we are yet to unifiedly stand up to.

4. Education: The education system of India (as discussed in detail in our Education subject capsule) deteriorated slowly and did not keep pace with the changing times. The British when they started to rule India realised that the native Indians thought highly of themselves and their culture and hence would be difficult for the British to fully subjudicate the Indians. The Macaulay system of education and the re-writing of Indian history was pursued with, to break our self respect and our back bone. This could be considered as one of the most lethal blows on India.
5. Attitude: All this has now led to a total deterioration of our attitude which has further accelerated our downfall.

While the economic activity is looking up we need to revamp our attitude to be world leaders once again which position we held continuously for well over 5000 years. Indians while they do not display good attitude within India, when they go out to a foreign land adapt to the local circumstances and display the attitude as required there. So when we have the attitude in us, we can bring it to the fore once again to ensure that our country, India, ie, Bharath is placed once more in the forefront in the polity of nations.