history

[Guest guest]

TORTURED SOULS CREATE TWISTED HISTORY Navaratna S. Rajaram

It is now widely recognized that Indian history has been distorted. The public

too is gradually becoming aware of this fact. At first, it was blamed on the

British rulers, who distorted Indian history to divide the people of India so

it would be easy to rule. There is truth in this. Lord Macaulay who created the

modern Indian education system, explicitly stated that he wanted Indians to turn

against their own history and tradition and take pride in being loyal subjects

of their British masters. In effect, what he envisaged was a form of

conversion- almost like religious conversion. It was entirely natural that

Christian missionaries should have jumped at the opportunity of converting the

people of India in the guise of educating the natives. So education was a

principal tool of missionary activity also. This produced a breed of 'secular

converts' who are proving to be as fanatical as any religious fundamentalist.

We call them secularists.

Macaulay made no secret of his intentions. In a famous letter to his father he

wrote: "Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. The effect of this

education on the Hindus is prodigious. ...It is my belief that if our plans of

education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator among the

respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected

without any efforts to proselytise, without the smallest interference with

religious liberty, by natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily

rejoice in the project."

Macaulay, and British authorities in general, did not stop at this. They

recognized that a conquered people are not fully defeated unless their history

is destroyed. It is best if this destruction takes place at their own hands:

British 'scholars' would assist it of course, but ultimately, the Indians

themselves should be made to destroy their past. So the plan envisaged cultural

suicide rather than cultural genocide. To this end, a new discipline called

Indology, and whole new tribe of scholarship called Indologists were created

and supported by the British. The most famous of them all was a German by name

Friedrich Max Muller who saw the opportunity and made a grand success of it by

working for the British according to Macaulay's plan. The plan was to

translate, edit and publish Indian classics-especially the Vedas-in such a

manner that it would turn the educated people of India against their history

and tradition and make them take pride in being ruled by the British. It was

hoped that with this, many would also give up Hinduism and opt for

Christianity.

Max Muller is still regarded as a great lover of India and her civilization but

the reality is that he was a British agent paid to give a derogatory

interpretation of the Vedas. We have his word for it. There can be no doubt at

all regarding Max Muller's commitment to the conversion of Indians to

Christianity through his scholarly activity. Writing to his wife in 1866 he

observed: "It [the Rigveda] is the root of their religion and to show them what

the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from

it during the last three thousand years." Two years later he also wrote the

Duke of Argyle, then acting Secretary of State for India: "The ancient religion

of India is doomed. And if Christianity does not take its place, whose f