*** Excerpts from 1857: History and Propaganda by 2ndLook ***

…A man who is much (wrongly) admired in India today – Max Mueller. For instance in Max Muller’s colonial propagandist history, when it comes to Indian triumphs over Semiramis, she becomes half-legendary. Yet in another book, the same Semiramis becomes one of ‘the great conquerors of antiquity.’ In a matter of a few pages, he dismisses Indian history completely, in a half-Hegelian manner.

Aiding Max Mueller, English poets were press ganged into this propaganda war.

…Just before 1857 War, the writing of another ‘influential’ poet, John Keats, became popular. In a hubristic haze, Keats wrote how,

The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus’ eye-wink turning pale.

Much of modern history’s debates and questions were born during this time – verily created to wage a propaganda war against India – and the world. India’s cultural stature in the pantheon of world’s societies was reduced to a minimal role – and the Greek Miracle was born.

This propaganda war continued well for another 100 years. In the middle of WW2, Britain pulled out a general from the Italian theatre of war and sent him to India – to head colonial India archaeological operations.

One evening in early August 1943, Brigadier General Mortimer Wheeler was resting in his tent after a long day of poring over maps, drawing up plans for invasion of Siciliy. Mortimer Wheeler was invited to become the director general of archaeology by the India Office of the British government in its last years of rule in South Asia … Summoning a general from the battlefields of Europe was an extraordinary measure, an admission both of the desperate condition of Indian archaeology and an acknowledgment of its vital importance. (from The Strides of Vishnu: Hindu Culture … – Google Books).

Amazing!

Why would the glorious British Empire, on which the sun never set, struggling for its very existence, in the middle of WW2, suddenly pull a general back from the battlefield – and put him into archaeology! Especially, when it was clear that they would be departing from India – sooner than later.

Considering what theories came from Mortimer Wheeler’s rather fertile ‘imagination’ and his rigourous archaeological process, raises even more questions. There may be the facile answer that the British were after all ‘searching for history and truth’.

And it led Mortimer Wheeler to remark,

“They demonstrate with astonishing clarity the extent to which the brief transit of Alexander did in fact Hellenize almost instantly vast tracts of Asia populated previously by nomads or semi-nomads and villagers”

It is this one incident which possibly has answers to many unanswered questions like: -

1. The amount of energy expended by the West in defending the Aryan Invasion /Migration Theory,
2. The lack of access to Indian scholars of the archaeological sites in Pakistan,
3. The many myths in Indian history,
4. The clues to the partition of India
5. The dating problems

et al.

Just why did the world’s foremost imperial power, struggling for its very existence, suddenly pull a general from the battle field, in the middle of WW2 – and put him on the job of digging dirt.

Only one explanation fits – it had to be a struggle for its own existence at a higher level!

5000 Years Of Poverty

By the end of the 19th century, Colonial India was de-urbanising. Populations in Indian agrarian network was increasing. Agricultural taxes were high. Hence, food production declined. Famines had become a regular feature. Industrial production was a distant memory. British colonial rule – especially from 1925 onwards, drastically changed the economic situation in India. From the richest to the poorest in a short period of a 100 years.

Tragically, our illustrious Finance Minister, P.Chidambaram says “I want to end 5000 years of poverty” in the Parliament and the media. In contrast, at various fora, there are discussions about how India will become a super power in this century.

While Chidambaram is factually incorrect, Indophiles are unrealistic. They fondly hope and believe that India is a one step away from being a super power. At best, we have a unique history. To improve the outlook on India’s uncertain future, a better understanding of our situation and more investments (not only money) are required.

*** End of Excerpts***

Related Posts: Max Meuller and Correcting History, A Restorative Account of Victorian Holocausts. Also Read: We Are, What We Know and why I am no longer sure if 1857 was a Revolt? a Mutiny? a War of Independence? or Jihad? ..or indeed all the above…

*** Excerpts from “Why is England in India at all?” by Jabez T Sutherland ***

What causes this awful and growing impoverishment of the Indian people? Said John Bright, “If a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and, notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and suffering, the chances are there is some fundamental error in the government of that country.”

One cause of India’s impoverishment is heavy taxation. Taxation in England and Scotland is high, so high that Englishmen and Scotchmen complain bitterly. But the people of India are taxed more than twice as heavily as the people of England and three times as heavily as those of Scotland. According to the latest statistics at hand, those of 1905, the annual average income per person in India is about $6.00, and the annual tax per person about $2.00. Think of taxing the American people to the extent of one-third their total income! Yet such taxation here, unbearable as it would be, would not create a tithe of the suffering that it does in India, because incomes here are so immensely larger than there. Here it would cause great hardship, there it creates starvation. Notice the single item of salt-taxation. Salt is an absolute necessity to the people, to the very poorest; they must have it or die. But the tax upon it which for many years they have been compelled to pay has been much greater than the cost value of the salt. Under this taxation the quantity of salt consumed has been reduced actually to one-half the quantity declared by medical authorities to be absolutely necessary for health. The mere suggestion in England of a tax on wheat sufficient to raise the price of bread by even a half-penny on the loaf, creates such a protest as to threaten the overthrow of ministries. Lately the salt-tax in India has been reduced, but it still remains well-nigh prohibitive to the poorer classes. With such facts as these before us, we do not wonder at Herbert Spencer’s indignant protest against the “grievous salt-monopoly” of the Indian Government, and “the pitiless taxation which wrings from poor ryob nearly half the products of the soil.”

Another cause of India’s impoverishment is the destruction of her manufactures, as the result of British rule. When the British first appeared on the scene, India was one of the richest countries of the world; indeed it was her great riches that attracted the British to her shores. The source of her wealth was largely her splendid manufactures. Her cotton goods, silk goods, shawls, muslins of Dacca, brocades of Ahmedabad, rugs, pottery of Scind, jewelry, metal work, lapidary work, were famed not only all over Asia but in all the leading markets of Northern Africa and of Europe. What has become of those manufactures? For the most part they are gone, destroyed. Hundreds of villages and towns of India in which they were carried on are now largely or wholly depopulated, and millions of the people who were supported by them have been scattered and driven back on the land, to share the already too scanty living of the poor ryot. What is the explanation? Great Britain wanted India’s markets. She could not find entrance for British manufactures so long as India was supplied with manufactures of her own. So those of India must be sacrificed. England had all power in her hands, and so she proceeded to pass tariff and excise laws that ruined the manufactures of India and secured the market for her own goods. India would have protected herself if she had been able, by enacting tariff laws favorable to Indian interests, but she had no power, she was at the mercy of her conqueror.

A third cause of India’s impoverishment is the enormous and wholly unnecessary cost of her government. Writers in discussing the financial situation in India have often pointed out the fact that her government is the most expensive in the world. Of course the reason why is plain: it is because it is a government carried on not by the people of the soil, but by men from a distant country. These foreigners, having all power in their own hands, including power to create such offices as they choose and to attach to them such salaries and pensions as they see fit, naturally do not err on the side of making the offices too few or the salaries and pensions too small. Nearly all the higher officials throughout India are British. To be sure, the Civil Service is nominally open to Indians. But it is hedged about with so many restrictions (among others, Indian young men being required to make the journey of seven thousand miles from India to London to take their examinations) that they are able for the most part to secure only the lowest and poorest places. The amount of money which the Indian people are required to pay as salaries to this great army of foreign civil servants and appointed higher officials, and then, later, as pensions for the same, after they have served a given number of years in India, is very large. That in three-fourths if not nine-tenths of the positions quite as good service could be obtained for the government at a fraction of the present cost, by employing educated and competent Indians, who much better understand the wants of the country, is quite true. But that would not serve the purpose of England, who wants these lucrative offices for her sons. Hence poor Indian ryots must sweat and go hungry, and if need be starve, that an ever-growing army of foreign officials may have large salaries and fat pensions. And of course much of the money paid for these salaries, and practically all paid for the pensions, goes permanently out of India.

Another burden upon the people of India which they ought not to be compelled to bear, and which does much to increase their poverty, is the enormously heavy military expenses of the government. I am not complaining of the maintenance of such an army as may be necessary for the defense of the country. But the Indian army is kept at a strength much beyond what the defense of the country requires. India is made a sort of general rendezvous and training camp for the Empire, from which soldiers may at any time be drawn for service in distant lands. If such an imperial training camp and rendezvous is needed, a part at least of the heavy expense of it ought to come out of the Imperial Treasury. But no, India is helpless, she can be compelled to pay it, she is compelled to pay it. Many English statesmen recognize this as wrong, and condemn it; yet it goes right on. Said the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman: “Justice demands that England should pay a portion of the cost of the great Indian army maintained in India for Imperial rather than Indian purposes. This has not yet been done, and famine-stricken India is being bled for the maintenance of England’s worldwide empire.” But there is still worse than this. Numerous wars and campaigns are carried on outside of India, the expenses of which, wholly or in part, India is compelled to bear. For such foreign wars and campaigns—campaigns and wars in which the Indian people had no concern, and for which they received no benefit, the aim of which was solely conquest and the extension of British power—India was required to pay during the last century the enormous total of more than $460,000,000. How many such burdens as these can the millions of India, who live on the average income of $6 a year, bear without being crushed?

Perhaps the greatest of all the causes of the impoverishment of the Indian people is the steady and enormous drain of wealth from India to England, which has been going on ever since the East India Company first set foot in the land, three hundred years ago, and is going on still with steadily increasing volume. England claims that India pays her no “tribute.” Technically, this is true; but, really, it is very far from true. In the form of salaries spent in England, pensions sent to England, interest drawn in England on investments made in India, business profits made in India and sent to England, and various kinds of exploitation carried on in India for England’s benefit, a vast stream of wealth (“tribute” in effect) is constantly pouring into England from India. Says Mr. R. C. Dutt, author of the Economic History of India (and there is no higher authority), “A sum reckoned at twenty millions of English money, or a hundred millions of American money [some other authorities put it much higher], which it should be borne in mind is equal to half the net revenues of India, is remitted annually from this country [India] to England, without a direct equivalent. Think of it! One-half of what we [in India] pay as taxes goes out of the country, and does not come back to the people. No other country on earth suffers like this at the present day; and no country on earth could bear such an annual drain without increasing impoverishment and repeated famines. We denounce ancient Rome for impoverishing Gaul and Egypt, Sicily and Palestine, to enrich herself. We denounce Spain for robbing the New World and the Netherlands to amass wealth. England is following exactly the same practice in India. Is it strange that she is converting India into a land of poverty and famine?”

*** End of Excerpts ***

And if you think Mr Sutherland is exaggerating, think again and take a brief tour of the points made in these posts: A Restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts...  Also look at The Myth of a Benevolent “Raj”, The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”

Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts) and Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj” (recommended)

Sadly, most Indians still retain a very rose-tinted image of the “Raj” and such talk is heresy in most “educated” circles in India. Yet this is recorded history – and cannot be denied (indeed has not been denied). How long can the truth be hidden? Read the article in full here (its long but worth it) and please share this with friends and family – especially the younger ones. They remain our hope.

*** A restorative Historical Account of Victorian Holocausts by Amitabh Soni ***

Over the past few months I have been reading horrid accounts of British Imperialism in India.  I think, the greatest achievement of British Imperialism, was to tone down the “dislike” of the Indians towards them to such drastic levels that it started bordering towards “liking” them in many a ways. Don’t we always get to hear that the British gave us Railways, Parliamentary democracy, an administrative structure, an international language, science & technology, modernity etc . Most of us have very little idea about what & how much they took away from us. At school , I often heard my teachers saying in one way or the other, ‘Thank God ! The British came to India.” Truth be told, the ills of the Raj heavily out weigh its benefits. It is like somebody taking everything away from your house, burning it down & saying. “Hey ! Dont worry, have got this bike for you”. Would you then debate the benefits of the bike ? Unless you are made to believe that the worth of whatever you had was much less than that of the bike.

It isn’t that the British wanted to serve us some good & noble purpose & faltered midway. On April 29, 1875 Marquis of Salisbury, former Prime Minister of Great Britain,remarked,“As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood is congested, or, at least is sufficient , not to those which are already feeble from the want of it”

We believe that the British did provide us with an education system, but this is what John Bright said in the British Parliament in 1853, “While the government has overthrown almost entirely the native education that had subsisted throughout the country so universally, that a schoolmaster was so regular a feature in every village as the ‘Patil’ or headman, it had done next to nothing to supply the deficiency which had been created , or to substitute a better system.” (1)

The following is an extract from India Resource website on South Asian History,

The literacy in British India in 1911 was only 6%, in 1931 it was 8%, and by 1947 it had crawled to 11%! …… Perhaps – the British had concentrated on higher education ….? But in 1935, only 4 in 10,000 were enrolled in universities or higher educational institutes. In a nation of then over 350 million people only 16,000 books (no circulation figures) were published in that year (i.e. 1 per 20,000).( 2)

Some of us may think that famines could have been caused due to lack of rain or poor farming practices. But one of the main reasons for famines was over taxation.  ”It is anything but a moderate tax, for I have shown in the above mentioned work , it is in all cases exorbitant ; and strange to say , in some instances even exceeds the gross produce of the lands or plantations on which it is.” Robert Rickards in evidence before Committee on East India Company’s affairs” 1831 (3)

The famine of Bengal in 1770 caused 10 million deaths (5).  And yet the East India Company continued to urge “rigour” in tax collection. By then the famine was in full force.(6)  ”All through the stifling summer of 1770 the people went on dying. The husbandmen sold their cattle;they sold their implements of agriculture; they devoured their seed grain; they sold their sons & daughters, till at length no buyer of children could be found; they ate leaves of trees and the grass of the field ; and in June 1770 the Resident at (Murshidabad) affirmed that the living were feeding on the dead… A third of the people of Bengal, numbering about 10 million, perished.”(7)

The famines of 1877 and 1878, of 1889 and 1892, of 1897 and 1900 killed 15 million of people. “The poverty of the Indian population at the present day is unparalleled in any civilised country; the famines which have desolated India within the last quarter of the nineteenth century are unexampled in their extent and intensity in the history of ancient or modern times. By a moderate calculation, the famines of 1877 and 1878, of 1889 and 1892, of 1897 and 1900, have carried off fifteen millions of people. The population of a faired-sized European country has been swept away from India within twenty-five years. A population equal to half of that of England has perished in India within a period which men and women, still in middle age, can remember.” Romesh Dutt, Lecturer in Indian history at University College London in (UCL) in 1901 (4)

Further, this is what Lord Curzon had to say in 1902 :

There is no spectacle which finds less favour in my eyes or which I have done more to discourage than that of a cluster of Europeans settling down upon a Native State and sucking from it the moisture which ought to give sustenance to its own people.(8)

The British sailed back to England in 1947  but chose to keep mum about the Victorian Holocausts they caused in India. But have our governments done any better? Has any effort been made till date to bring the causes these deaths in millions into mainstream public discourse? I can only recall my history books vaguely mentioning the Bengal famine. Why were these chapters not discussed in the Modern History of India? Were the British still ruling us even after their last ship reached London?

Nehru (First Prime Minister of India ) who studied at the posh Harrow School in London & then at Cambridge, went on to say that he would be the last British to rule India. Did he, and after him his people kept under the wraps the ugliest face of British Imperialism? Before, the British rule, India’s global output was about 25% & when the British left it was even less than 1 %.  Clearly, even the British public was kept in the dark about the prosperity that that Imperialists brought back home. George Monbiot, who writes for “The Guardian” remarks, “It is not illegal to discuss the millions who were killed under our empire. So why do so few people know about them?”  Most of the people born in “free India” lead exceedingly underprivileged  lives with confused & broken beliefs about their prosperous past.

We grew up, with very little sense of history about what we owned & how much and when & to whom  we lost our prosperity ?

Where did the prosperity chain break ? or did we always belong to the poorest of the poor in India ?

This confusion is understandable as this issue has been completely absent from mainstream discourse. Post independence, the Indian government wanted us to continue with sustaining our trivial & inconsequential lives & not bother with anything else. The Marxist, Leninist  economists fed by Nehru did everything to keep us feeling ashamed and apologetic about  our  “Hindu social evils & stigmas” at different levels of our learning & education. As a result, generation after generations were brought up upon covertly administered injections of  “Thank God the British came to India”. This essentially meant “Thank God they came & civilised us”.

After almost 65 years of Independence, one may ask, what is the way forward ? What are we to gain by merely exposing what has already happened, when it can’t be undone ?  I have just 2 points to make :

1: Looks like now every citizen has to have a  ”right to history”. Sounds absurd ? Yes it does, but what is more absurd that we are being made to  demand the right to right history; Pure & unadulterated history !  History can not be deleted or added to suit a person’s or a group’s/ nation’s  interests or shall we say disinterests. Of course, there can be different takes on history but the complete deletion of distinguishable  historical events (like this one) or addition of fictitious  events ( like the Aryan Invasion Theory) is unacceptable   & criminal.

2: The natural flow of a nation is disrupted when it’s people have a perverted sense of history. A people who don’t know where they are coming from can’t determine where they are headed. They may well be headed backwards again, as during a nation’s journey many a big & complex round-abouts need to be negotiated & woven through.

During its past, a nation could have been dharmically (righteously) powerful & prosperous. After a deep slumber, it needs to know WHY & HOW could it sustain that status of eminence over long periods of time? What were the set of values and attitudes it was endowed with to achieve such grand prominence? What  core  competencies are naturally embedded in its civilisational genealogy that can be revived to reclaim that lost grandeur? Similarly, in its  past, a nation could have been a victim or could have victimised another,  needs to know WHY & HOW much it had bled or how much blood was/is on its hands ?

Which of its philosophies & policies gave the impression to other nations that its boundaries & the minds of its people were penetrable ? Or, which of its philosophies & policies gave it the impression that it had the burden to civilize “savages” of other nations? What set of doctrines, prompted them to kick the savages in their faces, to knock some sense into their brains ? What kind of “sense of being civilised’ was it to rob people of their wealth and make them crawl generation after generation for every single piece of bread ? Could people be said to have been civilised if they were devoid of any form of dignity, for centuries ? A nation that wishes to reflect back in time, will always get a flawed image of its own, if it sticks to ruptured & adulterated history. Hence, creating a false “self image”. It may appear be too beautiful or too ugly, but not necessarily true & genuine.

Unaltered & non perverted history enables a nation to re-align & retain its civilisational balance & momentum. The alignment of its fathomable past with it’s foreseeable future, precipitates learning for its own good & the greater good of humanity.  Bearing all of the above in mind, we have made a humble beginning to  bring to light the dark chapters of British imperialism in India. In due course we hope that the people & governments of both countries will make more serious & profound efforts in this direction. Until then we urge people to follow us on our Facebook page.

References:

1. John Bright, “Debates in Parliament on the India question in 1853
2. http://india_resource.tripod.com/colonial.html. Statistics and data for the colonial period taken from Rajni-Palme Dutt’s India Today (Indian Edition published in 1947); also see N.K. Sinha’s Economic History of Bengal (Published in Calcutta, 1956); and “Late Victorian Holocausts” by Mike Davis
3. Robert Rickards in evidence before Committee on East India Company’s affairs” 1831. Report of Committee, vol. V, Answer to Question 2827
4. Preface pg VI, London 1901 “The Economic History of India under early British rule” sixth edition.  From the rise of the British power in 1757 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837  by Romesh Dutt, CLE. Lecturer in Indian history at University College London (UCL), former  commissioner of Orissa and member of the Bengal Legislative Council.
5. Churchill’s Secret War – Madhusree Mukerjee, p xv
6. Bose, Peasant Labour & Colonial Capital, 18
7. Hunter – The Annals of Rural Bengal,26; Kumar & Raychaudhari, The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol II,229
8. Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India, in a speech  at Jaipur in November 1902.

*** End ***

Related Posts: The Myth of a Benevolent “Raj”, The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”

Loot – in search of East India Co. (excerpts) and Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj” (recommended)

Also read: Late Victorian Holocausts: The Indian Famines

English is a mark of India, not Bharat.

Here is the relevant excerpt:

Surprisingly, for an Englishman who was knighted by the British monarchy in 2002, Tully was less than enthusiastic about the growing status of English as an aspirational language of the Indian middle class. “Learning English is an economic asset,” he said. “But the problem is its impact on regional languages. English is a mark of India, not Bharat,” he added.

The interview also has some quotes on Smt Sonia Gandhi. Also read, “Secular Fundamentalism”..alive and kicking in India

Somewhat Related: “The Idea of India” – by Sk Krishen Kak whose concluding sentence is:

India divides; Bhārat unites.

What Dr Aich has done – going back to the roots – reminds me of the painstaking work of Dr V S Godbole – who has gone back to the “roots” to unearth more information about Taj Mahal – which to the best of my knowledge has not been challenged so far. Sadly, his work has been completely ignored by media. I hope Dr Aich fares better. Below, some excerpts from the interview with Dr Prodosh Aich (I’ll be posting a few excerpts from the book later on). The book is available for purchase online via Samskriti.  [UPDATE: You can now read the entire book online on this link]. In the meantime, read on (emphasis mine)…

*** Excerpts begin ***

Question: Your book ‘Lies with long legs’ has recently been published. What is this about?

Answer: Whatever, we know about discoveries, scholars,  scientists, are mostly not true. For example, when you get a book today there are references and these references go back 10, 20 or 30 years. They don’t go back beyond that. On every page, one finds quotations but you will never find that a quotation has been challenged. One never checks whether that quotation is correct or not. It is just accepted. What ever is printed is accepted.

Q: So every word is taken as a gospel?

A: No, not as a gospel. It has been accepted in the academic world. And if you have 20 books on one subject, you can be sure that there would be another 20 books on the same subject but with almost same references. They will never go back to roots. What, I have done.  I have tried to question. I  put , to start with, a simple question. “Well you are telling me this. How do you know that it is true”? Then I look into the bibliography of these books…

Q: So, you have done a research on India?

A: No,  that is not correct. As a matter of fact, I have not done any research. I wanted to know, who are these Aryans, Indo-Europeans and Indo-Germans and then tried to find out answers in the reference books and literature…I was very astonished to see that “Indo-Aryan” (the word) is very young. It came in vogue in the 19th century rather was invented in the second half of the19th century.

Q: Max Mueller is a very renowned name in India. We have a Max Mueller Institute here where German language is taught and various other activities are conducted. In my understanding, Max Mueller had a command on Sanskrit language and he translated Vedas and other works of Sanskrit. How did he come to acquire immense knowledge of the ancient language which incidentally was not a spoken language?

A: Max Mueller. It is not his name. His name was Friedrich Maximillan Mueller. He did not publish in German. He did not get a job in Germany. He got a job with the East India Company in England. Most of his writings are in English. He was neither a scholar nor (did) he knew Sanskrit. He was a swindler.

Q: You call him a swindler?

A: I call him a swindler. I can provide  proofs in support of my assertion. I can reason it out  also. Max Mueller had assumed that he was a scholar. From his own autobiography, from biographies written by his son and wife, from other biographies, from his other writings, and from his letters, we can reconstruct his life from birth to his death. After passing the High School, he never appeared in any examination rather never cleared any examination…Yet he calls himself a Master of Arts (MA). His wife calls him a Doctor of Philosophy. His wife maintains that he was a Ph. D. from the Leipzig  University. There is no record at the Leipzig University or any proof that he appeared in any examination there.

…Q: OK, but there are people who without going to school or university acquire knowledge of languages. So what about his knowledge of Sanskrit.

A: That is a different issue but one can’t describe oneself as a scholar or ascribe degrees to oneself without clearing  any examination….Max Mueller never came to India…So the question arises that if had not learnt Sanskrit in India then he must have learnt it in Europe. So this is another part of my book ‘Lies with long legs’ as we have tried to find out who was the first person, the pioneer, who taught Sanskrit in Europe.

Q: So who was this person?

A: He was a nobody, He was a simple boy of 18 when he came to India as an ordinary soldier. He completed is term and roamed around in India and then reached France. There he said that he knew Sanskrit. Quality of his knowledge of Sanskrit was that he knew the Devnagri alphabet well  but beyond that he could not make  a distinction between the language and script.

Q :What was his name?

A: Alexander Hamilton was his name.  There is a long story about him in the book because people said that he was a great Sanskrit scholar. So we traced his roots also. The most interesting thing while doing this book was that though all the material is available in the libraries,  no one else  worked on the available material. If some one claimed that a he was a scholar then nobody questioned that claim. Everyone started saying that the person was a scholar as it is written in printed words. It was presumed that if one taught Sanskrit to others then he knew Sanskrit.

…Q: Sanskrit was never a spoken language so how can this be learnt without a teacher? The language had to be learnt systematically for 6 to 7 years so that one could translate works like the Vedas?

A: It is not your opinion alone  Even some European thought the same. Unfortunately those who learnt Sanskrit systematically did not teach the language in Europe. Heinrich Roth was one such person who came to India and landed in Goa and from there was transferred  to Agra. There he became the principal of a Jesuit college.  He belonged to Jesuit order. In Agra, he learnt Sanskrit for six years, mastered the language so well that he “discussed” with the Brahmins in Sanskrit. Having understood the importance of Sanskrit, he compiled  a grammar book with Latin explanatory notes added to it. As a matter of  fact, he produced a simplified version of Panini’s grammar…The Sanskrit grammar vanished in the Vatican library. It was traced in 1988 and all Indologists agree that quality of this grammar book was far superior to the ones upon which Sanskrit was being taught in Europe. Others did not learn Sanskrit properly but they stoutly maintained that they knew Sanskrit.

…Europeans who never came to India but learnt Sanskrit alphabets  and saw Bhagvat Gita and recognised its alphabets. They could possibly recognise words but they did not understand it. So they would collect more book and apply their Christian mind and say that this is not logical so it has to be this or that. In this process, they were also trying to compile a dictionary. There was never a Sanskrit dictionary as grammar is the key to Sanskrit language. But they were trying to compile a dictionary word by word.

So in this way they have transported a type of Sanskrit to Europe where I  have doubts that it is Sanskrit at all. But the tragic part is that this Sanskrit has been imported  back to India. This is what we learn in India with the help of the Sanskrit dictionaries. The standard dictionary of Sanskirt here is of Sir Monier Monier who also never came to India before compiling his dictionary in 1854. He collected all materials and prepared  a dictionary diligently. But this dictionary was not available to Max Mueller. Max Mueller had only one dictionary written by one Wilson. He also stayed in Calcutta. He was a medical doctor. He served as Director of a mint because he had some knowledge of chemicals. He interacted with Bengali Pundits and he prepared the dictionary with the help of the Pundits of Calcutta in as late as 1819 when the first Sanskrit dictionary came out.  At best, Max Mueller could have used this dictionary. Max Mueller was at a place where Wilson taught Sanskrit. Max Mueller observes in his biography that Wilson did not have enough knowledge of Sanskrit.

Q: So you make a dictionary without learning a language?

A: Possibly one could make a dictionary.  Definitely not a good  one.   If you went to China and you met some Chinese and understood what they said and you understood it then make a dictionary.

Q: But with this kind of dictionary, one can’t translate?

A:  Definitely not. But did he translate? In order to translate, one has to have a  command on both languages. I think he had command on German and English. But whatever you translate from Sanskrit and even if one has command on both languages, it would be reflection of one’s mind. Max Mueller  did not understand Sanskrit. He had never read a Sanskrit text.  He had read Sanskrit text with the help of translation made by others.

*** Excerpts end ***

Read the full transcript of the interview here.

UPDATE: You can now read the entire book online on this link

P.S. In this context, another interesting excerpt from Founding Fathers of Astronomy:

In these days of pseudo-secular anti-Hindu India, being actively promoted by the Government of India, scholarship only means being at home with what is written by the western scholars, who have during the last 250 years, continuously discredited the ancient part of Indian culture and tried their very best to bring down the dates to suit their colonial, Christian and now political purpose. If we carefully look into the works of the Englishmen and Europeans published during the 167 years of uninterrupted reign from Warren Hastings in 1772 to the beginning of World War II, for example, hundreds of books were published related to the topics of Indian religion, history and culture, we will find that accounts for all of those works were maliciously falsified and manipulated according to a definite plan as desired by the British Government. William Jones laid the foundation in 1784 AD for the Western History of Ancient India. He deliberately created the problem of the two Chandra Guptas and thus reduced by 1200 years the chronology of India.

This pattern of distortion was continued and perfected by Lord Macaulay, who financed Max Muller (1823-1900) to translate the Rig Veda in a way that would destroy the beliefs of the newly English-educated Indians in their ancient literature. Max Muller agreed to that undertaking for the sake of Christianity and not for advancing the cause of sacred Vedic Heritage. Likewise the British Government——very much like the anti-Hindu and anti-National Government of India actively and openly manipulating the pro-Islamic and pro-Christian NCERT Textbooks today—then paid Pundit Taranath, Sanskrit Professor in Calcutta Sanskrit College, to misinterpret certain words of the Vedic Samhita that should reflect the meaning according to Max Muller’s translation of Rig Veda. As part of this mischievous political arrangement, Taranath compiled a huge dictionary called VACHASPATHYAM IN 1863 AD. He artfully corrupted the meaning of certain Vedic words. The pseudo-secular Anti-Hindu fake scholars of today are still using this Dictionary born out of colonial politics as their Bible for reference and political research today!

Related Posts: Quote of the week: “We are, what we know…” and Thus a system was created..later identified..as “corruption” in the Third-World

Also read: Shuddho – Aushuddho: Distorting History, One Step at a Time, Correcting “History”: One Step at a Time and Correcting “History” – one bit at a time