Author: Atul Rawat
Publication: Bharatiya Pragna
Date: October, 2004
Introduction: The Communists have
never believed in academic honesty. The books written by communist historians
are not balanced in chronological presentation of Indian History. At certain
places the bias seems to have been highlighted by the misuse of deceptive
language and contain factual errors.
There are many biases and distortions
besides factural inaccuracies that are easily visible in the history text
books written by liftist historians. Some of the more controversial points
are discussed in the following pages. An overview will show that many of
the misinterpretations and misrepresentations are so dangerous to the Indian
nationhood that they had to be discarded by the NDA government. Now when
the Congress led UPA government is in power with the support of the Communists
they are bringing back the books written by leftist historians. This is
a struggle for the minds of the future generation and if they are allowed
to be captured by anti-national and unpatriotic forces, the very existence
of the nation will be in jeopardy. The history which terms the Aryans as
foreigners and Mughals as indigenous, which calls Guru Teg Bahadur as a
person involved in plunder and rapine while calling Aurangazeb as a zinda-pir
or a living-saint, which portrays Guru Arjun Dev as a thug and Shivaji
as a regional leader to create Maratha nationalism, which teaches Ram,
Krishna and Shiv as myth and the sacrifice of Padmini as a folk-tale and
teaches great Indian revolutionaries as terrorists cannot be allowed to
be taught to the next generation of India. Some of the distortions were
sought to be removed but with the old books written by leftist historians
entering the class rooms through a surreptitious back door it has become
all the more necessary to expose the anti-national designs of the red-slaves.
1. R.S.Sharina, Ancient India (New
Delhi, NCERT 1999).
"A little earlier than 1500 B.C.
the Aryans appeared in India. We do not rind clear and definite archaeological
traces of their advent." (p.71)
This is an interesting reference
where the author is himself giving an argument opposite to his own stated
stand. While he writes that: "A little earlier than 1500 BC the Aryans
appeared in India." But in the very next sentence he disproves himself
by saying that "we do not find clear and definite archaeological traces
of their advent." It is to be noted that the author has placed more reliance
on the archaeological evidence than the literary sources which he calls
mythologies (see page 21 of the same book for relative importance of the
sources). The author has used the lack of archaeological evidence to disprove
many parts of traditional history in the same book. But despite accepted
lack of archaeological "traces", he still stubbornly believes that somehow
the Aryans came into India from outside without leaving any traces of their
advent. Whatever archaeological or literary sources may say, the Aryans
cannot be original inhabitants of India. In reality, it is not because
of history but politics that the author believes that the Aryans came to
India from outside. Is it not a strange point of view that the same school
of historians call Aryans as foreigners and the Mughals as Swadeshi?
2. R.S. Sharma, Ancient India (New
Delhi, NCERT 1999).
"Several tribal or the clan-based
assemblies such as the sabha, samiti, vidhatha, gana are mentioned in the
Rig-Veda." (p.73)
The Sabha, the Samiti, the Vidhatha
and the Gana, were great institutions of the Vedic times. Since the author
is out to prove Aryans as barbarian pastoral nomads and not civilized people
by stretching the truth to unimaginable lengths if need be, he is calling
these great institutions as tribal. The concept of tribe itself is alien
to India, and since the author subscribes to western ideology, his terms
of reference have little value to understand the Indian institutions. Can
one apply the Western concepts like tribe of or feudalism etc. to the Indian
institutions and term Jana of Sanskrit as tribe and Samant of Sanskrit
as feudal? Without these basic controversies being solved, it is wrong
to impose the views generated out of foreign ideologies on the students
as facts of history.
3. R.S. Sharma, Ancient India (New
Delhi, NCERT 1999).
"The dasas and dasyus who were conquered
by the Aryans, were treated as slaves and shudras." (p.75)
When it is not sure whether the
Aryans came to India from some foreign land, how can one be so sure of
the conquering of the dasas and dasyus. An image is sought to be built
as it Aryans were victors and were behaving as foreign conquerors against
the vanquished natives, while the author has above accepted that there
are no evidences of their advent. The other aspects of the controversy
are not even informed and this points to some design on the part of the
ideologically biased historians.
4. Romila Thaper, Ancient India
(New Delhi, NCERT 1987).
"Brahmin minister called Chanakya
also known as Kautilya trained a young man Chandragupta by name of the
Maurya Family." (p.60)
Chanakya has been relegated to the
position of a Brahmin minister. The intended pun is more than clear. This
is a pathetic disdain for the great sage who not only built first all-India
empire in historical times but was a great-learned person who wrote Arthasastra,
the famous treatise on material aspects of national life including politics.
Similarly no proper reference to Chanakya and the liberation struggle he
created against Nandas at the end of which Chandragupta came to throne
has been made even in the text book for XI written by Prof. R.S. Sharma.
At least it is expected that students at this level should know the history
of Chankaya.
5. R.S. Sharma, Ancient India (New
Delhi, NCERT 1999).
"An important law-book is the Arthashastra
of Kautilya. The text is divided into fifteen books, of which II and III
may be regarded as of an earlier date. They seem to have been the work
of different hands. This text was put in its final form in the beginning
of the Christian era...... (p.17).
It is known as established fact
in history that Asthashatra was written by Kautilya. He has himself mentioned
in the book that he has consulted many other earlier books on the subject
but to downgrade one of the greatest sage, intellectual and statesman of
hoary Hindu past and the great book which he wrote, the author seems to
have gone out of the way to prove that the book in present form is an interpolated
work. A certain tendency to bring the dates of the events and the books
that can be the sources of history forward to prove that they are not as
ancient as the tradition persists is easily visible all through the description.
Bringing forward the dates and trying to prove that events are of much
more later date than the tradition would say, is a peculiar tendency of
leftist historians which they have inherited from colonial historians,
who in turn believed in the Christian traditions according to which the
world was formed in 4004 BC and thus anything could not be older than that
date. Elsewhere in the same book, the same author has explicidy written
that the literary evidences are not as reliable as archaeology.
6. Romila Thaper, Ancient India
(New Delhi, NCERT, 1987).
A bias against Indian religions
is absolutely clear in pages (82-83) which describe religion in South India
from 200 BC to 300 AD. Notably, this is a period when Christianity has
not taken roots even in Europe. The author has described Christianity in
40 lines, while Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, all put together have
been given 26 lines. The whole book actually is on the Buddhist history
of North India rather than ancient India. The book is also regionally unbalanced
as it contains nothing about Brahmaputra valley and even the history of
South India is also meagerly described.
7. R.S.Sharma, Ancient India (New
Delhi, NCERT 1999).
"Historical value" is taken to mean
information needed for reconstructing political history. Compared to Pauranic
traditions, inscriptions are certainly more reliable." (p.21)
The author has tried to bias the
minds of young students against the Puranic tradition and calls the inscriptions
to be more reliable. There are known incidents in Indian History where
attempts were made to wrongly read inscriptions. The wrong reading of the
Hathi-gumpha inscription about of king Kharavel of Orissa has led to a
major controversy about the years of rule of the Maurya dynasty. Actually,
any sources of Indian history are reliable or ureliable only within their
own limitations. Many scholars would attempt to put more emphasis on the
foreign travellers' accounts but they have their own limitations. For example,
how much the foreign traveler was able to understand the language and customs
of the people and with what bias did he write it? Similarly, some scholars
would lay emphsize on archaeological sources where chance plays a big role.
In the same way, some scholars might lay emphasis on literary sources.
So showing preference to one sort of sources in comparision to others is
an indication of bias. An unbiased historian will use all the sources in
a manner where they will support and supplement each other. But since the
Puranic tradition creates a hurdle for such kind of history which the leftist
school of thought wants to reconstruct, the deride the Puranic sources.
8. R.S. Sharma, Ancient India (New
Delhi, NCERT 1999).
"People ate beef, but they did not
take pork on any considerable scale." (p.45)
The author has been able to create
an unnecessary and avoidable controversy over beefeating in a school text
book. He is trying to instigate and hurt the feelings of the Hindus by
saying that beef was eaten by their ancestors. Interestingly, a few lines
above he has been describing how the people kept cows sheep, goats, pigs
and buffaloes. If people "did not take pork on any considerable scale",
what would they do of their pigs? After all the entire animal has just
no other use.
