Reading
Arun Shourie's ‘Eminent Historians: their technology, their line, their fraud'.
He describes how a group of historians with Leftist leanings work like
friends-with-benefits; helping each other and occupying all influential
positions in India. Then they produce nothing new but keep siphoning govt
grants and funds. He shows how the communist govt in Bengal issued a circular
revising school text books in 1989 in order to delete any mentions about
Muslims destroying Hindu temples or forcefully converting in history, etc and
Brahmins are made to show in bad light. The idea, Arun Shourie writes, is to
"make them ashamed of the things they revere - their Gods, their
scriptures, their language, Sanskrit..." He also shows how Communist Party
had sided with the British during our freedom struggle. So far really
enlightened. Reading Arun Shourie for the first time and he has mesmerized me!
Recommended for serious read!
This
book is about a communist leaning group of historians who have formed a nexus
to be become "Eminent Historians". Revelations are like: One such
historian Tasneem Ahmad simply stole the work of another historian Dr. P. Saran
who had died some time back and published it in his own name. He was proven
guilty in probe. And many false theories published in the name of history and
so much editing of text books.
I
know many of us are suspicious of history; many friends don't know if they
should believe or not believe in certain things from history. While reading
Arun Shourie's Eminent Historians, a lot of doubt has got cleared. Currently
govt is asking a group of Historians to write or edit text book of history
taught in schools. These historians with Leftist ideology and govt seeking
minority votes hide a lot of historical facts. But history is not subjective.
Arun Shourie writes that most Kings had a designated person in their court
whose job was to keep writing their deeds and exploits, preserved for future
generations. Many times Kings wrote about their work themselves. And these
accounts are available for our reference even today! In this book, he quotes
from many such historians who saw it from their own eyes and wrote accounts on
the same day events happened. They tell about these Kings attacking Hindu kings
all over India and destroying temples and idols. They killed priests and made
mosques in place of those temples; they disgraced idols and gave away idols to
be used by butchers to weigh meat or cemented idols in the stairs of mosques so
that people and Namazis could insult them daily. Hindus were forbidden from
wearing Tilak and religious marks; they were not allowed to take holy dips in
rivers on auspicious days; if a Hindu was found worshiping, he was given a
choice to either convert to Islam or get killed. On many instances Brahmins
were found having made small temples and worshiping idols; in one such case
from Delhi the Brahmin was burnt alive publicly with his small wooden temple
because he declined to convert to Islam. For our govt and politicians these
historical facts documented by historians and kings of those times who saw from
their eyes are inconvenient and hence they try to hide these facts. But history
is not subjective and we should understand their conspiracy.
Do
you know that Communist Party of India had sided with the British during 1942
Quit India movement and used to send Weekly Reports to the British to show how
they were working hard to foil the Congress led movement? (much correspondence
and reports are available which establish this). Do you know that Muslim orgs
and intellectuals like AMU founder Syed Ahmad Khan had tried hard to convince
Muslims not to take part in freedom movement because they thought it was not
worth it and instead focus on education? (enough documents from those times
prove it). Do you know that Muslim hardliners condemned Jinnah for getting a
separate nation Pakistan for Muslims, because they thought instead of getting a
portion of the land, whole country was available for Islamic rule? All these
proven facts from Arun Shourie's book Eminent Historians.
Mughals
are not the only ones who destroyed India and Hindu temples. The book talks
about Sikandar Lodi; Ahmud Shah, Mujahid Shah; Sultan NasirudDin, Jalaluddin
Khalji, and of course Firuz Shah Tughlaq... Each a greater demon than others in
his destruction...
Arun
Shourie also quotes SR Goel as a good Historian. The communist historians tried
to paint Golden age of India (basically the history before Muslim invaders
came) as a chaotic period with class conflict. Often they would write things
like, "There must have been class conflict though evidences of these are
wanting." How hilarious! They condemned Maurya empire for centralization
of administration, and also condemned Guptas for decentralization of
administration. How hypocritical? When a foreign traveler came during Gupta
rule and wrote in his accounts that "people were generally happy",
our communist historian will conclude "it is likely that he met only the
rich among the population." When art on the temple walls depicted people
relaxing and in doing things all happy and prosperous, our communist historians
will conclude, "temple art depicted only the rich of the population."
This is why we need to have objective understanding of history by various
sources. Do not trust one man's writing but match it with many other primary
sources. There would be ruins and excavations which will confirm about
kingdom's structure and there would be multiple people of those times (kings,
designated historian in their court, foreign visitor, foreign traveler, etc)
writing about things and we have to match and understand if there was peace at
that time or there was anarchy. For example, communist historians wrote that
all Islamic invaders broke temples only for money (financial motive), but those
invaders have written themselves that they were doing what their religion
wanted. Sikh scriptures like Guru Granth Sahib also tells about atrocities done
by Muslim kings, but our eminent historians will keep repeating good things and
keep hiding bad things about Muslim rule...
Though
this book is not about Islam, Arun Shourie throws light on many of its aspects
in order to expose what the communist historians have been hiding from all of
us. He says that whole of Mecca pilgrimage is basically coming from Pagan
practices from pre-Islamic times. So they are hypocritical in saying that they
don't have symbols and rituals, etc. In the last pages, Shourie quoted some
intellectuals who said that Hindus, our saints and India were not known to the
Arabs and that is why these are not mentioned in their book. Shourie asked: how
come being known to Arabs mattered when the book is basically word of Allah who
is supposed to know all? So how come he did not know that India/Hindus/our
Saints existed? He said that to defeat them we have to counter them on facts
every time and they will retreat. And after a while all their arguments will be
known (because they are not allowed free thinking and hence cease to grow), and
hence will bear no fruits.
One
more puzzle got solved for me from this book. As we notice communists are
generally anti-religion but they seem to love islam. But Arun shourie says that
communists have been doing switch on and switch off to islam as per their needs
of the time. He says,
"Soviet
and Chinese writings on Buddhism and Islam illustrate the matter. It was not
just that the subtle insights of the Buddha were reduced to ashes, one thing
was said about them one day and its opposite the next - according to the
relevant entries in any handy reference book - for instance, the Encyclopedia
of Marxism, Communism and Western Socialism - nails the pattern. In 1917-27 the
Soviet rulers needed to pacify Buddhists. Therefore, they extolled Buddhism as
an ideology of the oppressed masses, they extolled it for what they said was
its atheism, for its emphasis on equality… After 1929 when crushing was in
order, they portrayed Buddhism as having been an instrument created by feudal
lords to keep the working masses in thrall. Once the stamping-out began, Stalin
declared that it was “absurd” to “equate” Buddhism and Dialectical Materialism.
..
The
writings on Islam, we learn from the same authorities, went through the same
cycle. By the thirties and forties Soviet writers were portraying the Prophet
and Quran in dark, minatory colours – ridiculing accounts of miracles
attributed to the Prophet, questioning not just the spiritual worth, not just
the literary worth but even the coherence of the Quran…”
So
it seems that they have sided with them for their own benefit and it is just a
phase. If communists captured power, which is nowhere going to happen as such,
they would again have gone back to their hatred towards Islamists, but as of
now they need them so as to undermine Hindus and hence are looking like one
team...
I
think single book will give lots of perspective and I have learned new ways of
thinking and analyzing situations thanks to reading Arun Shourie. I realize
that there is so much to learn and now I am planning to buy some of his other
books also.
