HVK Archives: No nation can survive on lies
No nation can survive on lies - The Daily
M. V. Kamath
()
December 13, 1998
Title: No nation can survive on lies
Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: The Daily
Date: December 13, 1998
There is something inexplicable about Indian 'intellectuals': they seem
to hate Hinduism and anything Hindu. One can understand if they hated
certain specific aspects of Hindu society like untouchability or child
marriage or casteism or that rarest of rare things, suttee. One should
not, of course, equate these with the fundamentals of Hinduism as
incorporated in the Vedas and Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita. That our
certified "intellectuals"
do so is another matter. Don't they derogatorily dismiss the low
economic growth rate of 3 per cent as the 'Hindu' growth rate. To these
anything to be decried is Hindu. Gloating over the alleged sins of
Hinduism to them is secularism.
Such is their warped mind that these "intellectuals" go a step further.
They blame all the excesses of Islam on Hinduism. If Aurangazeb
demolished many temples during his long reign, the fault lies at the
door of the Hindus. Not with Aurangazeb. The good man did not demolish
old temples, he only forbade the building of new ones. But if, once in
a while, old temples were also razed to the ground, this was because the
temples were centres of subversive activities!
Islam invariably gets a good character certificate. The aggression, the
butchery, the devastation is attributed to individuals and not the
religion. Among individuals it is made out that just a few individuals
-- a few Isolated exceptions -- indulged In it. Then the crowning
excuse of them all; the point is rubbed in that if Muslim rulers
committed aggression, destroyed temples, pulverised idols, they did so
not because of some religious belief but. because, being rulers, they
had to put down their opponents who happened to be Hindus and because
they were motivated by mundane considerations lime greed for the riches
of temples, the need top establish political sway over the conquered
territory etc! Now isn't that true secular writing of history?
So called Secularist
Another gimmick resorted to by secular 'intellectuals' is to say that if
Muslims destroyed Hindu temples. Hindus had also destroyed Buddhist
viharas! That would teach the RSS historians, was the argument made.
Arun Shourie meets this with a quotation not from a Brahmin historian,
but from a strongly anti-Brahmin historian, no less than Dr B.R.
Ambedkar himself. In his book Dr Ambedkar has this to say: "The
Mussalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda,
Vikaramashila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few. They raised to
the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The
monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside
India. A very large number were killed outright by the Muslim
commanders. How the Buddhist priesthood perished by the sword of the
Muslim invaders has been recorded by the Muslims themselves ...... by
killing the buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This is the
greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India....."
Shourie is not content to quote. Ambedkar alone, scholar though the
latter may be. Shourie invariably goes to original sources such as
Muslim historians themselves to prove his point. Thus he quotes from
the Akhbarat directly. Here's an example: "25 May 1679 Khan-i-Jahan
Bahadur returned from Jodhpur after demolishing its temples and bringing
with himself several cart-loads of idols. The Emperor (Aurangzeb)
ordered that the idols, which were mostly of gold, silver, brass, copper
or stone and adorned with jewels, should be cast in the quadrangle of
the Court and under the steps of the Jama Masjid for being trodden
upon." How nice!. Or another entry: "10 August 1680: Abu Turab
returned to Court and reported that he had pulled down 66 temples in
Amber...."
Or again: "September 1687: On the capture of Golconda, the Emperor
appointed Abdur Rahim Khan as Censor of the city of Haidarabad with
orders to put down infidel practices and (heretical) innovations and
destroy the temples and build mosques on their sites..."
Why is Shourie doing all This?
The question may be asked: But why is Shourie doing all this? Isn't he
pitching Hindus against Muslims? To that the counter question may be
asked: "When will Muslims over Come to terms with Hindus if past history
is slurred over and the truth is masked for ever?" Yet other questions
arise: "Why not let sleeping-dogs lie?" Or, "Why regurgitate the past
and open old wounds?" Or "Are today's Muslims to pay for the sins of
their ancestors". The answers are as simple as the questions. Today's
Muslims are NOT to pay for the sins of their ancestors, but they should
know what the sins are and why many Hindus feel the way they do.
Sleeping dogs are sometimes best disturbed to make them aware of what is
going on around them.
Besides. old wounds have not healed. They can only be healed if there is
an acceptance by Muslims of what happened in the past with an
understanding that such things will not happen again.
The trouble - indeed, the tragedy - is that our 'intellectuals' who call
themselves 'progressive' but do not want to face uncomfortable issues.
Worse, they are frankly afraid of the minorities, generations, of Hindus
having long lived in fear of the rulers. The approach is: Better take on
everything on ourselves in order to live in peace. It was that
philosophy that finally led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
For years now historians with a certain mind-set had captured and stayed
put on the commanding heights of historical research. The Indian
Council of the Historic Research (ICHR) was packed with them. They laid
down the law. They established norms of writing standards. What
Shourie had done in this remarkable books is to tear their veil of
secrecy and expose them for what many are: charlatans. Some of them
have even been shown up to be worse: cheats, who took thousands of
rupees from the ICHR to write books based on research but never
submitted so much as a page of writing. It is all their in black and
white.
The country has been yearning for years for some one to engage in an
expose. Shourie is the answer to their prayers. The ICHR is but one
institution. Our 'intellectuals' over the years had captured an entire
array of institutions and professions to warp the thinking of at least
two to three generations of the young. Now they stand exposed to
light. To be truthful is not being 'communal' or 'fascist'; it is the
truth that sets one free. What Shourie has done is to liberate our young
from the clutches, of our false 'intellectuals'.
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