The shoddiness and incompetence visible in history books written by the so-called eminent historians are not due to individual carelessness or lack of information. For communists, the use of any history is to prove their dogma. The moving power of communism is a deep-rooted self-alienation and its main ally is cultural and spiritual illiteracy. The leftist writers have done their best to propagate these ‘values’ through their books on history.
Their histories are set to a formula: Ancient India must be presented as a land of discord, a land in the grip of a social and political system marked by injustice, extreme inequalities and oppression leading to perpetual social tensions. Islamic period must be presented as one in which ‘composite culture’ flourished, a policy of broad toleration was the norm, and any departures from that policy were aberrations of individuals which can be traced to wholly secular causes. When coming to the modern period, these Hindus wielding the sword of Islam show an extraordinary empathy for and understanding of Muslim separatists and separatism. Shourie has documented their shift from erasure to parity to absolution.
However, since the evidence in all cases points to the opposite direction, their eminences have to strain every nerve to make the story fit the preconceived mould. Inventions, conjectures, double standards and circular reasoning are the hallmark of their creations.
In their world of make-believe, Hindu Dharma is Brahmanism, an ‘ism’ which serves the interests of Brahmins. These interests can be served only by exploitation and oppression of lower castes. Hence, Hinduism is necessarily an arrangement for exploitation and oppression of the masses. “The ideological conflict between Vedic Brahmins and the followers of newly-born protestant creeds (a maliciously misleading description of Buddhism and Jainism) may have been a potential source of social and religious tension, though an actual example of this is wanting”. Is this history?
If some statement of Kautilya supports the thesis of these historians, (like low wages of artisans, mostly shudras) it is proof of empirical reality. But, if it goes against the thesis (e.g. recommendation for recruitment of shudras and vaishyas in the army) then the absence of empirical evidence is cited to doubt its observance in practice.
Clearest statements in several texts that a person becomes Brahmin by character and conduct, not by birth, are brushed aside as desiderata; statements of Manu prescribing discriminatory punishments for identical offences are taken as proof positive that differential justice was, in fact, meted out in practice.
Brahmins invented the theory of Karma, we are told, to persuade the poor masses to serve their masters well in this life to be rewarded in subsequent life; they invented avatarvad to persuade the suffering masses that they need not do anything in particular, that God himself will take care of it. The fact that Karma theory can be and has been interpreted to mean exactly the opposite, that having explained avatarvad to Arjuna, Krishna exhorted him to fight and uproot the evil, is conveniently glossed over.
The Mauryas are denounced for setting up a centralised administration, while the Guptas are denounced for decentralizing it. When Manu specifies different tasks for different sections, he is held up as champion of an exploitative order. Simultaneously, the Guptas are condemned for demanding the same work as compulsory labour from all sections of society.
Romila Thapar cited three inscriptions about an incident involving the alleged persecution of Jains by Shaivas. Sita Ram Goel looked them up. He found that two of them had absolutely no connections with the incident while the third, held to be spurious, told an entirely different story.
Double standards and contradictions of Leftist historians become all the more remarkable when contrasted with their treatment of Islamic rulers. Bhakti is just a reflection of the total subservience of the hapless tenant to the landlord under feudalism. But Islam, which literally means ‘surrender’, is a noble sentiment – total submission to the will of Allah. Taxes levied by Mauryas were oppressive exactions for maintaining coercive apparatus of empire, but Jaziya extracted by Sultans was a little something so Hindus could lead normal lives. The Mauryas instituted a centralised, over-bearing state. Their army was an instrument for maintaining domination; their legal and judicial system was an important weapon in the hands of the ruling class. No such parity about Islamic law or the armies of Sultans and Mughals.
All epochs in the ancient period from which people can draw pride or inspiration are tarred in some manner or the other. By contrast, the aggression, butchery and devastations committed by Islamic rulers are sanitised through a three-layer filter. First, the devastation is attributed to individuals and not to the religion. Second, among individuals, it is made out that just a few individuals – isolated exceptions – indulged in it. Third, it is said that they committed aggression, destroyed temples, pulverized idols, not because of religious belief but because as rulers they had to put down their opponents who happened to be Hindus, and because of mundane considerations of greed for the riches of the temples, the need to establish political sway over conquered territory etc.
Yet, Muslim historians of medieval India treat every war waged against the Hindus as a jihãd as enjoined by the Prophet and the Pious Caliphs. While narrating deeds of wanton cruelty and rapacity they express extreme satisfaction and gleeful gratitude to Allah that the mission of the Prophet has been fulfilled, the light of Islam brought to an area of darkness, and idolatry wiped out.
Even a ‘saint’ like Amir Khusro, supposedly the pioneer of secularism in India, writes in his Khazãin-ul-Futûh (Tãrîkh-i-Alãî), “The whole country by means of the sword of our holy warriors has become like a forest denuded of its thorns by fire. The land has been saturated by the waters of the sword, and the vapours of infidelity [Hinduism] have been dispersed. The strong men of Hind have been trodden under foot, and all are ready to pay tribute. Islam is triumphant, idolatry is subdued. Had not the law (of Hanifa) granted exemption from death by the payment of jiziya, the very name of Hind, root and branch, would have been extinguished.”
All this falsification was carried out and justified in the name of national integration. The results of this massive willful exercise in untruth are visible to all except those who are under ideological compulsion not to see them. Hindu-Muslim unity remains as much of a mirage as it was in the days of Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, Islamic imperialism has become many times more self-confident and self-righteous than on the eve of Partition. Caste system, for ages the most cohesive factor and strength for Hindu society, has been converted into a cancer which poisons the very springs of our politics. Regionalism fostered by local patriotism, missionary machinations, and sectarian separatism has assumed such alarming proportions as to imperil the very unity of the country.
The project was doomed to failure right from the start. Voices of warnings from competent historians were not wanting. S Krishnaswami Aiyangar held that the value of study of history would be destroyed by the slightest interference with the recording of its actual course, or if it were made to subserve other purposes, however noble. “For instance, we cannot hope to end fanaticism in character and convictions of the nation’s youth by omitting from history all that which tends to promote sectarian fanaticism, and telling the lying tale that there were no fanatics or acts of fanaticism before us. The right way to proceed is to register the fanatical acts and those influences which were responsible for the perpetration of fanatical deeds, and by pointing out the dire consequences to human society that such deeds entailed.” (Quoted by E Sreedharan in A Textbook of Historiography, 500 BC to 2000 AD p.449)
RC Majumdar in his presidential address at the sixth annual conference of the Institute of Historical Studies, at Srinagar in 1968, which he could not attend, wrote, “History divorced from truth does not help a nation. Its future should be laid on the stable foundations of truth and not on the quicksand of falsehoods, however alluring it may appear at present. India is now at the cross roads and I urge my friends to choose carefully the path they would like to tread upon.”
These words of warning have acquired an enhanced validity in the present context. The false notions strongly fortified by a doctored history have confused our intellect, clouded our vision and paralysed our will to face deadly enemies out to dismember our country and destroy our cultural identity. At same time, we are faced with a situation when the distorted version has become the standard one and any attempt to correct it immediately draws howls of protest against “brazen attempts to communalise history” even from people who should know better. We need a clearer understanding and more frank acceptance of the past so as to cope better with the present.
How to fight it, and how not
Any talk of rewriting history, as Ram Swarup remarked, leaves a bad taste in mouth. It offends our sense of truth by arousing suspicion of manipulation of evidence and distortion of perspective. The manner in which the exercise was carried out in communist countries has only served to confirm that suspicion.
But India is in a peculiar position. Here the boot is on the other foot. India has the dubious distinction of having its history written by people who were in varying degrees hostile or alien to it in some way or other. Indeed, it faces a situation in which the distorted version has become the standard one. Any attempt to correct it immediately draws howls of protest against “brazen attempts to communalise history” even from people who should know better. We need a clearer understanding and more frank acceptance of the past so as to cope better with the present.
There is another equally weighty reason for having a fresh look at the current version of India’s history: emergence of new material significant enough to unsettle long held beliefs. The rediscovery of the Vedic river Saraswati, delineation of its course from Himalayan range to the sea on the western coast, discovery of more Harappan settlements spread over a vast area which have yielded materials that establish that the Vedic Aryans were native to India and the Indus Valley civilisation a continuation of an older civilization. Use of modern astronomy and computer simulation has enabled verification of astronomical references in ancient texts to determine important dates. These have helped establish historicity of major events and protagonists in both epics with fairly accurate estimate of their dates. The details are far from settled, but the broad drift of conclusions is unmistakable.
The recent surge in militant Islam has prompted several thinkers in the West to study its primary sources and bring out the intolerance and aggressiveness inherent in it, so far as non-Muslims are concerned. (As an aside: it is amazing that though Hindus have suffered worst at the hands of Islamic followers, they have as a group shown little inclination to study their tormentor.) Conscious attempts to downplay the role of religion in medieval India now look misguided as also the attempts to explain away Islamic separatism as a reaction to ‘Hindu’ nationalism in the modern period.
Taken together, the new material has vindicated the national vision that a very majority of Indians have cherished through millennia and has been articulated by such savants as Swami Vivekananda, Maharishi Aurobindo and Bankim Chandra. This vision regards India as the cradle of Sanatana Dharma, which has spawned a vast and variegated culture welding the most diverse mass of humanity into an organic whole known as Hindu society. The ancient Bharatavarsha is the indivisible homeland of Hindu society. The history of India is history of Hindu society and civilisation and not of those who invaded it. It is a saga of its origin, growth, achievements, challenges faced and met as also setbacks and shortcomings.
A word of caution is necessary. Many historians set out to fight colonial historiography with a patriotic one. However, from patriotism to chauvinism is but a step. If the imperialist historians were prone to see everything bad in India’s past, some nationalist historians tend to see everything good in it. In their writings, emotion and sentiment usurp the place of reason; detachment, objectivity, balance and perspective take a back seat. A conviction of India’s past glory has led some historians to stretch their arguments to a ridiculous extent. KP Jayswal, for instance, asserted the existence in ancient India of constitutional monarchy, parliamentary government, voting of grants and address from the throne. PN Oak said England, Italy, Arabia, Iran and Iraq were Hindu countries once upon a time, Westminster Abbey was a Shiva temple and English a Sanskrit dialect.
Another variant of the theme was that ancient India did not lag behind modern Europe in scientific achievement. We are told that there were firearms and aircrafts in epic periods. Dinanath Batra traces stem cell research to Mahabharata era and thinks that the Vedic Aryans moved in motorcars then known as anashwaratha (horseless chariot). These writers rely on stretching the meanings of words in ancient texts and offer little to substantiate their claims.
Overtly nationalist history suffers from the same defect - deviation from the ideal of objectivity - that it seeks to ‘correct’ in other versions of history. This is the inevitable result of using history to serve current interests. Moreover, the desire to ‘prove’ that ancient India had the institutions and ideals cherished by the modern West betrays an inferiority complex.
But the worst offence of zealots masquerading as historians is that they have discredited the really serious Hindu scholarship. By wildly exaggerating his case even when he had something like that (e.g. Taj Mahal), Oak brought into disrepute all serious scholars (best represented by Voice of India) who assiduously sought to sift truth from falsehood. The enemies of Hinduism had only to liken these scholars’ work with Oak’s to debunk it without bothering to examine it in any detail.
That apart, Oak did not realise that his work could be cleverly used by missionaries to undermine the very tradition that he thought he was defending. Some missionaries have spent a lifetime studying Vedanta not for Moksha but to devise ways to present as an extension or variation of Christianity to fool gullible Hindus into conversion.
Koenraad Elst put it pithily, “The very numerous PN Oak party members among the Hindus are not only an endless source of laughter for all enemies of Hinduism. They are also a useful fifth column within the crumbling fortress of Indian Paganism. For the sake of Hindu survival, it is vital that real history gets restored: not only against the secular anti-Hindu version, but also against the Hindu caricature.” (Christianity is not Krishna-Neeti and the Vatican was never a Shiva temple Koenraad Elst, Bharatabharati.wordpress.com)
An imagined past can never breed real sense of pride. As R C Majumdar said, the task of the historian is merely to show what really happened. The ascertainment of the truth of the past so far as it can be ascertained is the one object, the one sanction, of all historical studies.
He added, “history is no respecter of persons and sentiments and must always strive to tell the truth so far as it can be deduced from reliable evidence by following the cannons commonly accepted as sound by all historians. A historian has to express the truth without fear, envy, malice, passion or prejudice, and irrespective of all extraneous considerations, both political and humane. In judging any remark or opinion expressed in such a history the question to be asked is not whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, mild or strong, impolitic or imprudent, but simply whether it is true or false, just or unjust, and above all, whether it is or is not supported by evidence at our disposal.” (Preface, The History and Culture of the Indian People, Vol. VI, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay.)
Sir Jadunath Sarkar, doyen of Indian historians, went further. “I would not care whether truth is pleasant or unpleasant, and in consonance with or opposed to current views. I would not mind in the least whether truth is or is not a blow to the glory of my country. If necessary I shall bear in patience the ridicule and slander of friends and society for the sake of preaching truth. But still I shall seek truth, understand truth and accept truth. This should be the firm resolve of the historian,” (Presidential speech at a historical conference in Bengal, 1915).
He further clarified his position on history in a letter to Dr. Rajendra Prasad in 1937: "National history, like every other history worthy of the name and deserving to endure, must be true as regards the facts and reasonable interpretation of them...”.
Many nationalists, and most RSS sympathizers, would squirm at these formulations. They need not. The achievements of Hindu society are so glorious that they do not need extra polishing. Remember, even after sticking to such high standards of objectivity both Dr. Majumdar and Sir Jadunath Sarkar are regarded as nationalist historians.
At the same time, history should enlighten us about our shortcomings, failures and mistakes if it is to serve as a guide for the future. RC Majumdar says that the haze of glory in which Prithviraj Chauhan lives in popular memory is considerably dimmed when we realize the consequences of his failure to pursue Shahabuddin Ghori to Multan and drive him out of India. His did not regard 1857 as a national war of independence. Jadunath Sarkar is often charged with a bias against Islam and Muslims but he was unsparing in his account of atrocities of Maratha raiders in northern India. Sita Ram Goel judged Marathas harshly for losing the battle to the British, and allowing India to pass under another imperialist yoke. For, at that time the Marathas were the only power in the field with a potential to win national freedom from Islamic imperialism, and save India from British imperialism. Such judgments would multiply as we approach the modern period about which we have far more recorded facts. There is no reason for us to accept their views, but then we should come up with other relevant facts to counter them.
What is to be done? Ideally, the Indian Council of Historical Research under its new Chairman Prof. Y Sudershan Rao should engage competent scholars who could marshal new evidence on major themes of Indian history and present a convincing case for revising the current version of history. The outcome will depend on the selection of scholars. If they are chosen on the basis of proximity to certain individuals or organizations, the result will be predictable. Alternatively, Hindu organizations should come forward and invest money, people and infrastructure in serious history. As a last resort, a small group of Hindu scholars could pool their resources together and prepare and submit a case for revising history books to the concerned authorities. The exercise would be timely as the central HRD ministry is reportedly planning to revise NCERT history textbooks.
But does Hindu society still have the will, resources and determination to put the record straight? Is it even aware of the danger facing it? Time will tell.
(Concluded)
References
- History vs. Historians Ram Swarup in Hindu Temples: What happened to them Vol. I & II, Voice of India, New Delhi. Vol. I 1990. Vol. 2nd Ed. II 1993.
- The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India Sita Ram Goel, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2nd Ed. 1994.
- History and Culture of Indian People Vol. VI and VII, Ed. R C Majumdar, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay. Vol. VI 4th Ed. 1990, Vo. VII 3rd Ed. 1994.
- Eminent Historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud, Arun Shourie, ASA, Delhi, 1998.
- Textbook of Historiography 500 BC to 2000 AD E Sreedharan, Orient Blackswan, Hyderabad, 2004
- A Random Survey of Satish Chandra’s ‘Medieval India’ (NCERT 2000) by Meenakshi Jain, voiceofdharma.org
- Nationalism and Distortions in Indian History N S Rajaram Voice of India, New Delhi, 2000
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