History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c29.s2.831

v2.c29.s2.831

Mr. Rājavāde calls the Chālukyas and others, Kshatriyas from the north. But all Marathas whether Brahmins, Kshatriyas or Vaiśyas are Aryans, come into Mahārāshtra from the north. The question really is, did these kingly families come into Mahārāshtra at a much later time than the other Marathas and did they live here as foreigners? A foreign rule is a rule maintained by a foreign people who do not permanently reside in the country ruled and whose military and civil power is exercised by a constant influx of men from a foreign country, men who eventually return to that country after their work is done, who, in fact, never intend to settle in the country ruled. The English rule in India is a perfectly foreign rule of this kind. British soldiers and military officers and British civil administrators who hold this country in subjection always return to their country after they have worked for a definite period in this country which they never intend to make their permanent habitation. Mahomedan rule in the south or in the north in past times was also practically a foreign rule; for, there was a constant supply of soldiers and officers from outside from Irān and Khurāsān, from Syria and Arabia. And even though Mahomedan rulers and many Sardars resided permanently in India, the majority of the foreigners coming to India eventually returned to their own country and thus there was a constant drain from India which, as Dadabhai Nowroji has shown, is the root cause of the evils of a foreign rule. Even in India itself the Maurya rule over the Deccan (Circa 250 B.C.) or the Andhra-bhritya rule over Magadha must be considered as a foreign rule. The Maratha rule of the Peshwas in modern times must also be treated as foreign; for, the soldiers of the army and the officers of civil administration who kept the north under subjection were Marathas from the Deccan and these never made Northern India their home but always returned to the Deccan to enjoy their earnings. But the present rule of Scindia, Holkar or Gaikwad cannot be looked upon as foreign though it is in parts of the country outside Mahārāshtra. For, their civil and military administration is carried on mostly by local men and the few Marathas who are found chiefly among clerks and officers are recruited not from the Deccan but from locally residing the *Goths*, the *Vandals*, the *Suevi*, the *Burgundians*, the *Alani*, the *Huns*, the *Franks*, the *Saxons*, the *Thuringians*, the *Rugians*, and the *Heruli*. The names of these tribes are familiar to the reader, but their origin, their migrations, and their settlements are involved in the deepest obscurity. The most probable opinion is that they were all of German or Scythian extraction, and that they had been driven from their native seats by the pressure of the Huns, a formidable nation of Tartars, who had crossed the Volga and the Tanais, and were advancing with rapid strides towards the frontiers of the Roman empire.