Dare you to write about Babur too
I read your article about the Hindutva history myths (“Rani Padmini and four other Hindutva history myths exploded”). Let me make this clear before putting my two important points: I am not at all an RSS man. I am interested in facts as much as you are.
My first objection: Whether you have put the facts straight or not, but one thing is evident. You have forgotten that you are an Indian and there are many things that we can be proud of, which is not conveyed in the story.
One intention runs through your article: You are not interested in truth or in enhancing the pride of our people. You just want to attack BJP or proud Hindus.
My points are:
1. Even if things we have discovered are not 5,000 years old, we have many things to be proud of. The kind of discovery that has happened in India is extraordinary, and far ahead compared to Europe. One thousand years before Mathematician Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was burnt alive in broad day light in Rome for stating that the earth is not the centre of the universe, our Bhaskaracharya I (600-680CE) already knew that.
2. Our Harappa civilisation may not be 5,000 years old, but it is more than 3,000 years old. That itself is extraordinary. – Ganapati Bhat
***
Girish Shahane has once again shown his ignorance as a student of history. He says that Alauddin was strong enough to take Chittorgarh without any stratagem. This is absolute nonsense. Chittorgarh was sacked only after a diabolical mechanism and subterfuge by Alauddin. The Mewar Chronicle is clear about it and Col. Todd, the foremost authority on Rajputana, has corroborated it. Alauddin did the same in Jalore where Viramdev died; Alauddin's sister had fallen in love with Viramdev. So this story peddled as history by Shahane is nothing but frustration of a devious mind. – Shivraj Singh Rathore
***
The article should have been supported by some research papers. The bare ideas of the author seem to be correct. Indians kings have been always fighting with each other. There is no concern for human rights in India. Like women, the Shudras have always been not only neglected deliberately but also tortured. There are so many evil practices in the society even now. Falsehood regarding happy India continued through ages. – Birkhe Ram
***
Everything you have written is wrong. But please write about how Babur and other foreigners invaded India, destroyed temples, raped women and produced illegitimate children like Owaisi and Zakir Naik. Then they made a different country – Pakistan – where all Hindus were killed.
Please write if you are brave. – Raj Saini
***
Poets always embellish and change the incident in a way that it becomes interesting to the reader. They are not writing history. If you do not understand this simple fact, one can help you.
The problem with Indian rulers was the need to constantly engage in warfare as a matter of routine. This had nothing to do with spreading any religion or even establishing a centralised empire. They were also tired and fed up with this state of affairs. This had nothing to do with Hinduism. Indian kings did invade neighbouring countries. Their technology was not adequate after the 6 century CE. Vivekanada had this in mind when he spoke about this.
If you doubt the age of the civilisation, go ahead and read some books on it. There are plenty of good ones. Meanwhile, stop drivelling. – YS Prahalad
***
I went through whole article to find some explosive proof but unfortunately there is none. It’s a list of the author's belief based on some sequence of events. I agree with his conclusions that some glorification has happened, but not at the level he purported from his title.
He could not provide any proof except the lack of proof to support old stories. If we apply the same yardstick, a lot of historically accepted facts may turn out to be false due to lack of a second source to corroborate the primary source. There is, in fact, no proof of Taj Mahal ever getting built in a way myths are propagated nor the Qutab Minar even. Why do we accept these stories then?
A lot of glorification happened for non-Hindu rulers also. Glorification does happen for all kind of rulers, but picking it up selectively for Hindus is a kind of biased reporting. Girish Shahane should write a comprehensive piece examining all different historical myths taught to us in history books, not just about Hindus which are mostly about sacrifices to inspire the native Hindu population of India to rise up to conquerors from foreign land who were converting them forcibly to foreign religions. – Atul Kumar
***
It was great reading about the false myths being perpetuated. History in India has always been twisted to suit the powers to be. The British almost annihilated our sense of history. The Leftists, along with the Congress, perpetuated it.
How else can you explain the total absence of the mention of the massacres in Delhi when the British recaptured Delhi in 1857, destruction of temples by Muslim invaders, destruction of the economy by the Brtish, and almost negligible mention of South India regarding culture, history and religion.
Indian history, as per the Leftists and the Congress, was more apologetic. – Raju Parekh
***
I was surprised at the lack of knowledge of Girish Shahane. He, like the western historians, tries to make his impression on the history as we know it. He can be a good writer on Indian politics, but my sincere advice is to let the history be as it is if you don’t have the evidence to support it.
Do you have any evidence about who the king and queen of Chittorgarh during the 11th century were? If you don't, please don't waste your time to implore what your perception is. There are lots of myths but the one against Sanskrit is really bad. It’s an old language and has been in use long before the written script was developed, and definitely a point to make us feel proud of our history.
Let’s have a debate, a healthy one to start with. – Aashish Saxena
***
Whatever Swami Vivekananda meant by those statements you mentioned here, the general tone of yours to implicate him as if he were someone no better than those Hindutva brigades or Muslim fanatics is a clever ploy to show your apathy towards him. No doubt you are entitled to your own opinion, but you need to examine the context too as statements can be interpreted differently depending on one's intentions. You would do well to read his recorded conversations with his close or foreign disciples to assess his actual intentions fully.
As for Padmini or anybody else, I do not think all of those historians would have recorded – for or against – only the truth. – Muralidhar KC
***
I would suggest Girish Shahane to visit a few places where he would be able to see more than 5,000 years old proof of culture in India. I would completely disagree with his opinion that Sanskrit is not the “mother of all languages”. Before Turkey or Ukraine exited in the region, this language used to be popular in many educational institutes back then.
There were discrimination based on caste for sure, but non-violence happened only after the period of non-Hindu religions kings. – Ramesh Kumar
***
I love your articles, but one thing I want to know is why all your posts are Hindu bashing or BJP bashing. Why is it that every time that I get to see the dark side of Hindutva on your page? You can show the truth of the other things too. – Jeet Pattanaik
***
Girish Shahane has written this article after reading Wikipedia. Even a small amount of preliminary research and a tiny amount of common sense would have exposed this blathering man who is brave enough to write out his ignorance:
1. Embellishment of the stories of kings and queens happens across all cultures and religions. Nobody in their right mind would accept these stories as God-given truth. Saying that an author made a story more interesting by promoting the underdog (in this case Chauhan and Ratan Singh) is like saying Hindusim grew only because of these colourful stories.
2. Another myth that 'Hinduism is non-violent'? Shahane has again confused political conquests with religious ones. Hindu kings did not forcibly convert. Vedic Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and all kinds of esoteric cults grew under the Hindu kings. Politicians of all times fight and kill but all that was meant by Vivekananda was that ‘live and let live' was promoted by Hinduism.
3. Just writing "5000 years old" against everything the author dislikes doesn't make it true. Nobody who has done even a little bit of research would ramble that everything Hindu is 5,000 years old. That scroll of Shiva is from 1500 BC (that still is 3,500 years), Vedas were 'written down' in around 600 BC. – Anuroop Gogi
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I read your article about the Hindutva history myths (“Rani Padmini and four other Hindutva history myths exploded”). Let me make this clear before putting my two important points: I am not at all an RSS man. I am interested in facts as much as you are.
My first objection: Whether you have put the facts straight or not, but one thing is evident. You have forgotten that you are an Indian and there are many things that we can be proud of, which is not conveyed in the story.
One intention runs through your article: You are not interested in truth or in enhancing the pride of our people. You just want to attack BJP or proud Hindus.
My points are:
1. Even if things we have discovered are not 5,000 years old, we have many things to be proud of. The kind of discovery that has happened in India is extraordinary, and far ahead compared to Europe. One thousand years before Mathematician Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was burnt alive in broad day light in Rome for stating that the earth is not the centre of the universe, our Bhaskaracharya I (600-680CE) already knew that.
2. Our Harappa civilisation may not be 5,000 years old, but it is more than 3,000 years old. That itself is extraordinary. – Ganapati Bhat
***
Girish Shahane has once again shown his ignorance as a student of history. He says that Alauddin was strong enough to take Chittorgarh without any stratagem. This is absolute nonsense. Chittorgarh was sacked only after a diabolical mechanism and subterfuge by Alauddin. The Mewar Chronicle is clear about it and Col. Todd, the foremost authority on Rajputana, has corroborated it. Alauddin did the same in Jalore where Viramdev died; Alauddin's sister had fallen in love with Viramdev. So this story peddled as history by Shahane is nothing but frustration of a devious mind. – Shivraj Singh Rathore
***
The article should have been supported by some research papers. The bare ideas of the author seem to be correct. Indians kings have been always fighting with each other. There is no concern for human rights in India. Like women, the Shudras have always been not only neglected deliberately but also tortured. There are so many evil practices in the society even now. Falsehood regarding happy India continued through ages. – Birkhe Ram
***
Everything you have written is wrong. But please write about how Babur and other foreigners invaded India, destroyed temples, raped women and produced illegitimate children like Owaisi and Zakir Naik. Then they made a different country – Pakistan – where all Hindus were killed.
Please write if you are brave. – Raj Saini
***
Poets always embellish and change the incident in a way that it becomes interesting to the reader. They are not writing history. If you do not understand this simple fact, one can help you.
The problem with Indian rulers was the need to constantly engage in warfare as a matter of routine. This had nothing to do with spreading any religion or even establishing a centralised empire. They were also tired and fed up with this state of affairs. This had nothing to do with Hinduism. Indian kings did invade neighbouring countries. Their technology was not adequate after the 6 century CE. Vivekanada had this in mind when he spoke about this.
If you doubt the age of the civilisation, go ahead and read some books on it. There are plenty of good ones. Meanwhile, stop drivelling. – YS Prahalad
***
I went through whole article to find some explosive proof but unfortunately there is none. It’s a list of the author's belief based on some sequence of events. I agree with his conclusions that some glorification has happened, but not at the level he purported from his title.
He could not provide any proof except the lack of proof to support old stories. If we apply the same yardstick, a lot of historically accepted facts may turn out to be false due to lack of a second source to corroborate the primary source. There is, in fact, no proof of Taj Mahal ever getting built in a way myths are propagated nor the Qutab Minar even. Why do we accept these stories then?
A lot of glorification happened for non-Hindu rulers also. Glorification does happen for all kind of rulers, but picking it up selectively for Hindus is a kind of biased reporting. Girish Shahane should write a comprehensive piece examining all different historical myths taught to us in history books, not just about Hindus which are mostly about sacrifices to inspire the native Hindu population of India to rise up to conquerors from foreign land who were converting them forcibly to foreign religions. – Atul Kumar
***
It was great reading about the false myths being perpetuated. History in India has always been twisted to suit the powers to be. The British almost annihilated our sense of history. The Leftists, along with the Congress, perpetuated it.
How else can you explain the total absence of the mention of the massacres in Delhi when the British recaptured Delhi in 1857, destruction of temples by Muslim invaders, destruction of the economy by the Brtish, and almost negligible mention of South India regarding culture, history and religion.
Indian history, as per the Leftists and the Congress, was more apologetic. – Raju Parekh
***
I was surprised at the lack of knowledge of Girish Shahane. He, like the western historians, tries to make his impression on the history as we know it. He can be a good writer on Indian politics, but my sincere advice is to let the history be as it is if you don’t have the evidence to support it.
Do you have any evidence about who the king and queen of Chittorgarh during the 11th century were? If you don't, please don't waste your time to implore what your perception is. There are lots of myths but the one against Sanskrit is really bad. It’s an old language and has been in use long before the written script was developed, and definitely a point to make us feel proud of our history.
Let’s have a debate, a healthy one to start with. – Aashish Saxena
***
Whatever Swami Vivekananda meant by those statements you mentioned here, the general tone of yours to implicate him as if he were someone no better than those Hindutva brigades or Muslim fanatics is a clever ploy to show your apathy towards him. No doubt you are entitled to your own opinion, but you need to examine the context too as statements can be interpreted differently depending on one's intentions. You would do well to read his recorded conversations with his close or foreign disciples to assess his actual intentions fully.
As for Padmini or anybody else, I do not think all of those historians would have recorded – for or against – only the truth. – Muralidhar KC
***
I would suggest Girish Shahane to visit a few places where he would be able to see more than 5,000 years old proof of culture in India. I would completely disagree with his opinion that Sanskrit is not the “mother of all languages”. Before Turkey or Ukraine exited in the region, this language used to be popular in many educational institutes back then.
There were discrimination based on caste for sure, but non-violence happened only after the period of non-Hindu religions kings. – Ramesh Kumar
***
I love your articles, but one thing I want to know is why all your posts are Hindu bashing or BJP bashing. Why is it that every time that I get to see the dark side of Hindutva on your page? You can show the truth of the other things too. – Jeet Pattanaik
***
Girish Shahane has written this article after reading Wikipedia. Even a small amount of preliminary research and a tiny amount of common sense would have exposed this blathering man who is brave enough to write out his ignorance:
1. Embellishment of the stories of kings and queens happens across all cultures and religions. Nobody in their right mind would accept these stories as God-given truth. Saying that an author made a story more interesting by promoting the underdog (in this case Chauhan and Ratan Singh) is like saying Hindusim grew only because of these colourful stories.
2. Another myth that 'Hinduism is non-violent'? Shahane has again confused political conquests with religious ones. Hindu kings did not forcibly convert. Vedic Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and all kinds of esoteric cults grew under the Hindu kings. Politicians of all times fight and kill but all that was meant by Vivekananda was that ‘live and let live' was promoted by Hinduism.
3. Just writing "5000 years old" against everything the author dislikes doesn't make it true. Nobody who has done even a little bit of research would ramble that everything Hindu is 5,000 years old. That scroll of Shiva is from 1500 BC (that still is 3,500 years), Vedas were 'written down' in around 600 BC. – Anuroop Gogi
