This thing called Love of Country

``Uncover inconvenient truths. But we have to be brave enough to look these truths in the face.
Squarely.``

Really scarce, that kind of bravery...how does one develop it in one`s self or in children?

Apropos-
Cut to the Rajnigandha ad. which plays on our television screens. “Indians are not for sale, gentlemen…” as the suited-booted executive struts to the conference table where there are some white people seated and scribbles an enormous figure on the contract, adding, “I’m buying you out.”

Hypocrisy and that rather inapt, inept advert. nothwithstanding, why do people get het up with Indians who decide to go away to study/live/work/run a business abroad? It is a fact of life that people have the urge to go explore new territory and new opportunities.That doesn`t necessarily mean being unpatriotic. History is full of explorers of one kind or the other.Very often, the overseas lot seem to value their homeland as much or more than some of the cynics that live here. Maybe a case of absence making the heart grow fonder?

Gopal ji

You cast pearls before swine. In other words, this is bHains kay aagay been bajana. If, instead of writing something sensible (as you have) that requires dispassionate thinking, you`d have written about the virtues or vices of this or that nationality or ethnicity, you`d have gotten a hundred times as many InterActs as now.

Patriotism, they say, is the last refuge of the rascals.

Goodspeed.

...SR

This is all too complex. Enough to give bhola bhala insaan like us bhayankar sir dard.

Revathi, good to see you on screen again. I believe that children can be made to develop an interest in history...which is important for them to get a bigger and clearer picture of the life they are leading....by learning of the past of their immediate environment. For instance, children living in Worli should do a project of Haji Ali or even the Sea Face. The interest can then grow to Bombay-size and subsequently national level. Otherwise, as happened to a science student like me, history and in fact most of the humanities subjects were learnt late, much to my regret. We know more about New York than neighbouring Nasik. And we merrily litter our streets with little plastic tricolours a day after Independence Day. To know our country better requires a certain kind of education which our syllabi lack.

Here is how history in India is distorted on a regular basis >

The p-sec line, bought hook-line-sinker by generations post-independence and even pushed by the BJP leadership, has always been that Indian Muslims stayed on in India because they believed in secularism and democracy and that they abhorred the 2 nation hypothesis of the Muslim League. The facts don`t bear this out. There is little doubt that the Muslim League and Jinnah had wide-spread support from the population that became IMs, and if there was any challenge it came from those like the deobandhis and Maulana Azad who believed that the entire subcontinent was theirs, and not just two moth-eaten portions. The onus, after independence, ought to have been on IMs to participate fully in a secular democracy - just like Brit Mosies have been belatedly asked to prove their allegiances post London bombings, by the Labour Government, no less. Instead of accountability, IMs were given a free pass and worse, pandered to, by the Indian p-sec establishment, and the results were the Mumbai bombings, Kashmir, Godhra, Marad, and more.

Read this >>

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Truth and fiction

KR Phanda

All articles that have appeared in the media after BJP president LK Advani`s visit to Pakistan, have held Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah responsible for the partition of India. This, however, is a gross misrepresentation of facts.

Hindu writers have blamed Jinnah simply out of ignorance. It is common knowledge that most of the Hindus know little about the rise of the Muslim League, which was responsible for the vivisection of the country.

Muslim intellectuals, on the other hand, in their writings, have put the blame both on Jinnah and Nehru to hide the real role played by the Indian ummah particularly the Muslims of Bombay, Bihar and United Provinces in their demand for Pakistan. The fact of the matter is that Jinnah is being unnecessarily made the scapegoat for the division of the subcontinent.

In the words of Dr Aziz Ahmad, a renowned Muslim scholar, ``He (Jinnah) did not lead, but was led, by the Muslim consensus. His role was that of a sincere and clear headed lawyer who could formulate and articulate in precise terms what his client really wanted`` (Studies in Islamic Culture, OUP, p 276).

Another Muslim scholar of eminence Prof M Mujeeb, Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia University, wrote, ``In the elections held early in 1946, which proved decisive, Muslim League secured 425 out of 492 seats reserved for Muslims in the central and provincial legislatures.

It could be said, therefore, that the Indian Muslims were overwhelmingly in favour of Pakistan (Islamic Influence on Indian Society, Meenakshi Prakashan, Delhi, 1972, pp 193-194). Justice MC Chagla, who was at one time an understudy to Jinnah wrote in this connection, ``Uttar Pradesh was the cultural home of the Muslims.

Although, they were in a minority in that state if Uttar Pradesh had not gone over to the cause of separatism, Pakistan would not have become a reality`` (Roses in December, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, p 82).

Similarly, BK Nehru, who saw the drama of partition at close quarters has this to write: ``Most of the Muslims, men and women alike, were for partition; most of the Hindus against it`` (Nice Guys Finish Second, Viking, Delhi, 1997, p 178).

Jinnah or no Jinnah, Muslims because of compulsions of Islamic theology cannot bloom as momins in a dar-ul harb. India, according to Muslim scholars of theology, had become dar-ul harb after the advent of British rule in India. Separatism is an integral part of Islam.

This is being witnessed at present in Chechnya, Kashmir, Philippines, Thailand and in parts of China. Jinnah was very candid when he suggested the exchange of populations between Hindustan and Pakistan as the only solution of Hindu Muslim conflicts. It was the myopic vision of Gandhi who did not agree to this proposal.

Earlier, Gandhi during his series of talks with Jinnah in 1944 at Bombay had suggested that Hindus and Muslims were like two brothers and there was no need for Pakistan. Jinnah later asserted that Pakistan started the moment the first non-Muslim was converted to Islam in India long before the Muslims established their rule.

Dr BR Ambedkar was one of the few Hindu leaders who had raised a fundamental question: Are there any common historical antecedents which the Hindus and Muslims can be said to share together as matters of pride or as matters of sorrow? That is the question, which the Hindus must answer. Their past was one of mutual destruction, animosities, both in the political as well as in the religious fields.

(Thoughts on Pakistan, Thackers, Bomba,. 1940, p 35)

Here is an example of how leftists and psuedo-secularists (i.e., sympathisers of muslim fundamentalism and separatism) , are distorting Indian history >>

Prithviraj and Shivaji war-scared. Rana Pratap died young of “injury while trying to draw a stiff arrow.”

This is UPA nonsense as history

By R. Balashankar

Ram and Krishna never lived. Prithviraj Chauhan was “punished” by Muhummad Ghuri for “conspiracy,” Shivaji never faced open battles and won only by “treachery.” These are not extracts from a Pakistani book. But the “facts” mentioned in the Government of India textbooks, issued by Arjun Singh’s NCERT.

The Union HRD minister’s campaign to paint the education field red has resulted in this absurdity being taught as history. The NCERT, has replaced all the text books in schools. Old Communist historians have been dusted out of the closet and made to author textbooks for children. Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, Ram Sharan Sharma and et al, have authored the textbooks of various senior classes. Page after page, the tone, the language and the presentation are aimed at insulting the national heroes.

Sample this, “archaeological evidence should be considered far more important than long family trees given in the Puranas because Puranic tradition can be used to date Ram of Ayodhya to 2000 B C but diggings and extensive exploration in Ayodhya do not show any settlement of the time.” (Ancient India, Ram Sharan Sharma, book for Class XI)

And he had this to say about Mahabharata, “Although Krishna played an important role in Mahabharata, inscriptions and sculptural piece found in Mathura dating back to 200 BC and 300 AD do not attest to his presence. Because of this, ideas of an epic based on Ramayana and Mahabharata have to be discarded.”

If Ram and Krishna are to be discarded, are we to hold on to Ghuri and Gazni? On Prithviraj, Satish Chandra says that in his second battle with Ghuri (lovingly called in the book as Muizzuddin Mohammad bin Sam) Prithviraj escaped from the battlefield while his side suffered losses. “he was captured near Saraswati (present day Sirsa)… he was allowed to rule Ajmer for sometime.” Soon, he was “executed on a charge of conspiracy against Ghuri.” Here again, Chandra dismisses the legend of Prithviraj as bunkum based on a later day folk ballet written by Chand Bardai. In one sentence he washes off collective memory and folk sources, now considered as important evidence in history. Jaichand, who is synonymous with betrayal has been given the hounours in heroism by Chandra. He died fighting Ghuri, according to him.

Chandra dismisses the legend of Prithviraj as bunkum based on a later day folk ballet written by Chand Bardai. In one sentence he washes off collective memory and folk sources, now considered as important evidence in history.

All the books newly introduced by Arjun Singh go on and on about the greatness of the Mughal rulers, the “strategic” mistakes they committed. Nowhere the books mention the kind of loot, plunder and destruction each of the invader unleashed on the Hindu population and its properties. There is no dearth of primary source to write a honest history. But these communists are more interested in suppressing the truth and suggesting falsehood. All these marauders had their official diarists with them, who recorded the events of the day. The Marxist historians had sufficient proof readily available with them to write if they sought for facts. But they didn’t.

Hasan Nizami, in the early 13th century wrote an eye-witness account of the conquest of Delhi by Qutbuddin Aibek, in 1192. Here are some extracts “the conqueror (Aibek) entered the city of Delhi, which is the source of wealth and the foundation of blessedness. The city and its vicinity were freed from idols and idol-worship and in its sanctuaries of the images of the gods, mosques were raised by the worshippers of one god… Qutbuddin built the Jami Masjid at Delhi and adorned it with stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been demolished by elephants and cover it with inscriptions in Toghra, containing the divine commands.”

While discussing Ramayana and Mahabharata, the latest findings in Dwarka are not even mentioned in the NCERT books. The ASI report on Ayodhya is yet to be released, but the author dismisses the excavations lightly. When they discuss the Mughal rulers they discuss their architecture, literature and governance. But on most of the Hindu rulers, only their battle defeats are elaborated. On Aurangzeb the biased Chandra says “Aurangzeb has been unjustly maligned … the Hindus had become disloyal due to the laxity of Aurangzeb’s predecessors, so that Aurangzeb had no choice but to adopt harsh measures and to try and rally the Muslims on whose support in the long run the empire had to rest.” So to please the Muslims, he imposed jazia on Hindus. Has anyone heard such non-sense in the national History textbooks?

Shivaji, who is normally addressed by Indians with the sobriquet Chhatrapati was only a chieftain, according to Chandra. Shivaji “conquered Javli from the Maratha chief Chandra Rao More. The Javli kingdom and accumulated treasures of the Mores were important and Shivaji aquired them by means of treachery,” Chapter 19 of the Medieval India textbook of Chandra says.

Shivaji is grudgingly dismissed in two pages. Prithviraj in six lines. There is hardly any mention of Rana Pratap and Haldighati. The bias, in these books is unbelievable. It is untruth, myth and fiction passed off as history. There is no end to Muslim rulers’ broad mindedness and Hindu meanness. And this is the history we are teaching our children.

The Muslims had raised a hue and cry about a book under the NDA government, which had described Mohammad as the founder of Islam. The book Comprehensive Study of History and Civics for Class VI in Uttar Pradesh had said that Quran was a compilation of his teachings. The Muslims objected saying that the Quran were not teachings but divine revelations and Mohammad was the last of the Prophets of God.

Can historians who are in the pay-roll of ideological groups in the country get away with distorting our national history? Is this the heritage that the UPA government wants the children of India to inherit? Systematically and determinedly, the UPA is trying to undermine the national pride, self-respect and the glorious history. Pandering to the communists and the vociferous minorities the government is abandoning its role in safeguarding the national interest. Arjun Singh is the henchman for all this.

``Uncover inconvenient truths. But we have to be brave enough to look these truths in the face..``

Exactly. Thats what we need. Let the `truth` be written in the history books for Indian school children for a change instead of the usual leftist propaganda and the pseudo-secular eye-wash. Let the children know the truth about the barbaric muslim invasion - enslavement and massacre of millions of hindus ,rape of hindu civilisation , temples and culture.Let the children know about how muslims in Kerala ran around killing hindus and raping hindu women in the aftermath of the failure of the Khilafath movement in Turkey. Let the children learn about the `Jaziya` system of taxation. About how Muhammad , who is sacred to muslims , married a 6 year old child. Let the Indian children learn the truth about Islam and the Quran - about verses that specifically order the good muslim to humiliate , rape , torture , kill the non-believeer or the kufr. Let the children learn about the concept of Ummah - which means Islamic unity regardless of national borders.

Indian children have a war ahead of them. No point in hiding heads in the sand like ostriches. Be prepared. Know your enemy.

The author needs to face facts regarding the Hindu-Muslim divide (who initiated it, who nurtured it, etc.) instead of blaming the BJP for it.

But that is one introspection I don`t expect from people who read history books by Romila Thapar and her gang at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

It is ironic that a person with a closed mind is asking others to open up their minds.

Re the question raised by a BJP politician why the Ramayana or the Mahabharata are not taught in history classes: we have a President in the US who thinks Creationism aka Intelligent Design ought to be taught in schools along with or as against Darwin`s Theory of Evolution, conveniently forgetting that Intelligent Design would have to exclude him!

And then there is the guy who has been writing to the Kansas Board of Education that his theory of creation ought to be taught. His theory is that a giant noodle in space created the world by touching the earth with his noodle-like appendage. Let us hope we will soon have Tom Cruise clamoring for the Scientologist view on creation of earthlings by Xinu to be taught in schools.

PS. I haven`t seen the movie Mangal Pandey but I wonder if in the movie he called collaborators with the British ``behnchodh` before being hanged like it is reported he did in real life. Now, THAT is real history for you. Does Romila Thapar report that in her books? Not ``I regret that I have but one life to give for my country`` but ``Behnchodh``! I think Mangal Pandey trumped Patrick Henry with that one.

Re: # 1 Hello BeeJay,
Thank you for your posting in response to this piece... fidelity to country, such a beautiful idea but you will find so many contrary voices trying to take the easy way out. Everyone questions the very idea of patriotism, or the need for a nation as such. Is it condemned to remain only an idea?
Most young people resent having to study history--that is where I began the article. So the stored memory of the past has to be made attractive enough to offer the young and not by just saying how wonderful that past was, or by making films like Mangal Pandey but by trying to establish the facts of the time. Making kids do their own research would be valuable, so one must utilise modern methods of teaching, sitting in libraries, consulting the Internet, doing small projects.
It is truly daunting to think of the vastness that is our history, but how does one begin to understand?

Revathy,
I agree with your thoughts that we need to look at history, sociology, culture, religion and science holistically and in a unified manner. But the hurdle is that for doing that you need to develop a very rational and objective frame of mind and remove ourselves from subjectivity and emotions for at least the while we are looking at those matters. And India or Pakistan do not have a history of objective philosophy and emotions and traditions (not culture, mind you) play a dominant role as a deciding factor.
- Samir Shaikh

Being “…brave enough to look these truths in the face. Squarely.” Does not come easily to our culture – the natural instinct is to look away from such truths.

While demagogues will come and go, fidelity to one’s country must come from the heart – every other source is useless and such fidelity can not be imposed. At the same time, only individuals who have a clue to the past are the ones who hold a key to the future. One must never forget the lessons from the past.

Shared experiences – usually shared hardships, and not geography, bind a people like nothing else can.

I would like to quote here the following from my August 14, 2005 i-log:

As the world celebrates this fifty-eighth birthday of its largest democracy, we ask – in view of all the changes occurring there so rapidly, is this a New country for the new century, or – since so much of its past still hangs around its neck – like an albatross of sorts – is it just too Mature – too old to ever change in any meaningful way? And in our hearts, we all know the answer – it’s neither N nor M – yet it’s both and always has been! For this country has the agility of the young and yet has stood the test of time like a seasoned veteran – by constantly renewing itself in various ways – and not just over the last fifty-eight years – that garb just happens to only represent its current style – its soul is eternal since its soul is so transient!