Perversion Of Indian History And Setting The Record Straight — Part I
Indian History has for long been perverted and turned upside down to accommodate a colonialist and leftist agenda by motivated historians. Their agenda is evidently anti-national. Who hasn’t heard of the African proverb, “Until the lions tell their side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”?
The insidious anti-Hindu and anti-national narrative formulated by the British historians and subsequently popularized by many leftist Indian historians posits the Hindu as “meek” and “preoccupied with sterile speculations” on spirituality, who “seldom stood up in defence of his country and culture.” [Heroic Hindu Resistance To Muslim Invaders, P 1 — Sita Ram Goel]
For over seven decades after Independence, this version of history has become the standard trope taught in schools and colleges under the education system established by the British.
Many Hindus, in their ignorance and misplaced enthusiasm have eagerly lapped up this version of history. Not only that, they have helped propagate this version thinking it somehow proves the superiority of their spiritual culture over the materialistic culture of the West.
In the process they have aided in legitimizing the story of India’s history being the history of a series of invasions by foreign invaders like the Iranians, Greeks, Parthians, Scythians, Kushans, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Portuguese, Dutch, French and the British. Sadly, they have inadvertently downplayed the history of the greatest and oldest continuous civilization on earth as well as the heroism of the Hindus who “fought and ultimately frustrated all foreign invaders.” [Heroic Hindu Resistance To Muslim Invaders, P 2 — Sita Ram Goel]
Nationalist scholars and stalwarts like Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Jadunath Sarkar, Sita Ram Goel, Kishori Sharan Lal, Ram Gopal Misra, Rama Shankar Tripathi among others, have done phenomenal work towards ‘putting the record straight’ and dispelling the misinformation.
Sita Ram Goel has cut out the task for Hindus in absolutely clear terms. He says, “Hindu society owes it to its own survival in the present and to the prosperity of its future generations to repudiate this perverse version of India’s history, and to put the record straight so that no one dares divorce Hindu spirituality from Hindu heroism, Hindu nation from the Hindu homeland and Hindu culture from the national culture of India.” [Heroic Hindu Resistance To Muslim Invaders, P 3 — Sita Ram Goel]
Why do we need to set the record straight?
There are many reasons to repudiate this twisted version of Indian history and present an authentic history of the Indian people. Chief among these are:
1. To restore our dignity.
2. To reclaim the narrative.
3. To preserve our way of life and our Dharma.
4. To tell our story.
At a deeper, psychological level, it is important to tell the story of our historical trauma to allow for crucial stages of healing to take place.
But the one reason that towers above the rest, is for Truth to prevail.
The history of our brave ancestors who gave their all in the face of the bloodiest of genocides and centuries-long mass violence, must be told for the sake of Truth.
It is not for nothing that American historian Will Durant has called the Islamic conquest of India as the bloodiest in history. “The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying from within.” [The Story Of Civilization: Vol. 1 — Our Oriental Heritage, P 459 — Will Durant]
Islamic conquest of India was no walk-over
History in modern India has been the mistress of self-alienated secularists and socialists. It is no surprise then, that history books gloss over how easily the barbaric invaders conquered Indian kingdoms and ‘vanquished’ ‘meek’ Indians. Academic historians have focused for long on how meekly Indian kings gave in to the invading armies and how easily the Indian resistance collapsed.
These historians have reduced the relentless Hindu resistance to Islamic invaders into some sort of arbitrary sporadic revolts by local chieftains and petty princes for personal gains. The Hindu heroes who doggedly kept the heroic resistance alive for centuries have been reduced to “ridiculous rebels who disturbed public peace at intervals but who were always put down.” [The Story Of Islamic Imperialism In India — Sita Ram Goel]
“The repeated Rajput resurgence in Rajasthan, Bundelkhand and the Ganga-Yamuna Doab; the renewed assertion of Independence by Hindu princes at Devagiri, Warrangal, Dvarasamudra and Madurai; the rise of the Vijayanagara Empire; the farflung fight offered by the Marathas; and the mighty movement of the Sikhs in the Punjab” [The Story Of Islamic Imperialism In India — Sita Ram Goel] has all been devalued and scaled down to fit into the politically motivated framework of Indian history.
This belittling and washing down of the Indian resistance is symptomatic of the kind of perversion that Indian history has been subjected to, under the ideological blindness of the ruling classes of independent India.
Reality is far from the deceit and lies that the mischievous colonial and leftist historians have been force-feeding gullible Indians for over a century.
Reality is that these historians have deliberately and dishonestly ignored the ‘prolonged and sustained efforts made by Indians to stem the tide of early Muslim invaders.’ [Heroic Hindu Resistance To Muslim Invaders, P 3 — Sita Ram Goel]
Reality is that the stiff political and military resistance offered by Hindus kept the rising tide of Islamic invasions at bay for more than five and a half centuries.
It is time Indians ask themselves — What is India’s real history? Was India truly fully and finally conquered by Islam? Or was the Muslim empire in India finished by the time the British usurped power through deceitful means?
More importantly, did the Hindu kings readily succumb to advancing Islamic invaders or did they offer any major resistance? Who were these brave, unsung kings and queens, warriors and heroes who valiantly fought for their Motherland and never really gave up their resistance?
An unbiased examination of Indian history from original sources leads us to a simple yet powerful conclusion — that the Islamic invasions of India were no walkover.
Such prolonged and sustained resistance as offered by the Hindu kings of India was not encountered by the invading Islamic armies in any other land conquered by them.
(Here is the link to Part II of this article.)
