Title: Eminent Distorians - Twists and Truths in Bharat's History
Author: Utpal Kumar
Publisher: BluOne Ink, 2025 (First)
ISBN: 9789365477184
Pages: 290
Author: Utpal Kumar
Publisher: BluOne Ink, 2025 (First)
ISBN: 9789365477184
Pages: 290
India’s post-colonial historiography was under the absolute control of Marxist historians who were tolerated at the highest echelons of institutions by Nehru and Indira Gandhi. These people created an ecosystem of their own which stifled dissent of any kind from the established view. Academic positions, research grants, publication of research papers and publicity in the mainstream media were jealously guarded by this coterie of scholars whose sole purpose of existence was to churn out a version of Indian history that stuck to leftist notions defined by them. There were some lone voices which opposed the vested interests but they ended up as a cry in the wilderness. This book vows to expose them. The author is inspired by Sita Ram Goel who was the single individual who moved the left intellectual mountain in India and took the entrenched ‘eminent historians’ by the horns and exposed their distortions, often deliberate and mischievous. This book’s title is indebted to Arun Shourie’s work on a similar theme titled ‘Eminent Historians’ reviewed earlier here. The idea is that these scholars distorted history and hence this group is called ‘distorians’. Utpal Kumar is an editor at News18 and FirstPost who has more than two decades of journalistic experience. This is his second book.
Historians such as Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, R S Sharma and others fit the bill of distorians. The book includes a catalog of the errors and disasters they had heaped on the national intellect. They are accused to have subverted the minds of people, turned them rootless and apologetic about the past. They regarded the essence of Indian culture, the very ‘Indianness’ to be a regressive phenomenon. Anything and everything emerging out in this land was seen to be the result of either an invasion or migration from the outside. They rivalled each other in duplicity or masquerade to play down the violence inflicted by Muslim invaders on India in the form of destruction and conversion of temples into mosques, forced conversion of Hindus, abducting women as sex-slaves and plunder of the national wealth. The author prudently points out that truth and reconciliation, and not duplicity and deception are the first steps towards amicable relations between Hindus and Muslims in today’s India. Forgiveness cannot precede an admission of guilt. Kumar ascribes the distorians to stoop low to any level to confront their rivals. Writing matter-of-factly about a Muslim tyrant spontaneously becomes an act of Islamophobia. So, Mahmud of Ghazni’s obsession to become a ghazi (holy warrior) or but shikan (idol breaker) is projected in economic terms and sanitized.
The author then makes a survey of Indian history in the remaining chapters and classifies the doctored theories of the distorians according to chronological periods. Their falsification starts with the Aryan Invasion theory in which a set of outsiders from central Asia invaded India and destroyed the original Dravidian civilization and dislocated the natives. However, the contradictions and inconsistencies in this flawed theory are so grave that the distorians are now forced to modify the theory as one of Aryan migration, and not invasion. But it still contains the riddle of the illiterate, pastoral Aryans producing one of the most profound texts in human history (the Vedas) while the urbane, sophisticated Harappans ending up without having any literature of their own. The author argues that ancient Indian civilization is indigenous. Desiccation and drying up of the Saraswati river which took place around 1900 BCE led to the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. Excavation of archaeological detritus and genetic analysis of human remains found at Rakhigarhi in Haryana prove that there is no genetic overlap from the outside and the present inhabitants share the genome. Kumar alleges that the distorians could not comprehend any non-Muslim dynasty far away from Delhi could step into greatness which is exemplified by the cavalier treatment they had given to the Cholas of Tamil Nadu who were reduced to being a regional power though the dynasty had a vast maritime realm to rule. This was the only time Indian forces conquered far-off places. This wicked lot of distorians is interested only in eulogizing defeat and ignoring victories.
The author dispels the false assumption of many people that the Islamic invasions which started in 712 CE were continuous and indefensible. In fact, they were held in check by several Indian dynasties. Arab incursion to Indian coast began in 637 CE, at the time of the second caliph himself. It was only in 712 they could gain a foothold in Sindh with the military victory of Muhammad bin Qasim. There is another false notion circulating regarding the different racial lineages among Muslim invaders: Arabs are said to be gentler but India had the misfortune to give in to Turks or Afghans the most number of times. The book compares the atrocities committed by Turkish and Arab invaders and proves that both were equally cruel and bigoted in decimating the Hindus. This deflates the distorians’ assertion that India had the misfortune to be conquered by the ‘uncivilized Turks’ than the ‘cultured Arabs’. The author identifies the root cause of the similarity in violent actions between the two in the religious tenets of Islam itself which call for these acts to be performed on infidels and concludes that ‘cultured’ Arabs were therefore as brutal and barbaric as the ‘uncouth’ Turks (p.116). Kumar also weighs Akbar’s reign for his tolerance of other religions but this study does not go much deep. It is true that during Akbar’s ascendancy, the state officially relinquished its anti-Hindu stand. Jizya and pilgrimage taxes were withdrawn. However, his acceptance of Hindu princesses into his harem should not be considered as an act of charity or broadmindedness. In his reign, 38 Rajput princesses were married to the royal household: 12 to Akbar, 17 to Jahangir, six to Daniyal, two to Murad and one to Shah Jehan. There were five weddings in Jahangir’s reign, five in Shah Jehan’s and nine in Aurangzeb’s time. Even then, not a single Mughal princess was married to a Rajput prince and all of the Hindu princesses were first converted to Islam before the wedding ceremony. To use modern parlance, this was in no way nobler than the ‘love jihad’! A survey of Tipu Sultan’s real character as a hard-line Islamist and the fall of the Sikh kingdom in Punjab are also included. It also explains why the Sikh contingent fought alongside the British in suppressing the 1857 rebellion. However, his contention that the Sikhs were mortally against any descendant of the Mughal dynasty appears to be an oversimplification.
Another aspect in which the distorians excel is in making us believe that the British took over India from the Mughals. This is total falsehood, since before the British could establish themselves, the Marathas were the numero uno power. Peshwa Baji Rao I was undefeated in over forty battles. Other local rulers could outsmart the Mughals but this fact is obfuscated in the distorted history which is thrust down the bills of unsuspecting students. Defeat of the Mughals at the Battle of Saraighat in 1671 at the hands of Lachit Barphukan in Assam which checked their spread in that region is a largely unknown saga. Moreover, India has never holistically examined the predatory nature of British rule nor sought an apology. It was an era of wanton violence which killed 200 million people and institutionalized loot that drained off at least 45 trillion USD from India to Britain between 1765 and 1938.
The book then examines the freedom struggle and the initial decades of post-colonial India in which power was usurped by the Gandhi faction. In the manipulative historiography, one is made to believe that India’s freedom struggle was all about Gandhi after his arrival from South Africa in 1915. The revolutionaries had played an equally important, if not bigger, role in getting freedom. The presence of revolutionaries and their successes helped Gandhi bargain better deals with the colonial masters who in turn handled them with kid gloves at a time when revolutionaries were made to go through the worst of hardships at the Cellular Jail and elsewhere. When it came to power-sharing negotiations with the British, there was no one left in their ranks to do the talking. This moment was seized by the Gandhians to their advantage who obliterated them from history. The author claims that the free nation born in 1947 was unapologetically Hindu and cites in its support the Vedic rituals held in Rajendra Prasad’s residence in his official capacity as the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly which were also attended by Nehru himself. The illustrations in the original Constitution which freely used Hindu symbols reiterate this point. However, as Nehru’s rivals vacated the political arena, the situation changed and mechanical secularism took their place. It was the Nehruvian conspiracy in the 1950s that saw further ascendancy in the 1960s and 1970s which pushed the country towards a socialist, secular order much against the civilizational grain of this land.
It is unfortunate having to note that the book has not justified the thunder in the title. Instead of a roar arising from painful indignation at the disservice these distorians have been inflicting on the social and political fabric of the country, the author coolly diverges to put together his view of Indian history. I had purchased this book having been sufficiently impressed by the grandiloquent title but it has not been value for money. Of course, Kumar’s perspective on India’s history is very interesting, informative and up to date, but that was not the purpose implied by the title. Instead of going deep into the modus operandi of the distorians – how they secure plum positions in government and academia, how a coterie is formed around them, how they manipulate NCERT textbooks, how they distribute patronage among their acolytes and how they zealously attack dissenting sane voices with the ferocity of a pack of wolves – the author digresses to offer a nationalist perspective of history in a highly condensed form. This exhibits a clear subjective bias which a distorian can easily exploit to discredit the entire narrative. To quote just one example: the author’s attempt to place the Mahabharata war coinciding with the drying up of Saraswati river around 1900 BCE is a little laboured and appears to be not much convincing. On the other hand, his take on refuting the Aryan Invasion Theory is superbly presented.
Historians such as Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, R S Sharma and others fit the bill of distorians. The book includes a catalog of the errors and disasters they had heaped on the national intellect. They are accused to have subverted the minds of people, turned them rootless and apologetic about the past. They regarded the essence of Indian culture, the very ‘Indianness’ to be a regressive phenomenon. Anything and everything emerging out in this land was seen to be the result of either an invasion or migration from the outside. They rivalled each other in duplicity or masquerade to play down the violence inflicted by Muslim invaders on India in the form of destruction and conversion of temples into mosques, forced conversion of Hindus, abducting women as sex-slaves and plunder of the national wealth. The author prudently points out that truth and reconciliation, and not duplicity and deception are the first steps towards amicable relations between Hindus and Muslims in today’s India. Forgiveness cannot precede an admission of guilt. Kumar ascribes the distorians to stoop low to any level to confront their rivals. Writing matter-of-factly about a Muslim tyrant spontaneously becomes an act of Islamophobia. So, Mahmud of Ghazni’s obsession to become a ghazi (holy warrior) or but shikan (idol breaker) is projected in economic terms and sanitized.
The author then makes a survey of Indian history in the remaining chapters and classifies the doctored theories of the distorians according to chronological periods. Their falsification starts with the Aryan Invasion theory in which a set of outsiders from central Asia invaded India and destroyed the original Dravidian civilization and dislocated the natives. However, the contradictions and inconsistencies in this flawed theory are so grave that the distorians are now forced to modify the theory as one of Aryan migration, and not invasion. But it still contains the riddle of the illiterate, pastoral Aryans producing one of the most profound texts in human history (the Vedas) while the urbane, sophisticated Harappans ending up without having any literature of their own. The author argues that ancient Indian civilization is indigenous. Desiccation and drying up of the Saraswati river which took place around 1900 BCE led to the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. Excavation of archaeological detritus and genetic analysis of human remains found at Rakhigarhi in Haryana prove that there is no genetic overlap from the outside and the present inhabitants share the genome. Kumar alleges that the distorians could not comprehend any non-Muslim dynasty far away from Delhi could step into greatness which is exemplified by the cavalier treatment they had given to the Cholas of Tamil Nadu who were reduced to being a regional power though the dynasty had a vast maritime realm to rule. This was the only time Indian forces conquered far-off places. This wicked lot of distorians is interested only in eulogizing defeat and ignoring victories.
The author dispels the false assumption of many people that the Islamic invasions which started in 712 CE were continuous and indefensible. In fact, they were held in check by several Indian dynasties. Arab incursion to Indian coast began in 637 CE, at the time of the second caliph himself. It was only in 712 they could gain a foothold in Sindh with the military victory of Muhammad bin Qasim. There is another false notion circulating regarding the different racial lineages among Muslim invaders: Arabs are said to be gentler but India had the misfortune to give in to Turks or Afghans the most number of times. The book compares the atrocities committed by Turkish and Arab invaders and proves that both were equally cruel and bigoted in decimating the Hindus. This deflates the distorians’ assertion that India had the misfortune to be conquered by the ‘uncivilized Turks’ than the ‘cultured Arabs’. The author identifies the root cause of the similarity in violent actions between the two in the religious tenets of Islam itself which call for these acts to be performed on infidels and concludes that ‘cultured’ Arabs were therefore as brutal and barbaric as the ‘uncouth’ Turks (p.116). Kumar also weighs Akbar’s reign for his tolerance of other religions but this study does not go much deep. It is true that during Akbar’s ascendancy, the state officially relinquished its anti-Hindu stand. Jizya and pilgrimage taxes were withdrawn. However, his acceptance of Hindu princesses into his harem should not be considered as an act of charity or broadmindedness. In his reign, 38 Rajput princesses were married to the royal household: 12 to Akbar, 17 to Jahangir, six to Daniyal, two to Murad and one to Shah Jehan. There were five weddings in Jahangir’s reign, five in Shah Jehan’s and nine in Aurangzeb’s time. Even then, not a single Mughal princess was married to a Rajput prince and all of the Hindu princesses were first converted to Islam before the wedding ceremony. To use modern parlance, this was in no way nobler than the ‘love jihad’! A survey of Tipu Sultan’s real character as a hard-line Islamist and the fall of the Sikh kingdom in Punjab are also included. It also explains why the Sikh contingent fought alongside the British in suppressing the 1857 rebellion. However, his contention that the Sikhs were mortally against any descendant of the Mughal dynasty appears to be an oversimplification.
Another aspect in which the distorians excel is in making us believe that the British took over India from the Mughals. This is total falsehood, since before the British could establish themselves, the Marathas were the numero uno power. Peshwa Baji Rao I was undefeated in over forty battles. Other local rulers could outsmart the Mughals but this fact is obfuscated in the distorted history which is thrust down the bills of unsuspecting students. Defeat of the Mughals at the Battle of Saraighat in 1671 at the hands of Lachit Barphukan in Assam which checked their spread in that region is a largely unknown saga. Moreover, India has never holistically examined the predatory nature of British rule nor sought an apology. It was an era of wanton violence which killed 200 million people and institutionalized loot that drained off at least 45 trillion USD from India to Britain between 1765 and 1938.
The book then examines the freedom struggle and the initial decades of post-colonial India in which power was usurped by the Gandhi faction. In the manipulative historiography, one is made to believe that India’s freedom struggle was all about Gandhi after his arrival from South Africa in 1915. The revolutionaries had played an equally important, if not bigger, role in getting freedom. The presence of revolutionaries and their successes helped Gandhi bargain better deals with the colonial masters who in turn handled them with kid gloves at a time when revolutionaries were made to go through the worst of hardships at the Cellular Jail and elsewhere. When it came to power-sharing negotiations with the British, there was no one left in their ranks to do the talking. This moment was seized by the Gandhians to their advantage who obliterated them from history. The author claims that the free nation born in 1947 was unapologetically Hindu and cites in its support the Vedic rituals held in Rajendra Prasad’s residence in his official capacity as the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly which were also attended by Nehru himself. The illustrations in the original Constitution which freely used Hindu symbols reiterate this point. However, as Nehru’s rivals vacated the political arena, the situation changed and mechanical secularism took their place. It was the Nehruvian conspiracy in the 1950s that saw further ascendancy in the 1960s and 1970s which pushed the country towards a socialist, secular order much against the civilizational grain of this land.
It is unfortunate having to note that the book has not justified the thunder in the title. Instead of a roar arising from painful indignation at the disservice these distorians have been inflicting on the social and political fabric of the country, the author coolly diverges to put together his view of Indian history. I had purchased this book having been sufficiently impressed by the grandiloquent title but it has not been value for money. Of course, Kumar’s perspective on India’s history is very interesting, informative and up to date, but that was not the purpose implied by the title. Instead of going deep into the modus operandi of the distorians – how they secure plum positions in government and academia, how a coterie is formed around them, how they manipulate NCERT textbooks, how they distribute patronage among their acolytes and how they zealously attack dissenting sane voices with the ferocity of a pack of wolves – the author digresses to offer a nationalist perspective of history in a highly condensed form. This exhibits a clear subjective bias which a distorian can easily exploit to discredit the entire narrative. To quote just one example: the author’s attempt to place the Mahabharata war coinciding with the drying up of Saraswati river around 1900 BCE is a little laboured and appears to be not much convincing. On the other hand, his take on refuting the Aryan Invasion Theory is superbly presented.
The book is highly recommended.
Rating: 4 Star
No comments:
Post a Comment