Author: Prof. V. V. S. Sarma
Publication: Bharatiya Pragna
Date: March 2002
Abstract
Several historians of the Marxist
camp have been waging a jihad, since several decades, claiming to establish
new view points in the study of Indian History based on their political
agenda. In the process, they attempt to make Indian History nothing more
than a sequence of invasions. They view today's India as a country of diverse
cultures belonging to successive invaders, ultimately knit together by
the British into a single country.
The time-honoured concept of Unity
in Diversity (due to Nagarjuna, stated two thousand years ago) is no longer
accepted, by them, and plurality and composite culture are their new buzzwords.
A significant part of their effort is in whitewashing the period of Muslim
rule in India. Romila Thapar's study pertaining to the well-known event
of the raid on Somanath temple in 1026 AD by Mahmud of Ghazni belongs to
this category. Thapar claims that through rigorous historical analysis,
she is able to provide surprising new insights of what happened. The objective
of this essay is to show that her analysis is fundamentally erroneous and
that her so-called "new insights" are largely invalid and irrelevant. Her
method consists in mixing evidences with arbitrary weights to fabricate
wild stories consisting of low probability scenarios. She does not appear
to be aware of even the fundamental principles of evidence fusion, which
is a modern field of scientific investigation providing a rigorous methodology
for combining evidences from several sources of different credibilities.
Introduction
Prof. Romila Thapar gave a talk
to the scientists of Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, entitled Somanath:
Representations of an Event on 23 July, 2001. She was introduced by an
eminent biologist, Prof. Obaid Sidique. He observed whether history could
ever be considered a science, but hoped that Prof. Thapar's presentation
would at least be a scientific approach to history. He pointed out the
controversies surrounding her work. She is known to be a historian with
a Marxist world-view and her views run counter to the views of the so-called
Nationalist Indian world-view. Ms. Thapar's main objectives in this study
are the following:
1. To establish that Mahmud of Ghazni's
raid on the Somanath temple in 1026 did not create a Hindu-Muslim dichotomy
when the event took place.
2. To show that Mahmud's raid on
Somanath and the destruction of the idol had become an event of immense
significance only in the writing of Indian history since the last couple
of centuries after the House of Commons debate in 1843.
3. To produce a narrative throwing
doubts on every inconvenient evidence by cleverly mixing five different
narratives of later times of differing credibilities. The so-called "rigorous
historical analysis" produces in the end a weakly plausible scenario.
4. To brand Mr. K.M. Munshi, then
Minister in the Cabinet of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as a Hindu fundamentalist
for his role in the reconstruction of the Somanath Temple in 1951 along
with Sardar Vallabhai Patel by false insinuations.
Ms. Thapar has been essentially
propagating the same view at her lectures at the University of Bombay in
1999 and articles in Frontline and talks before diverse audiences in various
cities since then. Our objective in this essay is to point out the defects
in her methodology and the lack of validity of her arguments.
A Christian reporter, Mr. Max Martin,
comes up with a report of her talk in the New Indian Express, on July 30th,
2001 captioned "A temple raid and the advent of trauma school of history".
He claims Romila Thapar cuts the myth about Mahmud of Ghazni's raid of
Somanath and the scar on the Hindu psyche ever since. By introducing her
as a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Science and as the author
of History of India books published by Penguin and Oxford University Press,
he assures the readers that her utterances are validated truths and her
approach to History is scientific! While reporting Prof. Thapar's skewed
suggestion that Mr. K.M. Munshi was communal, Martin reports, "By 1951.
Munshi, then a Central minister, managed to start restoration of Somanath
temple despite Nehru's distaste for giving it a government tag". The temple,
of course, was built by private citizens and not by Government of India.
Government has since then proved its secular credentials through acts such
as providing subsidies for Haj pilgrimage. The media have proved theirs
by giving a thousand-fold publicity to a murder in Orissa of one Christian
missionary in 2000 years as against hundreds of murders of Hindus in Kashmir
and other places every year in the country.
Prof. Thapar's Talk
In her talk, Prof. Thapar tries
to represent and interpret the important event of first destruction of
Somanath temple with evidence from the following sources:
1. Turkish Persian chronicles of
the same period
2. Jaina narratives.
3. Sanskrit inscriptions.
4. The debate in the British House
of Commons.
5. The nationalist reading of the
events.
The author of this article thoroughly
enjoyed her talk and there is no doubt that Prof. Thapar is a creative
storyteller. She narrated the documented history of the well known event
of the destruction and looting of a temple at Samanth, dedicated to the
Hindu God Siva, by Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century. She then introduces
an element of uncertainty regarding this fact by mentioning that the temple
could have been possibly of the pre-Islamic Arabic Goddess, Manat based
on some Turkish Persian chronicles of that time. This element of misunderstanding,
of course, was well known and was referred to in the book of K.M. Munshi.
She dismisses the misgivings of leaders such as K.M. Munshi as probably
emanating from Bankim Chandra's Hindu Nationalism notions to the discussions
in the British House of Commons in the nineteenth century. The British,
anyway, wanted to divide the Hindus and the Muslims to rule India effectively
and so gave undue importance to this event.
Prof. Thapar claims that her analysis
is rational and free of any ideology and she warns the listeners to be
aware of and to understand the complexities and nuances of these events.
Her talk convincingly demonstrates that Ancient History studies might reflect
both Science and Creative Engineering components. Using bits and pieces
of evidence from diverse sources of different eras and different degrees
of credibility, and assigning arbitrary weights to these evidences, she
spins a narrative of some plausibility. She does not agree with Munshi
that the Destruction of the shrine has hurt the Hindus for over nine hundred
years. She feels that the British popularized the history of Somanath after
their House of Commons debate which, according to her, provided one of
the grounds for the revival of Hindu Nationalism promoted by Bankim Chandra
and others in Bengal. Such a new theory, at the most, qualifies to be labeled
a creative invention or a new explanation like in a literary work. It might
qualify as an innovative design alternative in Engineering or a fanciful
scientific theory, but it does not automatically become the best estimate
of truth, based on all available evidence, regarding a well documented
historical fact.
The learned professor has no objection
for giving her lecture before scientists and get it reported by press with
its own distortions as illustrated earlier to promote her point of view
as truth. On the other hand, she does not want to defend her thesis with
learned Indians such as Arun Shourie and N.S. Rajaram on the plea that
they are not professional historians. The talk almost repeats whit she
wrote in the de facto Marxist magazine Frontline in 1999, which has later
refused to publish rejoinders from some historians such as K.S. Lal at
full length.
The Scientific Approach:
It is unfortunate that none of the
scientists present a, the meeting discussed about the merits of' the so-called
scientific approach. There is a well known problem in Curve Fitting and
Pattern Recognition. With limited data, one can fit any number of higher
order curves exactly fitting the data, but the robust best estimate is
often the line of best fit. Similarly, based on the evidence available,
a large number of scenarios can be built and one may assign a low support
or plausibility, at the most, to each of the hypotheses. The underlying
logical reasoning is called Abduction, which is distinct from deduction
based proof methods and inductive generalization from examples. It can,
at the most, give one of several plausible explanations:
1. Prof Thapar says Prabhas has
been a place of pilgrimage since the Mahabharatha time but does not want
to know when the first temple has been constructed there and how many times
it had been destroyed.
2. She does not mention the famous
sloka of Sankaracharaya, which identifies Somanath of Sourashtra as the
first of the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines in the country. It is unlikely
that at the time of the Mahabharatha there was temple-worship but it was
definitely well established by Sankaracharya's time. He himself established
the Siva temple at Srinagar and appointed Nambudri priests at Badrinath.
He established four Sankara mathas at Dwaraka, Puri, Badrinath and Sringeri.
3. She says that the idol is variously
described as Sivalingam or as a female deity whom some Muslim chronicles
of the period referred to as Manat, a pre-Islamic Arab goddess.
4. Ms Thapar does not seem to know
that any Siva temple has both Lingam and an idol of the consort of Siva,
in general. It is probable that the temple itself might have two main icons
- Siva represented by the Lingam and Parvati, the female idol. The prior
probability one can assign to the Siva temple hypothesis is very high compared
with the alternative hypothesis based on available evidence.
5. Every hypothesis has a
priori probability, which has to be carefully revised in the light of evidence
observed. One has to see whether the bits of evidence are really independent.
Bayes reasoning consists in deriving a posteriori probability of a hypothesis
based on the strength of evidence supporting and contradicting hypotheses.
6. Evidence fusion is a complex
mathematical and scientific problem and I do not think it is within the
grasp of historians without adequate background in Mathematics (Shafer,
1976)
7. It is for the scientists to establish
the validity of the so-called scientific approach as it is currently practised
in history by some of these historians.
8. While our scientists so enthusiastically
condemn the basis of Jyotir Vijnan, they are not critically evaluating
the validity of the claims of rationality and the scientific content of
the approaches of historians such as Romila Thapar. The same applies to
several other so-called Scientific studies in History and Social Sciences.
(e.g. Aryan invasion theory, race based division of Aryan and Dravidian
people, Indus-Saraswathi civilisation and the latest, the genetic distances
between Europeans, upper and lower caste Indians.)
9. When an interpreter pools diverse
sources of evidence, he or he has to identify the credibility of the source
of evidence. For example, Jaina Puranas are less reliable than Hindu Puranas
for historical studies. This is admitted by Jains themselves (Jaini, 2000).
The itihasa of the Mahabharatha becomes Pandava Purana. Jains were peeved
by the fact that human-born Rama and Krishna were later identified as incarnations
of Hindu God, Vishnu. Jains have created stories about nine Baladevas and
nine Vasudevas with Balarama and Krishna being the last pair and that they
have taken initiation from Jaina Thirthankara Nemi, who is described as
their cousin. Jains did not have Krishna appear in the great war as Partha
Sarathi (charioteer of Arjuna) and teacher of the Bhagavad Gita but projected
him only as an instigator and an advocate of bravery in warfare. Jaina
evidence which Prof. Thapar cited, stating that Siva Lingas and Hindu idols
withstood the attacks only supports the destruction of Hindu temples by
attackers. Jaina authors come up with new stories in much the same way
as Prof. Thapar.
10. Any historian can propose a
scenario of the sequence of event, and a theory connecting them. A priori
probability of a hypothesis pertaining to each scenario will be extremely
low to start with. With evidence and counter evidence accumulating, the
support and plausibility of each scenario should be recalculated. A fully
or partly validated truth can only result then. The complete and up-to-date
evidence as available should be used at every given point of time. Prof.
Thapar's method lies in implicitly giving higher weight to evidence supporting
her hypothesis, while simultaneously reducing the credibility or omitting
altogether the counter evidence.
11. Everybody knows that multiple
viewpoints are particularly important in history. For example, the war
of the queen of Jhansi (Lakshmi Bai), Nana Saheb and others during 1857-1859,
has been called "The Sepoy Mutiny" by British Historians. This becomes
"The First War of Indian Independence" in the eyes of Indian Historians.
Marx and Engels also used the latter term in some of their writings. Karl
Marx outlines the job of British in India, which includes complete destruction
of Hindu society. This continues to be the mission of historians of the
Marxist camp such as Mrs. Thapar
12. The textbooks of Pakistan might
provide a new viewpoint. It is interesting to see how historians of Pakistan
are viewing the role of Mahmud of Ghazni on the course of Indian Sub-continental
History of the last millennium.
13. According to Munshi, the destruction
of Somanath was not a single event. In his words, "Here was the romance
in stone, stretching out to 2000 years and unfolding a unique story of
devotion and heroism, of vandalism and desecration, of defeat and triumph
of the best and the worst in man epitomized in a single symbol."
14. In the reign of Sultan Allu'd-Din
Khilji (1296 tol3l6), Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan marched against Gujarat
again. After the destruction of the Manat idol by Sultan Mahmud, the Brahmins
have set up Somanath idol for the worship of Hindus. The idol was carried
to Delhi for the people to tread upon. This source Tarikh-I-Firuz Shahi
also mentions construction of a mosque at the site of the temple (Goel,
1993 and Shourie, 1998). Romila Thapar conveniently clubs all Muslim chronicles
into one group of less credibility.
15. The greatest weakness of her
study is in the isolated study of Somanath. It is not clear whether the
event she is referring to is the first destruction. The entire history
of Mahmud's multiple invasions and the pattern of pillage up to Babur needs
a holistic study. The destruction of icons continues to this date. The
1947 partition of India is real destruction of an icon, the geographical
Indian subcontinent. The completion of Babur's destruction saga till Ayodhya
demolition of 1992 and its follow up through anniversary celebrations till
today in various parts of the country is another. The Taliban's destruction
of Bamiyan Buddhas is in sharp contrast to the hypotheses of Prof. Thapar
he should build a more plausible scenario.
16. When Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed
by Taliban, many journalists in India talked about the destruction of the
Babri structure at Ayodhya in 1992. The action of Hindu groups, at the
most, is a peaceful symbolic act, and a culmination of a thousand year
heartburn of Hindus, compounded by a fifty year neglect of the dispute
by the Government and police excesses the previous year at the site of
Ram Janmabhoomi. It is at the most, a civil disobedience Satyagraha-type
of act done in broad day light, while the reaction of some Muslim groups
to it took the shape of anniversary celebrations of the event with bomb
blasts in trains and public places. These are blatant terrorist acts. One
might also be tempted to compare this with the act of some state governments
distributing temple lands, as in Simhachalam, A.P. Another example is the
demolition of thousands of private houses for widening of urban roads and
extension of airport runways. The purpose of these examples is to compare
the relative strengths of the Hindu, the Muslim and the secular democratic
government-sponsored destructive activities.
17. For a fuller description of
Somanath's history, the book of K.M. Munshi may be consulted. He was a
Congressman (and not of today's BJP) and a recognized man of letters from
Gujarat. His hurt on seeing the ruins at Somnath had not definitely originated
in Bengal or London. If an Indian (particularly someone from Karnataka
or Andhra) looks at the ruins of Hampi, the destruction of which happened
much later at the hands of unified Bahmani forces, he will similarly feel,
whatever NCERT history texts might say.
18. Whitewashing Muslim period of
Indian history is a futile exercise. Mahmuds of Ghazni even exist today.
To understand the mindset of such people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the
book 'The Quranic Concept of War' may be consulted. The author is Brig.
S.K. Malik of the Pakistan army with a foreword by the late dictator of
Pakistan, Gen. Zia Ul Haq. (See review of N.S. Rajaram, 2001).
19. The evidence regarding some
gates showing Egyptian carvings from Afghanistan obtained by the British
on the assumption that they were Somanath temple gates does not lend any
support to Prof. Thapar's theory directly and is irrelevant for the problem
itself. Her motive might be to indirectly suggest that the whole story
of temple-destruction is a myth.
20. The suggestion of Thapar mentioning
that later inscriptions at Somanath, when the temple was reconstructed
by Kumarapala do not mention the event of Mahmud's destruction is ridiculous.
Already several destructions were over and it was the fifth temple. The
inscriptions were not intended to be school textbooks tracing History of
Gujarat and the saga of previous destruction of the temple. They referred
to the appointment then of Bhava Brihaspathi as chief priest and could
not foresee emergence of the likes of Romila Thapar centuries later. How
can this inscription be even an evidence for her present problem of study?
When combining evidence from several
sources, one has to be careful whether he is doing data fusion, information
fusion or decision (or interpretation) fusion. The last two narratives
out of the five she selected can not even be considered as primary evidence
for the problem considered by her. Similarly, her current research cannot
be a source of primary evidence in obtaining a true picture of an event
of 1026 AD
Concluding Remarks
In summary, Romila Thapar's paper
on Somanath appears to be in the nature of outlining some plausible new
theories by considering only a few of the available evidences. It, however,
does not establish any scientifically validated truth concerning a well
known event of Indian History. By talking about the less credible story
of Manat, Prof. Thapar's motive appears to be to cleverly shift the apparent
blame about destruction of a Hindu temple from Mahmud of Ghazni to the
great prophet, who is the founder of Islam itself, by giving high credibility
to the Manat hypothesis and citing several irrelevant ones to sidetrack
the issue. Her theory fails to give appropriate weights to all the available
evidence on the event or subsequent ones. It does not appear to put forth
any credible theory closer to the truth. In the classical Indian science
of debate (Tarka Sastra), Prof. Thapar's argument is called "Wrangling"
(or Vitanda Vada). The wrangler has no hypothesis to establish or no concern
for truth but the only aim is to create doubt regarding well established
facts.
Romila Thapar's problem is common
with that of other members of Marxist group, entrenched in places such
as the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Their aim is to rewrite history
with a present political agenda. In the words of Arun Shourie, their contribution
to history is "a diabolic inversion. As to the inclusive religion, the
pluralist spiritual search of our people and land, they have projected
as intolerant, narrow-minded, obscurantist. As to the exclusivist, totalitarian,
revelatory religions and ideologies - Islam, Christianity, Marxism-Leninism
- they have made out to be epitomes of tolerance, open-mindedness, democracy
and secularism". This appears to be her real motive and not the TRUTH of
the event of 1026 AD. The same motive is seen in the condemnation of present
American military action in Afghanistan by all the Marxists.
Distortions of history cannot provide
greater communal amity in India. No sensible person blames the present
day simple Muslim citizens of India for the deeds of foreign invaders of
bygone days. A study of history helps in the understanding of the achievements
and the failures of our forefathers and helps in building a future without
such mistakes. On October 31, 2001, speaking on the occasion of the completion
of the golden jubilee celebrations of the reconstructed Somanath temple,
the Prime Minister Sri A.B. Vajpayee reminded people of India that the
Somanath temple has always been and is the symbol of the Country's culture,
prosperity and national self-respect, while the ever-present terrorist
elements resemble closely those who repeatedly attacked and looted the
temple in the past. But like the Somanath temple was rebuilt amidst its
ruins, and the attackers were defeated, those who are trying to dismember
India (both from inside and outside), now will also be repulsed and the
country would remain a strong and united nation. Marxists have always been
playing a negative and destructive role in India and crude attempts of
falsifying history such as the current study of Prof. Romila Thapar concerning
Somanath will stand exposed before the discerning Indian public.
