Historians From India

"The Bindu Madhava, the most important Vishnu temple in Varanasi, was demolished in 1669 and a mosque constructed in its place. The temple now bearing the name Bindu Madhava is a modest structure in the shadow of the mosque, but continues the traditions associated with the site."

"“So why has the matter dragged on for so long? Can a handful of historians be held accountable for stalling resolution of what is essentially a settled matter? Their voluble assertions on Babri Masjid have all been found to be erroneous, yet there has been no public retraction. Are they liable for vitiating social harmony over the issue? If the nation has to move on, honest answers must be found to these questions.” (p.145)"

"“No evidence whatsoever has been proffered of continued Muslim occupation Babri Masjid, while the uninterrupted presence of Hindu devotees has been attested by several sources. Babri Masjid finds no mention in the revenue records of the Nawabi and British periods, nor was any Waqf ever created for its upkeep. No Muslim filed an FIR when the image of Sri Rama was placed under the central dome on 23rd December 1949.” (p.144)"

"In Braj, only two pre-Mughal Hindu monuments are still standing, the Assi Khambha at Mahaban and the Chaurasi Khambha at Kaman ; still standing because they were refashioned into mosques. Everything else, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu was abandoned and left to collapse, or destroyed. (p 34, citing Enhvistle 1987: 134)"

"Thus far neither Dr. Roy, nor Professor Prasad, nor Professor Irfan Habib have responded to the publication of the photograph of the Treta Ka Thakur inscription, which falsifies the arguments they have been persistently advocating for over two decades. (112)"

"Shockingly, Sita Ram Roy subseque ntly admitted in Court that at the time of writing his article he had "not seen full photograph, estampage of the inscription or its decipherment". Yet he had no qualms in pontificating on a matter of such importance in the Ayodhya dispute. (106)"

"But what is truly astounding is Kishore Kunal's exposure on the Treta Ka Thakur inscription housed in Lucknow Museum. For over two decades, Left historians, principally Professor Irfan Habib, mounted a forceful campaign claiming that this inscription was stolen from Lucknow Museum and planted at Ayodhya during the chaos of 6th December. Now for the first time a photograph of the Treta Ka Thakur inscription has been published. It conclusively establishes that the Treta Ka Thakur inscription and the Vishnu Hari inscription found in 1992 are two distinct epigraphs and that there had been no substitution. But does evidence really matter? Evidence may come; evidence may go; bu Left historians "go on forever". (p 7)"

"In an astonishing act of daring, a handful of Left historians attempted to counter a centuries old belief, and vociferously assert that Babri Masjid was built on vacant land. They remain undeterred despite the mounting evidence stacked against them. Some of these historians even appeared as experts of the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) during negotiations between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), BMAC, and the Government in 1990-1991. Yet throughout they have maintained the charade of being "independent historians." (p 5)"

"The Bindu Madhava temple, commended by Tulasi Das in several poems, was amongn the tallest and finest buildings atop the Panchaganga Ghat. Vandalized several times between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, it was rebuilt the last time by Raja Man Singh. The French traveler, Tavernier, described it as the most imposing structure along the Banaras waterfront. Aurangzeb had a huge mosque constructed at the site, which still dominates the skyline at the Ghat. A temple bearing that name was constructed in the shadow of the mosque. It is a non-descript structure, but continues the traditions associated with the site."

"It is indisputable that the Ramjanmabhumi/Babri Masjid debate has been dominated by a handful of historians from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi University and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), with stray participation of one or two other universities. The historians involved have been of Marxist orientation, some admittedly even card-holding members of the two Communist parties, the CPI and CPM. Their writings on the issue have appeared in the official publications of these parties--New Age and People's Democracy respectively, and also been published by Left-sponsored publishing groups like People's Publishing House, Sahmat and Tulika Books. Perhaps that could explain why their stance has often seemed more driven by ideology than academic deliberation. Yet, some of these academics, who even appeared as BMAC (Babri Masjid Action Committee) experts during negotiations between the VHP, BMAC and the Government in 1990-1991, claimed to be "independent historians", and demanded that they be recognized as such... A perusal of their writings and statements reveals an unswerving resolve to deny any possibility of a temple beneath the Masjid and, thus, fixity of purpose. So they initially pronounced Rama to be a mythic figure; questioned the identification of present day Ayodhya with Valmiki's Ayodhya; touted little remembered variants of the Rama story to counter Valmiki's version; declared Ayodhya was better known as a sacred city of the Buddhists and Jains; and even ruled out the existence of a Rama cult at Ayodhya prior to the eighteenth century. The belief in a Janmabhumi temple being destroyed by Babar they attributed to British machinations in the nineteenth century. For long, Marxist historians insisted that the Babri Masjid was built on virgin land."

"The belligerence of Left academics was at odds with their inability to validate and authenticiate their assertions in Court. On the very issues they continue to raise outside, they had been found on weak footing in the Allahabad High Court. (3)"

"On Muhammad Ghuri, Tarinicharan says that his soldiers were 'inhabitants of the hills, hardy and skilled in warfare. By comparison, the Hindu kings were disunited and their soldiers relatively docile and undisciplined. Consequently, it was only to be expected that Muhammad would win easily. But that is not what happened. Virtually no Hindu ruler surren- dered his freedom without a mighty struggle. In particular, the Rajahputra were never defeated. ‘The rise, consolidation and collapse of Muslim rule have been completed, but the Rajahputra remain free to this day.'"

"The Rohillas displayed their iconoclastic fervour during the campaing, melting all the silver and gold idols they could seize. In the interests of the Himalayan trade and the pilgrimage traffic, the Kumaun rajas maintained cordial relations with them. p. 70"

"The Mysore Archaeological Survey contends that at least three temples within his realm were destroyed on Tipu's orders. The Harihareswara temple at Harihar was looted and a section of it converted into a mosque, while the Varahaswami temple in Seringapatam and the Odakaraya temple in Hospet were both destroyed. p. 68"

"He [Tipu Sultan] sponsored the construction of the Ala Mosque within the fort of Seringapatam, in which pillars of Hindu origin are clearly visible. p 65"

"In India, the twain of faith and polity never met. It was not within royal purview to supervise the compliance of religious obligations by the citizenry. Indeed, there were no religious duties mandatory for all. p. 3"

"The problem of historical accuracy is compounded as we proceed into the medieval era. Key civilizational issues raised by the Islamic arrival are not even hinted at. […]. In the entire discussion on the Delhi Sultanate, the words dhimmi and jaziya are deliberately omitted, though they are crucial to understanding the dynamics of that epoch. There is a complete glossing over of the closed nature of the governing class […].Instead, there are innumerable misleading references to Hindu participation in the governmental process. If Indian involvement at the lower levels of administration did not make the colonial state an Indo-British venture, surely the same logic applies here as well? Yet the text insists that Hindu princes, landholders and priests of the time became constituents of the ‘new aristocracy’ that arose. The fact, however, is that leaving aside the ruling houses of Rajputana, Rajput resistance even in the neighbouring Katiher region remained intense till the last days of the Mughal Empire. The participation of landholders in the ruling class was, likewise, extremely restricted even under the Mughals. Hence, to assert that involvement of these groups was the norm in the Sultanate period is taking liberties with truth. Overlooking all forms of Hindu persecution, the book states that Brahmins and ulema were equally permitted to propagate their respective faiths. References to the infamous ‘pilgrimage tax’ are conveniently dropped.... [NCERT’s textbook Medieval India for class eight by Romila Thapar is] “partial and partisan”... “well-known historical facts are found deliberately obliterated or undervalued”... “the Leftist claim to historical objectivity suddenly appear vulnerable”."

"A scholar of medieval Indian history, Meenakshi Jain accurately captures a core theological reason for the Caliph’s glowing praise of Mahmud: Mahmud’s assault on Somanatha electrified the Muslim world because it was viewed as a sequel to the Prophet’s action at Kaba. Muslims identified the Somanatha idol as that of Manat62, believed to have been ferreted out of Mecca just prior to the Prophet’s attack on its temple. By destroying Somanatha, therefore, Mahmud was virtually completing the Prophet’s work; hence the act was hailed as the crowning glory of Islam over idolatry."

"Notwithstanding this politico-cultural reality, early Indian nationalists sought to inculcate a spirit of inclusivity and accommodation into the emergent socio-political discourse. As the freedom movement developed however, the Muslim League articulated an ideology committed wholly to its Islamic fountainhead and stressed the need to maintain the community’s political dominance in the country. The League’s refusal or failure to come to terms with the forces of modernization ushered in by the British further pushed it on a trajectory away from the national mainstream."

"Indian Marxists, notwithstanding their claims to originality, have always been faithful followers of Western intellectual trends, often long after these were dated in the west. Thus, well after Western academics expounded upon European feudalism, Indian Marxists continue to search for point-by-point parallels between post-Gupta India and the West. Similarly the once-in-vogue notion of 'imagined' communities continues to bewitch our Marxist brethren who remain committed to fitting the history of the subcontinent to this maxim. Only the western rethinking on old patriotisms underpinning the new nationalisms has yet to win the allegiance of Indian Marxists."

"Dharampal in his The Beautiful Tree shows how India’s own education system, which was widespread, cut across ‘caste’ lines and, in some regions, resulted in near 100% literacy. In dismantling this education system and replacing it with one which produced clerks for its Empire, Britain made sure that the English-educated Indian elite were fed on their biased understanding of India. The literacy rate in India on the British watch declined to about 12%, and a near complete loss of memory of its previous condition ensued."

"I first read about Gandhi’s views on education when I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Dharampal’s The Beautiful Tree, some 10 years ago... I bought the book, and read it from cover to cover on the flight back to England... I was truly astounded when I discovered this, from reading Dharampal and following up the original sources in the India Office Room of the British Library. Why wasn’t this extraordinary fact more widely known?"

"Dharampal is now perhaps the best authority on a most significant period of India's history...."

"Shri Dharampal has documented from old British archives, particularly those in Madras, that the indigenous system of education compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at about the same time. The Indian system was admittedly in a state of decay when it was surveyed by the British Collectors in Bengal, Bombay and Madras. Yet, as the data brought up by them proved conclusively, the Indian system was better than the English in terms of (1) the number of schools and colleges proportionately to the population, (2) the number of students attending these institutions, (3) the duration of time spent in school by the students, (4) the quality of teachers, (5) the diligence as well as intelligence of the students, (6) the financial support needed to see the students through school and college, (7) the high percentage of lower class (Sudra and other castes) students attending these schools as compared to the upper class (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaisya) students, and (8) in terms of subjects taught."

"Dharampal, the noted Gandhian, used British data during the colonial period to show that in the ninetheenth century, the shudras comprised a larger student body than any other community did. ... Besides the large number of schools at that time, there were also approximately a hundred institutions of higher learning in each district of Bengal and Bihar. Unfortunately, these numbers rapidly dwindled all across India during the nineteenth century under British rule. The British also noted that Sanskrit books were being widely used to teach grammar, lexicology, mathematics, medical science, logic, law and philosophy. ....Furthermore, in the early British period in India, British officials noted that education for the masses was more advanced and widespread in India than it was in England. ....According to Dharampal, the British later replaced this Sanskrit-based system with their own English-based one, the goal being to produce low-level clerks for the British administration."

"Not that an isolated occasion of saying the truth automatically leads to the disappearance of falsehood. Dharampal's famous book The Beautiful Tree completely demolished the myth that the Brahmins kept all the education for their own caste, and that Shudras were kept in darkness and illiteracy. Yet, the myth is still repeated... It is not enough to unearth the truth, it also has to be broadcast, and nobody should get away with pretending it isn't there."

"Then one morning, I walked into the South East Asia Institute on an Amsterdam street and found a book called Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century on the shelf. I took it down, curious. It was by a person named Dharampal whom I had not heard of before as a person or scholar active in that area of research. I took the book home and devoured it the same day. It altered my perception of India forever. Now, more than twenty years later, I know that the book appears to have had a similarly electrifying effect on thousands of others who were fortunate to get a copy of it. It spawned a generation of Indians which was happy to see India thereafter quite differently from the images with which it had been brought up in school, particularly English medium school."

"The sciences and technologies of the non-European world had different seekings and developments to those of Europe. Further, in countries like India, their organization was in tune with their more decentralist politics and there was no seeking to make their tools and work-places unnecessarily gigantic and grandiose. Smallness and simplicity of construction, as of the iron and steel furnaces or of the drill-ploughs, was in fact due to social and political maturity as well as arising from understanding of the principles involved. Instead of being crude the processes and tools of eighteenth century India appear to have developed from a great deal of sophistication in theory and an acute sense of the aesthetic."

"There is a sense of widespread neglect and decay in the field of indigenous education within a few decades after the onset of British rule. (...) The conclusion that the decay noticed in the early 19th century and more so in subsequent decades originated with European supremacy in India, therefore, seems inescapable. The 1769-70 famine in Bengal (when, according to British record, one-third of the population actually perished), may be taken as a mere forerunner of what was to come. (...) During the latter part of the 19th century, impressions of decay, decline and deprivation began to agitate the mind of the Indian people. Such impressions no doubt resulted from concrete personal, parental and social experience of what had gone before. They were, perhaps, somewhat exaggerated at times. By 1900, it had become general Indian belief that the country had been decimated by British rule in all possible ways; that not only had it become impoverished, but it had been degraded to the furthest possible extent; that the people of India had been cheated of most of what they had; that their customs and manners were ridiculed, and that the infrastructure of their society mostly eroded. One of the statements which thus came up was that the ignorance and illiteracy in India was caused by British rule; and, conversely, that at the beginning of British political dominance, India had had extensive education, learning and literacy. By 1930, much had been written on this point in the same manner as had been written on the deliberate destruction of Indian crafts and industry, and the impoverishment of the Indian countryside."

"The ordinary people who proved the backbone of the freedom struggle, were shunted back to their ploughs and fields, to their tools and workshops, and we exhorted them to work harder, and assured them that we could take care of India."

"The chain of tectonic events... diverted the Satluj westward [into the Indus] and the Palaeo Yamuna eastward [into the Ganga]... This explains the ’death’ of such a mighty river [ i.e, Sarasvati] ... because its main feeders, the Satluj and Palaeo Yamuna were weaned away from it by the Indus and the Ganga respectively."

"There is no indication of any invasion of Indus towns nor is any artefact attributable to the so-called ‘invaders’."

"When I was repairing the temple of Dwarkadeesh at Dwaraka (on land) I had to demolish a modern building in front of it and I found the 9th Century temple of Vishnu. I got curious and dug further deeper (30 ft) in 1979-80 on land. We found two earlier temples, a whole wall and figures of Vishnu. We dug further and actually found eroded material of a township lying at the bottom. Then arose the question of dating the remains of the township destroyed by the sea. Thermo-luminescence dating revealed a date of 1520 B.C. The Mahabharata refers to Dwaraka ..."

"Habitational areas yield bones mostly of those animals which were killed and eaten—the horse, the camel, the elephant are only rarely represented in actual bones, very few indeed at every site, simply because these animals are not likely to have been as regularly eaten as sheep and goats as well as fish whose bones are abundantly found at all Indus-Sarasvati settlements. Wheeler seems to accept this position and never uses the absence of horse in Indus-Sarasvati art to prove that the civilization was non-Aryan or Dravidian."

"The fact that the Vedic people imported the 'horse' from Kacch is supported by Vedic literature which is full of references to the a5va owing its birth to water or sea. Uccaihfrava, the a.Sva emerging from the churning of the sea of milk or k#rasllgara, is the ass found as a wild animal in Kacch. It may be pointed out that Khirsar was a port in Kacch and it has a mound of Harappan times. It is all the more important for us that another name of Khirsar is 'Ghodewali wadi', the town (marketing centre) of horses."

"Unfortunately, the horse has become a bone of contention between two groups of historians dealing with the 'Aryan Problem' in India, the so-called Nationalists and the so-called Marxists. The former, basing their views on the archaeological findings, maintain that the people of the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization may have been the Vedic Aryans who are known in history for their chariots driven by horses, while the latter hold that the archaeological findings are 'minor', ' limited', and 'marginal', and hold onto the age-old view that the people of the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization were not horse- users, hence could not be the Vedic Aryans. To say the least, this is a strange logic. For the scientists, Indus-Sarasvati people were definitely horse-users, whether they were Vedic Aryans or not hardly concerns them. But Marshall certainly erred gro.55ly when he observed that the Indus people could not be Vedic Aryan because they were not familiar with the horse, let alone its users. Incidentally, in the Vedas the people are never called a.Warohis, that is, horsemen, they are credited only with chariots driven by horses. They ate sheep, etc. but not horse meat or camel meat. Hence, it is not surprising that the horse and camel bones are only rarely found in excavations."

"S.P. Gupta offered a sensible reply to the further objection that horse remains, if at all they are accepted, rarely account for more than 2% of the total animal remains at any site. Pointing out that the same holds true of the camel and elephant (animals undeniably present in Harappan sites), he explained that this low proportion is 'simply because these animals are not likely to have been as regularly eaten as cattle, sheep and goats as well as fish whose bones are abundantly found at all Indus-Saraswati settlements' (Gupta 1996: 162)."

"The balance of trade appears to have been in favor of India; more items were exported from India than imported from the Gulf and Mesopotamia.”"

"What is, however, much more significant to note is that here we have the longest sequence of cultures, without any break whatsoever, upto the Early Indus-Sarasvati. In other words, this sequence does not allow any outside agency to come and effect changes in the step-by-step growth of culture. If this is realised clearly, it will not leave any scope for doubt in the indigenous of the origin and growth of the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization; at Mehrgarh from around 4000 B.c. we start getting all those characistic features which went directly into the make-up of the Early Indus sarasvati Civilization."

"It would therefore, indicate quite clearly that there were at least two phases in the Kot Diji ot the Early Indus-Sarasvati culture : Old (3500-3000 b.c.) and New (3000-2700 B.c.) The period between 3500 B.c. and 3000 B.C. was very crucial— the Early Indus- Civilization was spreading far and wide, informing us that it Was the proto-urban phase in which new townships were getting established in and also beyond the Indus and Sarasvati basins; the large cities of Harappa, Mohenjodaro, etc. were the culmination of the long process of urbanisation and not its beginning."

"This led to a serious debate amongst all the archaeologists, of the world who were dealing with the Indus-Sarasvatj Civilization, directly or indirectly, What one group called ‘Pre-Harappan’, the other group called ‘Early Harappan’. Why this controversy cropped up? It is all a question of ‘approaches’ in archaeological Studies which are primarily two—the ‘culture-historical’ and “culture- processual’."

"All this clearly shows that, in the process of the formation of the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization, which was typically a lowland cultural phenomenon, not one but several regions were directly or indirectly involved, as has been pointed out by Mughal. The usual American perception (of scholars like Possehl) that the highland Baluchi cultures, such as the Quetta culture with roots in Iranian Neolithic cultures of the Zagros mountains, and the Iranian Bronze Age cultures were primarily responsible for the birth and early growth of the Indus- Sarasvati Civilization, therefore, requires serious reconsideration since the pre-4000 BC cultures leading to the 4000 BC settlements are now locally available in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, particularly at Harappa, where a four-metre deposit of handmade black painted red ware with mud-brick houses was found in early 1996."

"The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization is found extending for more than 1600 km from north to south and equally from east to west, covering an area of about 2.5 million sq. km and more. The northernmost site known to us so far is Manda, located on the River Beas near Jammu; the southernmost site is Bhagatrav on the RiverTapti in Gujarat; the easternmost site is Bhorgarh in east Delhi and Alamgirpur in district Meerut; and the westernmost site is Sutkagendor, located on the ancient shore of the Arabian Sea, near the eastern border of Iran. The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization was, therefore, around four times more in area coverage than any contemporary civilization, including the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian."

"With regard to the problem of communalism whether it be Hindu- Muslim, Vaishnava-Saiva or Shia-Sunni it may be assumed that the people of India have come of age. If that is so the historians of India should neither look for forces of communal synthesis nor for those of conflict; they should just look for facts as they unfold themselves in the historical process. If they only look for facts supporting synthesis they may be good nationalists but they would at the same time be inverted communalists. Let history be our psychoanalyst. Once we are able to accept ourselves for what we are we will be able to give the right direction to our present and future. … A historian’s commitment to history must remain untouched by his loyalties, political, religious or others."

"Indian art has been the product of Indian culture as the Greek art has been the product of Greek culture or the Roman art has been the product of Roman culture. Indian culture, however, has been the product of two streams of thoughts and practices, one, the Folk, belonging to the oral traditions operating at the folk level, in the villages, and, the other, classical, belonging to the sophisticated literary traditions, the former is sometimes called 'Lower Tradition' and the latter 'Higher Tradition'."

"Generally speaking, a temple is a 'Place of Worship'. It is also called the 'House of God'. However, for a Hindu, it is both and yet still more. It is the whole cosmos in the miniature form."

"All books written in Sanskrit and Marathi, whatever their subject matter, were seized by the Inquisition and burnt on the suspicion that they might deal with idolatry. It is probable that valuable non-religious literature dealing with art, literature, sciences, etc., was destroyed indiscriminately, as a consequence. These activities had been initiated in Goa even before the establishment of the Inquisition. For instance, there is a letter dated November 28, 1548, in which D. Fr. Joao de Albuquerque proudly reports his achievements in that direction.”"

"Scholars are generally agreed that the Inquisition of Goa had earned ‘‘a sinister renown as the most pitiless in Christendom.” From the foregoing account of the use of torture by its counterparts in Europe it should be possible to imagine the cruel excesses which the Inquisition of Goa must have practised to have merited such notoriety."

"There is reason to believe that the zeal to snatch away orphans was inspired not only by desire to save their souls but also by anxiety to take charge of their estates."

"On April, 3, 1582, the following royal decree was issued : “ Being informed that Brahminsand Hindus of these parts of India are collectors and contractors of my revenues and also serve my Officials in matters relating to their offices, which is greatly detrimental to Christianity and contrary to canonical law, and although the governor had provided against this by his order of the year 1557 the same was not being executed, and being desirous of providing in this matter in pursuance of my duty to propagate our Holy Catholic Faith in the said parts, I hereby order that from now onwards no Hindu, whatever be his status or condition, should hold public office.’’2?"