Indian History Has Been Distorted

July 24, 2003

TORTURED SOULS CREATE TWISTED HISTORY

by Navaratna S. Rajaram

Background: origins of distortions,

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 fault will it be?"

The facts therefore are clear: like Lawrence of Arabia in the twentieth century, Max Muller, though a scholar was an agent of the British government paid to advance its colonial and Christian missionary interests. He was by no means the only one, but only the most successful.

Bishop Robert Caldwell who created the Dravidian language theory once admitted his theory was “not only of considerable moment from a philological [linguistic] point of view but of vast moral and political importance.” By ‘moral and political’, he meant Christian missionary and British colonial interests. He was the founder of the Dravidian movement, which has proven to be highly disruptive.

It is no accident that even today the field of Dravidian linguistics continues be dominated by Christian missionaries. Bishop Caldwell was the pioneer of this brand of political-missionary agenda masquerading as scholarship.

It is entirely understandable that the British authorities should have engaged in such tactics. They were only trying to make their own life as rulers easy, for no imperialism can work without native collaborators. Even Aurangazeb had to recruit Rajputs to run the Moghul Empire.

The question today is— why do these so-called secularist scholars, born and brought up in India, continue to work within the framework handed down to them by their former colonial masters? And many of these scholars were not even born when the British left.

To understand this we need to see them as converted people who transfer their loyalties from the land of their birth to the land of their masters. This is compounded by their lack of confidence in their own generally weak scholarship— a state of mind that constantly seeks both patronage and protection. Before we examine this conversion phenomenon, it is worth looking at the nature and the magnitude of distortion that these men and women are engaged in.

History: Secularist Distortions

As just noted, these historians calling themselves ‘secularists,’ are really colonial converts hostile to the land of their birth. As a result, the colonial (distorted) version of history continues to be taught in Indian schools and colleges. These distortions fall broadly under the following categories:

Distortion of ancient history through the ‘Aryan invasion’ and the Aryan-Dravidian conflicts, presenting the Vedic Age as an ‘age of conflict.’

Distortion of medieval history, by whitewashing the Islamic record and presenting it as the 'age of synthesis'.

Distortion of the period of the Freedom Struggle, by whitewashing Congress blunders and suppressing the contribution of the revolutionaries, Sardar Patel and Subhas Bose.

Distortion of post-independent India, by whitewashing the monumental blunders of Pandit Nehru and his successors to bring about dynastic rule under the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty at the cost of national interest.

We shall be looking mainly at the first two, and touch upon the third. The first point to note: it was the ancient period that gave India both its unity and its sense of the nation. The Medieval period was a Dark Age, during which the Hindu civilization was engaged in a desperate struggle for survival.

In addition, the forces of medievalism contributed nothing to Indian nationalism. They acted as a negative force and held back progress, taking the country into a Dark Age. They continue to act as a check against progress by holding on to medieval ideas and practices.

The important point to note is that the ancient period was an age of synthesis, when people of different viewpoints like the Vedic, Tantric, Buddhistic, Jain and other sects lived in relative harmony. There was also free exchange of ideas and unfettered debate. The Medieval period was the age of conflict when Hindu society was engaged in a desperate struggle for survival against the onslaught of Jihad— something like what is happening in Kashmir today.

Ancient India: age of freedom and synthesis

History books today still begin with the Aryan invasion of India, which is said to have taken place in 1500 BC. Students are told that the ancient civilization of the Indus Valley or the Harappan Civilization was Dravidian that was destroyed by the invading Aryans.

The truth now revealed by recent research from the discovery of the Vedic Sarasvati River to the reading of the Indus script is there was no Aryan invasion and no Aryan-Dravidian conflicts either.

In Sanskrit, ‘Aryan’ simply means cultured and not any race or language. As previously noted, the idea of Aryans and Dravidians as mutually hostile people was created during the colonial period, in which Christian missionaries like Bishop Caldwell played an active role.

rest of article:

http://www.bharatvani.org/MacaulayistHistorians.htm

xxvvii · July 28, 2003

I like the topic but not the content. Doubtless that "Indian History Has Been Distorted". I must say, however, that any regime is possible to distort more or less for the benefit & self-respect of itself, therefore I shut my mouth now for some sensitive p.s I've mentioned in detail. I tell you that you can't clarify them with a pile of paper & you can't ban all the sites as Dalistan, so you're wasting your effort. The truths have been recorded in God's hand, that's to say, What have happened is fixed & can not changed by your will. What we need to do is waiting for some time to read them.

At last, I ought to point out that I would be pushed onto the position of an invader if you deploy yourself on the owners' position.