Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 22:45:02 -0500
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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