"I have tried to create self-confidence in Indian scholars"

[Guest guest]

>The Rediff Interview/HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi

>"I have tried to create self-confidence in Indian scholars"

>November 03, 2003

>

>Union Human Resources Minister Murli Manohar Joshi caused a stir in the

>Bharatiya Janata Party when he resigned from his post after a Rae Bareli

>court decided to frame charges against him in the Babri Masjid demolition

>case.

>Twelve days after sending his resignation, he withdrew the letter after

>Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee refused to accept it.

>Joshi was in the United Kingdom recently. Not one to shy from courting

>controversy, he told a gathering that Britain's industrial revolution was

>funded by the booty looted from the colonisation of India.

>In an interview to Senior Editor Shyam Bhatia in London, the minister

>spoke about his early beginnings in politics, his impressions of the

>freedom movement and India's proud heritage.

>

>Where do you draw your political roots from? Are they from [founder of the

>Jan Sangh] Shyama Prasad Mukherjee?

>

>I knew Shyam Prasadji long before I joined the Jan Sangh. He was president

>of the Hindu Mahasabha and one of my near relatives was affiliated to the

>Hindu Mahasabha. So I've seen him as a young boy and I've been with the

>RSS since 1944.

>

>Did you join because you thought Hindus were being mistreated?

>

>There were two or three things happening in the country. Those were the

>days when the country was surcharged with nationalism -- that the country

>must be independent, the Britishers must go.

>

>Now you see for young impressionist students like us, it had great

>significance. Our teachers, senior students, people in the locality were

>all talking about Indian values, the history of the British arrival,

>attitude of the Muslims. All these things were in the air.

>

>There were demands for Pakistan and statements from Muslim leaders, those

>were also being discussed.

>

>The other feeling was to work together against the British and throw them

>out by organising the people.

>As a minister what have you tried to do?

>

>First of all, I tried to create a sense of self-confidence in Indian

>scholars by telling them that gentlemen you have made such great

>contributions in the past. Till the 18th century you have contributed to

>nearly all fields of knowledge. I tell them that this information

>technology is based on a system of binary numbers.

>

>Who invented binary numbers? Indians. So you should be confident. There

>are funds in everything and you can see their research flourishing, you

>can see the social sciences flourishing, labs are flourishing.

>

>What about the text books? Have you organised a rewriting of historical

>texts to give a different perspective?

>

>You see we have not rewritten, we have only corrected things. If you say

>that Guru Tegh Bahadur was not assassinated by Aurangzeb but that he was a

>plunderer, a marauder, that's the history which is being taught. It is

>said that the Jats were dacoits.

>

>My point is that this type of history is being written by many of those

>scholars trained under the British system. They were taught like that

>initially. Then there was the Marxist influence and they continued with

>their theories.

>

>Other scholars continue to insist that there was an Aryan invasion of

>India, although that has been disproved. Yet they insist with this. The

>reason was that whatever they had built up with the sociology in India was

>based on the fact that the Aryans invaded India and drove out a section

>who became the Dravidians. So there is a continuous divide between north

>and south, between Aryans and Dravidians.

>

>What is the dispute between you and historian Professor Romila Thapar?

>

>There is no dispute with her, it is the approach to history. She doesn't

>know Sanskrit, she has never read the original Sanskrit. She may have read

>a tertiary source, what to talk of a secondary source. All I am saying is

>please read the original source. None of these Marxists know primary

>sources.

>

>On what are you taking issue with her?

>

>The Aryan invasion for example. We have proved by our ocean development

>scientists that there is enough proof of the existence of human activity

>in the region of Bay of Cambay in 7500 BC. We have proved it.

>

>I am saying let us know whether Indian civilisation is 2,000 years old,

>7,000 years old, 10,000 years old. These are the results my scientists

>have shown, this is the result of carbon dating.

>

>Marx wrote India had no history, that it has a stagnant history, it has

>resisted change and has no resistance to foreign attacks. Thus you build

>up a theory on which their sociology, everything is dependant.

>

>They argued that there is a north-south divide, that India is not a

>nation, but a group of nations. All these things break down when the Aryan

>invasion theory is disproven. A large number of scholars are now saying we

>are right. The implication is that that the Saraswati civilisation is

>prior to the Indus Valley civilisation and the antiquity of this

>civilisation goes back long before 2000 BC.

>

>Surely, that's a cause of pride?

>

>Yes if you have self-respect, but not if you don't have self respect.

>

>What are the political implications?

>

>The implications are for the Marxist analysts. They say India is not one

>nation, that goes; they are saying that the Aryans converted certain

>people into slaves and made them Dravidians, all this goes. Social

>cohesion, national unity, all this becomes more important.

>

>Coming to the 20th century, how do you view Mahatma Gandhi?

>

>Mahatma Gandhi was central to the national movement, but he appeared at a

>particular point of time. Look to the war of Independence after 1857, the

>first attempt to throw out the Britishers.

>

>There were many attempts to give a purpose for the movement of national

>independence. Take the movement of Swami Dayanand. He talked about the

>removal of untouchability, he talked about other reforms, giving more

>rights to women.

>

>I am saying the attempt to push the mainstream of independence was not

>started by one person. Look how Vivekananda energised the country,

>Lokmanya Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Lala Lajpat Rai. All these people

>were fighters for independence, they believed in the pride of India.

>Mahatma Gandhi entered the scene in the 1920s as a Congress leader and

>adviser to the freedom fighters. He carried the Congress according to his

>own philosophy. But remember Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was also there,

>revolutionaries were also there.

>

>Do you and the RSS blame Gandhi for Pakistan?

>

>The RSS does not blame Mahatma Gandhi alone for Pakistan. As a matter of

>fact Pakistan resulted because of the internal weakness of the Congress

>leadership who were tired of the struggle. Mahatma Gandhi was also forced

>to accept Partition.

>

>What could they have done?

>

>They could have waited for a few more years. The Britishers had to leave,

>but we fell prey to British machinations. Mr [Jawaharlal] Nehru made some

>serious miscalculations. It was fatigue and a desire to take control,

>these are the factors that operated.

>

>You have been credited with trying to distribute modern educational

>technology, including computers that can be accessed by minority community

>students, how has the Muslim community reacted?

>

>Very well, I have given them 200 computer centres. The resistance comes

>from some of the madrasas [islamic seminaries]. But now some madrasas have

>also come round. I have given them teachers of mathematics and science. I

>say if you teach mathematics and science I will give you two teachers from

>the central government. I give them enough support for Urdu journalism and

>literature. I have introduced science, biotechnology, computers almost at

>all levels in all schools.

>When I took office there were only five IITs [indian Institute of

>Technology] by the time the government goes for elections hopefully there

>will be 11.

>

>

>

 

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