India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

^*^TER 15 A CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 221
rheral in spite of his role in the two-nation theory and assistance

o the Muslim League. These theories peddled by Bipin Chandra

Hole out the reasons why the Muslims stayed away from the

freedom movement; it was primarily a reaction to the

fu~ndamentalistic impulse of the Hindu freedom fighters.

According to him the National Movement alienated Muslim masses

and because of the Hindu overtones of the freedom movement

the Muslims stayed away and formed the Muslim League. Again

the fault lies with the Hindus. Notice the following gem from

BipHrT Chandra on the National Movement and its character;

”Unfortunately, while militant nationalism was a great step

forward in every other respect, it was to some extent a step

back in respect of the growth of national unity. The speeches

and writings of some of the militant nationalists had a strong

religious and Hindu tinge. They emphasized ancient Indian

culture to the exclusion of medieval Indian culture. They

identified Indian culture and the Indian nation with the

Hindu religion and Hindus. They tried to abandon elements

of composite culture. For example, TijaJ<^..,,gropagation..Qf

the Shivaji and Ganapati festivals, Aurobindo Chose’s semimystical

concept of India as mother and nationalism as a

religion, the terrorists’ oaths before goddess Kali, and the

initiation of the anti-Partition agitation with dips in the Ganga

could hardly appeal to the Muslims. In fact, such actions

were against the spirit of their religion, and they could not

be expected as Muslims to associate with these and other

similar activities. Nor could Muslims be expected to respond

with full enthusiasm when they saw Shivaji or Pratap being

hailed not merely for their historical roles but also as ’national’

leaders who fought against the ’foreigners’. By no definition

could Akbar or Aurangzeb be declared a foreigner, unless

being a Muslim was made the ground for declaring one a

foreigner. In reality, the struggle between Pratap and Akbar

or Shivaji and Aurangzeb had to be viewed as a political

struggle in its particular historical setting. To declare Akbar or

Aurangzeb a ’foreigner’ and Pratap or Shivaji a ’national’

hero was to project into past history the communal outlook
222 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTEI
R15
of 20th century India. This was not only bad history; it Wa

also a blow to national unity.”
The Prophet expects his flock to realize that Allah had given

them Quran in Arabic tongue and other believer must honour

the Arabic Quran. Later, the Prophet went to the extent of

admonishing the faithful, ”Love the Arabs for three reasons’

because I am an Arab, the Quran is Arabic, and the inhabitants;

of Paradise will speak Arabic”. If that be so did it need any

instruction from the Hindus for the Muslim community to speak

Arabic language in preference to the national tongue. VS. Naipaul

warms up to the same theme in his book Beyond Belief that

these obsessions with Arab, Quran and everything Arabic makes

Muslims revere Arab and the Arabic language and the lore,

alienating them completely from the countries of their residency,

and in the process refusing to share the collective memory of

their past, excepts one that begins after the advent of Islam.
To sum up in Arun Shouri’s words: ” In regard to matter

after critical matter the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of

Islamic invasion, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of the

Freedom Struggle-we find this trait-suppersso veri, suggestio

falsi. This is the real scandal of history writing in the last thirty

years. And it has been possible for these ”eminent historians” to

perpetrate it because they acquired control of institutions like

the ICHR. To undo the falsehood, the control has to be undone”.
D.N. Jha in his booj^/AndenMncfa,_aii_ Introductory ..outline

makes startling revelation that Lord Indra was ”rowdy and

immoral”, Lord Krishna had a ”rather questionable personal

record”, and Lord Shiva was nothing but a development of

”phallic cult”, while the Bhakti movement represented ”the

complete dependence of the serfs or tenants on the landowners

in the context of Indian feudal society”. No evidence has been

adduced to prove these uncalled for assertions. Based on

hypothetical conjectures these statements reveal how successful

the efforts of Macaulay, the Missionaries and Marx had been. If

any such comments were made against members of the Prophet’s

own families and if even one were to reproduce what they did

and said the Marxist historians would start screaming saying that
.»-•”””Tis /4 CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 223
CHAPTEK
.. js an effort to denigrate the glorious figure of Islam. But the

u’ du g0^5 anc’ g°ddeses can be calumnized with impunity i.e.
• repuer- ’n brief,... nothing about Hinduism was original every
•rlence of greatness or sublimity was fantasy. Every achievement
• contributable to the invaders, so much so that even the Maurya
rt is of Persian origin. Another pet theme of these historians is

that the Shudras rose in revolt against the ruling classes, while

pone of these has ever been recorded in any history of India.

That the Brahmins invented the theory of Karma to perpetuate

the status quo and justify fatalism. However, they completely

ignored what Krishna told Arjun, when he exhorts him on the

battlefield of Kurukshietra not to accept his fate but to fight

against the evil. The distortion that the Mauryan rule was

oppressive, that the re-imposition of Jaziya by Aurangzeb

was to enable Hindus to live a normal life without any economic

pressure for conversion into Islam and this revenue was to be

collected by honest God fearing Muslims and many such gems

of wisdom, abounded. Thus, while Aurangzeb was exonerated

of his oppressive rule, Mauryan State is singled out as coercive

and overbearing. But these eminences never described the Islamic

law and the armies of Sultanas and Mughal rulers as instrument

of coercion, domination and control. Even Kautilya and Patanjali

have not been spared. Their well meant policies on spies and

laws of the State are quoted as examples of the worst construction

of State policy which promotes prostitution, soothsaying,

poisoning and cash- rewards. But the anachronistic dictates of

Quran, Hadis and Fatwas going to the ridiculous extent quoted

with documentary evidence are laughed away, as fantasies, which

are neither enjoined nor enforced. The two lone sentences in

Quran ” To you your religion, to me mine” and ”There is no

compulsion in religion” are touted adnauseum with utter disregard

to actual happenings under the Islamic rule from its very inception

till its decay, covering a period of almost one and a half millennia.

While the Quran does not ordain the scarifice of cows, the

’slamic authorities in India and the Muslim divines like Ali Mia

exhort Muslim to kill cows in India for the simple reason that

they are sacred to the Hindus. The exact words are ”precisely
224 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTF
MS
because cows are revered by the Hindus”. Mr. Jha in his bo

condemns the Hindus for animal sacrifices and their abolitio

by the Buddhist cult. He is silent on the uncountable numb

of animals such as cows, goats, chicken and sheep, which ar

slaughtered at every Id. According to Jha this is in order and

therefore condoned. The Marxist historians have again put history

on its head by their statement that the Gupta Age as ’the Golden

Age’, was purely a myth, and that even the so- called Golden

age did not cover the whole of India, which remained beyond

the pale of the Gupta Empire. This loose control and devolution

of power by Gupta Kings do not redound to their credit of

exercising direct control over their dominion. Thus, while Mauryas

were decried for their secularist and so- called coercive

administration, the Guptas are derided for decentralizing the

same. In other words, there is nothing commendable about the

ancient Hindu rulers and their empires. That is the central thesis

of our Leftist historians. Even astronomical achievement of

Aryabhatta.and Varahamihira are not totally their own original

contributions but were borrowed from Rome while another one

from Paul of Alexandria. Aryabhatta’s phenomenal insight about

the earth rotation on its axis and revolution round the sun

enunciated much before Copernicus and Kepler did, are

undervalued because they were ”contrary to the established

Indian notion”. The works of Kalidas are belittled as of little

literary value, because their origins lay in a distant past; Puranas

and Vedic literature were only compiled in their present form in

the times of Gupta. No literary work is known to man, which

does not have its origin and previous accounts or earlier literary

forms outside India is another pearl of wisdom from Jha’s ”so

called Hindu renaissance”. Even the term Hindu is a ”misnomer”.

”It was first used by the Arabs in the post-Gupta period and to

describe the inhabitants. Ancient Indians never thought of

themselves as Hindus.” From descriptions compiled from the

observations of Fahian, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim scholar

who visited India during the reign of Chandragupta-ll .... Indian

achievement in Mathematics regarding the original zero, we

knowledge of Pythagoras theorem, the achievement o
Q^PTER 15 /4 CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 225
^ryabhatta and astronomy, the accuracy of their calculations

regarding forecast of solar and lunar eclipses and the facts of

panchang (a long-term forecast of calendar) are trivialized by

these great authors.
The theory of Engels, of society passing through five stages

from classless primitive societies to slaved economy, to feudalism,

to capitalism, to socialism and lastly communism, is a Mantra,

which our Leftist historians still chant and ail facts of Indian

history have been sanitized to fit into this theory. The

Communists in Russian Republic had to accept that the periods

and categories enunciated by Engles do not exactly represent

the conditions in China and India, and the master country is

prepared to accept some deviations from the original theory.

But their followers in India, adopt a holier than thou attitude in

fitting the Indian history in their own straight jacket. To justify

this bias there is an overriding need to glorify the Islamic period

and black paint the pre-lslamic era and its traditions. To sum up

in the words of Arun Shourie:
”Thus, there are two points to remember. First, our friends

are not just Marxists they are also Macaulayites. Second,

they are Marxists in a special sense. They are Marxists in the

sense that they have thought of themselves as Marxists, in

the sense that they repeatedly regurgitate a handful of Marxist

phrases and assertions. But more than being Marxist

historians, they have been establishment historians. Their

theories and ’Theses’ have accorded not just with the ’classics’

of Marxism Leninism, they have accorded with the ideology,

which in terms of their theory means, the needs of

Congressite rules”.
Macaulay’s missionary technique was to enslave Indian mind,

to denigrate Hinduism, their gods and goddesses, temples and

’dols and the texts held sacred by the Hindus and the language

°f these texts i.e. Sanskrit, which was the lingua franca of our

country till as late as the mid 19th century, and finally to vilify

the Brahmins, who were the custodians of the above features of

the Indian society. The other side of the exercise was to emphasize

the parts i.e. the non-Hindus, original languages, castes and the
226 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTE
R15
groups most vulnerable to Missionary activities in the Empire, i e

unsuspecting tribals and the untouchables in order to reap rich

harvests for Christianity. Those who stood for the whole in the

Indian culture and traditions, like the towering figures such as

Ramakrishna Paramhans, Swami Dayanada, Swami Vivekananda

Sri Aurobindo, Lokmanya Tilak, Gandhiji, Ramana Maharishi

the Paramacharya, Narayan Guru- were to be denigrated at the

altar of the trinity of the Prophet, Missionary and Marx. It will

be a Herculean task for the present generation born after

Independence, fed on the history of these leftist Marxist scholars,

to separate propaganda from truth and appreciate the pristine

glory of our ancient past culture civilisational ethos and its past

and future.
A frequently touted argument by these worthies to be little

the value of our epics, is a lack of historical evidence. There are

any number of ruins scattered all over India from Kurukshetra,

Hastinapur, Dwarika down to Rameshwaram, which only the

purblind can ignore. Be that as it may, while the historicity of the

epics or Puranas can also be placed as evidence in the court of

these leftist historians the lessons therefrom and the value systems

they uphold are as universal and eternal as can be.
The scientific basis of the teachings of Vedas and Upnishads

have been proved many times even by today’s scholars. Ram

stands for the ideal and ultimate in the moral code of a man;

Krishna for knowledge and philosophy, and primacy of action

with his teachings on Karmyog; Shiva is the embodiment of

asceticism, the true worship of Satvik Tatva (the purest element)

and the capacity to absorb in self-abnegation the evils of mankind.

Brahma, of course, is the creator, who also writes the destiny of

each living being, bringing in an element of fatalism in the Hindu

thought and thereby making it resistant to unfavourable

circumstances. The pantheon of Hindu gods is not obscurantism

in its intent but a simple way of showing the different faces of

God and all that is good and worth emulating. They are the

symbols and support, the crutches on which Hindu mind ascends

to celestial heights without losing sight of one Brahma, whom

Vivekanand described thus:
r TER 15 A CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 227
Ekam Sadwipra Bahudha Vadanti
(The LORD almighty Braham is one; sages see it in different
forms.)
Thus, the area of knowledge is finite but that of ignorance

js infinite. Human mind has its limitation of perception and

cannot see beyond what is possible through the tools of science

and the power of reason. But there can be and is another truth

that lies beyond this area of perception, which Vedanta calls

neti-neti i.e., beyond comprehension or description.
The history of India needs a new paradigm for study, which

is devoid of Marxist distortions and British colonial intent, the

secularist scent, and the discursive cant of the present day

Anglophilic and western clones.
I
3L<^