File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0112, message 90


Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 22:45:02 -0500
From: Malini Schueller <mschuell-AT-english.ufl.edu>
Subject: Re: "History vs Propaganda" by Romila Thapar


Shourie's book seems like a hysterical attack on anyone who would dare to
criticize the tolerance of Hindus. I don't think Shourie has the
credentials (an economist, journalist, planning expert) to understand or
critique the work of the historians he attacks.
Malini  








At 04:01 PM 12/12/01 -0800, you wrote:
>  """" """"""" """" Orientalist!) 
> c. j. s. wallia **************************************************        
>   Ph.D.   IndiaStar Review of Books http://www.indiastar.com (510)
>848-8200; cjwallia-AT-indiastar.com 2707 College Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705,
>U.S.A. ************************************************** 
> 
>                      
>                           
>                                                                           
>                                                                           
>                                              EMINENT HISTORIANS:
>                           Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud
> 
>                                  by Arun Shourie
> 
>                                  New Delhi: ASA Publications, 1998
>                                  Hardback, 271 pages                      
>            
>                                  Reviewed by C. J. S. Wallia
> 
>                                  
> 
>                           Eminent Historians:Their Techniques, Their Line,
>Their
>                           Fraudis arguably the most important book
>published in
>                           India since 1947. Arun Shourie, a noted scholar
and
>                           columnist, is the author of 14 other books,
>several of them
>                           brilliant exposé of the Indian Communist party's
>                           long-standing anti-national policies, the
>foreign Christian
>                           missionaries' covert activities in India, and
>the Congress
>                           party's corruption and pseudo-secular policies
that
>                           culminated in the massacre of thousands of
>innocent Sikhs
>                           in Delhi in 1984.
> 
>                           Shourie received a Ph.D. in Economics from
Syracuse
>                           University and has served as a consultant to the
>World
>                           Bank and the Planning Commission. He has also
>served as
>                           the editor of The Indian Express. His writings
>have won
>                           him major awards including the Astor, the
>Magsaysay, and
>                           the International Editor of the Year. Recently,
the
>                           Federation of Indian Publishers conferred on
him The
>                           Freedom to Publish Award.
> 
>                          "" the ironic title of his latest book
>                           comes from the self-description a group of Marxist
>                           historians, most of them academics, arrogated for
>                           themselves while signing a newspaper petition
>during the
>                           Ayodhya controversy. Although the group is not
>large in
>                           number, (42 is the maximum), the same set has also
>                          "prominent social
>                          """ in similar public
>                           petitions. The Marxist party line is to project
>Hindus as                            exploitative feudalists and Muslims as
>liberators! Arun
>                          "this
>                           bunch of Marxist historians have been
>suppressing facts,
>                           inventing lies, perverting discourse, and
>derailing public
>                          " by seizing control of institutions such as the
>Indian
>                           Council of Historical Research (ICHR), the
National
>                           Council of Educational Research Training
>(NCERT), large
>                           parts of Indian academia, and nearly all of the
>                           English-media newspapers and publishing houses.
> 
>                           Included as principals in this group of Marxist
>historians
>                           are Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, K.M. Shrimali,
>                           K.M.Pannikar, R.S. Sharma, D. N. Jha, Gyanendra
>Pandey,
>                          "worked a
>                           diabolic inversion: the inclusive religion
>[Hinduism], the
>                           pluralist spiritual search of our people and
>land, they have
>                           projected as intolerant, narrow-minded,
>obscurantist; and
>                           the exclusivist, totalitarian, revelatory
>religions and
>                           ideologies -- Islam, Christianity,
>Marxism-Leninism-- they
>                           have made out to be the epitome of tolerance,
>                          " By promoting
>                           each other's publications and puffing up their
>reputations,
>                          "determining what is politically
>                          ""verbal
>                          " have been exercising over the English-medium
>                           publishing industry in India is that Arun
>Shourie, despite
>                           his huge readership, had to self-publish his
books.
> 
>                          "" have
>                           striven hard to continually denigrate Hindu
cultural
>                           history, the oldest surviving civilization in
>the world, by
>                          "blackening the Hindu period and whitewashing the
>                          " Indeed, Shourie should have challenged
>                           them to refute American historian Will Durant's
>assertion
>                           "The Islamic conquest of
>                           India is probably the bloodiest story in
>history. It is a
>                           discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that
>civilization is
>                           a precious good, whose delicate complex and
>freedom can at
>                           any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading
from
>                          " Or that of French
>                           historian Alain Danielou's statement, in his
>Histoire de l'
>                          "From the time Muslims started arriving, around
>                           632 AD, the history of India becomes a long,
>monotonous
>                           series of murders, massacres, spoilations,
>destructions. It is,
>                           as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their
>faith, of their
>                           sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed
>civilisations,
>                          "
> 
>                           As the book's subtitle promises, Shourie
succeeds in
>                          "their
>                          " by focusing on specifics
>                           as exemplified below: his own television debates
>with some
>                          ""; their failures to respond to                 
>          published challenges by historians and scholars of
>                           persuasions other than Marxist; their documented
>efforts at
>                           distorting established historical evidence.
> 
>                           In July 1998, Manoj Raghuvanshi, host of a
>popular ZEE TV
>                           program called Aap ki Adalat, Aap ka Faisla
>(Your Court,
>                           You Judge) invited Arun Shourie and one of the
>                          "" K. L. Shrimali. Raghuvanshi posed the
>                           question first to Shrimali whether Aurangzeb was a
>                           religious bigot. Despite Raghuvanshi's
repeating the
>                           question, Shrimali gave no clear answer, only
>asserting that
>                           Aurangzeb's court had many Hindu nobles. Shourie
>                           countered this by pointing out that there were
many
>                           Indians among the persons honored by the British
>with
>                           titles - - and both for the same reason. In
>Shourie's words:
>                          "How does this wipe away the destruction of Hindu
>                           temples by Aurangzeb? Aurangzeb had entertained no
>                           doubt about the fact that his primary impluse
>was the
>                           religious one. And that he faithfully
implemented an
>                           essential element of his religion, Islam, that
>is to destroy the
>                          " As evidence, Shourie
>                           read out several passages from Sita Ram Goel's
book
>                           Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, The Islamic
>                           Evidence. All Shrimali could mumble was that it
>was a
>                          "" When Shourie pressed the point
>                           that the source was the Akhbarat (Newsletter) of
>the Court
>                           of Aurangzeb himself written on the very day the
>news
>                          "" historian merely repeated
>                          """So, when an
>                           'eminent' historian says that the sources were
>questionable,
>                          " - - this is their technology when
>                          "
> 
>                           Sita Ram Goel's book is the focus of one of
>Shourie's
>                          "The Policy of 'Broad
>                          " Shourie quotes extensivley from this 400-page
>                          "meticulous and unimpeachable
>                          ""We have cited from eighty histories spanning a
>                           period of more than twelve hundred years. Our
>citations
>                           mention sixty-one kings, sixty-three military
>commanders
>                           and fourteen Sufis who destroyed Hindu temples
>in one
>                           hundred and fifty-four localities, big and
>small, spread from
>                           Khurasan in the West to Tripura in the East, and
>from
>                           Transoxiana in the North to Tamil Nadu in the
South,
>                           over a period of eleven hundred years. In most
>cases the
>                           destruction of temples was followed by erection
>of mosques,
>                           madrasas and khanqahs, etc., on the temple sites
>with
>                           temple materials. Allah was thanked every time for
>                           enabling the iconoclast concerned to render
>service to the
>                           religion of Muhammad by means of this pious
>                           performance. All along, the iconoclasts remained
>                           convinced that they were putting into practice
>the highest
>                           tenets of their religion. They also saw to it
>that a record was                            kept of what they prized as a
>pious performance. The
>                           language of the record speaks for itself. It
>leaves no doubt
>                           that they took immense pride in doing what they
>did. It is
>                           inconceivable that a constant and consistent
>behaviour
>                           pattern, witnessed for a long time and over a
>vast area, can
>                           be explained except in terms of a settled system
>of belief
>                           which leaves no scope for second thoughts.
>Looking at the
>                           very large number of temples, big and small,
>destroyed or
>                           desecrated or converted into Muslim monuments,
>                           economic or political explanations can be only a
>futile, if
>                          "
> 
>                           Goel's scholarly work was published in 1993 - -
>six years of
>                          "" to refute his
>                           work. Quite the contrary, it is the Indian
>Marxist historians
>                           who now stand discredited on many issues in Indian
>                           history. Interestingly, Shourie cites from a
>standard Soviet
>                           work A History of India by K. Antonova, G.
>                           Bongard-Levin, G. Kotovsky (Progress Publishers,
>Moscow,
>                           1979), which, for example, on Aurangzeb, is free
>of the
>                           inverted concoctions of the Indian Marxist
>academics and
>                          "Aurangzeb
>                           was a cold, calculating politician, and a
>fanatical Moslem,
>                           who stripped Hindus of their rights. Between
>1665 and 1669,
>                           he gave orders for Hindu temples to be destroyed
>and for
>                          "
> 
>                           Several of Shourie's chapters appeared first as
>columns.
>                           One of his readers sent him a copy of a circular
>sent by the
>                           West Bengal Government Secondary Board ordering
>                           revisions of Class IX History textbooks to
>conform with the
>                          "" The accompanying
>                           pages contained two columns: Aushuddho (errors)
and
>                           Shuddho (Corrections). Shourie provides numerous
>                           examples from these pages. In Bharuter Itihash by
>                           Shobhankar Chattopadhyaya, published by Narmada
>                          "To prevent Hindu
>                           women from being seen by Muslims, they were
>directed to
>                          " Shuddho - -Delete. In Bharater Itihash
>                           by P. Maiti, published by Sreedhar Prakashini,
>page 139:
>                          "There was a sense of aristocratic
>                           superiority in the purdah system. That is why
>upper-class
>                           Hindus adopted this system from upper-class
Muslims.
>                           Another opinion is that purdah came into
>practice to save
>                           Hindu women from Muslims. Most probably, purdah
came
>                          " Shuddho - - Delete. In
>                           Swadesho Shobhyota by Dr. P.K. Basu and
S.B.Ghatak,
>                           published by Abhinav Prakashan, page 145:
>Aushuddho - -
>                          "Because Islam used extreme inhuman means to
>establish
>                           itself in India, it became an obstacle for the
>coming together
>                          " Shuddho - - Delete. In
>                           Bharatvarsher Itishash by Dr. Narendranath
>Bhattacharya,                            published by Chakravarty and Son,
>page 89: Aushuddho
>                          "Sultan Mahmud looted valuables worth 2 crore
dirham
>                           from Somnath temple and used the Shivling as a
step
>                          " Shuddho-- Delete
>                           'and used the Shivling as a step leading up to
>the masjid in
>                           Ghazni.'
> 
>                           In West Bengal, the Marxists have long held the
>state
>                           government. However, similar revisions of history
>                           textbooks were implemented at the national level
>under
>                           the aegis of the National Council of Educational
>Research
>                           and Training. For example, Satish Chandra's
Medieval
>                           History, a textbook for Class XI students,
>asserts that
>                          "sometimes Sufi saints also played a role
>although they
>                          " Shourie
>                          "If this eminent historian were to read the
>                           accounts of these Sufis, he would learn how they
>acted as
>                          " In NCERT
>                          "Two sentences from the
>                           Koran: 'To you your religion, to me mine,' and
>'There is no
>                           compulsion in religion' which are flatly
>over-run by the
>                           text itself, to say nothing of the entire
>history of Islamic rule
>                           over 1400 years, those two sentences are
flaunted as
>                           proof-positive of Islam being not just committed
>to peace
>                           and tolerance, they are proof that it is The
>Religion of Peace
>                          "
> 
>                           Recently, Sita Ram Goel challenged the dean of
>the Marxist
>                          "" Romila Thapar, to produce evidence to
>                           substantiate her assertion about the violence
Hindus
>                           perpetrated on the Buddhists, supposedly
destroying
>                           Buddhist viharas and constructing Hindu temples
>on the
>                          "They traduce, they abuse,
>                           they denounce, they spit and run, but if you so
>much as ask
>                           them to substantiate what they are saying, they
>are deeply
>                          "
> 
>                           The largely Marxist membership of the Indian
>Council of
>                           Historical Research appointed by the socialistic
>Congress
>                           party, which was in power for nearly all of the
>fifty years
>                           since independence, was reconstituted in July
>1998 by the
>                           Bharatiya Janata Party, currently ruling at the
>center.
>                           Unfortunately, it will take a long time for
>undoing the
>                           harm done by the Marxist historians to the
>Indian psyche:
>                          "they have used these institutions to sow in the
>minds of
>                          "
> 
>                           For anyone interested in contemporary India,
>this is a
>                           must-read book.
> 
> 
>                          
>.............................................................................
>                                                                           
>        
>                                                                           
>             
> 
>                     
>                           
>                                                                           
>        
>                                                                           
>              
>  



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