CHAPTER 15 A CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 207 Even during and after the reign of Harsh Vardhan in the 7th
ntury A.D., India was subjected to barbaric raids from the
orth west; Huns, Sakas and Mongols, the latter only touching
the fringes of north-west India, perpetrated untold atrocities on
the helpless Hindu. And then came Islam from 10th century
onwards. Hordes of nomads given a generic name Turks from
Afghanistan, Cazni, Uzbekistan and Iran continued to pour into
the north west rich lands of our country. Alien kingdoms rose
and fell ending with the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 A.D. The
actual Muslim period really lasted from the establishment of
Sultanate at Delhi, in early 14th century till the end of Mughal
Empire in 1707. The vast land of India was divided into
principalities and small kingdoms of Rajputs as well as Muslims.
But thereafter till 1808 A.D., the mighty Marathas rose as a
national power and Maratha confederacy collided head on with
the British on one side and Ahmad Shah Abdali at the battlefield
of Panipat on the other. With this event died away the last hope
of a Pan-Indian resurgence and the British dominion expanded,
till the whole of our country was conquered. One can say that
the British rule lasted from 1808 A.D. to 1947 A.D., when our
country achieved its independence. With such a chequered career
tHie”biggest sufferer was the Hindu psyche. As has been brought
out earlier in the Jewish history, adversity and calamity did not
steel our people into a fiery nation but degraded them to a
lower level of human existence. We forgot our proud heritage,
our Dharma, national character and became a divided lot. In
spite of all this, though the country remained divided and
subjugated politically, the eternal Hindu spirit from the Sanatan
Dharma remained the binding thread for the people of this
landmass politically divided but emotionally united on the basis
°f our past culture. The nation suffered innumerable indignities.
The effect of the loss of character is visible even today after 50
Years of independence. Thus, it behoves on the present
generation of India to use the past not as a hammock, but a
springboard for future advancements. India has thus far endured
but a resurgent nation, that we wish to be, must not only
endure, but also prevail. In this regard, we have a lot to learn 208 IMDIA AMD ISRAEL r... CHAPTER 15 from the Israelis. Surrounded by hostile nations, tiny |Srae| .
holding its co^vn while India with a huge landmass and populate
has still to v/veld itself into a nation of steel, capable of protectin
its sovereig n ty and integrity against it’s hostile neighbours. India vwss left in peace for a comparatively longer period
and it was only from 10th century A.D. onwards that sporadic
raids of Muslim adventurers began. Then from 14th century till
1707 A.D. thie Muslims ruled almost the whole of India except
parts of Be-ngal and some Southern states. After the death of
Aurangzeb, t he disintegration of the Mughal empire commenced
with frequent change of rulers at Delhi, concurrent with the
shrinking of the central Muslim rule to areas around Delhi, with
a highly tenuous and tentative reach upto the Vindhyas. In the
south a fewv independent Muslim Sultanates had come into
existence but major parts of India came under the sway of the
Maratha Confederacy. This period lasted a hundred years from
1707 upto 1808 in which year the Marathas were decisively
defeated by the British. This century could truly be called the
age of Maratha supremacy. From then onwards followed the
period of B ritish rule, which ended with the attainment of
Independen ce in 1947. All this has been stated earlier. Israel on
the other h and, at the crossroads of the Middle East, invited
invasions from its very inception. The sound of marching feet
and hoofs and horses never really died down except for a brief
period of pe ace under David and Solomon. The ”Chosen People”
were mercilessly attacked and enslaved, exiled and deported
while the lard was devastated right from the early days of
Nebuchadnazar, followed by slavery in Egypt and the return led
by Moses, fights within the land and then Diaspora. Since the
Jews were never really allowed to settle in the land that their
Lord had gr-anted to them, they developed a deep attachment
to the soil of their land. Onthe otherhand, Hindus were never
deprived of their land and thus did not develop the deep
devotion an
Cod’s plenty for granted and never suffered the longings of the
deprived. CHAFER 15 A CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 209 VVhenjiven a chance, both people progressed rapidly, and
reached high levels of excellence. The Jews achieved this in the
countries wnere they lived whenever disabilities and the stigma
of being a Jew were removed. The Hindus did so only when the
conquerors- allowed them peace. But throughout their periods
Of extreme hardships, both people took to introspection and
deep inward seeking. While the Vedas, Upnishads and Samhitas
are the product of the ancient peaceful times, the Torah and
Talmud took shape even during deprivation and Diaspora. Both
religions gave birth to new and more simplified though less
profound religions, easy to follow with fewer demands. Judaism
fostered Christianity and that too at a later stage had much to
give to Islam. Likewise, the complicated profundities of Hindu
thoughts gave rise to simpler faiths, such as Buddhism, Jainism
and later Sikhism. It is to the eternal credit of these ancient cultures that none
of these ever prescribed or encouraged proselytizing and forcible
conversion and none ever fought religious wars to convert those,
who did not subscribe to their religion. The same was not the
case with Christianity and Islam. Judaism and Hinduism alike
suffered at the hands of Christianity and Islam. There were rare
exceptions when the Jews and the Hindus were left in peace
under a benevolent Christian or Muslim ruler. With the exception
of some years in Spain and those under Suleman the Magnificent,
the Jews suffered under Muslims in the Middle East, and mostly
under Christian kings in Europe. Hindus too suffered in their
own country under the Muslims and the British from 1300 to
1947 A.D., with a brief interlude of Maratha supremacy from
1707 to 1808 A.D. as mentioned above. Both the nations fought
their wars of independence against the British. The Jews of
Palestine under the British mandate fought the British as much
as the people who surrounded their country. While India gained
its freedom in 1947, Israel became a sovereign state a year later
in 1948. Countless conquerors strode over the land of Israel, wreaked
destruction and raised great and mighty empires, but lost in the
lirnbo of history none of these can be seen in the world today. 210 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 15 Yet Zion, the Jews and their Holy Land remain. Many swords
and armies tried to concur India but they themselves succumbed
to the culture of this land. This great and ancient civilization
triumphed, while India that is Bharat survives and Hinduism
endures. Some time in 1980, when rny daughter was studying Ancient
Indian History, brainwashed as she was by the text books of
these worthy eminences of the Leftist group, she made two
startling statements. One that Aryans used to eat beef and second,
that Krishna was a local God of the black skin Dasyus or what
was derisively mentioned as the inferior Dravidian race. On a
deeper study of the subject and after I read Arun Shouri’s book
mentioned earlier, he gave an account of a IV interview ’Apkj
Adalat’ taken by Manoj Rajvanshi and attended by Arun Shourie?
and Prof. Shrimali of the leftist school. On being asked by Manoj
Rajvanshi, if he could give a single reference or quote Shlokas
from Vedas or any other reference to substantiate the charge
that the Aryans during the Vedic period used to eat beef, Dr..
Shrimali was unable to do so. Arun Shourie also pinned him on
the subject, but could elicit no response except angry words. So
much for the beef eating. Obviously it was a canard hatched in
the conspiracy of these eminent historians still striving to
disseminate the above lies in the text books or material, which
they author. The other lie, regarding Lord Krishna, is nailed by
studying innumerable accounts on Mahabharat and the evidence
unearthed in the remains and finds of the period. The theory
of Aryan invasion and the conquest of Dravidians, the indigenous
people of India and their forced movement to the south are so
much nonsense. First, as has been proved beyond any shadow
of doubt by the research and findings of both Indian and foreign
historians, there was no Aryan invasion. We shall return to this
issue later in a separate chapter. Apart from the movement of
races in Paleolithic times, there has only been a number of
groupings and sub-groupings by the intermingling of these races.
A very broad classification, which does not take into account the
minor regional differences, could be on these lines. The NorthWest
European races, which could be put into the category of •rj^pfs A CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 211 faucasian, could be further divided into the Nordic and the
Mediterranean branches. The Nordic being fair coloured with
frizzy hair and blue eyes could also be found in some parts of
Asia. The Mediterranean group generally white skinned, with
dark eyes and black hair inhabited an area around Mediterranean
5ea, and the Middle East and India. The third group was the
Mongolian race with its characteristic features spread over the.
Central, North, East and Southeast Asia. The fourth group was
somewhat similar to the Mongolian yellow colour, with high
cheek bone and narrow eyes with less marked facial resemblance,
of bronze colour inhabiting South American continent and parts
of eastern fringe of Southeast. Then there were the other two
races with dark skin, curly hair flat nose and thick lips, mainly
divided into two regions. The first one the Negroid inhabiting
Central and South Africa while their sister branch Australoid,
inhabiting South East Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand.
In the broad historical time frame, there has been no systematic
migration or invasion of the fair skinned pastoral Aryans into
India or so called Aryavrata. I wish these worthies had taken
some notice of the earlier histories of Ancient India, authored
by Prof. Jadunath Sarkar and Dr. Ishwari Prasad. The text of
Cita recorded by Vedvyasa is enough evidence of a personality
much superior to any thing that can be ascribed to a so-called
Dasyus or the lesser mortals. In fact, the civilization existing
before the so called Aryan invasion, which included the Indus
valley and many other sites with similar archaeological findings,
confirm a very high level of civilization dating back to 8000 B.C.
Macaulay introduced English as the official medium of
communication to produce an army of clerks to subserve British
Administration and create a class of Bhadralok totally alienated
T°m meir very Indian roots and antipathic to our Hindu past.
ax Muller, a profound scholar of Sanskrit, mainly aimed to
. enigrate ancient India’s civilization and culture. The third name
n this trinity of India-batters was Marx and his school of historical
ectics, which aims to explain every thing in terms of economic
errr|inism, starting from class struggle; through feudal to 212 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTE R15 oppressive capitalism and finally to the victory of the Proletariat
The proletariat consisting of the working class according to his
vision consisted only of industrial labour, not agricultural workers
While Macaulay and Max Muller painted ancient Indian history
black, Marx took on the task of putting the medieval Indian
history on its head by explaining away everything on economic
grounds and class exploitation. Some of these worthies include
Prof. R.S. Sharma, Bipin Chandra, Satish Chandra, Irfan Habib
Romila Thapar, K.M. Panikar and their ilk, once installed in
positions of academic importance, at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University (J.N.U.) and the Indian Council of History Research
(ICHR). These eminent historians have produced a historical
literature with a pronounced anti-Hindu bias with derisive
references to Brahaminism, which they have equated with
Hinduism. Textbooks in schools in West Bengal produced by the
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)
have totally distorted the facts of history with a view to deride
the Hindu dispensation of medieval India and obliterate all the
cruelty, forcible conversion and iconoclasm of the Muslim
conquerors and rulers. Even their destruction of temples and
loot of treasure has been attributed to nothing but whims,
personal greed, administrative compulsions and economic needs
of the times. Not a word about the fundamentalist^ urge and
the intolerance of the Islam in practice; the use of sword and
the exhortations from the Prophet, the Sunna and the Hadis,
They have even attributed cruelty on Buddhists and the
destruction of their Viharas and places of learning like Nalanda
University to the Brahminical ire and Hindu atrocities. A cursory
look at what Ambedkar wrote and Swami Vivekanand preached
is enough to contradict this point of view. Buddhism had already
spread in Persia and Afghanistan as in the rest of Asia, before
the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. There were large numbers
of shrines and Viharas in these countries, which were later
invaded by the armies of the Prophet and his successors. What
happened to these monastries, shrines and Buddhist Viharas.
Did any Hindu king venture out to these countries to destroy
them? Why were these destroyed in Persia and Afghanistan on’y ^T^PTER 15 A CRITIQUE OF INDIAN HISTORY 213 and not in the rest of Buddhist Asia? The answer is simple and
jn two words, Muslim conquest. Will the worthy Marxist historians,
like Romila Thapar, put the blame on Brahmins and Hindus for
this vandalism? The destroyers of these shrines and property
\vere only the Muslim kings, which feats have been described in
glorifying terms by their own official historians and court
chroniclers, who were eyewitneses to the events. The blame for
distortions in Islam and Christianity giving rise to their own caste
system has also been laid at the doors of Brahaminism and
Hindus. The cruelty and exploitation of Hindus, Jazia tax and
destruction of temples have been described vividly by Sita Ram
Coel in his learned works and in a detailed study of the
destruction of Hindu temples. The reader is referred to the
book Hindu Temples-What Happened to Them: A Preliminary
Survey, co-authored by Arun Shciurie, Harsh Narain, Jay
Dubhashi, Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Coel. Arun Shourie in his well-researched book Eminent Historians
has cut a swathe through the thicket of lies, half-truths, innuendoes
and distortions of these Leftist historians, and exposed their
efforts to tarnish Hinduism and Brahaminism. For the Marxist
historians the theory and cause of Marx i.e., precept and practice
of socialism is paramount. The facts of history have to be
doctored and contrived to substantiate these ideas. Suppresso
veti, suggestion false. One of these worthies, Dr. Bipin Chandra in an unsolicited
opinion on the recent controversy regarding the historical
distortion in a Bollywood film ’Ashoka’ says, ”One can play
about with the historical facts, but one should be true to the
spirit of the person. (Just) any dramatist or actor cannot be
expected to rewrite history.” It seems the worthy Professor is
possessed of a new surgical means to X-ray the spirit and intention
°f a historical personality without due regard to the documented
texts and evidence.These are physically documented and
incontrovertible. In the lexicon of leftist historians facts do not
matter, only theory does; and the facts can and should be
sanitised to serve a preconceived theory or proposition. We shall
see more of these clever exercises in a subsequent chapter
”Ancient India and the Myth of the Aryan Invasion”.