Politics Of Indian History -2

[Capt M Kumar]

NEW DELHI: Just when PM Manmohan Singh has taken on his communist partners over the nuclear deal, his daughter, professor Upinder Singh, has come up with a book which challenges the Marxist version of ancient Indian history.

While praising Marxist historians for uncovering the history of non-elite groups and other contributions, Singh disagrees with them for their reliance on unilinear historical models derived from western historical and anthropological works.
<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/PMs_dau...how/3143298.cms

[Guest]

<b>Kerala textbook says don't believe in god</b>

The CPI(M)-led LDF Government's attempt to brainwash school children in Kerala through a new Marxist textbook and turn them away from religion and god has unleashed massive protests across the State. <b>Everybody, barring the Left, is up in arms, demanding immediate withdrawal of the textbook.</b>

The focus of mounting anger is the social studies textbook introduced for Class VII students under the State syllabus this academic year. <b>Parents and religious organisations claim that the textbook propagates atheism, materialism and anti-religious sentiments.</b>

The Opposition parties have dubbed the textbook as <b>part of the CPI(M)'s strategy to preach Marxism to impressionable minds.</b> The Education Department, presided over by Education Minister MA Baby of the CPI(M) who has been waging war against educational institutions managed by religious organisations, says the textbook aims at "making learning more creative and socially-oriented".

Though Kerala on Friday witnessed the fourth consecutive day of intense protests demanding withdrawal of the textbook, <b>sources close to Baby said there was no plan to either withdraw it or amend its contents.</b> The maximum the Government could agree to would be to appoint a panel to review the book, they said.

<b>A Marxist scholar, who used to advise the former EK Nayanar-led LDF Government, said every chapter in the book was an effort to teach young students the growth of the Communist movement in Kerala through struggles against landlords and 'upper caste domination', land and education reforms, etc. </b>

<b>The textbook presents 'testimonials' and photocopies of Marxist declarations to propagate the CPI(M)'s policies.</b> It begins with 'analytical testimonials' on the 'drawbacks of feudalism and upper caste domination', including a full page 'note' that had been drafted by the late Marxist leader AK Gopalan for his party.

The textbooks tells students how 'abominable' the education, economic, food supply and agriculture systems were before the first Communist Government headed by EMS Namboodiripad came to power. The relevant chapters are written by those with proven Marxist credentials.

<b>A full page is devoted to prove how 'inhumanly' the Brahmins treated Dalits and serfs, who were made to eat their meals mixed with the leftovers of the feudal lords and their women.</b>

The climax of the 'Marxistisation' exercise comes in a section that narrates an imaginary interview between the headmaster of a school and the parents of a boy seeking admission in the school. The boy bears a Christian name, the father is Anwar Rashid and the mother is named Lakshmi Devi.

The surprised headmaster asks the parents what religion should he enter for their child in the required column, but the parents do not want any religion or caste specification to be mentioned. Then comes the father's 'revolutionary' statement: "Let him choose the religion of his choice (when he grows up)."

<b>The CPI(M) insists that the textbook does not hurt any religious sentiments, distort the history of any political party or ridicule any leader. </b>DYFI national secretary P Sreeramakrishnan described the textbook as "an attempt to make some movement in the school curriculum which has thus far been stagnant, shallow and non-creative". A former KSU leader, however, pointed out that non-Communists would find the textbook offensive.

The former KSU leader said he was surprised by the Congress's complaint that the textbook ridicules its leaders. The book, he said, quotes Jawaharlal Nehru's will: "I do sincerely desire to declare that no religious ceremony be performed for me after my death. I do not believe in any such ceremonies. To be forced to do them even as a formality is hypocrisy ...".

He said, "The Congress doesn't know whom to follow: Jawaharlal Nehru, who was not religious, or his daughter Indira Gandhi, who violated the last wish of her father immediately after his death by giving him a traditional Hindu funeral."

[acharya]

http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/31/stories/...850900.htm<b>
Kosambi and the discourse of civilization</b>

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya

The polymath’s most enduring and wide-ranging contribution to the interpretation of Indian history was his approach to the idea of India as a civilization.

— Photo courtesy: Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Chairman, ICHR

D.D. Kosambi … remembered today chiefly for his work as a historian.

D.D. Kosambi (1907-1966) was a polymath who made original contributions in diverse areas including pure mathematics, quantitative numismatics, Sanskrit studies, and ancient Indian history. But he is remembered today chiefly for his work as a historian. That is not without reason. That is where he made an enduring impact even if some details of his findings and observations may be open to question in the light of later research. If we try to situate his contribution to the interpretation of history, the most enduring and wide-ranging in significance appears to be his approach to the idea of India as a civilization.

When he wrote in 1965 his last major work, The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India, he gave a central place to the notion of civilization. He began with the question: what unifies Indian civilization amidst cultural diversities within? He goes on to ask: what explains “the continuity we find in India over the last three thousand years”? He underlines the importance of the “material foundation for Indian culture and civilization” and, in the concluding chapter, explores the reason why, in his judgment, the ancient civilization was destined to stagnate.

In posing such wide-ranging questions about the civilization in India, Kosambi differed from the general run of academic historians of his times for they rarely engaged in the discourse of civilizations. He was swimming against the current. The specialised and fragmented view in the academic historians’ professional writings did not usually add up to that vision of totality that the notion of civilization demands. The fact that Kosambi was never given his due by them in his lifetime can be, arguably, ascribed to their disdain for a non-professional who was not only an avowed Marxist, but also given to talking about a dubious entity called ‘civilization.’

On the other hand, when Kosambi talked about the Indian civilization, he entered a discourse of civilization that was developed by some of the most creative minds of twentieth century India, including Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Jawaharlal Nehru. The questions that engaged such minds were roughly the same as those Kosambi grappled with. What kept India together as a civilization through the millennia? Was it a Hindu civilization, as some would have us believe? Is it possible to discern a continuity in this civilization from the prehistoric to colonial times? How does a notion of an ‘Indian civilization’ accommodate the immense diversities in the constituent communities and cultures? Is it necessary, even if it were possible, to talk of an ‘Indian civilization’? How did Kosambi’s intervention relate with the nationalist discourse of civilization?

It is interesting to recall that about two years after the birth of Kosambi (July 31, 1907), M. K. Gandhi, not yet the Mahatma, published his very first political tract, Hind Swaraj (1909). It was an unusual political tract in that it was mainly about India’s civilization. “It is my deliberate opinion that India is being ground down not under the English heels, but under that of modern civilization” (chapter VII). In a chapter entitled ‘What is civilization’ Gandhi poses a choice between what he considered to be true Indian civilization and the ‘materialistic’ civilization of Europe, for that choice would determine the outcome of the clash between the two. Gandhi virtually subordinates the political agenda before India to the cultural agenda and goes so far as to say our goal was not the expulsion of the English: “We can accommodate them. Only there is no room for their civilization” (chapter XIV).

Gandhi’s denunciation of Europe and idealisation of the non-materialistic tradition in India was, of course, distant from Kosambi’s emphasis on the material basis of India’s attainment of a high level of civilization. On the other hand, consider the fact that throughout the text of Hind Swaraj Gandhi never talks of a Hindu civilization. He talks of an Indian civilization. And the seminal notion of syncretism as the key to comprehending Indian civilization is already there in this very first piece of political statement by Mahatma Gandhi. He speaks of India’s “faculty of assimilation.”

Between this approach and Kosambi’s there are close parallels. Kosambi begins his treatise on The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India with the statement that India displays “diversity and unity at the same time.” And he deploys the notion of syncretism in Indian civilization in explicating the absorption of peripheral tribal groups into the mainstream, “their merger into general agrarian society,” in terms of the accommodation of their religious belief systems within the Brahmanic scheme of things. He saw a “process of syncretism” in the absorption of “primitive deities,” a “mechanism of acculturation, a clear give and take,” which allowed “Indian society to be formed out of many diverse and even discordant elements” (chapter 7).

The idea of a syncretism in the construal of India’s civilizational unity was of crucial importance in the nationalist discourse. The absence of the European concept of nationhood in the pre-colonial past, despite the substantial evidence of the existence of an indigenous notion of patriotism at the regional and sometimes also at the supra-regional level, was undeniable. The intellectual response to this perception was the idea of India’s civilizational unity, cutting across and over-riding all diversities.

Shortly before Gandhi wrote famously of India as a civilization, Rabindranath Tagore articulated the idea of syncretism in some less-known essays. “We can see that the aim of Bharatavarsha has always been to establish unity amidst differences, to bring diverse paths to a convergence, and to internalize within her soul the unity within severalty, that is to say to comprehend the inner unity of externally perceptible differences — without eliminating the uniqueness of each element.” Tagore wrote thus and much more in that vein in 1902 in an essay, ‘History of Bharatvarsha,’ which was reproduced many times during the Swadeshi agitation in Bengal from 1905. More prominent in the public mind were of course the pronouncements of the nationalist leadership.

While Kosambi shared this perception, while he underlined the unity within apparent diversity, he went on to make a point that was not often made in the nationalist discourse of civilization. “The modern Indian village gives an unspeakable impression of the grimmest poverty and helplessness,” he writes in 1965 in the book cited earlier (chapter 1). “The surplus taken away from people who live in such misery and degradation nevertheless provided and still provides the material foundation for Indian culture and civilization.” This evaluation was a radical departure from the oft-heard paeans of praise of the civilization.

Another new note struck by Kosambi was that stability of a civilizational unity was secured at the cost of stagnation and subjection to a regime of superstition and primitiveness. In this regard he follows Marx’s tendency of thought and at one point he even quoted Marx on ‘the idiocy’ of rural existence. Kosambi argues that syncretism allowed the admission of many a “primitive local god or goddess” and religious beliefs into the ancient Brahmanic system, along with the merger of different social groups with their own belief-systems and cultures. But he adds: “Brahmanism thus gave some unity to what would have been social fragments without a common bond. The process was of crucial importance in the history of India, first in developing the country from tribe to society and then holding it back, bogged down in the filthy swamp of superstition.”

His notion of the ‘primitive’ and the implicit idea of progression to ‘higher’ stages may be open to question today. In fact that approach is not so pronounced in his earlier essays on this theme, for example Myth and Reality (1962). However, the point for the present is that, contrary to the usual nationalist position with regard to the virtues of syncretism, he was critical of the consequences in terms of the obscurantism that enveloped the Indian mind.

The most famous exposition of the theme of the unifying Indian civilization in Kosambi’s lifetime was Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India (1946). Nehru commences with the question, “what is this India, apart from her physical and geographical aspects?” (p.36) He goes on to hazard a bold generalisation: in India’s past “disruptive tendencies gave rise immediately to attempts to find a synthesis. Some kind of a dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilization.” He returns to this theme through the entire work time and again. He ends the book with reflections on the same question: India is “a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads…She is a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive” (p. 378).

The idea that India was held together by bonds of unity rooted in the past of Indian civilization was not of course new. What was new was its assertion at a time when that unity was threatened by a communal divide that was soon to bring about the Partition of 1947. In the face of the threat, Nehru speaks of a dream of Indian unity. In early 20th century that unity appeared as an undeniable reality to Gandhi or Tagore; to Nehru in 1946 it was a dream, although it was in some ways also a reality. To Kosambi that unity possibly appeared as an enduring fact of history.

But when Kosambi reviewed this book, in Science and Society, he did not comment upon this aspect of it. Actually he found Nehru to be a poor historian so far as ancient India was concerned; he added however that he was “an admirer of the author” and he could see how difficult it was for Nehru, sitting in jail, to get the sources he needed. His critique was directed mainly against Nehru’s failure to attempt class analysis in understanding modern developments in India (Exasperating Essays, 1957). In this regard Kosambi was consistent in that he made class analysis the basis of his analysis of changes and continuities in Indian civilization when he turned to that theme in 1965.

That raises finally another question. What explanatory weight is to be assigned to Kosambi’s Marxian method in our effort to understand and contextualise his approach to the civilizational discourse? In a letter to his old friend Daniel Ingalls, an Indologist at Harvard, he wrote in 1953: “The world is divided into three groups: (1) swearing by Marxism, (2) swearing at Marxism, (3) indifferent, i.e. just swearing…I belong to (1), you and your colleagues to (2).” Perhaps Kosambi’s adherence to Marxism was to its use as a method, not as a source on par with empirical sources of knowledge.

He allowed that in some respects there was a poor fit between Indian history and the classical Marxian scheme. But he consistently used Marx’s method as a tool. Hence his scorn for ‘theological’ tendencies in Marxism. In his Introduction to Exasperating Essays he writes: “Indian Official Marxists hereafter called OM” were often displeased with him but he could not but protest their “theological emphasis on the inviolable sanctity of the current party line, or irrelevant quotations from the classics.” In using Marxist method in his own lights, in his effort to construe the civilization in India, in the convergences and divergences between his approach and the nationalist discourse of civilization, D.D. Kosambi has left much for us to try and understand and evaluate.

(Dr. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya is Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research and a former Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. This article is based on his Kosambi Birth Centenary Address at the University of Mumbai.)

[dhu]

PM Manmohan Singh's daughter launches history book

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today took off time from the hustle-bustle of political life to be with his family and friends, at the launch of his daughter Upinder Singh's book on the Ancient and Early Medieval India.

There was no politician or minister present at the launch of illustrative history book-<b> 'A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to 12th Century.' The 704-page coloured book contains 47 original maps and 60 illustrations.
</b>
"My only regret is that the book does not contain any cartoon...I could not find one," Dr Upinder Singh, a professor of History in Delhi University, told the large gathering.

She said the book throws light on the fact that women were important part of history from the Stone Age onwards. The book, she added, challenges the way ancient history was taught, and the contention that history was boring.

"Writing the book was more of a catharsis...Sometimes it was awful writing the first few chapters...Sometimes I despaired that I would not be able to finish the book," the author added.

She said the idea while writing the book was to make it interesting, and go into the raising debates with lightness of touch.

Among those who attended the book release function were Ambassadors of Pakistan and France, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, academicians, bureaucrats and students and colleagues of the author.

The Prime Minister later spent 10-15 minutes chatting with his personal friends and relatives.

While paying tribute to her teachers, Dr Upinder said she was missing the presence of Chitra Srinivasn, a Sardar Patel School teacher, who died a few months ago. She also paid tributes to photographers of Archaeological Survey of India whose photos were liberally used in the book and added that these photos were national treasures and should be treated as such.

"I hope the Hindi edition of the book will come out soon," she said. Her colleague Nyanjot Lahiri, who is also a history professor in Delhi University, and renowned photographer Aditya Arya, whose photographs were used in the book, also spoke on the occasion.

[dhu]

PM Manmohan Singh's daughter launches history book

images

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today took off time from the hustle-bustle of political life to be with his family and friends, at the launch of his daughter Upinder Singh's book on the Ancient and Early Medieval India.

There was no politician or minister present at the launch of illustrative history book-<b> 'A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to 12th Century.' The 704-page coloured book contains 47 original maps and 60 illustrations.
</b>
"My only regret is that the book does not contain any cartoon...I could not find one," Dr Upinder Singh, a professor of History in Delhi University, told the large gathering.

She said the book throws light on the fact that women were important part of history from the Stone Age onwards. The book, she added, challenges the way ancient history was taught, and the contention that history was boring.

"Writing the book was more of a catharsis...Sometimes it was awful writing the first few chapters...Sometimes I despaired that I would not be able to finish the book," the author added.

She said the idea while writing the book was to make it interesting, and go into the raising debates with lightness of touch.

Among those who attended the book release function were Ambassadors of Pakistan and France, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, academicians, bureaucrats and students and colleagues of the author.

..
While paying tribute to her teachers, Dr Upinder said she was missing the presence of Chitra Srinivasn, a Sardar Patel School teacher, who died a few months ago. She also paid tributes to photographers of Archaeological Survey of India whose photos were liberally used in the book and added that these photos were national treasures and should be treated as such.

"I hope the Hindi edition of the book will come out soon," she said. Her colleague Nyanjot Lahiri, who is also a history professor in Delhi University, and renowned photographer Aditya Arya, whose photographs were used in the book, also spoke on the occasion.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

Panel to look into charge of missing books

Raktima Bose

KOLKATA: The National Library here has set up a five-member committee to look into charges that rare books and manuscripts are missing from one of the most hallowed institutions of its kind in the country.

“The charges have come as a surprise to us,” R. Ramachandran, Director in charge of the National Library, told journalists here.

“We have sent a report to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs refuting the charge as there are no rare books or manuscripts missing from our library.”

The Ministry sought a report from library authorities following reports from the Comptroller and Auditor-General, which “alleged that many rare books and manuscripts are missing from the Rare Book Section,” Dr. Ramachandran said.

He said the CAG conducted in January this year a preliminary performance audit, which was the first of its kind in the history of the library.

He, however, refuted the claim that he had received feedback from the CAG on anomalies in the ‘Rare Book Section’.

Dr. Ramachandran said: “We had fully co-operated with the three-member CAG team and it never complained of any discrepancy during its stay here.”

In the library, which boasts 25 lakh books in its inventory, stock verification had not been done for the past 25 years due to staff shortage, he said. “We have only three members for stock verification.”

On financial irregularities alleged by the CAG, he said: “The library annually spends Rs. 2 crore to buy books from foreign publications according to the general financial rule of the Government of India and there is no irregularity on our part.”

[Guest]

I have a question. Often Americans talk about how George Washington refused the throne when he was offered one; how he could have been a King yet he chose not to be one.

I am sure we have several from our Indic fold. The first name that comes to my mind is Gautam (a.k.a The Buddha). Any others?

[Pandyan]

Bhishma pita? Sort of.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Pandyan+Oct 9 2008, 08:00 AM-->QUOTE(Pandyan @ Oct 9 2008, 08:00 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhishma pita?
[right][snapback]88966[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->You're right.

<!--QuoteBegin-Swamy G+Oct 9 2008, 06:02 AM-->QUOTE(Swamy G @ Oct 9 2008, 06:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I have a question. Often Americans talk about how George Washington refused the throne when he was offered one; how he could have been a King yet he chose not to be one.[right][snapback]88959[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->How very noble of George Washington. Still, that was not his finest moment. No, that honour belongs to:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021211201514/...nstitution.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->George Washington in 1779 instructed his troops on how to deal with the Iroquois people:

      "...lay waste all the settlements around... that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed," (and do not) "listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Bodhi]

<!--QuoteBegin-Swamy G+Oct 9 2008, 06:02 AM-->QUOTE(Swamy G @ Oct 9 2008, 06:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I have a question. Often Americans talk about how George Washington refused the throne when he was offered one; how he could have been a King yet he chose not to be one.

I am sure we have several from our Indic fold. The first name that comes to my mind is Gautam (a.k.a The Buddha). Any others?
[right][snapback]88959[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

There are several. One that I recently heard of is that of the half-uncle of Maharana Kumbha, prince Chanda, a great warrior still beloved and remembered by the sisodiyas for his virtues and manly courage.

Rana Lakha was the then King of Mewar and his eldest and ablest son Chanda the yuvarAja. Once when the court was in sitting, a marriage proposal arrived from the ruler of Mandor, for the hand of the princess of that house for Chanda the heir of Mewar. Incidentally when the envoy was announced, Chanda was not in court at the moment, and his aged father received the envoy and remarked in a jest that let Chanda come and accept the coconut himself, for such a thing was not sent for an old fellow like himself.

Obviously only meant to be a lighter laugh, and enjoyed both by the courtiers and the Brahmana envoy, however when Chanda heard of it he refused to accept the proposal, saying if his father, even in fun, had considered the proposal for himself it is is unfit for him to accept.

When he did not give in, after much discussion, the King was angered, and demanded Chanda to choose between rejecting the marriage proposal from Mandore and the kingdom of Mewar, for it was an insult to the house of Mandore to return the coconut.

Chanda denounced his natural right to become the next Rana, and instead chose to remain the General and the first Rajput of any prince that king elected to become the next Rana. And so it happened that the kingdom went to Prince Mukul in 1398, the father of Maharana Kumbha, while Chanda, a brave and ablest Rajput, although doing selfless service to Mewar, was eventually forced to exile from Mewar to become a General in the army of Mandu. Sisodiyas remember the event as having done more harm to Mewar than any of Mughal invasions.

[Guest]

Husky: To his credit George was fighting a war in those days, he was after all a military.

Answering my own question: I Rajaraja Chola gave his right to rule to his uncle Uthama Chola. But then after his uncle died, got back the throne.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Swamy G+Oct 11 2008, 10:56 PM-->QUOTE(Swamy G @ Oct 11 2008, 10:56 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Husky: To his credit George was fighting a war in those days, he was after all a military.[right][snapback]89060[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Of course you're right. That makes it *all* better. So military=monstrosity. Now I see how I'm in the wrong line of work. American military is right up my alley. I should emigrate to there and join up to Be All I Can Be.


The islamaniacs who invaded India were also <i>fighting a total war</i> with our Hindoo ancestors over our Hindoo land. Fortunately I know you could never descend to such hypocrisy as to side with the Hindoos in their case, since it's the same situation as in the Americas. And <i>after all</i>, the uninvited islamaniac armies from Turkey, from toppled Persia and from Afghanistan who terrorised our ancestors were all <i>military</i> too. It's all to their <i>credit</i>.

The extent of christoconditioning among Hindus is amazing. I could make so much money off these people by conning them - their easy minds are just wandering wallets <i>asking</i> to be pick-pocketed. I really should start taking my true talent seriously.

[ramana]

Dikgaj's blog

http://dikgaj.wordpress.com/indian-history...ity-propaganda/

[Bodhi]

If you thought that History taught in Pakistan (Husky's post) was the worst towards Hindus - you should be surprised by what they teach the kids in Bengal...

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>NOT JUST WHITEWASH, HOGWASH TOO!</b>
Arun Shourie

Manoj Raghuvanshi had invited K. M. Shrimali and me to discuss on Zee Television's Aap ki Adalat the charge that history was being rewritten in communal colours. Raghuvanshi read out what Outlook had reported -- that the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education had issued instructions in 1989 that "Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned."

Raghuvanshi asked Shrimali, whether this did not amount to distortion ? True, that was a painful period of our history, Raghuvanshi said, but should it be erased from our history books? Would that be objective, rational history? Shrimali's response was the well-practised script: firstly, he did not know that such an instruction was ever issued; if it was issued, he said, he was against it; but one must see what the context was in which the instruction had been issued....

Concerned teachers in West Bengal have been so kind as to send me the circular relating to textbooks for class IX. Dated 28 April, 1989, it is issued by the West Bengal Secondary Board. It is in Bengali, and carries the number "Syl/89/1".

"All the West Bengal Government recognised secondary school Headmasters are being informed," it begins, "that in History textbooks recommended by this Board for Class IX the following amendments to the chapter on the medieval period have been decided after due discussions and review by experts." "



"The authors and publishers of Class IX History textbooks," it continues, "are being requested to incorporate the amendments if books published by them have these aushuddho [impurities, errors] in all subsequent editions, and paste a corrigendum in books which have already been published. A copy of the book with the corrigendum should be deposited with the Syllabus Office (74, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Calcutta -- 16)." Signed, "....Chattopadhyaya, Secretary."

The accompanying pages contain two columns: aushuddho -- impurity, or error -- and shuddho. One has just to glance through the changes to see the objective the progressives are trying to achieve through their "objective", "rational" approach to the writing of history. Here are some of the changes.

Book: Bharat Katha, prepared by the Burdwan Education Society, Teachers Enterprise, published by Sukhomoy Das....

Page 140: Aushuddho -- "In Sindhudesh the Arabs did not describe Hindus as Kafir. They had banned cowslaughter."

Shuddho -- "Delete, 'They had banned cow-slaughter'."

Page 141: Aushuddho -- "Fourthly, using force to destroy Hindu temples was also an expression of aggression. Fifthly, forcibly marrying Hindu women and converting them to Islam before marriage was another way to propagate the fundamentalism of the ulema."

Shuddho : though the column reproduces the sentences only from "Fourthly....", the Board directs that the entire matter from "Secondly.... to ulema" be deleted.

Page 141: Aushuddho -- The logical, philosophical, materialist Mutazilla disappeared. On the one hand, the fundamentalist thinking based on the Quran and the Hadis...."

Shuddho -- "Delete, 'On the one hand, the fundamentalist thinking based on the Quran and the Hadis'...."



Book: Bharatvarsher Itihash, by Dr. Narendranath Bhattacharya, published by Chakravarty and Son....

Page 89: Aushuddho -- "Sultan Mahmud used force for widespread murder, loot, destruction and conversion."

Shuddho -- "There was widespread loot and destruction by Mahmud." That is, no reference to killing, no reference to forcible conversions.

Page 89: Aushuddho -- "He looted valuables worth 2 crore dirham from the Somnath temple and used the Shivling as a step leading up to the masjid in Ghazni."

Shuddho -- "Delete 'and used the Shivling as a step leading up to the masjid in Ghazni.'"

Page 112: Aushuddho -- "Hindu-Muslim relations of the medieval ages is a very sensitive issue. The nonbelievers had to embrace Islam or death."

Shuddho -- All matter on pages 112-13 to be deleted.

Page 113: Aushuddho -- "According to Islamic law non-Muslims will have to choose between death and Islam. Only the Hanafis allow non-Muslims to pay jaziya in exchange for their lives."

Shuddho -- Rewrite this as follows : "By paying jaziya to Allauddin Khilji, Hindus could lead normal lives." Moreover, all the subsequent sentences "Qazi....", "Taimur's arrival in India...." to be deleted.

Page 113: Aushuddho -- "Mahmud was a believer in the rule of Islam whose core was 'Either Islam or death'.

Shuddho -- Delete.



Book: Bharuter Itihash, by Shobhankar Chattopadhyaya, published by Narmada Publishers.

Page 181: Aushuddho -- "To prevent Hindu women from being seen by Muslims, they were directed to remain indoors."

Shuddho -- Delete.



Book: Itihasher Kahini, by Nalini Bhushan Dasgupta, published by B. B. Kumar.

Page 132: Aushuddho -- According to Todd [the famous chronicler of Rajasthan annals] the purpose behind Allauddin's Chittor expedition was to secure Rana Rattan Singh's beautiful wife, Padmini."

Shuddho -- Delete.

Page 154: Aushuddho -- "As dictated by Islam, there were three options for non-Muslims: get yourself converted to Islam; pay jaziya; accept death. In an Islamic State non-Muslims had to accept one of these three options."

Shuddho-- Delete.

Page 161: Aushuddho -- "The early Sultans were eager to expand the sway of Islam by forcibly converting Hindus into Islam." Shuddho -- Delete.



Book: Bharuter Itihash, by P. Maiti, Sreedhar Prakashini.

Page 117: Aushuddho -- "There is an account that Allauddin attacked the capital of Mewar, Chittorgarh, to get Padmini, the beautiful wife of Rana Rattan Singh."

Shuddho -- Delete.

Page 139: Ashuddho -- "There was a sense of aristocratic superiority in the purdah system. That is why upperclass Hindus adopted this system from upper-class Muslims. Another opinion has it that purdah came into practice to save Hindu women from Muslims. Most probably, purdah came into vogue because of both factors."

Shuddho --delete.

The most extensive deletions are ordered in regard to the chapter on "Aurangezebe's policy on religion". Every allusion to what he actually did to the Hindus, to their temples, to the very leitmotif of his rule - to spread the sway of Islam ? are directed to be excised from the book. He is to be presented as one who had an aversion -- an ordinary sort of aversion, almost a secular one -- to music and dancing, to the presence of prostitutes in the? court, and that it is these things he banished. The only allusion to his having done anything in regard to Islam which is allowed to remain is that "By distancing himself from Akbar's policy of religious tolerance and policy of equal treatment, Aurangzebe caused damage to Mughal rule."



Book: Swadesho Shobhyota, by Dr. P. K. Basu and S. B. Ghatak, Abhinav Prakashan.

Page 126: Ashuddho -- "Some people believe that Allauddin's Mewar expedition was to get hold of Padmini, the wife of Rana Rattan Singh."

Shuddho -- Delete.

Page 145: Ashuddho -- "Apart from this, because Islam used extreme inhuman means to establish itself in India, this became an obstacle for the coming together of Indian and Islamic cultures."

Shuddho -- Delete.



Book: Bharat Katha, by G. Bhattacharya, Bulbul Prakashan.

Page 40: Ashuddho -- "Muslims used to take recourse to torture and inhuman means to force their religious beliefs and practices on Indians."

Shuddho -- Delete.

Page 41: Ashuddho -- "The liberal, humane elements in Islam held out hope for oppressed Hindus."

Shuddho -- The entire paragraph beginning with "the caste system among Hindus.... was attacked" is to be deleted. Instead write, "There was no place for casteism in Islam. Understandably, the influence of Islam created an awakening among Hindus against caste discrimination. Lower caste oppressed Hindus embraced Islam."

Page 77: Ashuddho -- "His main task was to oppress non-believers, especially Hindus."

Shuddho -- This and the preceding sentence to be deleted.



Book: Bharuter Itihash, by A. C. Roy, published by Prantik.

Page 102: Ashuddho -- "There is an account that Allauddin attacked Chittor to get the beautiful wife of Rana Rattan Singh, Padmini."

Shuddho -- Delete.

Page 164: Ashuddho -- "It was his commitment to Islam which made him a fundamentalist."

Shuddho -- Delete.



Book: Bharut Kahini, by G. C. Rowchoudhury, published by A. K. Sarkar and Co.

Page 130: Ashuddho -- "That is why he adopted the policy of converting Hindus to Islam -- so as to increase the number of Muslims. Those Hindus who refused to discard their religion were indiscriminately massacred by him or his generals."

Shuddho -- Delete.

In a word, no forcible conversions, no massacres, no destruction of temples. Just that Hinduism had created an exploitative, casteist society. Islam was egalitarian. Hence the oppressed Hindus embraced Islam!



Muslim historians of those times are in raptures at the heap of Kafirs who have been dispatched to hell. Muslim historians are forever lavishing praise on the ruler for the temples he has destroyed, for the hundreds of thousands he has got to see the light of Islam. Law books like The Hedaya prescribe exactly the options to which these little textbooks alluded. All whitewashed away.



Objective whitewash for objective history. And today if anyone seeks to restore truth to these textbooks, the scream, "Communal rewriting of history."



But there isn't just whitewash of Islam. For after Islam came another great emancipatory ideology -- Marxism-Leninism.

The teachers furnish extracts from the textbook for Class V.

".... in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba and in other East European countries, the workers and peasants are ruling the country after capturing power, whereas in U.S.A., England, France and Germany the owners of mills and factories are ruling the country."

".... after the Revolution in Russia the first exploitation-free society was established."

".... Islam and Christianity are the only religions which treated man with honour and equality...."

Thus, not just whitewash, there is hogwash too.

http://voiceofdharma.com/indology/eminen...ians1.html
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>DEVICES TO FURTHER THE CIRCULAR</span>
Arun Shourie

As we have seen, the explicit part of the Circular issued by the West Bengal Government in 1989 in effect was that there must be no negative reference to Islamic rule in India. Although these were the very things which contemporary Islamic writers celebrated, there must be absolutely no reference to the destruction of the temples by Muslim rulers, to the forcible conversion of Hindus, to the numerous other restrictions which were placed on the Hindu population. Along with the Circular, the passages which had to be removed were listed and substitute passages were specified. The passages which were ordered to be deleted contained, if anything, a gross understatement of the facts. On the other hand, passages which were sought to be inserted contained total falsehoods: that by paying jazia Hindus could lead "normal lives" under the Islamic rulers!

A closer study of the textbooks which are today being used under the authority of the West Bengal Government shows a much more comprehensive, a much more diabolic design than that of merely erasing the cruelties of Islamic rule.

Of course, there is no reference to those cruelties. But in addition, the growth of the Aligarh Movement and its objectives, the role of Sir Syed in founding this movement, the role of the Muslim League, its close association with the British, its espousal of the Two Nation doctrine -- all these are almost entirely erased in the half a dozen books which teachers in Calcutta have been so kind as to send.

It was only in one book, Sabhyatar Itihash by Dr. Atul Chandra Ray, Prantik, 1998, for Class VIII, that there was a reference to the Muslim League, the Lahore Resolution, the Two Nation theory, and Jinnah's "Direct Action". Even in this book the only reference to Sir Syed Ahmad was one projecting him as a great, progressive religious reformer: "All his life he struggled against blind faith and tradition, conventional rituals, practices and ignorance."

That he founded the Aligarh Movement, that he was the original proponent of the Two Nation theory, that he exhorted Muslims to stay away from the Congress, that he wrote essays followed by books followed by essays to establish in the eyes of the British how loyal Muslims had been through the 1857 Uprising, how loyal they were and would always be to the British because of their nature and their religion, that he gave very special "interpretations" to passages from the Qur'an to establish that it was the religious duty of Muslims to support and stand by the British rulers -- to the point that if the British asked them to eat pork, they were in religious-duty bound to do so in good cheer : not a word on any of this.

Similarly, while Ram Mohan Roy is mentioned, while Keshab Chandra Sen -- in whom Max Muller had seen such hope of Christianizing India! -- is mentioned, while Devendra Nath Tagore is mentioned in this "History of Civilization", Bankim Chandra is not mentioned ! After all, for the constituency which our secular Communists have been wooing, Bankim Chandra, being the author of Bande Matram, of Ananda Math, is anathema. Many would think it natural that as such "Histories of World Civilization" are written in and for Bengal, Bengali personages -- including K. C. Sen! -- should figure more prominently than reformers and leaders from outside Bengal. But even they would be surprised -- though you would not expect me to be surprised! -- by what the teachers point out in regard to the most widely used textbook : that while Swami Vivekananda gets one line, Karl Marx gets forty two!

In regard to our religion, the trick is threefold. The textbooks denigrate religion, attributing to it the evils which it serves their purpose to highlight. Second, in each of these instances the examples they give are linked by them to Hinduism. Third, among religions, Islam is always presented as the one, progressive, emancipatory religion. Of course, the final emancipation comes in the form of Soviet Revolution of 1917!

Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, Calcutta, 1993 is a book for Class III. It has the customary section on "Vyaktigat Sampatti o' Das Pratha" and it sets out the customary Marxist exposition. The emergence of two classes, rich and poor, is attributable to personal property and the profit motive....; to augment its growth, one class of society fights another class....; some lose out their property; others grab everything of theirs'....; those who lose out are made prisoners and employed as labourers; they become slaves; they are absolute paupers....; those who make them work like this become their malik....; gradually those maliks, without working, start enjoying the fruits of the labour of slaves....; thus society gets divided into rich and poor, owners and slaves; the rich and owners and craftsmen class of people start fleecing these slaves; not only are the latter denied their dues, they are also subjected to atyachar....; sometimes these poor and these slaves used to rebel when they could no longer bear the atyachar; to discipline them the rich created law, police and courts.... A proper preparation of the Class III child for abiding by law!

On the next page this account is merged into the account of "rituals and ceremonies of society." The illustration on the page shows Hindu pundits around a fire with the caption "Rishis performing Yajna". Having described the emergence of two classes, the oppression of one class and its being pushed into becoming slave labour, having described law, police and courts as instruments of this oppression, the textbook now tells the Class III student "these priests devised and got busy in creating laws and rituals for worship. That is how scriptures were written.

And they started teaching the children from these scriptures, and they themselves became the teachers. Gradually they established themselves at the top of the social ladder. That is how they became leaders of society. And they became the allies of those who were ruling the world." Not just the usual Marxist clap-trap, the Marxist rendition of the Macaulay-design: make them ashamed of the three things they revere -- their Gods, their scriptures, their language, Sanskrit; and make them hate the one class which has been charged with the task of continuing their religion and culture.

The theme is continued in and the association of Hinduism with everything evil is deepened in the textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Part II (West Bengal Vidyalaya Shiksha Adhikar, 1995, Calcutta), meant for the Class IV students. On page 10 the standard account is given ? one which has been called into serious question by current scholarship. Aryans come from the North West.... They institute four castes, the Shudras are consigned to be the lowest caste. They were the original inhabitants of this land, of dark complexion.... No right to education.... That is on page 10.

On page 17 we learn of the great emancipatory event. Mohammed is born. He establishes Islam.... It creates a great civilization, a civilization educationally, culturally advanced. It establishes a vast Empire -- but because of fighting in various parts this Empire yields to the emergence of different states. Two pages later again: Mohammed is born...., a great Mahapurush...., his religion Islam means "Peace". He taught all to give alms to the poor, and to pay the worker his legitimate due. He taught, do not cause pain or suffering to slaves, do not take interest on loans. He stopped idolatry. These are the principal doctrines of Mohammed. Many accepted Mohammed's religion.... And then the insinuation: "All great men have taught peace..... but people have forgotten their message and are quarreling and fighting. The rich instead of helping the poor, duped them, and added to their own wealth. They indulge in loot, blood-letting in the name of religion. When Jainism and Buddhism spread in India, the Brahmin pundits saw danger. They thought that if men did not follow the rituals, they may not obey and care for them. Therefore, on the pretext of saving Hindu religion and to maintain their hold on society, they became desperate. They were helped by many kings. Thus the influence of Jainism and Buddhism declined and the influence of Hinduism increased." That is on page 20.

On pages 25 and 26 this superimposition is carried further. The standard Marxist "thesis" is once again driven into the child. Peasants exploited.... surplus appropriated.... his cattle, land expropriated ....suffering.... progressive immiserisation day by day.... and then, "in the name of God, the pundits extracted gifts for puja and festivals. The pundits became oppressive and began living off the labour of others, becoming exploiters and oppressors. They were helped by kings and landlords. Shudras, slaves and the poor suffer most from religious persecution. This is how the stratification of society between high and low started. Shudras became untouchables but there was no restriction on exploiting their services and every excuse was good enough for the men of higher castes to exploit and persecute the Shudras.... The upper caste men used to kill off Shudras and wipe out entire villages on any excuse whatsoever."

And there is an illustration on the page to reinforce the message into the child's mind. Captioned, Dharmiya Utpidan, "Religious Persecution", it shows a man in a bush-shirt, flogging a poor person with a whip -- in the foreground is a Brahmin, in a dhoti, with a chutia, a menacing frown, directing him to do so.

By predictable contrast, Itihash (Prachin), West Bengal Shiksha Parishad, 1994, on page 94 gives an illustration of the ruins of Nalanda, it says how important these seats of learning were. But it is studiously silent on who it was that destroyed them! After all, alluding to that would violate the Circular!

The Class III textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, at page 32, teaches the child, "With the emergence of personal property one section has been depriving the other. The differences between rich and poor have grown. Suffering has been created. The downtrodden have lost all their rights. They have been subjected to many indignities. Even now people are killing each other, even now a man exploits a fellow-being, even now there are wars, battles. If peace ever comes to this earth, if exploitation and oppression are stopped, if every man can enjoy equal happiness and peace, then how wonderful this earth would become."

This pattern -- of sowing anger against the state of things and attributing that condition to the entities the Communists want to target -- continues from one year to the next. Itihash, Part III, (West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, 1996), after giving the same sequence and "theses" of exploitation, of division of society, of religion as a handmaiden of exploitation, turns to "the emergence of new consciousness". An exploitative order.... Brahmins wielding great influence.... Those of the working class, of Shudras pushed down.... no rights or dignity.... Shudras not even to perform religious rituals.... Exploitation.... Rebellion of Christian slaves.... Spartacus.... Shakes the very foundation of the Roman Empire.... After 600 years of Christ, a new religious creed that every man has equal rights, this religious creed was preached by Hazrat Mohammed.... Ideas of great men abandoned.... Exploitation continues. At last! Lenin, the Bolshevik Party.... "This is how the common man's revolt took place in November 1917 and an exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] society of the working class was established. Tagore visited Russia in 1930 and said that if he had not visited Russia, he would have missed out on the most sacred place of pilgrimage...." The

Chinese Revolution.... The Industrial Revolution in England.... Proprietors expropriate.... Labour is progressively immiserised.... Country becomes rich but is controlled by a few; the rest sink into misery, getting hardly anything, not even two square meals a day.... And then, on page 32, the Russian Revolution: "In November 1917 before the end of the First World War, the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire led by Lenin and his Bolshevik Party staged the Revolution and uprooted the Czarist Empire and thus established the first exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] rule of Workers and Peasants in Soviet Russia...."

And then the Second World War: Hitler, Japan and Italy combined. Japan also was very greedy and ambitious, and planned to set up an Empire in Asia. The Axis came into conflict with "Britain, France and the American imperialists." "The issue," it tells the student, "was who will exploit and plunder the world. That is how the Second World War started...." Bengal Famine.... In 1941 Germany attacked Soviet Russia. The Russian people fought to defend the Motherland and finally defeated Hitler's Germany. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.... After the end of the Second World War, the movement for freedom in colonies became vigorous.



Like this book, Sabhyatar Itihash, "The History of Civilization," 1998, also presents the Russian Revolution as the culmination of that evolution. A remarkable, comprehensive revolution.... While these books are published in 1995, 1998 etc., there is not a word in them about the purges under Stalin, about the fact that under him at least 28 million Soviet citizens were killed, nor of the fact that close to 60 million were killed under Maoist rule in China, there is not a word of the slave labour camps of these regimes. And, of course, there is not a word about hat has happened to the Soviet Union, to Eastern Europe since then, nor about the leap which China has taken to abandon the bankrupt Communist economic system.

Hence the design is not just what was set out in that Circular ? to erase the evil that Islamic rulers heaped upon India and Indians. It is to attribute evil to the religion of our country, Hinduism; it is to present Islam as the great progressive force which arose; it is to lament the fact that humanity did not heed the teachings of progressive men like Mohammed -- till the "remarkable and comprehensive" Russian Revolution of 1917!

To do anything but swallow and vomit this design, even to document it, is to be communal, chauvinist, fascist!

http://voiceofdharma.com/indology/eminen...ians2.html
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In fact go to those links and read in full; a complete expose of how the Eminent Historians of JNU work.

[acharya]

http://203.197.197.71/presentation/leftnav...delicacies.aspx

A delicate history of current indelicacies

By Farrukh Dhondy

Feb 28 : "I made love to remember,

She made love to forget…"

From The Regrets

of Bachchoo

A few years ago, on a trip to India, Vidia Naipaul asked me to postpone going to Mumbai from Delhi for a day so that I could accompany him to a meeting of the BJP cultural forum. I made some feeble joke about that being a rampant oxymoron and was, perhaps for that very reason, persuaded to stay.

I had to ask why he wanted me there.

"I want a neutral witness. I know what some of the Indian press is like and they’ll lie!"

I went to the meeting and took my place in the audience. Vidia said he hadn’t come to say anything but indeed to ask some questions about the cultural, economic and political policies which the party should be formulating as a blueprint for the progress of the country. A great deal of hot air rose into the unevenly plastered ceiling. There was no red-in-tooth-and-claw minority-baiting, no allusion to Hindutva, caste or any mention of the Bajrang Dal and associated organisations or indeed much discussion of "history". Vidia did ask one question about the revision of text books and why it was done and some writers and revisers of such texts gave some unmemorable innocuous reply about telling the truth. One academic historian said she had been villified and characterised as a bigot and a charlatan even though she could prove that her work was accurate but politically inconvenient. Vidia didn’t ask for details and was given none.

Then a member of the audience asked Vidia what he thought of the Babri Masjid episode and of the political controversy surrounding the march to it. Very many of the audience and the person chairing the meeting asked the questioner to shut up. Vidia said he’d say something. He said he didn’t have any opinion about the politics surrounding the demolition demand but added that he thought that if the Emperor Babur had demolished a temple and built a mosque on the site, it was an act of extreme hubris.

I don’t know if the main body of the BJP’s cultural wing understood the Greek tragedians’ concept of "hubris’" but that was all that may conceivably have been considered controversial in what Naipaul said that day.

Yet he has, through the lame meanderings of Indian "literary criticism" and lazy and illiterate and posturing journalism, acquired a reputation for being virulently anti-this-or-that and worse. When he emerged from the building, newspaper and TV reporters, who had been excluded from the gathering, were waiting in the compound. They thronged, crowded and shouted, as robust as a bear-baiting audience. "Did you support the murder of Muslims in Gujarat?" was the tenor of the questioning. Nadira Naipaul, who accompanied Vidia, became very angry, shouting back at them that she was a Muslim and that he had never ever said any such thing and had variously made very open statements condemning the killing of innocent people. The reporters asked why he didn’t attend a Congress party cultural occasion and Vidia replied that he would if he was invited.

The next days’ and weeks’ reports made it very plain that this controversy and the press attention wasn’t about who invites V.S. Naipaul to a tea and a discussion. It’s about a historical delicacy, a veil of silence and sycophancy covering our knowledge of and exposure to Indian history. Most newspapers concentrated on the fact that V.S. had accepted such an invitation. An English writer, writing in an Indian journal, gave the game away. He began by saying that "he had heard" that V.S. had attended a meeting at which he endorsed the programme of the Sangh Parivar. I know from asking that Vidia wouldn’t know a Sangh Parivar from a Sans Culotte.

The writer went on to say that poor ignorant V.S. Naipaul may write crisp and stylish prose, but didn’t know much about Indian history. The quotations and expose that followed seemed to say that the Muslim invasions of India had been of great benefit to the natives, even in their time, as these invasions had added to the gaiety of the nation by bringing to it forms of long-shirted dress and kebabs. The writer was serious.

Events this week in Argentina and Europe make one wonder about the great truths of history because one Bishop Richard Wiilliamson, an English convert to Catholicism has been widely pilloried in the press for "Holocaust denial". Williamson was thrown out last week of the radical order of Catholicism to which he belonged in Argentina and has come back to Britain. This order of St. Pius X of which he is a consecrated Bishop, was itself expelled from the Catholic Church by the last Pope John Paul II for denying a papal ordinance called Nostra Aetate, which says that the Christian accusation against Jews of "deicide" is lifted and must no longer be held as Christian belief.

Williamson was excommunicated from the Roman church when the St. Pius X sect appointed him a bishop. Last month, the present German Pope lifted the excommunication despite the fact that Bishop Williamson has been exposed since as a "Holocaust denier" who has publicly stated that his historical understanding indicates that six million Jews were not killed by the Nazis — this is a Jewish lie and an exaggeration and that it was nearer a figure of 300,000 who were murdered in the camps.

When dealing with numbers above two digits, I don’t suppose the quantum of cruelty, barbarism or genocide is in question, but today Austria and Germany have laws prohibiting the public denial of the Holocaust and the six million-figure. Austria jails those, such as British "historian" David Irving, who persist in airing this denial.

Williamson landed this week in his native Britain and was taken under the wing of self-confessed anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers such as Michele Renouf a former beauty queen and now a society hostess who was appointed to an "international fact-finding committee" by the 2006 Iranian Holocaust Denial conference.

It is very rare in our modern democracies to have a historical denial characterised as a crime against the State. Heresy as a punishable crime is, for Christian and secular states, a matter of the past. There do exist regimes and countries in which one can’t voice particular religious or political beliefs without being locked up or beheaded. In India it is not the Holocaust deniers who are the victims of smart opinion.

Now if you came to Austria and said that the Nazis’ purpose in the Holocaust was to bring new cuisine to the concentration camps and introduce striped pyjamas to the Jews, you would be locked up and forced to reconsider. In India, of course, genocide-deniers are safe.

[acharya]

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THE appointment of Kapil Sibal as the new HRD minister has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm; hardly surprising since the recent past of the ministry axiomatically guarantees that its present will shine by comparison.<b> Obsessed with fighting shadow ideological battles, ostensibly to rescue India’s endangered secular, composite culture soul from closet communalists (read Hindutvavadis) and push through a misplaced and distorted agenda of social justice (introduction of OBC quotas in ‘elite’ educational institutions), Arjun Singh had managed to alienate all except the faithful and recipients of largesse.</b>

The distribution of patronage – a combination of grants, recognition and appointments to key institutional positions – has for long been the favoured modus operandi of the HRD ministry, be it under Syed Nurul Hasan, P. Shiv Shankar, Murli Manohar Joshi, or indeed Arjun Singh. It not only buys the loyalty of a vocal section of the intelligentsia, many of whom occupy disproportionate space in opinion moulding fora, but also ensures the marginalization of ideological opponents. Less realized, it also, unfortunately, undermines the autonomy and legitimacy of institutions and procedures. Over time, this has helped entrench a sychophantic court culture, solidify bureaucratic control and ensure the stifling of any creativity and experimentation without which no education can flower.

Kapil Sibal thus faces formidable challenges even as he begins his term with residual goodwill. His earlier stint as minister for science and technology displayed a modern mind, comfortable with handling details and technical arguments. He also appears free of the baggage of inherited ideological agendas. Hopefully thus, he should be able to take a fresh look at the three major legislations hanging fire – the Right to Education Bill as also the draft legislations for regulating the private and foreign educational providers. Moreover his formidable legal acumen should help him bring into operation laws, rules and regulations that are enabling rather than restrictive, that facilitate all those with a passion of purpose and a striving for excellence rather than overwhelm institutions and schemes with structures of control. Nothing has stifled our educational enterprises more than a desire to institute rules designed to anticipate and forestall every possible imagined misdimeanour. No surprise that autonomy and freedom, creativity and risk-taking are forgotten concepts in our educational imagination.

What we need, and urgently, is to dramatically enhance access and quality at all levels of the educational pyramid, with a special focus on all those – girls, the poor, the socially and culturally marginalized – who have so far been kept out of spaces that can help them improve their cognitive, knowledge and employment skills. And in this grand venture of social regeneration, we should seek the participation of all, public or private; the task is too huge for government alone. Seeking to keep out a set of potential players in the belief that government alone can be the guardian of public interest is woefully short-sighted.

Equally ill-advised is the tendency to micro-manage and control every aspect of the educational enterprise by fiat – what we teach and how, how we assess; who is entitled to teach, their qualifications and renumeration; who certifies quality and standards – and this list can be expanded. Why, for instance, is it not possible to institute a national testing mechanism to grade students at different levels seeking admission to higher levels, something akin to the GRE? Why should it matter what boards the students have come from, the kind of schools they have studied in, or even if they have learnt at home, as long as they all go through the same testing mechanism which can form the base, not exclusively, of selection for further education.

Similarly, while massively expanding the supply of quality public schools, why not initiate a major programme of scholarships which can enable any meritorious student who simultaneously qualifies on a means test to gain admission to any institution of choice. Surely it is not too difficult to direct additional government grants to institutions which can attract a larger number of such scholarship students.<b>

Fortunately, the time is appropriate for a large push in education, both at the school and higher/technical levels. The demand and the hunger for learning is undeniable. And not responding to the aspirations for the millions of youth, degreed but ill-equipped for either jobs or research, can be politically explosive.</b> All we need is the courage to break free from the culture of control and patronage – a point stressed both in the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission and the Yashpal Committee report on the UGC and the AICTE. If Kapil Sibal can help dismantle the babudom stifling education, he might finally help India enter the 21st century with confidence.

Harsh Sethi

[Bodhi]

NCERT History Texts: hopelessly degraded

Saurav Basu
08 Jul 2009

The progressive writer Mark Twain admitted that “Prejudice is the ink with which history is written.” Post-modernism, in order to contest this defect, appreciated the subjectivity of historical interpretation which is often mediated by ideological baggage, thereby conditioning the ideological historian’s perception of truth, rendering it susceptible to subjectivity. This denial of objectivity has incensed many historians like Keith Winschuttle, who object to this “killing of history” and whose exaggerated reactions have been collectively summed as ‘pomophobia.’


In India, the historical conflict is not between post-modernists and ideologists of the obsolete school of “Marxist scientific socialism.” Instead, a curious alliance exists between these two naturally antagonistic thought processes against a common enemy represented by Hindu Nationalist historiography. Post-modernists charge Hindutva with ‘selective historical memory’ and ‘xenophobia’ every time the question of Islamic tyranny in medieval India is raised academically.


They make preposterous protests against the labelling of “Islamic invaders” as foreigners. Authors like Koenraad Elst, Arun Shourie and Sita Ram Goel view these scholars as “Nehruvian Stalinists.” Previously, the older generation of nationalist historians like R C Majumdar had expressed grave concern at the hijacking of Indian History by a peculiar breed of historians who did everything to eradicate the presence, if not idea, of “Hindu civilization” from History textbooks.


Naturally, such extreme views across the ideological spectrum take the debate into the writing of social science textbooks, especially those on History. The world over, history education is beset by continued controversy as historians, politicians, educators and the public at large argue about what should be taught to the nation’s children and how it should be presented. No one likes the way history is taught.


Conservatives think it’s too multicultural, and multiculturalists think it’s too conservative. Politicians say it doesn’t promote patriotism, and social reformers say it doesn’t promote critical reflection (Teaching History for the common good, Keith C Barton, Linda S Levstik, Taylor and Francis, London, 2008). Unfortunately in India, parents, teachers and the general public remain largely oblivious to historical curriculum as the subject suffers from the popular perception of being the last refuge of the mediocre.


Yet the controversy has assumed exceptionally significant dimensions. For over four decades, history textbooks were written in a particular sophistical tradition which belittled Hindu traditions, culture, myths and rulers, for the ‘great cause’ of promoting Jawaharlal Nehru’s “rational and scientific temper” amongst the ignorant and superstitious Hindu masses. This pretense at ‘scientific history’ was wholly belied in an old Class VI NCERT history book which claimed the Inquistionary Saint Xavier’s body in a Goan church oozed fresh blood in the true spirit of a “Christian miracle.”


Ideological countercheck


This ideological indoctrination received its first institutional check under the NDA regime, when the HRD ministry under Murli Manohar Joshi commissioned new textbooks. But these good intentions were subverted by poor management and the phobia of appearing “communal” in the eyes of Muslims and media. This is despite the landmark Supreme Court judgment which gave the green signal to the new textbooks. However, adoption of unproven hypothesis like the association of urban Harappan and pastoral Rig Vedic civilizations undermined the academic legitimacy of the textbooks.


Still, there was an exceptionally well authored text like that on Medieval India by Meenakshi Jain (educationalist Yvette Rosser in a recent paper contrasted Jain’s book with its predecessor authored by Satish Chandra and concluded that Jain’s was a superior book in writing style, content, historical authenticity, lack of ideological baggage and school textbook material).


The return of the UPA in 2004 with Arjun Singh as HRD minister meant scrapping the old textbooks. One expected the new textbooks to adopt a more balanced approach and be rid of mindless ideological drivel. The new textbooks are definitely easier on the eye, heavily illustrated, and contain overall less content to make the subject less taxing and more interesting for young readers.


However, a review of the new NCERT textbooks shows fundamentally little has changed. The hand of the subaltern school (an illegitimate copy of Gramsci to Indian conditions) is so heavy that dynasties, barring the Mughals, remain largely untouched! Instead, you find pitiable pictures of coal miners of Bihar in the British period! In the name of anti-elitism, history has been robbed of its grandeur and inspiration and reduced to a tale of eternal woe and class struggle. Historical accuracy has become the first casualty in the naked desire to propel history as a vehicle for social change (in the Marxist vein).


Marxists complain about the communal compartmentalization of history into Hindu, Muslim and British periods by colonial and nationalist historians (even though the British period was not presented as Christian). Yet it remains true that every Muslim historian of medieval India including Amir Khusro, darling of the champions of ‘composite culture,’ apart from rulers like Firuz and Sikandar Lodi, interpreted their reign as “Islamic” and India as an Islamic nation [dar ul Islam] or an infidel nation in the process of Islamization [dar ul harb]. And what evil designs can be assigned to Rhys Davis who wrote the famous “Buddhistic India?”


The Aryan Invasion theory today stands thoroughly negated, yet the new textbooks do not comprehensively assert the significance of the situation. How much friction and bad blood this corrupt theme caused between Tamilians and North Indians is well known, but not a note reminds the reader of the colonial origins and ugly consequences of this theory. The Vedic religion is called ‘animist,’ reminiscent of outdated Eurocentric scholarship; alternative interpretations from the viewpoint of believers is wholly absent.


The Class XII book on Ancient India claims that only upper caste Hindu women had access to resources. Manu supposedly did not allow women claim to a share of resources. Daughters had no claim to the resources of a household. Not a single primary source is quoted in support of the dismal picture presented.


A scrutiny of texts shows that nothing could be further from the truth. Manu unequivocally enjoined the daughter to be equal the son (MS 10.131) Stridhan exclusively belonged to the wife. Manu’s honourable sentiments for the wife as the source of all happiness and bliss (MS 9.28, 9.45) and as a supreme gift of the gods (MS 9.95) are concealed. Not a single female Rishi or Vedic scholar like Gargi finds mention in the pages of NCERT texts. Gupta and post-Gupta era inscriptions, especially from the South, show women having sufficient agency to make gifts to Brahmins, Buddhists and Jainas even when their husbands patronized different sects (History and Culture of Tamil Nadu Vol. 1, Chhitra Madhvanan, DK 2008).


Women’s property rights were upgraded by Yajnavalkya and Kautilya, proving the evolution of women rights in the Indian context, but these facts remain missing. The NCERT text wonders whether “mothers were important in India?” while discussing the matrilineal pedigree of Satavahana rulers, keenly forgetting that the mother was regarded as ten times as important as the father by Manu himself!


Scant respect is shown for the epics. The Mahabharata war is described as a mere “feud over land and power.” A fictitious conversation involving an outcaste Nishada (by Mahasweta Devi) is used to demonize Kunti, mother of the Pandavas. Eklavya is painted as a hapless victim of “caste tyranny,” but conspicuously absent is the fact that his offering was voluntary and Dronacharya’s conduct motivated more by subjective bias for Arjuna rather than caste consciousness. A balanced reading should have mentioned the story of Satyakama Jabala, the boy who knew no father and yet was accepted as a Brahmin for sticking to the truth.


The Delhi Historians group had raised a storm when a previous author considered the Upanishads the grandest philosophy of the world while ignoring its speculative genre. But the new NCERT texts almost dismiss the Upanishads by quoting just two obscure complicated passages, meaningless to the non-expert. Adi Sankara is written off in just one para which neither explains his spiritual nor intellectual accomplishments; Nanak and Kabir fill two pages! Ramanujan’s compassion for the downtrodden is nowhere mentioned, but there is a lengthy extract on Basavanna’s Virashaivism and his critique of caste and idol worship. In fact, Hindu religion, culture and philosophy rarely receive even a passing mention.


Hinduism is known as the most tolerant and inclusive of world religions; Arnold Toynbee saw the Hindu ethos as a bulwark against violent Semitic agendas of world domination. But the NCERT text alleges that “Relations with others such as Buddhism and Jainism were fraught with tension, if not open conflict.” The writers seem unaware that communal self-conscious religious identities did not exist in pre-Islamic India (David Lorezen, Who invented Hinduism, 1999). Hindu rulers patronized Buddhist and Jaina institutions on a scale equal to their Hindu counterparts (The rise and decline of Buddhism in India, Kanai Lal Hazra, MRML, 1995). Samudragupta patronised several Buddhist scholars like Vasubandhu. Hindu rulers often had wives who practiced and sponsored rival sects.


D D Kosambi had pictured a “process of syncretism” in the absorption of “primitive deities,” a “mechanism of acculturation, a clear give and take,” which allowed “Indian society to be formed out of many diverse and even discordant elements” (Kosambi and the discourse on civilization, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya). But the Marxist historiography dominating NCERT insists “tribals rejected caste and orthodox Hinduism.” That is not true for segmentalization exists as a single hierarchy amongst tribals (Interrogating Caste, Dipankar Gupta, Penguin, 2000).


Medieval India


Medieval India has been reduced to an exercise in legitimizing foreign rule. Al Beruni is quoted once to establish his own skewed perception of Islamic egalitarianism vis-à-vis Hindu inequality. But there is no mention of Beruni’s stringent indictment of Mahmud of Ghazni - “Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims.”


Instead, we are told “Ghazni raided rich temples” and “Much of the wealth looted was used to create a splendid capital at Ghazni,” as if that justifies his heinous deeds. Mahmud’s overnight transformation into the “star of the Islamic world” and his elevation as Sultan by the Islamic Caliph is glossed over. The massacre of thousands of Hindus who died defending their land and temples is conveniently suppressed.


Islamic fanaticism, anti-pluralism and the concept of Jihad are considered too controversial to be discussed, so a syncretic hymn of Rumi is deemed representative of Islamic tradition. Jizya (protection tax paid by non Muslims) and the concept of Dhimmi (second class subjects in an Islamic country) are interpreted by the Class XII NCERT text in an attitude of glorification and purely from an Islamic perspective which deems them acts of benevolence, as under normal Islamic law the rule is to ‘convert or perish.’


Temple destruction is justified on grounds of political exigencies, based on Richard Eaton’s perverted and long discredited theory. But NCERT allots quarter page to the rationalization of temple destruction (Why temples were destroyed?) The message is conveyed that Hindu rulers also destroyed temples, though as Koenraad Elst has shown, barring two of the dozen-odd instances cited by Eaton, the stolen statue was respectfully restored in the invader’s kingdom.


Hindu rulers patronized temples but did not uproot existing modes of worship or impose their favoured gods on the people. Sita Ram Goel has cited 2000 specific instances of temples and their Gods which were not only ground to dust, but converted into mosques. Eaton’s theory that temples were destroyed because they legitimized political authority is dismissed on the ground that temples even in realms of defeated Hindu kings were often destroyed. This also begs the question why mosques and dargahs were left unmolested when they were absolute sites of secular, political and military authority. A complete page is spent discussing mosque architecture but there is no adequate corresponding discussion of Hindu temple architecture apart from their socio-eco-educational roles.


The Class VII textbook praises Alauddin Khalji’s markets; the fact is that while the “capital was fed, the country at large bled” (R C Majumdar). “Mughals did not like to be called Mongols because they had killed innumerable people”, says the same text. The argument is preposterous for Timur boasted of spilling the blood of tens of thousands including that of 100,000 Hindus in a single day in Delhi, all in the cause of Jihad, as testified by him in his autobiography. Mughals identified with Timur because he was a Jihadi Muslim, while the Mongols in their heydays were staunch enemies of their faith.


The same text vividly describes a rare instance of forced Sati in a child bride, but makes no mention of the much more frequent Jauhars (mass immolations by Hindu women when besieged by Islamic armies). Some Muslims are described as great patrons of education; no mention is made of the burning of the libraries at Nalanda and elsewhere by Bakhtiyar Khalji.


Akbar is extolled as a ‘secular’ ruler; purged is his despicable 1568 Fatwa-i-Chittor which reads like a televised address of a modern day Mullah Omar. What is lost is an appreciation of the transformation of Akbar, the religious fanatic, into the universalist monarch.


No facts of Aurangzeb’s bigotry are divulged in any of the texts. Ludicrous comparisons are sometimes drawn between Akbar and Aurangzeb.


Vijayanagar receives scant attention and Shivaji, the great Maratha, is wound up in a single para. One may wonder why no primary source is quoted regarding medieval history. Perhaps Ziauddin Barani or Badauni would have defeated the ‘secularist’ project. The horrors of the Goa Inquisition are similarly excised.


Modern era


Modern India fares no better. 1857 is crudely described as a “War of independence.” The Class VII text claims all petty rulers accepted the suzerainty of Bahadur Shah Zafar, logically implausible as he did not even have a standing army. The puppet Mughal, his relatives, chief queen, sons and principal advisor Hakim Ahsanulla engaged in treacherous conspiracy with the English even while the sepoys were involved in grim struggle (History and Culture of the Indian People, Volume IX, British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance Part 1, p.566).


Factual inaccuracies abound. The Class VII text alleges that Rani Lakshmi Bai joined the rebels when the fact is she did not share the convictions of the rebel sepoys and acted under duress. The rebels massacred the entire British contingent at Jhansi, and the Rani bribed the sepoys to leave. Yet the NCERT text raises unreasonable questions on the reasons for her joining the revolt because of the obsession of neo-Marxist historiography to classify 1857 as a “people’s movement.” The authors suggest the Rani joined the war with ‘personal motives’ when actually she had the overarching well-being of her subjects at heart. It was she who transformed the half-militant, half-feudal revolt as far as was historically possible into India’s first war of independence (The Ranee of Jhansi, D V Tahmankar, 1958).


As an aside, why is it that those who complain of nationalistic history do not mention the Jhansi massacres by rebel sepoys and at Satichaura Ghat and Bibligarh by Azimullah Khan, right hand man of Nana Saheb?


Freedom movement


While discussing Birsa Munda’s revolt against Christian missionaries, the Class XI reader is reminded that the tribal movement was also anti-Hindu as violent action was taken against “Hindu” moneylenders. This suggests a permanent Hindu-tribal schism where none existed, and tries to draw a parallel between a tribal uprising against evangelists and resentment against moneylenders involved in economic exploitation of tribals.


The freedom movement begins with Gandhi and ends with Nehru. Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Sardar Patel, Savarkar, Syama Prasad Mookerji, Aurobindo Ghosh are blamed for alienating Muslims. But when were they together in the first place? Bengal’s Swadeshi and Boycott movement is defined as communal, upper caste and divisive. Aurobindo saw in it “a new conception of the nation not merely as a country, but a soul, a psychological, almost a spiritual being even when acting from economical and political motives, it sought to dynamise them by this subjective conception and to them instruments of self-expression rather than objects in themselves” (The Human Cycle, p. 32-33).


The hegemonic aspiration of writing “history from below” means that the freedom movement has become a fractured playground of unsuccessful tribal, worker and peasant uprisings. Instead of appraising them amidst a larger framework of nationalist collective consciousness, these smaller movements are being seen as separate, parochial and alienated from the nationalist mainstream which is claimed to be restricted to the bourgeoisie.


All for the grand task of condoning Muslim separatists who made the Congress eat humble pie when they secured 99% of the Muslim vote in the 1946 elections and secured their Islamic homeland. It is incredible that while Pakistani textbooks falsely attribute Partition riots to Hindus, Indian textbooks surrender its reasoning to the hands of fate. No mention is made of the prolonged massacre of lakhs of Hindus in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), aided by the Nehru-Liaquat pact, so as to spare the sensitivities of Indian Muslims.


All in all, the NCERT texts are an exercise in deception. It is not historical truth but ‘secular’ political agendas which have dictated their writing. The entire syllabus has been canalized towards devaluing Hindu civilisation, while denying, if not condoning, Islamic tyranny. It is obvious these books provide few answers for questions and obfuscate facts for the cause of ‘secularism’ will continue to make history the “dull and boring subject” school students assume it to be. History will be the end loser in the process.


The author is researching a book on Swami Vivekananda

http://vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayAr...spx?id=679

[acharya]

http://www.sacw.net/India_History/

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Writing History of India and dangers from the far right: Web resources  "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past" -- George Orwell's 1984
Communalisation Of History:  The Long Battle Ahead
by Amar Farooqui [August 17, 2008]

Predicaments of Secular Histories
by Neeladri Bhattacharya [Winter 2008]

The Right-wing is the final authority on the Ramayana, there's no space for debate or scholarly discussion
by Khalid Akhter [April, 2008]

A New Edifice : A book review
by Rudrangshu Mukherjee [March 28, 2008]

Many Rams: Many Ramayanas
by Ram Puniyani [March 25, 2008]

Crying wolf: Ramayana, Ramanujan and the ABVP
by T K Rajalakshmi [March 15, 2008]

Unlikely Arrows In Ram’s Quiver
by Raghu Karnad [March 15, 2008]

How many Ramayanas ? I am for many Ramayanas
by DP Satish [reproduced at SACW on March 6, 2008]

Case of the Missing Wife: History is free, and thus should be used responsibly
by Rudrangshu Mukherjee [March 6, 2008]

Sahmat statement re ABVP's assault on the Department of History, Delhi University [February 26, 2008]

Upholding scientific principles of historical writing: Interview with K.N. Pannikar
by C Gouridasan Nair [February 25, 2008]

Violence by ABVP activists in the Delhi University's Department of History [February 25, 2008]
An e-mail account from Delhi

Response to Sangh objections on AK Ramanujan's History text
Note prepared by the departmental council of the department of history, University of Delhi, in its meeting of February 4, 2008

ABVP protests and Mayawati support them on 'contentious' text
A news report [February 3, 2008]

Looking for a Hindu Identity
by D N Jha
[Presentation at the 66th Indian History Congress, Shantiniketan, January 28, 2006]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Detoxify Textbooks
by Manjari Mishra  [December 8, 2006]

NCERT refuses to chop beef mention
[May 27, 2006]

Review Article
India: The War Over History
by William Dalrymple  [April 7, 2005]

The Rediff Interview / Romila Thapar
[February 10, 2005]

A scathing indictment
by T.K. Rajalakshmi
The exoneration of the historians involved with the "Towards Freedom Project" in the interim report of the Bandopadhyay Committee is evidence of the BJP-led government's communal agenda. [January 29, 2005]

Forgotten themes
R. Champakalakshmi talks to historian Romila Thapar [December 19, 2004]

History Textbooks in India: Narratives of Religious Nationalism
by K N Panikkar [October, 2004]

Caught in historical cliches
by Praful Bidwai [September 11, 2005]

"Learning History Without Burden" - the Advisory prepared for India's National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) on how teachers could teach using the pre-2000 and the existing textbooks, which are flawed and biased, and endeavour to work towards more child friendly books in future. [August 2004]

Report of the Panel of Historians submitted to Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Government of India [August 2004]

India considers historic rewrite
by Scott Baldauf [July 16, 2004]

India's Battle Over its History
by J. Sri Raman [June 4, 2004]

One nation's many pasts
by Romila Thapar [April 2, 2004]

Saffron Infusion: Hindutva, History, and Education
by Latha Menon [?, 2004]

Historians plan 'parallel textbooks' [December, 2003]

Myth and History
by AndrÉ BÉteille [October 11, 2003]

Text-Books, Politics and the Practice of History
by Tripta Wahi [September 2003]

Bulldozing the Past into Existence
by Janaki Nair [2003]

Romila Thapar: Her Struggle for a Non-Sectarian History Continues
by Richard Barnett and B. P. Giri [Fall 2003]

In Defence of the Indian Historian Romila Thapar
by SACW Alert [April 28, 2003]

'Paradigm shift' in history? - I
'Paradigm shift' in history? - II
by Michael Witzel [April 1 and April 8, 2003]

A new brand of history - II
by Vishwa Mohan Jha [March 1, 2003]

A critique of NCERT texts - I
by Vishwa Mohan Jha [February 15, 2003]

Hindutva and its ‘mhystory’
by Pradip Kumar Datta [February 2003]

Historical pedagogy of the Sangh Parivar
by Tanika Sarkar [February 2003]

'The Problem' in: Rewriting History
by Neeladri Bhattacharya [February, 2003]

History As Told By Non-Historians
by Anjali Modi

Teaching against Communalism: Role of Social Science Pedagogy
by Ananya Vajpeyi  [December 21, 2002]

"Communalization of Education: The History Textbooks Controversy"
by the Delhi Historians' Group  [2002]

History Period
by Shahid Amin [March 31, 2002]

Communalising Education
by Bipan Chandra, Yogendra Singh, Namwar Singh, G S Bhalla, Annie Koshy, Kamala Menon, Sumit Sarkar and a large number of others.
Delhi [March 9, 2002]

Attempt to rewrite History fascist: Bipan
[ 21 February, 2002]

Communalisation of Education: Fighting history's textbook war [January 28, 2002]

History and community sentiment
by Rajeev Bhargava [Jan 02, 2002 ]

India moves to "Talibanise" history
by John Elliott [17 December 2001]

History and the enterprise of knowledge
by Amartya Sen
The text of inaugural address at the 61st session of the Indian History Congress. [Jan 20, 2001 ]

Hindutva and history: Why do Hindutva ideologues keep flogging a dead horse?
by Romila Thapar  [October 13, 2000]

Horse Paly in Harrapa: The Indus Valley Decipherment Hoax
by Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer
(report on media hype, faked data, and Hindutva propaganda in recent claims that the Indus Valley script has been decoded. Ever since the publication of this article, the Hindutva Far right has consistently attacked and derided the work of Witzel and Farmer)
[October 13, 2000]

History and interpretation: Communalism and problems of historiography in India
by Irfan Habib

Rightist history is communal history
The Rediff Interview/ K N Panikkar

To reduce history to religion is distorting history
The Rediff Interview/ K N Panikkar

Communalism And History Textbooks
by R.S. Sharma

Does Indian History Need To Be Rewritten?
by Sumit Sarkar (December 2, 2001)

Time, Chronology and History: the Indian Case
by Harbans Mukhia

The history project
The reconstitution of the Indian Council of Historical Research points to a continuing drive to project a certain ideological agenda.
by Sukumar Muralidharan

Historians flay bid to communalise history (News report) Nov. 2001

The Communal Offensive and the Indian Council of Historical Research
by Tanika Sarkar [April 2000]

The falsification of history
by Parvathi Menon [March 18, 2000]

Righting or rewriting Hindu history
by Ann Ninan [February 2000]

Against Communalising History
by D. N. Jha [March 1999]

History Writing Takes a Strong Hindu Turn
by Ann Ninan [1998]

Hindu zealots altering history: scholars
by Deepshikha Ghosh, New Delhi

Project on history terminated
[The Hindu, 3 November 1998]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Volume 52, Number 6 · April 7, 2005
India: The War Over History
By William Dalrymple

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India
by James W. Laine

Oxford University Press,144 pp., $39.95
Ganesha: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings
by Paul Courtright

Oxford University Press,296 pp., $26.95 (paper)
Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
by Romila Thapar

University of California Press,586 pp., $48.00; $18.95 (paper)
Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History
by Sumit Sarkar

Indiana University Press, 280 pp., $37.95
A History of India, Volume 2
by Percival Spear

Penguin, 304 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia
edited by David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence

University Press of Florida,384 pp., $59.95; $24.95 (paper)
The Myth of the Holy Cow
by Dwijendra Narayan Jha

Verso, 120 pp., $14.00 (paper)
History in the New NCERT Textbooks: A Report and Index of Errors
by Irfan Habib, Suvira Jaiswal, and Aditya Mukherjee

Kolkata: Indian History Congress, 129 pp., 50 rupees</b>

In India, and among the Indian diaspora, a passionately contested battle is taking place over the interpretation of Indian history. Debates about rival versions of Indian prehistory or the struggles among the religions of medieval South Asia—the sort of arguments that anywhere else would be heard at scholarly conferences—have in India become the subject of political rallies and mob riots. Parallel with this there has been a concerted attempt by politicians of the Hindu far right to rewrite the history textbooks used in Indian schools and to bring historians and the writing of history under their direct control.[1] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->