Horrors of Ancient India That Indians Shouldn’t Want—or Get—Today

Ancient India produced extraordinary things: philosophical traditions, mathematics, literature, architecture, medicine, political thought, astronomy, art and sophisticated urban cultures.

It also contained societies that could be brutally unequal.

There is no contradiction here.

A civilisation can produce the Upanishads and social hierarchy. It can debate consciousness while denying some people dignity. It can create magnificent temples while accepting institutions we would consider intolerable today.

The purpose of studying ancient India should therefore not be to worship it or despise it.

It should be to learn from it.

And there are many things from India’s past that Indians should have absolutely no desire to resurrect.

1. Birth-Based Human Hierarchy

Perhaps the most important lesson concerns hereditary status.

Indian social organisation changed enormously across centuries, and varna should not simply be treated as synonymous with the thousands of later jatis. Nevertheless, historical India developed deeply entrenched systems in which ancestry could determine occupation, marriage possibilities, ritual status and social relationships.

At their worst, such systems transform an accident of birth into a theory of human worth.

Modern India should reject the proposition completely.

Your ancestors do not determine your value.

A child born today has committed no act deserving superiority or inferiority.

No inherited surname should confer greater dignity.

No inherited community should diminish it.

2. Untouchability

Untouchability represents an especially severe manifestation of hereditary exclusion.

Communities historically labelled “untouchable” experienced forms of segregation and restrictions concerning social interaction, occupations, access to common resources and religious spaces. The practices differed substantially by location and period, so there was never one uniform Indian system.

But the underlying idea is indefensible:

another human being can somehow pollute you merely through their presence.

Modern constitutional India explicitly abolished untouchability.

That is not India abandoning civilisation.

That is civilisation progressing.

3. Slavery and Unfree Labour

Slavery was not exclusively Indian—it existed across numerous ancient societies.

That doesn’t make it acceptable.

Indian historical sources contain references to dāsa and dāsī, although historians caution that these terms covered different forms of dependency and should not automatically be equated with every later conception of chattel slavery.

What matters today is the principle.

A human being cannot legitimately become another person’s property.

Neither debt, conquest, caste, poverty nor inheritance should deprive someone of basic liberty.

Modern equivalents—bonded labour, trafficking and extreme labour exploitation—deserve the same moral scrutiny.

4. Extreme Patriarchy

Women in ancient India cannot accurately be described as experiencing one universal condition.

Some women possessed property, composed literature, exercised political power, participated in intellectual life or became formidable religious figures.

Others lived within heavily patriarchal structures.

Across different periods, communities and legal traditions, women could face restrictions concerning inheritance, sexuality, remarriage, education and independence.

The lesson isn’t that “ancient India hated women.”

History is considerably more complicated.

The lesson is simpler:

tradition is never sufficient justification for restricting someone’s autonomy.

5. Child Marriage

Marriage ages varied historically, and evidence should not be flattened into the claim that every ancient Indian community followed identical practices.

Nevertheless, child marriage eventually became sufficiently entrenched in parts of South Asia to become a major target of Indian social reform movements.

A child cannot meaningfully carry the responsibilities expected of an adult spouse.

Education, bodily autonomy, development and genuine consent matter more than preserving an inherited custom.

Something being old does not make it wise.

6. Sati

Sati—the death of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre—requires particularly careful historical treatment.

It was never universally practised by Indians or Hindus. Its prevalence varied substantially by region, period and community. Indian rulers, thinkers and reformers themselves disputed or opposed it, and historians continue examining the complicated mixture of religious interpretation, social prestige, coercion and individual agency surrounding particular cases.

But modern society requires a remarkably straightforward principle:

A husband’s death must never require his wife’s death.

Widowhood is not a crime.

Survival is not dishonour.

7. The Dehumanisation of Widows

The problem extended beyond sati.

In some historical communities, widows could experience severe restrictions on clothing, food, remarriage, sexuality, property and participation in ordinary social life.

Think about the underlying logic.

A man dies.

And somehow the surviving woman’s life becomes the object requiring punishment.

This is precisely the kind of inherited morality modern India should leave behind.

8. Hereditary Occupations

Imagine being born and having society announce your profession before you can speak.

Your father performs one occupation.

Therefore you must.

His father performed it.

Therefore your children should.

This arrangement may produce occupational continuity, but when enforced through social hierarchy it destroys individual freedom.

A sanitation worker’s daughter can become a physicist.

A priest’s son can become a carpenter.

A farmer’s daughter can become an astronaut.

A billionaire’s son has no divine entitlement to remain a billionaire.

Occupation should follow capability and choice—not ancestry.

9. Restrictions on Knowledge

Knowledge becomes power partly because societies can control who receives it.

Across Indian history, access to particular forms of religious and scholarly education was sometimes structured by gender, caste, class, institutional membership or lineage. At the same time, India contained multiple competing educational traditions, vernacular cultures and heterodox movements, so there was never a single knowledge regime.

Modern India should nevertheless adopt the opposite principle:

knowledge belongs to humanity.

Mathematics does not have a caste.

Philosophy does not have a gender.

Science does not have a lineage.

A civilisation becomes stronger when its poorest child can reach its greatest library.

10. Cruel Punishments

Ancient legal and political traditions around the world frequently contained punishments modern societies would regard as brutal.

Indian texts discussing governance and punishment include fines and imprisonment alongside corporal and, for certain offences, severe physical or capital punishments.

Ancient governments lacked forensic science, modern prisons, contemporary human-rights doctrines and centuries of accumulated criminological knowledge.

Why would twenty-first-century India voluntarily inherit their limitations?

Justice should protect society while preserving due process and proportionality.

Cruelty is not made intelligent merely by calling it ancient.

11. Monarchical Absolutism

India produced sophisticated theories of kingship, including traditions that imposed duties and moral restraints upon rulers.

Nevertheless, monarchy fundamentally concentrates political authority through hereditary rule.

Modern democracy starts from a radically different proposition:

citizens do not belong to rulers; political authority originates from citizens.

Kings can be studied.

Their architecture can be preserved.

Their literature can be enjoyed.

Their political monopoly does not need restoration.

12. Religious Authority Without Accountability

Ancient societies frequently merged political, social and religious authority.

Modern pluralistic societies require something different.

A priest, guru, monk, astrologer, preacher, philosopher or self-proclaimed enlightened person should receive no exemption from ordinary standards of evidence, consent and law.

Neither should religious institutions.

Spiritual authority must never become immunity from accountability.

The same rule should apply to every tradition.

13. Superstition Replacing Evidence

Ancient people developed explanations using the intellectual tools available to them.

Modern people possess substantially better tools.

We have microscopes.

Clinical trials.

Genomics.

Satellites.

Statistics.

Neuroscience.

Particle accelerators.

Scientific explanations should therefore not be replaced by supernatural explanations simply because the supernatural explanation is older.

Ancient medicine can be investigated.

Traditional botanical knowledge can be tested.

Historical cosmology can be studied.

But when empirical claims are made, evidence gets the final word.

14. Tribalism and Collective Punishment

Ancient political history contains wars between kingdoms, dynasties and communities, just as other parts of the ancient world do.

Modern citizens inherit none of their ancestors’ guilt.

A twenty-year-old Indian today is not responsible for something supposedly committed by another community eight hundred years ago.

Historical memory becomes dangerous when descendants are treated as defendants.

Justice evaluates individuals and institutions according to evidence.

It does not prosecute bloodlines.

15. Conquest as Glory

Ancient inscriptions throughout the world frequently celebrate rulers through victories, conquered territories and defeated enemies.

That made sense within the propaganda systems of ancient kings.

It should not define twenty-first-century greatness.

The modern equivalent of a glorious empire should not be larger territory.

It should be:

healthier citizens,

better universities,

scientific breakthroughs,

higher productivity,

cleaner cities,

greater freedom,

stronger institutions,

longer lives,

better art,

and less suffering.

The Ancient-India Fallacy

The deepest mistake is not studying ancient India.

It is assuming that ancient = superior.

Age proves survival.

It does not prove truth.

Consider a simple test.

If an institution appeared for the first time tomorrow, would we accept it?

Suppose someone proposed:

“Children should inherit social rank from their parents.”

We would reject it.

“Some occupations should be restricted by ancestry.”

Reject it.

“Widows should lose freedoms after their husbands die.”

Reject it.

“Certain people are intrinsically impure.”

Reject it.

“Religious authorities should be immune from criticism.”

Reject it.

Then attaching the phrase “our ancient tradition” cannot magically transform those propositions into wisdom.

Preserve the Civilisation, Not Every Historical Practice

India does not have to choose between civilisational amnesia and civilisational worship.

Keep Sanskrit.

Keep Tamil.

Keep Pali.

Keep Prakrit.

Keep the Vedas, Upanishads, Buddhist canons, Jain literature, Sangam poetry, epics and philosophical debates available for study.

Preserve archaeological sites.

Study ancient mathematics.

Investigate historical medicine scientifically.

Restore manuscripts.

Protect temples, monasteries, mosques, churches, synagogues, gurudwaras and secular heritage.

Translate everything.

Digitise everything.

Debate everything.

But inherit nothing merely because it is old.

Civilisations are not museums in which every object must remain exactly where ancestors placed it.

They are living experiments.

India’s Greatest Tradition Should Be Revision

Some of India’s most consequential figures challenged inherited assumptions rather than simply obeying them.

The subcontinent repeatedly produced philosophical disagreement, religious heterodoxy, social reform and competing theories about reality itself.

That spirit deserves preservation.

The greatest respect we can show ancient Indians is not pretending that they solved every human problem.

It is continuing the work they could not finish.

Ancient Indians knew things we have forgotten.

They also believed things we have surpassed.

Future Indians will undoubtedly discover that some things we believe today were equally foolish.

That is progress.

A confident civilisation can say:

This was beautiful. Preserve it.

This was brilliant. Develop it.

This was mistaken. Correct it.

This caused suffering. Never repeat it.

India does not need to become ancient again to become great.

It needs to become something its ancestors never had the technological, scientific, constitutional or moral opportunity to build:

an India where birth does not determine destiny, knowledge belongs to everyone, authority requires accountability, evidence can defeat tradition, and every individual possesses equal human dignity.

That would not be the destruction of Indian civilisation.

It would be its continuation.