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January     Last updated:January 20 : 7:00 p.m.

Bitter truth to Left palate

Prof S.V. Seshagiri Rao

At the 61st History Congress held in Kolkata on January 2, 2001, Amartya Sen made a scathing attack on those who are manoeuvring history "to suit a slanted agenda in contemporary politics". Such history, he scorned, could easily become "bunk". He had also cited an example: Ramayana is being interpreted not as a great epic but as documentary history. Recalling Thomas De Quincy's essay "Murder considered as one of the fine arts", the Nobel Laureate stated: "Rewriting of history for bellicose use can also, presumably, be a very fine art." He then condemned the "activist incursions of communal politics in contemporary India like in the Babri Masjid demolition issue". He further resented: "a heavily carpentered characterization of Mughal rule as anti-Hindu had repeatedly been invoked by certain political outfits." Who were these "communal villains" that "carpentered" the Mughal rule as anti-Hindu?

I am afraid the answer could be unpalatable to Amratya Sen and the like. Raja Rammohun Roy (1774-1833) was a scholar in Persian and Arabic. The Muslim culture and philosophy, particularly the Sufi ideas, got a strong hold upon him. He studied the Quran in Arabic. In secular outlook he was second to none. He was a contemporary of the French Revolution. The great pioneer of Indian renaissance was a witness of Mughal regime in its last phase. In his "Appeal to the King in Council" Raja Ram Mohun Roy refers to the "despotic power of Mughal princes who formerly ruled over the country" and their religious bigotry and proselytisation. He states: "We have been subjected to such insults for about nine centuries... The greater part of Hindustan having been for several centuries subject to Mohammedan rule, the civil and religious rights of its original inhabitants were constantly trampled upon, and from the habitual oppression of the conquerors, a great body of their subjects in the Southern Peninsula (Dukhin), afterwards called Marhattahs, and another body in the western parts now styled Sikhs, were last driven to revolt; and when the Muslim power became feeble, they ultimately succeeded in establishing their independence; but the natives of Bengal remained during the whole period of Mohammedan conquest, faithful to the existing government, although their prosperity was often plundered, their religion insulted, and their blood wantonly shed."(Ram Mohun Works 1887, pp. 445-6) Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958) was not a historian of "bunk" variety. If anyone has a doubt "superb historian" R.S. Sharma dispels it.

The Makers of Modern India edited by R.S. Sharma for Indian Council of Historical Research says: "Jadunath deeply impressed the world of learning when two volumes of The Study of Aurangzeb appeared in 1912. Later he completed William Irwin's project of the study of Later Mughals in two volumes. As by-product of the study on Aurangzeb, Jadunath wrote Shivaji And His Times in 1919 in six volumes. Out of the same theme of Aurangzeb were produced four volumes of the Fall of the Mughal Empire." Now let us turn to what Jadunath Sarkar, former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, says about Aurangzeb: "On April 19, 1669, he issued a general order to the governors of all provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the infidels and put down their teachings and their religious practices strongly... Besides numberless minor shrines throughout the Empire, all the most famous Hindu places of worship now suffered destruction: the temple of Somnath at Patan, Viswanth at Benaras and Keshav Dev at Mathura. Even the loyal state of Jaipur did not escape, sixty-six temples being demolished at Amber."

About Shivaji, Jadunath says: "Shivaji has shown that the tree of Hinduism is not really dead, that it can rise from beneath the seemingly crushing load of centuries of political bondage, exclusions from the administration, and legal repression; it can put forth new leaves and branches: it can again lift its head unto the skies." In his Maulana Azad Memorial Lecture in Delhi in 1960, the famous historian Arnold Toynbee recalled: "Aurangzeb converted these temples with the deliberate intention of insulting his political opponents-the same intention which the Russians had in building the Orthodox Church in the centre of Warsaw. The purpose of these mosques was to proclaim that even in places most sacred to the Hindus, it was the Muslims who were actually ruling. It needs to be stated, that Aurangzeb had an extaordinary knack of selecting sites for building mosques at the most provocative places."

Let us also share the concern of Amartya Sen about those manoeuvring history for the sake of political ends. When a historian of Tara Chand's eminence was invited by a Union education minister (Maulana Azad) to write a comprehensive History of Freedom Movement and when the work was honoured with a preface by another Union minister for education (Humayun Kabir) and when the work was published by Government of India, certainly it has to be respected as an unbiased narration. However, unfortunately it stands as a classic example of the newfound dictum secularism is more sacrosanct than truth. Tara Chand eulogized Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to dizzy heights. As an educationist he certainly deserves praise. But Tara Chand chose to hide the darker side of Sir Syed. Sir Syed, not Jinnah, was the first to propound the two-nation theory. He lamented the comradeship forged between Hindus and Muslims during the great revolt of 1857 and said: "If separate regiments of Hindus and Mohemedans had been raised, this feeling of brotherhood could not have arisen." (Causes of Revolt pp. 54-55). In a speech at Meerut on March 16, 1888, he refers to Hindus and Muslims not only as two nations, but as two warring nations who could not lead a common political life if ever the British left India.

According to Sir Syed, "The Congress was in reality a civil war without arms. The ultimate object of the Congress was to rule the country; and although they wished to do it in the name of all people of India, the Muslims would be helpless as they would be in a minority." (The Birth of Pakistan, Sachin Sen, p. 42) At the time of Partition the non-Muslim population of West Pakistan was 6.5 million. By June 1948, when Mountbatten finally left India, it was reduced to .3 million. What happened to the 6.2 million? The four-volume 2093-page 'monumental work' of Tara Chand disposes of this holocaust in just half a page (p. 525). Government of India appointed a commission headed by a Punjab High Court judge, G.D. Khosla to investigate in the tragic happenings. It was published in 1949. This authentic and totally unbiased report was not even obliquely mentioned by Tara Chand. (The Oxford University Press which republished the book in 1989, omitted 13 photographs from the original version). Amartya Sen should tell us who is suppressing the truth for who has slanted agenda?

Ironically, Amartya Sen raised the issue of "activists' incursions into history" in the presence of Marxist leadership. In the Marxist administered West Bengal, the Secondary Board issued a circular in 1989, Sy1/89/1, ordering deletion of certain portions from school textbooks. Arun Shourie collected the details. A few instances with the deleted portions in italics: "Fourthly, using force to destroy Hindu temples was also an expression of aggression. Fifthly, forcibly marrying Hindu women and converting them to Islam before marriage was another way to propagate the fundamentalism of the Ulema." (Bharat Katha of Burdwan Education Society, p. 141) "He looted valuables worth 2 crore dirham from the Somnath temple and used the Shivaling as a step leading up to the masjid in Ghazni." (Bharatvarsher Itihash by Dr Narendranath Bhattacharya, p. 89) "Hindu-Muslim relations of the medieval ages constitute a very sensitive issue.

The non-believers had to embrace Islam or death." (ibid. p. 112) "As dictated by Islam, there were three options for non-Muslims: get yourself converted to Islam; pay jaziya; accept death. In an Islamic state non-muslims had to accept one of these three options." (Itihas Kahani by Nalini Bhushan Dasgupta, p. 154) "There is an account that Alauddin attacked the capital of Mewar, Chittorgarh, to get Padmini, the beautiful wife of Rana Rattan Singh." (Bharater Itihash by P. Maiti, p. 117) "Apart from this, because Islam used extreme, inhuman means to establish itself in India, this became an obstacle for the coming together of Indian and Islamic cultures." (Swadesho Shobhyota by Dr P.K. Basu and S.B. Ghatak, p. 145) "That is why he adopted the policy of converting Hindus to Islam-so as to increase the number of Muslims. Those Hindus who refused to discard their religion were indiscriminately massacred by him or his generals." (Bharat Kahani by G.C. Roy Choudhury, p. 130) The number of such deletions are too many to be listed here.

The sources of these "objectionable" passages were none other than the chronicles written by Muslim scholars themselves during the sultanate and Mughal regimes. For instance, Tarikh-I-Firuz Shahi of Zia-ud-Buddin Barani (13th century) says: "At the beginning of the third year of the reign, Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan, with their amirs and generals, and a large army marched against Gujarat.... All Gujarat became a prey to the invaders, and the idol, which after the victory of Sultan Muhammad and his destruction of the idol of Manat, the Brahmans had set up under the name of Somnath, for the worship of the Hindus, was carried to Delhi where it was laid for the people to tread upon." Tarikh-I-Firuz Shahi of Shamsuddin bin Sirajuddin (14th century), Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq, Tarikh-i-Farishta of Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah, Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi of Yahya bin Ahmad bin Abdullah Sirhindi, Tarikh-i-Muhammadi of Muhammad Bihamad Khani (14th century), Tarikh-i-Shahi of Ahmad Yadgar (15th century), Tarikh-i-Akbari, Tarikh-i-Daudi of Abdullah, Muntabkhabut-Tawarikh of Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar Padshah Ghazi (16th century) were some of the historical works of Muslim scholars which vividly describe the atrocities on Hindus.

Amartya Sen's discourse on "Heterodoxy and History as an Enterprise of Knowledge" was a gloss to defend the Marxist interpretation of history. Hindus are being wantonly assaulted in the cultural field after Independence. Continuous vicious propaganda to denigrate the Hindu past has become the dedicated mission of the secularists, especially the Marxist variety. Congress Governments at the Centre hired Stalinist historians ("superb historians" according to Amartya Sen) to distort the history with an anti-Hindu bias. This preposterous exercise also perfectly suits the communist agenda of uprooting the foundations of nationalism and national culture. Communalism could not be contained by feeding the minds with half-truths and brazen falsehoods. The assumption that distortion of historical facts is permissible for promoting communal harmony would never yielded the desired result. Durable communal harmony could be built only on positive foundations of truth and equality. The present technological advancement would not permit anyone to suppress the true history or to distort it to suit anybody's political interests.