Author: M.R.Mallya
Publication: Organiser
Date: January 20, 2002
We are in the midst of a textbooks
controversy. On one side are persons like Romilla Thapar and Satish Chandra
complaining that portions of their history books are being deleted. Siding
with them are journalists publishing articles denouncing what they dub
the "saffron brigade". The Times of India, 1-12-2001 "History as End, Beginning
of a New Mythology" by Mahesh Daga. The Hindu, 6-12-2001 "The Textbooks
controversy" by Achin Vanaik.
On the other side are J.S.
Rajput and the NCERT explaining their views. They appear rather defensive.
There are fundamental distortions
in portraying Indian history. Sudhansu Ranade has highlighted this in The
Hindu, 4-12-2001. He says, the big broad picture, the scaffolding of history,
needs first to be put in its place. Finer points (or trivia as the case
might be) can be relegated to where they properly belong after children
have a chance to acquire a sense of proportion. That is the crux of the
problem. Let me cite two examples:
Ancient India
Ancient India as portrayed by Romilia
Thapar, R.S. Sharma and others of their ilk is obsolete and contrary to
facts. In archaeology, the latest work done by Dr S.R. Rao, and B.B. Lal
on the excavations at Bet Dwaraka, Lothal, etc, and Lal's latest book on
the ancient geology of the Saraswati river, together with Kalyanaraman's
monumental study of the Saraswati river and Vedic archaeology, update our
knowledge of ancient history of the Sindhu-Saraswati basin. More than 1500
sites have been unearthed. For many of these, detailed studies have yet
to be done. These studies ought to be completed fast. One should not be
misled by the theories of John Marshall and Father Heras about Aryan 'invasion'
and the 'probable' Dravidian origins of the Sindhu ruins. (These are still
being regarded as the guideposts of Indian history.)
Besides archaeology, there are seminal
books by Shrikant Talageri, Aryan Invasion and Indian Nationalism, Rigveda
A Historical Analysis, a number of books by K.D. Sethna like Ancient India
in a New Light, The Problem of Aryan Origins, and N.S. Rajaram's, The Politics
of History and the Subversion of Scholarship, David Frawley's, Gods, Sages
and Kings, Vedic Secrets and ancient Civilization. These works should not
be treated with indifference as has unfortunately happened among historians
who have failed to accept their much more plausible conclusions. The path
breaking research which these writers have done without Government much
India owes to them for a correct view of India's history.
These books and the critical articles
on them have been commented on in the Internet. They have impressed students
of history all over the globe, except certain 'Indologists' like Michael
Witzel whose arrogance leaves no room for argument.
The Sindhu Saraswati ruins have
several common features and represent a vast civilization greater than
that of Egypt and Mesopotamia and equally ancient in time. The ancient
Saraswati river flew through the heart of this area and the Rig Veda, was
composed here. Many of the symbols and motifs of the Sindhu civilization
are Vedic/ Hindu as stated by Asko Parpola in the his recent study, Deciphering
the Indus Script (1994). Meanwhile, Jha and Rajaram have made a study of
the Indus script from which it appears that this script and the Brahmi
have more than 12 common alphabets. The script is still under investigation
by various scholars. Their connections to Vedic studies including Yaska
has been well argued.
The result of all these studies
antedates Indian civilization to anywhere around 3 to 4 thousand BC. The
Aryan tribes were autochthonous in the Sindhu-Saraswati region as indicated
both by the symbols and motifs encountered and the Rigveda. Dravidian and
Naga tribes lived in other regions or those contiguous with the Aryan colonies.
The Aryas were not a race but tribes speaking Sanskrit or related languages.
They called themselves 'Arya' to distinguish their cultural traits. There
was intermingling among the tribes and there were also Dravidian rishies
among the composers of the Rigveda. The Arya-Dravid divide on racial lines
and the isolation of the Sindhu Saraswati basin to probably a Dravidian
culture is mainly the creation of western lndologists based on the theories
prevalent at the time.
It is therefore clear that ancient
Indian history has to be researched along on very different lines.
Medieval and Modern Indian history
After the fall of Vijayanagar in
1565, the Moghul emperors and the Bahamani sultans were ruling nearly the
whole of India. Aurangzeb was a shrewd and able emperor and his dominions
reached the zenith of expansion. The Marathas had been crushed and... Sambhaji
had heen beheaded, Tegh Bahadur had already been beheaded at Delhi and
Guru Govind Singh had to fight a losing battle, till he was murdered. Thanks
to Aurgangzeb's fanaticism, the Kashi and Mathura temples had been partially
desecrated and mosques built in their places. Materially, the people of
India, the Hindus, were down and out, beaten into submission.
In this situation in our textbooks,
the unconscious national assertion of the Indian people has been belittled
by distortion of history by Satish Chandra and others. They have been rejoined
by Gurtej Singh (The Hindu, 13-11-2001) for disregarding Hindu and Sikh
literature and relying solely on the 100 year old Persian records of a
Muslim writer. If Aurangzeb was not a fanatic he would not have beheaded
the Sikh guru who had not given him any personal offence. Nor did the Moghul
emperor bother about the family intrigues against the Guru as Satish Chandra
surmises. It was primarily because the Guru stood for the religious rights
of the Hindus and Sikhs against the conversion policy of the emperor that
he became a martyr. Sir Jadunath Sirkar's portrayal of the event in the
Cambridge History of India (Vol. IV, pp. 245-7) and in his History of Aurangzeb
continues to be more credible than Satish Chandra's efforts. The Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan History, (Vol VII, The Moghul Empire) also agrees with the
Cambridge History, and the Sikh historians.
In this period of suppression of
the Indian people, the manner in which Shivaji and the Jats have been treated
by our 'historians' leaves much to be desired. The Jats were "plunderers".
Shivaji and the Maratha leaders were, according to Satish Chandra and Irfan
Habib, "greatly motivated by zamindari traditions and their ambitions were
largely circumscribed by their zamindar origins". While economic factors
may also have influenced, they do not reflect the basic national urge of
a leader and the people whom he inspires. While they harp on such trivialities,
in reality, from Maharashtra to the were spontaneously rising in revol
against the Moghuls. Our historians refused to understand his fact and
knew not how to present it, presumably because it did not fit into the
Marxist frame.
Far from indulging in "loot and
rapine" the Maratha confederacy spread up to Delhi the victorious armies
reachinig Attock. Though they were defeated by the Afghans in 1761 the
Deccani Hindu marched up to Panipat and shed blood h defence of India while
the nawabs of Avadh were siding with Abdali. Even later, it was the Marathas
(Mahadji Scindia) who protected the Moghul emperor in Delhi, until they
were finally vanquished by that English in the nineteeth century.
Ranjit Singh and the Lahore
Durbar conquered the whole of the Punjab and Kashmir and even Kabul. (Could
such resurgence be just due to the desire for loot and plunder)?
The Jats too asserted themselves
and rose to the defence of the Mathura temple. They established kingdoms
that protected the people from the oppressors of Delhi.
All this indicates spontaneous uprising
of the Indian people against the ruling classes and their tyranny against
the indigenous religion. This is no Hindu chauvinism. History cannot be
brushed under the carpet. It can also be presented in civilizational terms
like Toynbee or a Huntington, to show it as "an assault of the Indic civilization
by an Islamic civilization whose language was Persian and Arabic".
If our compilers of textbook. do
not wish to present these facts of Indian history in their correct perspective,
and have to highlight trivialities and belittle great men, are Indians
being told the true history of India?
