Prithviraj and Shivaji war-scared. Rana Pratap died young of ?injury while trying to draw a stiff arrow.?
This is UPA nonsense as history
By R. Balashankar
Ram and Krishna never lived. Prithviraj Chauhan was ?punished? by Muhummad Ghuri for ?conspiracy,? Shivaji never faced open battles and won only by ?treachery.? These are not extracts from a Pakistani book. But the ?facts? mentioned in the Government of India textbooks, issued by Arjun Singh'sNCERT.
The Union HRD minister'scampaign to paint the education field red has resulted in this absurdity being taught as history. The NCERT, has replaced all the text books in schools. Old Communist historians have been dusted out of the closet and made to author textbooks for children. Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, Ram Sharan Sharma and et al, have authored the textbooks of various senior classes. Page after page, the tone, the language and the presentation are aimed at insulting the national heroes.
Sample this, ?archaeological evidence should be considered far more important than long family trees given in the Puranas because Puranic tradition can be used to date Ram of Ayodhya to 2000 B C but diggings and extensive exploration in Ayodhya do not show any settlement of the time.? (Ancient India, Ram Sharan Sharma, book for Class XI)
And he had this to say about Mahabharata, ?Although Krishna played an important role in Mahabharata, inscriptions and sculptural piece found in Mathura dating back to 200 BC and 300 AD do not attest to his presence. Because of this, ideas of an epic based on Ramayana and Mahabharata have to be discarded.?
If Ram and Krishna are to be discarded, are we to hold on to Ghuri and Gazni? On Prithviraj, Satish Chandra says that in his second battle with Ghuri (lovingly called in the book as Muizzuddin Mohammad bin Sam) Prithviraj escaped from the battlefield while his side suffered losses. ?he was captured near Saraswati (present day Sirsa)? he was allowed to rule Ajmer for sometime.? Soon, he was ?executed on a charge of conspiracy against Ghuri.? Here again, Chandra dismisses the legend of Prithviraj as bunkum based on a later day folk ballet written by Chand Bardai. In one sentence he washes off collective memory and folk sources, now considered as important evidence in history. Jaichand, who is synonymous with betrayal has been given the hounours in heroism by Chandra. He died fighting Ghuri, according to him.
Chandra dismisses the legend of Prithviraj as bunkum based on a later day folk ballet written by Chand Bardai. In one sentence he washes off collective memory and folk sources, now considered as important evidence in history.
All the books newly introduced by Arjun Singh go on and on about the greatness of the Mughal rulers, the ?strategic? mistakes they committed. Nowhere the books mention the kind of loot, plunder and destruction each of the invader unleashed on the Hindu population and its properties. There is no dearth of primary source to write a honest history. But these communists are more interested in suppressing the truth and suggesting falsehood. All these marauders had their official diarists with them, who recorded the events of the day. The Marxist historians had sufficient proof readily available with them to write if they sought for facts. But they didn?t.
Hasan Nizami, in the early 13th century wrote an eye-witness account of the conquest of Delhi by Qutbuddin Aibek, in 1192. Here are some extracts ?the conqueror (Aibek) entered the city of Delhi, which is the source of wealth and the foundation of blessedness. The city and its vicinity were freed from idols and idol-worship and in its sanctuaries of the images of the gods, mosques were raised by the worshippers of one god? Qutbuddin built the Jami Masjid at Delhi and adorned it with stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by elephants and cover it with inscriptions in Toghra, containing the divine commands.?
While discussing Ramayana and Mahabharata, the latest findings in Dwarka are not even mentioned in the NCERT books. The ASI report on Ayodhya is yet to be released, but the author dismisses the excavations lightly. When they discuss the Mughal rulers they discuss their architecture, literature and governance. But on most of the Hindu rulers, only their battle defeats are elaborated. On Aurangzeb the biased Chandra says ?Aurangzeb has been unjustly maligned ? the Hindus had become disloyal due to the laxity of Aurangzeb'spredecessors, so that Aurangzeb had no choice but to adopt harsh measures and to try and rally the Muslims on whose support in the long run the empire had to rest.? So to please the Muslims, he imposed jazia on Hindus. Has anyone heard such non-sense in the national History textbooks?
Shivaji, who is normally addressed by Indians with the sobriquet Chhatrapati was only a chieftain, according to Chandra. Shivaji ?conquered Javli from the Maratha chief Chandra Rao More. The Javli kingdom and accumulated treasures of the Mores were important and Shivaji aquired them by means of treachery,? Chapter 19 of the Medieval India textbook of Chandra says.
Shivaji is grudgingly dismissed in two pages. Prithviraj in six lines. There is hardly any mention of Rana Pratap and Haldighati. The bias, in these books is unbelievable. It is untruth, myth and fiction passed off as history. There is no end to Muslim rulers? broad mindedness and Hindu meanness. And this is the history we are teaching our children.
The Muslims had raised a hue and cry about a book under the NDA government, which had described Mohammad as the founder of Islam. The book Comprehensive Study of History and Civics for Class VI in Uttar Pradesh had said that Quran was a compilation of his teachings. The Muslims objected saying that the Quran were not teachings but divine revelations and Mohammad was the last of the Prophets of God.
Can historians who are in the pay-roll of ideological groups in the country get away with distorting our national history? Is this the heritage that the UPA government wants the children of India to inherit? Systematically and determinedly, the UPA is trying to undermine the national pride, self-respect and the glorious history. Pandering to the communists and the vociferous minorities the government is abandoning its role in safeguarding the national interest. Arjun Singh is the henchman for all this.
