The Rewriting Of History...

Like any branch of knowledge, the essential requirement of History is the pursuit of truth. This requiresone to Ballot and sift evidence critically. Bias, whether religious, racial, regional or national, or anyother, must be avoided. The history of each nation is a part of the history of the world; and it would beabsurd to try to project one's own country's history, solely to establish our superiority over others byone-sided evidence, as if we are pursuing a case in a court of law. The same must be said when we write aboutthe past of particular regions or communities.

The elementary statements need to be made today in any discussion of what is being said about Indianhistory, though until very recently, one might have felt these to be superfluous. By and large Indianhistoriography has been pursued for over a century on rigorous lines where difference and biases have existed,but largely within limits set by historical evidence. In 1961, when I wrote an article criticizing what I heldto be communal approaches by two distinguished historians, R.C. Majumdar and I.H. Qureshi, I noted that whiletheir interpretations (mainly in laying blame or lavishing praise) were so different, their "facts"were often identical, derived from the same evidence. This was because however much one may lament theirtaking of sides on behalf of their own communities, they were still professional historians, insisting on somerigour in judging evidence. After all, Majumdar declined to agree with K.M Munshi's theory of an Aryanhomeland in India, and he refused to write for an RSS weekly once it had published apaper alleging thatmonuments like the Red Fort and Taj Mahal had really been built by Hindu rulers.

It is, therefore, important to realize that what the Central Government agencies and the Sangh Parivar arenow projecting as the history of India is not anything that historians like R.G. Bhandarkar, JadunathSarkar, or D.C.Sircar, to take a few names from amongst the great historians of the past, or professionalhistorians of any repute today, of whatever persuasion, could conceivably regard as legitimate. It is absurdto claim, as the Minister of Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, is so prone to do, that the'Rightist" historians have now simply been given the official resources to prevail over the"Leftist" historians, as if what the Union Government and its agencies, like the UGC, NCERT, ICHR,etc., today tend to recognize as the "history" of India, represents any important academic trendamong Indian historians. Indeed, much of the "history" that is being given official patronage, hasbeen partly created by foreigners and NRIs of rather strange credentials.

Let us first see what are the major new discoveries for Indian History that are being promoted by the officialagencies. In a recent Memoir of the Geological Society of India, The Vedic Sarasvati, Bangalore, 1999, fundedby a host of official agencies, we have the claim that humankind evolved and diffused from "the upperSarasvati region", that is, northern Haryana. The late V.S. Wakankar had nothing to go on for thisassertion, except the discovery in British times of a fossil-ape (the Ramapithecus), in the Siwaliks, thoughthe species is not in the line of hominids but of the orangutan!

Being the nucleus of human diffusion is, not, however, enough: India is now being almost officiallydeclared to have been the original home of the Aryans, on which much more is said in the same Memoir, as wellas other quasi-official publications. A great outcry is being raised against the "colonial Indologists",who, on the basis of historical linguistics, established that Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family oflanguages, and argued that the proto- Vedic-Sanskrit was brought to India by its speakers from outside. The"race" theory has long since been discarded and on-one in academic discourse speaks of an"Aryan race." The irony is that while our RSS oracles denounce Max Mueller, Wheeler, etc., as"racists", this does not prevent them from announcing that "the lndo-Europeans and other Aryanpeoples were migrants from India". So says the U.S swami, David Frawley, amuch acclaimed source of RSS'shistorical wisdom. Still another "scholar", who gets quoted in extenso bythe HRD Minister himself,is the Dutch-Belgian Koenraad Elst, who in Aryan Invasion Update, announces that theProto-Indo-Europeans went out from "what is now Panjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh". Anotherproponent of the same cause is Navaratna S. Rajaram, billed constantly as the"US NASA scientist",and leader of a self-proclaimed "Indo-American School." All of them are enthusiastic builders of afantasy about the "Aryans", who, it is proudly claimed, gave civilization to the world, carrying itfrom India. 

For this it is necessary that everything "Aryan" in India must go to remote antiquity. TheRigvedais now said to have been composed before 5000 BC, not c. 1500 BC (which latter date has been established mainlyby its relationship with the Avesta, not datable to much before 1000 BC, as it is keyed to West Asianchronology). Bronze, we are told, was being "cast" in India by 3700 BC, a "first" in theworld writing too had been invented here, c.3500 BC; the "Mahabharata War" was fought in c.3100 BC,etc., etc. (For a sample of this see Navaratna S. Rajaram's address, 'Vedic and Harappan Culture; NewFindings', in the Indian Archaeological Society's journal, Puratattva (1993~4), with a special word of acclaimfor it by the editor; also see Elst's book, already mentioned). This chronology is based on nothing except oneunlikely hypothesis built upon another (or, as in the case of bronze, on fraudulent invention of"evidence"). There then follow claims about "Vedic Mathematics", "VedicAstronomy" and "Vedic Astrology" (now to be taught in over 30 Indian Universities as fullMaster's Course), all supposedly created 4000 years and more ago. 

Late texts that are now read in a mannerunknown to the pundits, are remorselessly pushed back to earlier and earlier periods on the flimsier ofgrounds. In this none can outpace Subhash C. Kak of the U.S. and his NRI friends and followers. Their articlesreceive undeserved status by being published in INSA's Indian Journal of History of Science, year after year,including the latest issue. It is truly a case of genuine "Indian Tradition" (Rajaram's favouritephrase), manufactured in the United States. The inventions grow apace so rapidly that one is not surprisedwhen one reads that though the Vedic Indians did not build any Pyramids here, they yet taught the Pharoahs ofEgypt to build them (Rajaram in Puratattva, op.cit.)! This and the other "achievements" credited toIndia's hoary past by these propagandists are, I suppose, the contributions of India to world civilization,which according to the NCERT's new" National Curriculum Framework for School Education", would betaught to all Indian schoolchildren, along with "instruction in religion".

We have, then, the crusade for turning the Indus culture into a Sarasvati Civilization. Any ordinary personmay be wondering why the Sangh Parivar's propaganda mill is paying so much attention to the Induscivilization. It is true that ever since the links between West Asian Elamite and Brahui, the Dravidianlanguage of Baluchistan, were identified by David McAlpin, the case for the Indus Civilization being peopledby speakers of "Proto-Elamo-Dravidian", has been particularly reinforced. To any self-proclaimedpatriotic Indian, this should hardly be a matter of concern, since Dravidian languages other than Brahui areentirely confined to India, and so the presence of Dravidians there can only make the Indus Culture so muchmore ours! Yet any Dravidian claims to that civilization arouse the utmost bitterness in the ranks of theSangh Parivar, and desperate efforts are on to establish for it a purely "Aryan" parentage. 

The first step has been taken through official name-alteration. We are now shifting from "Harappan"(the name so far given in official Indian Archaeology to the Indus Culture) to "SarasvatiSindhu",thereby imposing on the Indus Culture a definitely Vedic nomenclature and thus warding off any non-Aryanpretensions. It matters little that the "mighty Sarasvati" supposedly flowing down to the seathrough the Desert is a sheer figment of the imagination with no support from geography or geology (despitethe extraordinary claims made in this behalf in the Geological Society's Vedic Sarasvati). Rival claims toread Sanskrit in the Indus symbols are becoming embarrassingly numerous (S.R. Rao, S.C.Kak, N.Rajaram), eachsecuring considerable publicity, but little support from any plaeographist worth the name. Since the horse andthe chariot are so prominent in the Rig veda, and so wholly absent in the Indus Civilization, a horse on anIndus sealwas flaunted about by Rajaram as a path-breaking discovery, until Michael Witzel and SteveFarmercruelly exposed the fraud in Frontline (13 October, 2000). Having been so found out is, however, only aminor setback: The "Aryan" assault is being carried to the heart of Dravidian identity itself. It isdenied that there was any Dravidian loan-words in Vedic and later Sanskrit; in fact, the Dravidian languagesthemselves are deemed to be rooted in Sanskrit. Almost every writer of the Sangh establishment, the late K.C.Verma, S.G. Talageri, Rajaram, Elst, and Swaraj Prakash Gupta, to name a few, are up in arms against Dravidianlinks to any great non-Aryan past, let alone to such a prize as the Indus Civilization. There is here agravely divisive campaign, which has all the potential for exacerbating hostility between the proponents of"Aryan" chauvinism and the "Dravidianists".

One may pause here to note that since all later texts are being given exorbitantly earlier dates, and everyintellectual and technological achievement pushed to an obscure, sacred past, the later times begin to appearmore and more as sheer dark aces. We are being asked t h 1 e that not only did the alleged inventors ofwriting in the 4th millennium BC forget to write up the Vedic texts, but their descendants too simply forgotwriting altogether for a period of 1500 years or so, before the Mauryas came around. We Indians also coollyforgot the great scientific secrets embedded in our texts, which it is only now given to great NRls likeSubhash C. Kak and Navaratna Rajaram to unravel. (Rajesh Kochhar remarks rather uncharitably his Vedicpeople that is would have been more useful if they can tell us from the Vedas of some scientificprinciples that have not already been known for a long time to Western Scientists!) What seems to cause noconcern to the Sangh camp is that they thus accuse the Indian people of stagnating for some four thousandyears or more, during which they did not add anything, but only deducted continuously from their existing sumtotal of knowledge. And this is considered winning greatness for India's past! 

In the Sangh's view of history, then, Buddhism and Jainism belong to the Dark Ages that followed once thegreat achievements had been made and forgotten. With their emphasis on Prakrit (not Sanskrit) and on ahimsa(rather than sacrifices and ritual), their criticism of the Brahmana priesthood, and their indifference (atleast in ideological terms) to the varna system, the tworeligious movements do not fit well with the RSS'sscheme of history. Nor do our neo-patriotsshare Jawaharlal Nehru's excitement about the Mauryan Empire,especially Asoka. Francois Gautier, another of RSS's foreign patrons, who writes the "Feringhee'sColumn" in the Indian Express, even condemned Asoka for weakening India with his devotion to ahimsa,there by preparing the ground for Alexander's conquests! The statement in the general manner of the Sanghparivar's "historians" inverts the true sequence, but the sentiment is clear enough. The time whenvotaries of religious tolerance like Asoka and Akbar could be heroes is long past, and one can almost predictthe lowly positions both would occupy in the forthcoming NCERT text-books.

Since Hindu-Muslim antagonism has provided the main ground on which the RSS has flourished since its birthin 1925, it is not surprising that it has devoted much attention to projecting a view of medieval India thatshould justify its founder Hedgewar's description of the Muslims as "hissing Yavana snakes." It isprofessedly because of the primary place it accorded to the alleged threat from Muslims, that the RSSprudently remained out of the freedom struggle against the British. It had, indeed, from the beginning its ownversion of the Two-Nation Theory (as seen in its two slogans of "Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan!" and"Hindu Rat Amar Rahe!" Long live Hindu Rule).Medieval Indian history had therefore to be so shapedas to present two nations always at war, onebrutally assaulting, the other nobly defending.

Pre-eminent in its discourse, therefore, is the image of Muslims as foreigners, destructive barbarians andimmoral degenerates. For abusive assaults, the Sangh Parivar has now proceeded to provide a considerableamount of "literature" to elaborate this perception. K.S. Lal is today a favourite historian of theRSS, who is placed by it not only on the Council of the ICHR, being fleetingly made its Chairman, but is alsoon the NCERT Committee to draft the model school syllabus on History, and perhaps the textbook on MedievalIndia as well. Lal's career as an RSS spokesman on medieval history began with his book Growth of MuslimPopulation in Medieval India, published in 1973. Here he gave a picture of the continuous decline of thetotal Indian population from 190 to 120 million between AD 1200 and 1500, through large-scale massacres ofHindus perpetrated by Muslims. There were no censuses, no statistics for him to derive the figures from: hisown mental agility provided him with everything. Henceforth with these figures at hand he has become an"authority" for the RSS. His book, The Mughal Harem, was published by Aditya Prakashan, aSangh Parivar's publishing house, in 1988. Predictably, by collecting all possible scandals from various"sources", old and modern, Lal duly exposed the immoral ways of the Muslims. (That Hindu rulers andnobles were also polygamous and had concubines naturally escaped his notice). Soon to follow were Lal's Legacyof Muslim Rule (1992) and Muslim Slave System (1994), two further exercises in what Gandhiji wouldhave called "a drain inspector's reports."

One difficulty in describing all Muslims as insufferable barbarians is posed by the very visible monumentsleft by Muslim rulers that indicate a high level of art. This challenge was taken up from the early 1960s byP.N. Oak and his team in the "Institute of Rewriting Indian History". It was now claimed that allthe building attributed to Muslim rulers, such as Red Fort, the Taj Mahal, and so on, had actually been builtearlier by Hindus, and were simply misappropriated by the Muslims. Immediately, the pages of the RSSpublications were thrown open to Oak and his school, and the 'rewriting' began on a national scale to coveralmost every "Muslim" monument in the country. The Sangh's US patrons also helped. In 1989 ournewspapers published a claim of a US scholar of a carbon-14 date obtained for a door of the Taj Mahal that putit 200 years earlier than Shahjahan's time, thereby suggesting a pre-17 century ' Hindu' construction. Tilltoday the laboratory, the number of the sample, and the source which provided the piece of wood have not beendivulged. (This incidentally has also been the case with Navaratna Rajaram's bronze head of Vasishta, dated to3700 BC, the laboratories "in America and Switzerland" remaining unnamed and the scientific methodsunspecified.)

The temple-destruction orgies by Muslims are, of course, a major component of the RSS's view of medievalIndia. The campaign for the destruction of Babri Masjid generated a large amount of literature to which ArunShorie, currently a Union Minister, has liberally contributed. Religious intolerance is always to becondemned, and no-one can condone the destruction of any place of worship. Richard Eaton's study, whichFrontline (22 Dec.2000 and 5 Jan. 2001) has published in full, puts the matter in a proper perspective Butnow, every ruined temple gets automatically a Muslim author of its destruction. When recently theArchaeological Survey of India discovered at Fatehpur Sikri some Jain images of early medieval times, the lateB.R. Grover, Chairman, ICHR appointed to his post by the BJP Government, immediately announced that theoriginal temple must have been destroyed by Aurangzeb! Now that the older "secular" textbooks onHistory are being thrown out by the NCERT, temple-destruction is one subject on which the replacements aregoing to be quite rich. As R.K. Dixit, convener of the NCERT's curriculum group, announced, this would go intothe new textbooks because it is "immediate history"- whatever this means.