Those who forget history…
…are condemned to repeat it…Several weeks ago, I chanced upon the NCERT website with links to “History” text-books for middle school students in India. Curiousity led me to download some of the chapters from the text book for students of Class VII. I was angry and sad at what I discovered.
The tales of Rajput valour and their determined resistance against the Mughals find no mention in this History text for students of Class VII (Age 12-14). There is no mention of the three Jauhars of Chittor (or of the more than 30,000 that were massacred following the fall of Chittor). The story of the one who refused to bow down appears to have been erased from the “official” version of history. The exploits of MahaRana Pratap will remain alien to these students…
What they will learn about instead are the kind and gentle-hearted Mughals and their buildings and architecture – written in a style that induces awe and suggests admiration. As an example, read this bit about the Qutub Minar:
Notice that the surface of the minar is curved and angular. Placing an inscription on sucha surface required great precision. Only the mostskilled craftsperson could perform this task.Remember that very few buildings were made of stoneor brick 800 years ago. What would have been theimpact of a building like the Qutb Minar on observersin the thirteenth century? (Pg60, Chapter 5)
What the text book delicately avoids mentioning is the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque that was built from parts taken by destroying  27 Hindu and Jain temples that stood in the complex (pl see image below).
But the negationism does not end there. Under a section titled, “Why were Temples Destroyed?“, the text-book has several paragraphs devoted to why temples were attacked by kings and rulers (emphasis added):
Because kings built temples to demonstrate their devotion to God and their power and wealth, it is not surprising that when they attacked one another’s kingdoms, they often targeted these buildings.
In the early ninth century when the Pandyan king Shrimara Shrivallabha invaded Sri Lanka..the Buddhist monk andchronicler Dhammakitti noted: “he removed all thevaluables … The statue of the Buddha made entirelyof gold in the Jewel Palace … and the golden images in the various monasteries – all these he seized.â€
The blow to the pride of the Sinhalese ruler had to be avengedand the next Sinhalese ruler, Sena II, ordered his general to invade Madurai, the capital of the Pandyas.The Buddhist chronicler noted that the expedition made a special effort to find and restore the gold statue of the Buddha.
Similarly in the early eleventh century, when the Chola king Rajendra I built a Shiva temple in his capital he filled it with prized statues seized from defeated rulers.
And then slyly,
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni was a contemporary of Rajendra I. During his campaigns in the subcontinent he also attacked the temples of defeated kings and looted their wealth and idols. Sultan Mahmud was not a very important ruler at that time. But by destroying temples – especially the one at Somnath – he tried to win credit as a great hero of Islam. In the political culture of the Middle Ages most rulers displayed their political might and military success by attacking and looting the places of worship of defeated rulers.
As expected no evidence is cited, nor is any record mentioned of a single temple razed & destroyed by Hindu kings of that age (or of any previous age). But there appears to be almost complete amnesia about the thousands of temples that were systematically razed to ground and/or converted into mosques by invading armies and the then Islamic rulers of India (as an aside, a good reference for this is “Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them?“).
Is it because of the demons from the past? Or is there something else?
In Part II: Of great Mughals and a Maratha chieftain
***
Somewhat related: The story behind the levitating / floating Shivling at Somnath by Dr Nishit Sawal
Are you implying there’s a danger of Muslims rising up and destroying Hindu temples even today?
History repeats itself when the circumstances are the same. Hundreds of years ago, the whole world was far more barbaric than it is today. The same situations don’t prevail anymore.
I can understand your consternation if history isn’t being taught accurately. But that worry should be academic and out of a love for history in general. I don’t understand the sense of outrage you seem to have regarding this.
You sound as if you’re personally injured in some way…
Shantanu,
I seethe with the same anger when I sit with my daughter’s class 6 books. Over last 2 years or so, I have been working on making sure she knows the real history and not the syrupy bull shit that Congress is shoving down our children’s throats.
That means ensuring she reads at least one Amar Chitra Katha each day (as also the wonderful books by Devdutt Pattanaik).
I some times get so depressed. Are we bound to preside over our own destruction.
@ BJP
It seems more than Shantanu you get personally injured when author or commentators writes something about barbaric Islam. Hands have been chopped off in Kerala…it seems you only remember what you like. Read news paper if you can read about what is going on in Islamic countries without being getting hurt. Afgahnaistan tallest buddha ‘s staue has been destroyed in present time. They have the same barbaric history yesterday, today and will be tomorrow all over the world. Lets people keep their ears, eyes and mouth open for their safety if you are not going to be one of their surviviour.
> Hundreds of years ago, the whole world was far more barbaric than it is today.
This is hot off the press, NOT 100s of years ago!
http://www.haindavakeralam.com/
Kinds of BJP must be on ISI payroll.
Hindus will have to take up the task of teaching, explaining our own history independent of school textbooks.
We have to be clear as to which authors we should read and whom we should avoid.
Even records of contemporary events are badly biased and it takes aq long time to explain and back up what we are saying against the poison of the ELM.
To add Indian, islamists in egypt are also now eyeing on pyramids. Time is not same, but acts and ideology is still.
shantanu, i don’t know if you are going to like it or not.
here is a very well written article on middle-east barbarians.
http://satyagni.com/5206/was-islam-spread-by-sword-zakir-naik/
@ Bharat Sharma said:
“That means ensuring she reads at least one Amar Chitra Katha each day (as also the wonderful books by Devdutt Pattanaik).”
Wonderful, keep up the good work of informing your kids. If possible include your nephews and nieces too. I try to do something similar with my 9 and 3 graders and my cousins kids. If and when a topic arises do elaborate on the Hindu POV.
Also, by making kids read and think critically you are ensuring that they will not be mindless consumers of Sarkari news or whatever nonsense.
Once your daughter is in high school make sure she reads End of Faith, God Delusion and also books by Ram Swarup. Just having these books at home helps, when they get bored they browse through these books.
” Are we bound to preside over our own destruction.”
Certainly not if we inform and educate our future generations.
The present political scenario don’t allow anyone to study, what is correct, because in every word, every act, every gesture and every posture of theirs evaluates itself in form of number of votes to be moved in their favour. And the same is the fate of history too…
Can you forget the NDA regime, when in one of the Govt.function all the opposition parties walked out after Saraswati Vandana. They called it ‘fundamentalists’ while they themselves claim to be ‘secular’. It is pertinent to add that NDA didn’t start the system of ‘Saraswati Vandana’, it has been their since inception of this function.
So on a public platform the so called ‘secular biradari’ will teach in their own way.
Just take a look on another incident. If you recall, Mani Shankar Ayyar of Congress demanded the removal of belongings of Veer Savarkar from Andman Jail as in his views he was a ‘Sampradayik Shakti’. Didn’t he scene the boards of ‘Aurangzeb Road’ at Delhi. The name of Aurangzeb, itself is a symbol of barbaric acts….
So the garbage being served should be poured in our descendents using proper filter. I recall my child hood when I use to be a fan of Amar Chitra Katha. Sagas of our warriors, spiriual figures, kings etc are still carved in cornersof my heart. The most painful thing is thatnow a days I don’t find such comics. The fantsies have replaced such a nice literature..
Shantanuji the rot which is being fed to students of this gen is no doubt a planned strategy to feed misinformation of our History. In TN this year the text books was changed under the guise of Uniform Common Education. I was shocked to see the 1st chapter of History book of 9th std, contain ” Dravidian Languages-Tamizh”, which shocks every learned person. The information being fed to the students are total falsehood, misinformation in subjects like social science, History. Lucky they could’nt do anything with Maths & science. Unless there is total clean up of the elements who decide on such syllabus, our future generations will fall prey to the misinformation. Only Krsna can save our future gens…Jai Bharat…Vande Mataram
This kind of deliberate blaming of Hindu kings having fought against each other, in turn destroying many of our temples is a clear SUBVERSION tactics adopted by Communist ideologues in India. For one simple reason – Minority appeasement to retain power at any cost. It was that THUG Romila Thapar who began ranting that India as such was born only after Akbar came to power. And from there on everything has been cooked up and misconstrued by our communist/leftist folks for their selfish needs to the extent of making India vulnerable with lot of internal strife as well as Western Intervention. How else can one explain the links of people like Angana Chatterjee with Ghulam Nabi Fai, people like Teesta Setelvad conveniently forgetting the separatist activities in Kashmir but ranting of Godhra riots to the hilt. What one needs to understand is that this nexus of Western forces against India is purely because of India’s hopelessly managed economic situation once the so called liberalization happened in 1991. Before that the single biggest factor to destroy any kind of patriotic India feeling was Indira Gandhi’s “Declaration of Emergency in 1975” and the subsequent addition of the “Socialistic, SECULAR Republic” clause on 1st April 1977. Request viewers to read as well as see the amount of weakness Indian democracy is. No other democratic country has 95 amendments to it’s constitution, definitely not a 65 year old democratic set-up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_of_the_Constitution_of_India
BJP,
Yes, it injures me personally when I read such distorted history. And you mention that it may not happen again. Do you know what is happening in Kanya Kumari where they want to rename it as Virgin Mary (or the Tamil equivalent)and also claim the famous temple there on her behalf. How is it different from what happened earlier in our history?
Golden statue of Buddha was looted but the Sinhalese king Sena II was very much confident that it may not have been melted by the Pandyas for a complete generation that he ordered an invasion and a search for it! Doesn’t this show the difference between Muslim invaders and Hindu invaders?
When I was in class 7 an incident happened which I remember very vividly. My mother used to teach two of my neighborhood children whose parents were not educated. They were on Tamilnadu state syllabus and I was on CBSE syllabus. We were all in the same class. In their book there was a chapter on Mahmud Ghazni’s invasion of the Somnath temple. While teaching them my mom asked me if I knew anything about Ghazni. I knew nothing and when my mom searched my book she found nothing on Ghazni and his famous invasion. Then my parents told me the story during dinner. Did it instill hatred in my mind? No. It was history and it was just a story about the past for me.
But there may be many who do not hear it from their parents but first read it on hate spewing books and blogs. There things get exaggerated, hatred and feelings of vengeance get mixed with patriotism and the original story. The result – a misguided feeling that some sections of Indian citizens do not have a place in this country because they are essentially descendants of thieves and looters.
Why don’t we teach our children the truth and the broad mind to forgive and move on? Have we become a nation of cowards and narrow minded half-wits?
There has been too much Indian history written by non-Indians, or Indians who had little sympathy for Indian-ness.If you read some of the books on’empire’, or ‘the Raj’ you will be amazed what the Englishman wrote.
More history books need to be written and spread to balance the propanganda of the West, and others.
Even reporting of current affairs and current debate has a very skewed view.The newspapers named The Hindu and Hindustan Times may be expected to have a vaguely Hindustani perspective on their reporting.Alas no, they are so evidently anti-Hindu and anti-nation that it is incredible that they are allowed to publish and spread such propanganda. I think they are owned by News Corp.. hence perhaps giving the American perspective. I would like raise a voice that their name be changed, as a matter of urgency.
Indian (#3) could not have said it better. “BJP” makes it a point to blame everyone else, including our Railways, whenever there is a terrorist bombing. According to him, more people die in train accidents than in terror attacks. So, according to him, it is a sin to blame the terrorists.
Dear Shantanu,
why don’t you start some exercise and plan to do something. For example, you could fund spread of awareness in common public or be the torch who connects with masses via door to door campaigning in a language which is not eenghleesh?
I hope you see the difference between Anna versus armchair leaders with pointed theories like Sabhloks and armchair critics like Parks who barked plenty when Anna was moving ahead.
Mughals and later Britishers destroyed Indian History to a Extent that today we either know about the fairly tales modified by Mughals or Britishers. History doesn’t solve the problem but it helps to provide a better solution when we are thinking at large to masses. As we studied in school from 6-10 it’s just like either Britishers history or Mughals history. Irony of India is that when people have taken pledge to bring real history by correcting it to its real form than people say Organization like RSS-Akila Bharatheeya Itihasa Sankalana Yojana . We have lost most of the history and the history today we have is misleading.
Please ignore the typos in the previous post!
@ Shantanu and others: The question is: how to stop the continuation of the false, doctored, india-hating history curriculum? When the children of today have to read these books full of error and anti-Hindu, pro-invasion, pro-islamic and pro-british colonialism propaganda, what do you expect them to be when they grow up tomorrow? The education system set up and maintained in the post-british era is the culprit that causes the flawed and demoralised midset of the youth. So, something needs to be done?
Recently I too had a peek at my brother’s class 10+2 history books…they still teach the Aryan theory and other falsehoods aimed at whitewashing islamic tyranny and obscuring the multiple Hindu holocausts from the students…Even if I tell my brother that the racist,colonial theories being discarded by modern non-marxist historians, the problem is ; he will still have to write the same crap as given in the official textbooks for getting marks in examinations everywhere.
While students of universities might still get some alternative analysis by reading other publications independent of NCERT or the ICHR’s marxist liars, it’s especially difficult for school kids not to believe what their books say…!!!
So…how do we deal with it? How to protect impressionable minds from the official garbage laded with poison?
IN a time when person like Sonia virtually rules this great nation and confused and half wit person like Sibbal makes rules for education, what can one expect, other than this.
These people try to take mileage for vote every where. Remember ! The History capsule in Indira Gandhi’s time?
Dear All: Thanks for sharing your thoughts…Hope to respond sometime next week..Have been travelling for the lat several days..Thanks for your patience and support..
@Bhagwat
You raise a valid point Bhagwat but you need to understand people take away different lessons from the same story. From the recent campaign against corruption by Anna, what is your learning? That Anna is a great leader and can rally a huge crowd of supporters behind him irrespective of the cause? Or that a public issue like corruption really resonates well with Indian population irrespective of the leader? My friend, Hindu temples need not be looted again, we don’t need to be attacked and publicly killed in hundreds of thousands again, we need not be enslaved and taken across Hindu Kushs, our wealth need not be plundered by invaders now…..this is INDIAN DEMOCRACY and it provides ample of other opportunities to destroy us. The important thing is to understand your rights and identify threats to those rights. History is a great tool to do that!
Neil,
Now the current corporatisation of our country, has no place for any Hindu or ancient history. The younger generation is more interested in knowing about Ambani’s House, PASCO’s plants or Bill Gate and getting good packages after study.
They also fail to read the failure of such system in European countries or even the great US.
Since every one in power send their siblings for study in English school or abroad, they dont have to even think about Indian history,its western history and their achievements they are more concerned about.
Many here may object but I find that “EKAL Vidyalay” , the one teacher school in villages ( about 30 thousands running) teach kids about Indian history, seen from the eyes of a Hindu, who were the aboriginals in this country, once called BHARAT.
@BJP
Here is a proof that things have not changed much for Hindus. You are perpetually in danger, if you are a Hindu:
@Prem, despite his Hindu-sounding name, BJP is actually not a Hindu.
@Bhagwad Jal Park
You said—–History repeats itself when the circumstances are the same. Hundreds of years ago, the whole world was far more barbaric than it is today. The same situations don’t prevail anymore.–
Who are you fooling?
-Television station Metro TV reported that a mob coming from a post-Idul Fitri prayer at the city’s Grand Mosque was responsible for the damage. Thousands of people descended on the Comro area of the city, where they tied ropes to the statue of puppet character Gatot Kaca before trying to pull it off of its foundation. The statue finally collapsed after the rope was tied to a moving van.
The crowd then targeted the statue of Semar, another puppet character situated in the Bunder area. The mob threw rocks and pulled it to the ground before hitting it with sticks and metal rods then setting it on fire.
The statue of puppet character Bima in the Ciwareng area was also targeted, as was the “Welcome†statue on Jalan Gandanegara, where the Purwakarta District office is located. Both statues were also destroyed and set on fire.
The mob then moved to statues depicting the twin brothers Nakula and Sadewa. Hundreds of police and army officers were already there guarding the final two statues. The mob dispersed when it started raining.
Bachtiar said police questioned the organizers of the post-Idul Fitri celebration to find out how participants came to valdalize the four statues.
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/mob-destroys-four-wayang-statues/466195
Be away from charlatan(s), who forcefully ask us to believe in their message of peace.
@K.P Ganesh ji,
“How else can one explain the links of people like Angana Chatterjee with Ghulam Nabi Fai,”
There are more traitors. They deserve greater publicity.
Dr Karen Leonard, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine
Dr. Abdul JanMohamed, Professor, Department of English, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Ania Loomba, Professor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Anjali Arondekar, Associate Professor, Department of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Dr. Aradhana Sharma, Associate Professor, Anthropology and Feminist Studies, Wesleyan University
Dr. Ayesha Jalal, Professor, Department of History, Tufts University
Dr. Brian Strauss, Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin
Dr. C.M. Naim, Professor Emeritus, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
Dr. Constance A. Jones, Professor, Transformative Inquiry Department, California Institute of Integral Studies
Dr. David Gordon White, University of California, Santa Barbara
Dr. David Naguib Pellow, Professor, Sociology, University of Minnesota
Dr. Gauri Viswanathan, Professor, English, Columbia University
Dr. Gautam Ghosh, Lecturer, University of Otago
Dr. Gautam Premnath, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Helen Scott, Associate Professor, English, University of Vermont
Dr. Janet Sorensen, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Jasbir Puar, Professor, Department of Women and Gender Studies, Rutgers University
Dr. Jenny Sharpe, Professor, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Jyoti Puri, Professor, Department of Sociology, Simmons College
Dr. Katherine Snyder, Associate Professor, English, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Kavita Philip, Associate Professor, Department of Women?s Studies, University of California, Irvine
Dr. Kristin Hanson, Associate Professor, English, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Malini Johar Schueller, Professor, Department of English, University of Florida
Dr. Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, Sociology, Western Connecticut State University
Dr. Matthew C. Bronson, Associate Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies.
Dr. Meg Jordan, Chair, Professor, Integrative Health Studies, California Institute of Integral Studies
Dr. Mona Mehdy, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology, University of Texas, Austin
Dr. Narendra Subramanian, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University
Dr. Neepa Majumdar, Associate Professor, English and Film Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Partha Chatterjee, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
Dr. Philip Gasper, Madison Area Technical College
Dr. Piya Chatterjee, Associate Professor, Department of Women’s Studies, University of California, Riverside
Dr. Pranav Jani, Assistant Professor, English, The Ohio State University
Dr. Purnima Bose, Associate Professor, English, Indiana University
Dr. Rachel Schurman, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Dr. Radhika Parameswaran, Associate Professor, Journalism, Indiana University
Dr. Roli Varma, Profesor, School of Public Administration, University of New Mexico
Dr. Sabina Sawhney, Department of English, Hofstra University, New York
Dr. Simona Sawhney, Associate Professor, Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota
Dr. Snehal Shingavi, Assistant Professor, English, University of Texas, Austin
Dr. Sue Schweik, Professor, Department of English, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Sunaina Maira, Professor, Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis
Dr. Suvir Kaul, Professor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Tandy Warnow, Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas, Austin
Dr. Yogita Goyal, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
Charlotte Nunes, Assistant Instructor, Department of English, University of Texas, Austin
Nandini Dhar, PhD candidate, English, University of Texas, Austin
Anindya Dey, PhD candidate, Physics, University of Texas, Austin
David Forrest, PhD candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
It would be a good exercise to check these worthies names in coming years GOI’s award list.
Placing this here for the record:
“What is important..is that they (the invaders) were all united by one common objective and that was to destroy the Hindu faith”
From The Partition of India by DR B R Ambedkar http://j.mp/vpWiHC
Excerpts from Past is relevant, even for economics by S Gurumurthy, 13th April 2013:
“Yes, India was global economic superpower for 1,800 out of 2,000 years. Conceded. But what is the use of recalling past glory. Look at our current state — poverty, hunger, malnutrition and illiteracy. The present alone is relevant. Future is critical.â€
This is how some react at any reference to India’s great past. Their reaction is justified. Yes. Nations cannot survive or prosper just by recalling their past. Yet, no nation, whether developed or developing, ancient or modern, gives up the sense of its past. Because sense of the past is the core of a nation.
…
Revisiting the past is a learning process. Also an unlearning one. But, colonial construction of its history denied India both learning and unlearning experience. The colonists’ version of India’s past harmed its present and threatened its future. Take a glaring instance, the Aryan-Dravidian theory constructed by the colonialists that virtually split India racially and regionally, almost fomenting a huge secessionist movement in the South.
The 19th century colonial version of the theory testified to “civilised Aryans†from outside invading India and building a high Vedic civilisation. But after Harappan excavations, the colonialists shockingly made a U-turn. They relabelled the Aryans as “nomadicâ€, “pastoral†and even “barbaricâ€. And alleged that the uncivilised Aryans invaded and violently ran over “civilised Dravidiansâ€. With ‘violent invasion’ theory soon losing steam for lack of archeological support or oral traditions — the theory was repackaged as “peaceful Aryan immigration†post-Harappan collapse. Soon, with Harappa throwing up more and more ingredients that correlated to Vedic culture, the pre-Aryan construction of Harappa began to fade away. Further, with the rediscovery of Vedic Saraswati river, studied by satellite imagery and its palaeo-waters (from Himalayan glaciers) tested in Rajasthan deserts by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the so-called ‘non-Aryan’ Harappa is now Indus-Saraswati civilisation with Vedic confluence!
The Vedic Saraswati was real, not mythical as the colonialists had dismissed. The Saraswati shifting its course and merging into Sutlej and Yamuna and its main flow drying up as the result were major factors for the collapse of urban phase of Harappa. Relentless interrogation of colonialist construction of India’s past by national and international scholars only could expose the canard of Aryan invasion. Here the recall and review of India’s past were of great relevance to the present and future social relationships within India and national political discourse. So, the past and the correct view of it are important. But the question is not why, but when, should a society recall its past.
A society should not get obsessed with its past just for pride. Nevertheless it becomes inevitable for colonised societies to review the colonialist version of its history that demeans its faith, philosophy, forefathers, traditions and economy, and pervades the society’s academic, intellectual and public discourse.
…
The Indian people ought to know whether they have a history of worshipping poverty as the colonialists had made their elites believe or do they have a tradition of building prosperity. Modern Western history has universalised the perception that prosperity building was the preserve of the West. The rest of the world, particularly Asia, including China and India, was ever steeped in poverty — almost claiming that colonialists had actually improved their lot!
This disgusting colonial discourse almost took rebirth in 1990s when, to drum up support for globalisation, the likes of Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia began arguing that India did not have the tradition of wealth-building; so it needed to learn that culture from the West. As late as in 2007, Chidambaram said “whoever propounded the myth about India being a rich country is wrong and the books that propounded the glorious past of India are liable to be burnt†(Business Standard, 27.8.2007). This is long after Bairoch-Maddison studies had nailed the lie, and independent researches (See ‘Boss, read the true history before talking’, TNIE April 6) had corroborated Bairoch-Maddison’s view that Hindu India was the topper in global economy. Imagine Bairoch-Maddison had preceded Marx, Weber and Rajkrishna. Weber would not have dared to disqualify India for market economics for following ‘world denying’ Hinduism; Marx would not have called Indians ‘semi-civilised’ for worshipping Hanuman and cow; and Rajkrishna would not have dared to point at Hinduism for India’s slow growth. They all spoke the way they did, because they believed India was economically an underperformer. But, their Indian intellectual heirs who hold — or choke? — the national voice, continue to demean India’s past. To answer them, India’s past needs to be recalled, again and again.
…
A conference organised in early 2013 by Project Syndicate, a think tank of highly influential thought leaders, including economists, has called for intense teaching and study of economic history. Any more evidence needed about the relevance of the past to the present, including in economics?
By the way, not sure how many of you picked up the nuanced “seize” vs. “destroyed” bit in the excerpt from the text above.
Specifically:
…the golden images in the various monasteries – all these he seized.†and
filled it with prized statues seized from defeated rulers…
vs.
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni attacked the temples..and looted their wealth and idols. …. But by destroying temples “
In the context of Chittor & Jauhar, a post on Rani Padmavati. read Alauddin Khilji and Padmavati: just who is afraid of History? by Saurav Basu, 29th Jan ’17:
…
Probably, the availability of a powerful concept of cyclical time permitted Hindus to cast away unrecorded, at least in writing most painful historical events even as they persisted in popular memory and acquired embellishments through the vicissitudes of time.
In his well-researched, but unfortunately poorly documented work ‘Rani Padmini: the heroine of Chittor’, B K Karkra makes the assertion that references to Padmini in Malik Mohammed Jayasi’s ‘Padmavat’ was predated by her mention in Chhitai Charita authored by Narain Das of Sarangpur in 1526. Karkra makes the compelling argument that since the work mentions her alongside incontrovertible historical figures like Deval Rani (a Gujarati princess who was abducted and forcibly married to the Sultan’s son), it is possible that Padmini’s legend had become well entrenched in the popular consciousness during Das and Jayasi’s age.
Furthermore, the cryptic suggestion by Amir Khusrau, the famed poet in Khilji’s court, through a reference to the Biblical story of Solomon and queen of Sheba during Khilji’s march to Chittor in 1303 should not be overlooked. Other instances of jauhar have been correlated with Khilji’s military expeditions like the one performed by the queen Ranga Devi of Ranthambore. While these indirect evidences lend credence to the idea of Padmini as a real historical figure, Karkra ultimately suggests that Padmini’s memory was deliberately erased from the official Rajput literary tradition in order to promote a patriarchal counter narrative eulogizing her husband Ratan Singh whose estimation of valour in popular consciousness had plummeted in permitting the Sultan, Khilji, a glimpse of the royal queen.
Similarly, contemporary Muslim chronicles were silent on the episode since the act of Jauhar and Padmini’s unearthly defiance resulted in Alauddin’s ambitions to be reduced to a spectacular failure.
Related to Islamic invasions, from Hinduism is forging a new unity around its history of persecution by Amit Majmudar, 30th Sept ’22
…
If Hindu kings had invaded the Hijaz over hundreds of years, used Arab Muslim women as sex slaves and exported thousands to India, taxed Muslims if they wished to continue practicing Islam, sacked Mecca, built a Shiva temple on the Kaaba’s ruins, boasted about watering their horses at the Zamzam well—and documented all of this themselves in extensive chronicles—one might expect Muslims to feel a touch of resentment. In the Muslim narrative, Hindus would be cast as brutal aggressors, bent on eradicating their faith and humiliating its followers. It would be difficult, if not outright dishonest, to gainsay that narrative.
The Hindu invasions of the Dar ul-Islam never happened, of course. The inverse of that happened. The stigmata remain. Prayag is still named “Allahabad” on the maps. Unlike Rama’s birth site, Krishna’s remains marked by a dargah. The most obvious effect of those invasions can be seen on the map: South Asia’s Muslims feared living in a democracy among people their co-religionists had conquered and despoiled so long ago. They agitated for, and received, a separate country.
It has taken decades, but those fears—of a Hindu majority electorate, uniting in opposition—have come true, partially. The Hindus of north India, whose relatively lower birth rates foreshadow a demographic eclipse, have discovered, hiding in plain sight, their own foundational persecution: the Islamic invasions.
Historians unsympathetic to Hindu political causes understand the galvanising power of such a narrative. India’s early Marxist historians simply elided the facts. As times and technologies have changed, concealment has given way to apologetics. Recent efforts have been made to rehabilitate even Aurungzeb. There are details of Islamic invasions of India that do not fit a simple narrative of predation by one faith on another: shifting alliances witnessed Hindu and Muslim kings fighting side by side; when a third imperial force—the British—arrived, a mixed-faith army revolted to restore the “last Mughal” to the throne in 1857. Yet, unless apologists can list 17 Hindu kings who looted and sacked the same Hindu temple the way 17 Muslim ones looted and sacked Somnath, the more emotionally charged narrative is likely to stick.
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The party’s symbolic elements hint at the deeper transformation that the party’s rise represents, for it is the realm of symbols that reflects mass psychology. The religiously evocative lotus, the saffron-clad “Yogi Adityanath” who plays on warrior-monk imagery, the consecration of a reclaimed holy site in Ayodhya: Are these images and gestures exploited for political gain, or political expressions of a religious revival? Regardless of the explanation, their power cannot be denied.
Much of that power comes from a sense of historical humiliation and dispossession, centred on Islamic imperialism.
Excerpts from an essay by VS Naipaul on India’s 50th anniversary of independence:
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I think every Indian should make the pilgrimage to the site of the capital of the Vijaynagar empire, just to see what the invasion of India led to. They will see a totally destroyed town. Religious wars are like that. People who see that might understand what the centuries of plunder and slaughter meant. War isn’t a game. When you lost that kind of war, your towns were destroyed, the people who built the towns were destroyed, you are left with a headless population. That’s where modern India starts from.
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People in India have only known tyranny. The very idea of liberty is a new idea. Particularly pathetic is the harking back to the Mughals as a time of glory. In fact, the Mughals were tyrants, every one of them. They were foreign tyrants. And they were proud of being foreign. There’s a story that anybody could run and pull a bell and the emperor would appear at his window and give justice. The child’s idea of history. The slave’s idea of the ruler’s mercy.
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But India shouldn’t have fantasies about the past. The past is painful, but it should be faced. We should make ourselves see how far these old invasions and wars had beaten India down and how far we have come. I would say that India in the 18th century was pretty nearly a dead country. India has life now. India is living.