"And yet some writers delude themselves with the mistaken belief that they can change their country's history by distorting it, or brain-wash generations of young students, or humour fundamentalist politicians through such unethical exercise. To judge what happened in the past in the context of today's cultural milieu and consciously hide the truth, is playing politics with history. Let history be accepted as a matter of fact without putting it to any subjective interpretations. Yesterday's villains cannot be made today's heroes, or, inversely, yesterday's Islamic heroes cannot be made into robbers ransacking temples just for treasures. Nor can the medieval monuments be declared as national monuments as suggested in some naive 'secularist' quarters. They represent vandalism. No true Indian can be proud of such desecrated and indecorous evidence of 'composite culture'. 'History,' says Froude, 'does teach that right and wrong are real distinctions. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of humanity.' It is nobody's business to change this moral law and prove the wrongs of the medieval period to be right today by having recourse to misrepresentation of history. Manipulation in the writing of medieval Indian history by some modern writers is the worst legacy of Muslim rule in India. (Chapter 3)"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3 (also in K.S. Lal, Historical Essays)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Historical_negationism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Historical negationism
41 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Historical negationism →
Related Quotes
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed i…"
"The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For how could you establish even…"
"Negationism means the denial of historical crimes against humanity. It is not a reinterpretation of known facts, but …"
"I realize that my study of remains incomplete because it is limited to Jews and Christians. It should be supplemented…"
"“History and Language textbooks for schools all over India will soon be revised radically. In collaboration with vari…"
"While such reactions were foreseeable, I was nonetheless taken aback by their scale and by the use of certain languag…"
"The destruction wrought by the Muslim raids and invasions left the civilisation headless, wounded, truncated in its d…"
"But the negationists are not satisfied with seeing their own version of the facts being repeated in more and more boo…"
"India has its own full-fledged brand of negationism: a movement to deny the large-scale and long-term crimes against …"
"This caravan loaded with synthetic merchandise has, however, continued to move forward. Eight years later (1982), it …"