Read Part 1 here
Imagine a country called X, a country with a continuous lineage of 5000 years. And it was filthy rich. In fact it was richer than the rest of the world, at that time, put together. And everyone knew that. For the ancient non X, earth dwellers who were not cavemen, X was not a country but an entire freakin continent. And their papyrus scrolls showed it that way.
Rest of Asia, You are not worthy to be on our precious papyrus
Anyways, as what happens to a rich house in a poor locality, all the have-nots in the world, realizing how much wealth was there for the taking, converged onto X. They came in droves, time after time, to help themselves to the unlimited booty on offer. And after a while (seventeen times), someone just said ‘screw it, let’s settle down in India once and for all’. And in the process they claimed X theirs, by birth.
It was as if a huge guy walked into a house, sat on its sofa, took out a cigar, and said the house belongs to not only him, but his ancestors as well. Without even as much as looking at the original inhabitants. What would or could the poor souls do?
This is my house now amigo...
Whatever they did, it will still be better than what our historians have done.
If you haven’t guessed it by now, Country X is India and the huge guy is an allegory for the various Islamic hordes from regions as far as Mongolia to modern day Kazakhstan. So instead of telling our children who this guy really was and what he really did, we have deified and honoured this invading band of tribes. In fact most of our medieval history is dedicated to these bunch of rear-cracks, for reasons I don’t know. And as our historians lack ’round objects below the abdomen’ to present the true picture of the Islamic rule, let me do the job for them.
India’s first encounter with an Islamic ruler started when a douchebag named Mahmud Of Ghazni landed here in 1004 AD. You might have come across this guy in your textbook as the dude who raided the Somnath Temple, a little over 17 times. However, what our historians have neglected to mention is that this guy did not just raid the Somnath temple, he demolished it every time he came. In fact at one point of time he was so pissed off by our resilience, he massacred about 50,000 Somnath inhabitants, razed the temple to the ground again, smashed the ShivLing made from solid gold into tiny little pieces and then embedded them in the steps of the Jama Masjid back in his home town of Ghazni, so that the people could step on it while going to pray.
Had there been a thesaurus.com in the 1st century AD, the first entry for the words evil, horror, despicable and other similar words, would have been Mahmud Of Ghazni.
If evil had a face..This had to be it
And if obliterating one temple was not enough, he also destroyed the temples in Ujjain and Dwarka and sacked them. In fact, in all his invasions he never tried to consolidate his rule in India. All he wanted to do was loot and kill. To sum it up, He came, he saw, he destroyed, he looted, unleashed an evil laugh and went back. In Fact he was so evil and caused so much damage to our country, that our friends in Pakistan named a freakin missile after him, just to harness his India destruction potential.
This was what was left of it after the first launch...
And that he was evil is not something that is being made up. This was what his own biographer had to say
“In the interest of his successors he constructed, in order to weaken the Indian frontier, those roads on which afterwards his son Mahmud marched into India during a period of thirty years and more. God be merciful to both father and son! Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims. This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far away from those parts of the country conquered by us, and have fled to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir, Benares, and other places. And there the antagonism between them and all foreigners receives more and more nourishment both from political and religious sources.” Source.
The biographer was executed.
This guy, who will be right up there, in any ‘top 10 evil men of the century’ list, should have been portrayed as the evil version of the evil Gabbar Singh, a bandit and a mass murderer. Instead our historians admire his persistence and perseverance. And then, we also name a freakin movie after him.
It is like an MBA book, citing the Nazi holocaust as a case study for logistics management. Perseverance, you must be kidding me.
Sacking and razing the great Indian temples was not the only contribution made by Mahmud of Ghazni to our history. He was the guy, who basically showed the desolate regions in central Asia that the unlimited Indian wealth was there for the taking and you just had to turn up. He was the guy who laid the foundation of Islamic rule in India for the next 700 odd years.
And we admire his perseverance.
After Mahmud of Ghazni, all the emperors in the central Asian wilderness were itching to go to India for its limitless wealth. But it took them a 100 years to actually gather up enough men and material to mount another invasion, simultaneously giving Indians time to replenish their treasure stocks. While we were coming back to terms with life, Mahumd Of Ghazni married 9 wives, sired 56 legitimate children and got bitten by a female anophles mosquito and died of Malaria (Never underestimate an angry mosquito). After long years of internal squabbling, Mohammad Ghori (Ghauri) finally ascended the throne of Ghazni in A.D 1178. And promptly attacked India in A.D 1191.
Opposing him this time was the Rajput king, Prithviraj Chauhan, who famously eloped with Princess Samyukta, right under the nose of her father, Raja Jaichand of Kanauj. Mohammad Ghauri, thanks to the lessons learnt from Aamir Khan Mahmud of Ghazni, was so overconfident about his impending victory that he was already planning the after victoy pillage party when he came face to face with ‘My profession, hobby, passion and happiness is war’ Prithviraj Chauhan, at Tarain, some 150 Kms from New Delhi.
He got his ass kicked.
He was not just defeated, he was totally routed. In fact, he got his backside kicked so badly, that he was captured by Prithviraj Chauhan whom he begged for mercy. And much to the consternation and objections of his courtiers, (who wanted to chop Ghori’s head off), Chauhan magnanimously spared Ghori’s life and let him return back to Ghazni with his head on his shoulders.
But Ghori, like all other ungrateful wretches, attacked Chauhan again in A.D 1194.
Using some skulduggery and deceit, he somehow manged to defeat Chauhan and his army and captured him alive. He promptly entered Delhi and massacred some 100,000 people combining it with some general pillage and loot thrown in. He then went back to Ghazni, where he executed the man who spared his life three years before. Chauhan was killed with the full knowledge that he had signed his own death warrant.
So according to our Historians
Prithviraj Chauhan, a merciful king, who in a total departure from the general rules of warfare, spares the life of his adversary and under whose aegis, the famous sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chisti was able to establish the famous Ajmer Dargah, is not worthy enough to be mentiond.
While, Mohammad Ghori, an ungrateful wretch, killer of a man who spared his life and 100,000 more, gets more space than Emperor Harsha and Palas put together.You think this is travesty, well it only gets worse from here. And yes, Pakistan named another missile after this guy.
Mohammad Ghori, did not have any heir, so he basically carved up his empire among his different Turkish Slaves, with Qutub-ud-Din aibak given the kingdom of India or Hindustan as it was known then. And that started the Delhi Sultanate. Here is a list of the other Delhi Sultanate Rulers
Qutub-Ud-Din Aibak: 1206-1210
Iltutmish: 1210-1236
Razia Sultana: 1236-1240 (Murdered in 1240 because she refused to wear a veil, was secular, tried to appoint a Hindu to an important position and had a relationship with an Abyssinian slave. Resurrected and murdered again by Hema Malini in 1983)
Balban: 1246-1290
—————-End of the Slave Dynasty——————————-
1290-1320 Alauddin Khilji : Was probably the best of the Sultanate kings. No religious porgorms were reported, and there were no widespread massacres in the name of religion. He was also known to restore a defeated king to kingship in exchange for tribute and gold.
However, his general, a eunuch named Malik Kafur, a Rajput who converted to Islam, marched upto Tanjore in the south for some plunder. He negotiated in such a way that he did not have to fight a single battle till he reached his destination. He/She went south as far as Tanjore, desecrating and sacking temples in Srirangam, Madurai and Chidambaram and taking their solid gold idols away, which was his intention. However, it must be said that unlike the Mahmud of Ghazni, nothing was demolished and all the looting happened without the usual accompanying massacres.
It is said that when Kafur returned to New Delhi, he/she returned with 612 Elephants, Twenty Thousand Horses, 96,000 Thousand Nams (Approximately 241 Tonnes) of Gold and the usual countless boxes of jewels and pearls.
And an eunuch in Delhi was never insulted after that.
This was about the last time, there was a sort-of benevolent Delhi Sultan, as most of the time, the term benovelent Delhi Sultan was an oxymoron. Also please remember Alauddin Khalji, for he has a role later on.
1320-1413 — The Tughlughs: World Famous
1414-1451 — The Sayyidis: Another gang
1451- 1526 —- The Lodis: The Last of the Sultans.
—————————————————-End of the Delhi Sultanate——————————
(The only reason why there is a description for Alauddin Khilji is that, he was the only one who was the chip off the block. The rest were almost similar in nature and evilness. To know more about the others, Please read Mahmud Of Ghazni, do a Ctrl C and a Ctrl V)
With all these crackpots, (yes Mohammad Tughlugh included) the Delhi sultanate lumbered along for 300 years, with different kings coming, killing and naming different areas in today’s Delhi (Ferozshah Kotla and Tughlaghabad, after Feroz Shah Tughlagh, Lodi Gardens after Ibrahim Lodi and so on) after them and then mostly, getting killed.
I can go on and on about the not-so-nice details that our historians have skipped in this era, for reasons best known to them, but won’t for reasons of brevity. Please read this book or visit this website, if you want to know more about this period. However, I will point some of the really big omissions.
Qutub-Ud-Din Aibak is described by the Indian historians as a slave who worked up to be the king. However, he is famous because of of the eponymous ‘Qutub Minar’ in New Delhi. Our historians lavish some unnecessary praise for what is at best a tall building, shaped like a particular part of the male anatomy.
Big deal
This is what the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) plate at the minar says about this totally pointless tower.
‘It is the perfect example of a minar known to exist anywhere in the world. The variegated plan of its three lower stories the projecting balconies with stalactite pendentive brackets and some more mumbo jumbo.’
However, what our eminent historians have apparently forgotten to mention or deliberately ignored is, that 27 temples were utterly destroyed and the stones from those very temples were used to build this tower. And the builders were bloody proud of this fact. So proud, that Aibak and his successors had the gall to inscribe it on the eastern gate of the Qutub complex.
27 temples destroyed for building this ‘thing’ and all our historians do is praise its variegated, pendentic brackets.
Just another thought, isn’t it ironic that most of the areas in our national capital are named after invaders, temple destroyers and who imposed taxes on poor innocents who just happened to be non-Muslims? I doubt any other nation on this planet honours their destroyers in this manner. (America even changed it’s metric system to wash itself off the British influence). Most importantly, nothing is named after the ones who actually did a lot of good for our country.
The Delhi Sultanate, with the exception of Razia Sultana, Balban and Alauddin Khilji, actually was nothing more than a bunch religious fanatics, who rose to power almost miraculously and then somehow sustained it. However, whatever they did pales in comparison to who followed them, The Mughals.
The name Mughal itself is quite an accident. Genghis Khan, in his many conquests across the length of world, had some fun when he was doing his stuff in Central Asia. The result was a awkward hybrid between Mongol and Persian, which resulted in the name Moghul, which became Mughal. Genghis Khan, gave these guys the right to rule as long as they recognized the superiority of the Khan. All was well, until Genghis Khan died.
Kingdoms those days, especially the central asian ones, were not entirely unlike a bunch of kids in the first standard. Totally quiet till you have a teacher in a class, only to explode the moment teacher leaves. The only difference was, these guys had swords, spears and cannons to settle their disputes.
So amid all the bloodshed and anarchy, there rose a warrior who united them all. And he was lame and he looked like the illegitimate child of the ugliest ogre.
This was apparently his best pic
So lame guy, kills everyone else, captures the capital city of Samarkand and declares himself king. And then attacks, you guessed it right, India.
Attacking and plundering India was like a high point in a Mongol’s life, something you had to do to prove to rest of the world that you were a man. Mongols, before Timur, repeatedly attacked India, and once almost defeated the then emperor Alauddin Khilji. Which was when Khilji decided that shit had really hit the fan. So the next time Mongols came, he sent the now legendary Malik Kafur after them, who annihilated them in open battle. And just to drive home the message, Khilji had all the prisoners (some 10,000 dudes) trampled by elephants, their heads cut off and displayed as scarecrows outside his fort in Siri.
The Mongols did not come back.
Till Timur the Lame.
When Timur the lame, attacked India in A.D 1398, the Delhi Sultanate was in a total state of anarchy. So he basically had a free pass. Brushing aside whatever little resistance he faced, he got busy doing what was considered his dynasty’s expertise.
There are a 100,000 people in this stadium
Just imagine, every single human in this crowd, speared through the chest, decapacitated and their heads stacked up in a Jenga like formation outside a city. Which was exactly what Timur the lame did.
To discourage resistance or mebbe he just got a kick out of it, Timur killed 100,000 ‘non Musulmáns’, cut their heads off and built a skull-wall outside Delhi. When the terrified Dilliwallahs capitulated, he walked in and killed the rest to the last man, woman and child, excepting the quarter which had ‘saiyids, the ‘ulamá, and other Musulmán’ and went back with another trove of cash, gold and jewels. He also apparently sent out an order that, every soldier in his looting column had to return with at least two severed human heads to show him.
And, how did Timur justify these dastardly acts of violence: ‘Muslim Delhi Sultanate was too tolerant toward its Hindu subjects’. Yes, too tolerant.
Built entirely using Indian money
And the first emperor of the much celebrated by our historians, Mughal Dynasty, Emperor Ẓahīr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Babar was the great great grandson of this murdering wretch. Yes, a direct descendant.
So now you know why the ancestry of the great Mughal empire has been conveniently hidden from us for so long. You don’t want to tell the people that the empire we celebrate the most, and dedicate the maximum space in out history books to, is directly responsible for the most destructive religious and ethnic cleansing ever in Indian history. And as portrayed in our textbooks, Babar did not land in India because he was a great visionary or an emperor. He came here simply because he had nowhere else to go.
He tried to capture Samarkand, in modern day Uzbekistan where he got his ass kicked by the Uzbek king Shaibani Khan. Reduced to a wandering nomad but with the support from the then Persian king, he landed at the gates of India, where to his luck the Lodi’s were in strife. And before you know it, he was the ruler of India. And he had the temerity to claim the throne of India, ‘as his right’.
And he was scary
Babur set about expanding his kingdom, defeating the Rajputs, capturing the fort of Chittor and also is credited with the world’s first execution by firing squad, when he ordered his musketmen to kill the 100000 prisoners of war. His rule was in no way better than the others, as Indian historians potray. He defaced Jain temples in Rajashtan, simply because he could not stand them. And ofcourse he demolished the most famous temple of all, the temple at Ayodhya to build the eponymous mosque, the Babri Masjid. So Babar is directly responsible for the communal tension in our country today. And our historians, lead by the esteemed Ms Romila Thapar continue to deny this, in face of clear evidence, and as a result we are kept completely in the dark.
On a related note, it is deeply distressing that the most comprehensive work detailing the wanton destruction of temples and massacres perpetrated by the sultanate and their successors comes from a Belgian Historian, Koenraad Elst. Yes a Belgian
The next part will delve further into the excesses and the occassional benovelence of the Mughals.
Personally, I want these not-so-good things to be expunged from our History for obvious reasons. But when I read successive chapters in Indian history textbooks dedicated to the glorification of these very emperors, I felt I had to bring out the real story. I apologize if I hurt some sentiments, It is not my intention. But I ask
- Why glorify the Mughal rule, when it was their ancestor who was the architect of one of the most destructive religious pogroms?
- If you are mentioning Ghazni’s 17 incursions and describe him as persistent, why not tell what he actually did those 17 times?
- When you credit the Delhi Sultanate for bringing stability to India, why hide their less glorious stuff like forced conversions, wanton looting and ‘jiziya’?
- Most importantly, Why do you think our countrymen cannot handle the truth?
Rest in the next post
Disclaimer: I am not communal nor am I a right winger, and my religion has got nothing to do with this post. I just want the true story to come out. Stories that have been omitted by our historians for political reasons, which will never ever be revealed.
The Kaipullai's Vetti Thoughts : The outer playground of my inner devil 
Good work sesh
Hi. Found your blog to be an amusing/interesting read. Looking forward to the next part of this post. Will we see it anytime soon? Cheers!
Great read..superlike!!
good one kaipulla… something that i have always thought..
Woooh…..tat was big….tat was a blast…as usual….sema sesh…!!! 🙂
amazing work !!! to think that all our history textbooks supposedly begins and ends with the mughals..
That’s one burning
right-wing backcrack!
Was eagerly eagerly waiting for this one since the previous ones got released. It is time we realized as a nation that we lost a lost of our identity in the past. As far as the Babur’s temple demolition goes (also known today as Babri ‘masjid’ demotion) there is a lesson for us to learn from the Ghazini raids, we bloody built the temple over and again for 16 times before he finally got bored of going back again!!
Albeit in a different place!!!
allauddin khilji was also not much different.. he was responsible for jauhars (an act when in the fear of defeat and the humiliation afterwards, rajput women put themselves to fire in large numbers) happened at chittor in rajasthan..
I don’t think I can ever read this completely, man. You’ve painted a really dark picture of the natives of India – using a really broad brush. If you look at world history, even as far East as Malaysia & Indonesia, the natives were easily cowed into or coerced into conversion. On the West of Arabia, even recently Sudan had to split into 2 parts – South Sudan with a Christian majority while Sudan with a Muslim majority. The natives of these nations no longer relate to their ancestors’ beliefs or their ancestors’ value-system.
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The persistent & consistent attacks of Ghazni is highlighted (not just in history books but even in debates & speeches & our mainstream media) – but one should really look at the persistence & consistence of the STRONGER ENEMY of Ghazni – an enemy that has survived not just 17 or 18 but possibly 17 million of such attacks – and is continuing to surive it.
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Having said that, I wholeheartedly agree with your premise – that the current education system is hell-bent to destroy any respect we have for our ancestors or our native culture or tradition or our very own history. And that’s how leftist, communists, socialists & other such despicable creatures want to portray it.
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MN
The resilience of our countrymen is legendary and implied. I mean, the fact that we not only have survived, but thrived in spite of all this is a testament to our ability. And the post is no way an indictment of our weakness. Hell we are the world’s oldest continuous civilization for a reason.
The intention of this post is to correct the Indian Historian’s, one eyed view of the Islamic rule. They say Mughals and the Sultanate gave us peace, security, architecture and some other things. All I want to say is, guys, this happened to. And when you glorify them with the former, also tell us about the latter. And the latter part is disturbingly missing from all our textbooks and will never ever be added to them.
Apart from the volumes of history we cram mindlessly, I thought http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/play/vir-das-history-india-through-stand-comedy-351928 was a genre-cally complete take on the history of India. It was comical, satirical, even thought provoking for those who like to chew. Until this piece.
It’s a known fact that history is a collage of collective chronicles..some of which we personally choose to remember and some are politically deleted from public memories. But to prove these words correct by framing so many examples is a difficult task. And the ease with which you have pulled it off is mind-boggling. The same old facts interspersed which such important an gory details condoned by us through ages.Incredulous! I am actually ashamed of not interrogating myself about these horrific lacunae in Indian History. Though there are a couple of points, esp during the mid-moghul era, wherein I still feel that it wasn’t as black as painted here. Or wait, you are silent about that. But nevertheless, this is amazing. So proud of you for the endeavor!
Mid Moghul era is the one the one I am tackling in the next post. Both it’s good and bad aspects. Actually wanted to deal with them in this post itself, but then by the time I came to Babar, the post was already stretching to 3000 words. So I had to stop.
Hey KS,
Amazing writing …Afterall, history is just a story told by the survivors and it is the story the way they write it. Its a shame that even the Indians being the survivors chose to glorify the invaders and despise our own ancestors. This loss of a community feeling of Indians alone (in the entire world) bursts an outrage and brings about a nostalgic feeling about our golden age.
However, many historians claim that to maintain regional and communal peace, they have to ‘PACIFY’ the historical content. They even might be pressurized by you know who… I mean the British History is written in a partial way to glorify the Congress…. I also think that in a country of ours with frequent riots all the way in every bloody decade, I think its our fault that we are not able to take this in a peaceful way. The reason of whatever Hindu-muslim Unity thrives in India as opposed to our neighbours, is the very reason that we dont criticise the invaders that rampaged.
Next post?
I am not able to find it….
Agree with you mostly. But you are dead wrong about the Ghazni dude’s seventeen times conquest of Somnath. It was one of the myths that are taught as history. Here is the correct timeline – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnath#Timeline Last time it was built by Rani Ahalya Bai although Mahadji Shinde had some contribution.
Before that murderous Turk destroyed the temple, Arab governor of Sindh destroyed it. After Somnath was broken by Ghazni dude, Solankis and Parmars resolved their differences and decided to confront him while he was returning, so he had to bribe few Hindu kings of Central India so that he could choose a different route in secrecy. Refer to Sita Ram Goel’s book on Hindu resistance (or his original source material – book on Rajput kings by Dasrath Sharma, the first Indologist who researched and documented Rajput history).
Prithviraj did not capture the sultan, Qutabuddin Aibak rescued the seriously injured Sultan in first battle of Terrain. Prithviraj did not fight alone, a Rajput confederacy helped him. During second battle, the confederacy declined to help since he refused to pursue the fleeing Turk army to finish the job. The Samyukta affair is mostly a stupid legend, King Jaichand was pissed off with Prithviraj because despite knowing that Jaichand’s daughter Samyukta is Prithviraj’s cousin (both dynasties were related to Sens of Bengal through Marriage) he wanted to marry her. Because of Jaichand’s annoyance and Chauhan’s staunch adherence to ridiculous Khatriya code of honor, most Rajput Kings barring Rana Uday Singh (I may not get the name right) refused to help him again.
Thanks for your comment sid. These tid bits of awesome info makes this blog a better read and also helps it achieve it aim of educating, maybe .00000001 percent of the population of our glorious past. Which sadly has been ignored.
man u r saying that this is The real story of the Islamic rule that we were never told then how could u come to know all about this if its true…..
I read, Non cbse/state board history books, written by eminent historians. All this info about Islamic rule (other than their glorious stories) should have been in my school history books and unfortunately it isn’t.
Hi Kai,
I’m grateful to you for writing this blog as it glues the bits and pieces I knew about our history. However, I wouldn’t like my kids to read all this in his secondary education.
A lost battle is always a battle of massacre and a victory is always glorious. We never feel a thing in glorifying burning of Lanka by Hanumaan be it fictional or real. After reading these articles, even I get angry and have disturbing thoughts, can not imagine how a child would feel.
Once again thanks for the history.
Lol, You can never know the true history, what if tomorrow someone proves that your claims are wrong, just before couple of week I came across some article which was saying that Aurangzeb was not cruel, but very noble. Should I believe it, no?
Fool are the people who are praising you of writing this baseless article,
what you have written is your own creation.
Well you wrote one lakh or so Hindus were killed by Taimur in Delhi at one go – Had he offered them the choice, “death or Islam”, don’t you think most of them would have embraced Islam to save their lives?
In fact to add to KS post I’d say that the true history is already available and recorded by the people who lived at that time. Most Islamic rulers had what was called a “nama” – an official biography maintained. These are the first sources of evidence for the events that happened. None of these namas ever say that the king was benevolent with the hindus and non-muslims. They take pride in saying they mutilated and destroyed the non-muslims. Yet it is our Marxist historians and pseudo-secular historians who represent the same information with a twist – that of the Islamic ruler being a great conqueror!
Well written although it tends to tilt in the opposite direction, making the Hindu kings and rulers to be really “paavam”.
None of them were ever gentle or politically correct. Whoever had the upper hand really took it, and did barbarous things to those who were defeated. After all, history no matter who records it is a point of view. The truth can be told from different points of view and different people’s opinion influences how things are recorded… History is always the point of view of the victors!
Wikipedia wasn’t there either. Even they can only glean their facts from what was officially recorded and passed on. So although we can all claim to know the truth, it is unlikely that even one of us has the proper story!
-Kaveri
History is always the point of view of the victors yes. But does it mean Romila Thapar and her left leaning historians are Mughals? The so called victors are long gone. Even the English have left. Why don’t we make our own history, an Indian history which just states facts without being judgemental.
U must be really dumb to ask such a question! Most of the facts are written in wikepedia..u just need to read and relate.and it’s written in the text books too but the emphasise is on the wrong areas…tars what the author is questioning!
Kuch bate galat hai
just going into details out of intrest
Amazing write up. To take the time out to write about this , takes a lot of patience and thank you for educating us. I will need to read jus this post atleast 4 times to fully comprehend the no. of times we were raided and by all the people in the world!!!
Also, ur really funny, i laughed my head off for 2 mins on the mosquito comment! It was so funny!
amazing post , for all the dudes who could read tamil i recommend reading madans vandaargal vendrargal which details the conquests power politics and acquistions from delhi sultanate to mughal rule
Boss, very interesting reading. WHY DON’T YOU MAKE IT INTO A BOOK – It would make terribly interesting reading – with all pictures and all. And keep your comments and ideas and stuff intact. Don’t let anyone one touch any of all that. We INDIANS of TODAY badly need a History Book that we can truly relate to.
I don’t think any publisher would be interested in an author who is maybe 7 blogposts old and writes about Indian history. But thanks for the encouragement 🙂
Don’t underestimate yourself. If you are passionate, which I see you are, just go ahead and write your book. It does not take a publisher to publish an ebook.
Internet is great medium, and if your stuff is good, it can go viral, and publishers will come to your doorstep.
It’s like the indian history version of cracked.com
You can say that. And Indian History, I believe, needs to be told in a cracked.com style, so that it reaches out to more people.
Kaipulla, perhaps you should read this http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/05/why-and-how-i-self-published-a-book/ and decide on whether to self publish or not.
naam Sunil hai, hero yahan ban raha hai bhenchod
I’ve read 3 of your blogs, PLEASE write a book! This is amazing stuff!
Hi KS, in your effort to make people know real history, I think you can probably try and avoid inflammatory comments like: “he looked like the illegitimate child of the ugliest ogre”….that gives an impression that you are anti-Islamic. This type of writing will take away your credibility. And I also tried to find others say about the Belgian historian whom you have referred: (From Wiki)
“Thomas Blom Hansen described Elst as a “Belgian Catholic of a radical anti-Muslim persuasion who tries to make himself useful as a ‘fellow traveller’ of the Hindu nationalist movement”
There is criticism for every historian. Koenraad elst is a polarizer but so is everyone who criticises him, like Michael Witzel. And, If you see I added that disclaimer in the end of the post for that precise reason.
And as for Timur well, He was ugly you know. Nothing personal, He was just ugly. 🙂
If you had said the same thing as above about Timur, he would surely have got his count 100001 instead of 100000, as you mentioned above. And, someone else would have to write this kind of stuff to enlighten us. 🙂
Why are you so worked up about timurlang’s looks? You related?
“2. If you are mentioning Ghazni’s 17 incursions and describe him as persistent, why not tell what he actually did those 17 times?”
I distinctly remember thoughts of anger towards Ghazni after reading about his invasions in school as a child. So i assume that the textbook my school used did describe the nature of his invasions,
Just a point that different people may have had different experiences with the way history was taught.
Wasn’t Alauddin Khilji the guy who massacred and beheaded 1000 Buddhist monks in one night and burned down the greatest university humanity has known – Nalanda?
No, there is not a single Islamic ruler who India can be proud of
No the guy who destroyed Nalanda was a dude called Bhaktiyar Khilji. The destruction of Nalanda happened in 1203, a good 90 years before Alauddin Khilji ruled. And I Do not think there is any relation between these two people..
Bhaktiyar Khilji was the first attacker of Nalanda but IIRC Aladdin also attacked Nalanda later and finished the job that Bhaktiyar started. Anyway I am not very sure about it so you might have the more correct version
Bhaktiyar was the first looter but later on Alauddin Khilji went and finished the job that Bhaktiyar Khilji started, IIRC. But I am not sure about it and it might just be that Aladdin had nothing to do with Nalanda after all
In any case the main point being no Islamic ruler was worthy of mention.
Also, I am not sure there is enough evidence to suggest that Qutub Minar was actually built by Qutubuddin. Or for that matter the other monuments like Red Fort, Taj Mahal, etc. In fact when it comes to the Taj the official biography of Shah Jahan called Badshahnama itself very clearly sez he took the temple palace (tejo mahalaya) from Raja Jai Singh and gave him some land in the outskirts of Agra in return.
What the Islamic kings did consistently was to ‘hadapofy’ the buildings of Rajput kings and paint / etch some quranic verses on the outsides, humiliate the rajputs, and claim them for their use.
Wrote an email to you earlier…copying those contents here in another post coz I think your readers also can become aware of them.
According to Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Bakhtiyar Khilji converted the maximum number of people in India till his time. Alauddin was from the same lineage of Turkish tribe but was not related apparently to Bakhtiyar Khilji.
Also I sent you an email but am not sure if it went to your inbox or the junk folder. In any case the contents of the message could be interesting knowing for your other readers as well so I’ll copy-paste it here –
I totally enjoyed your writing style and I think it is a very good way to introduce History to people. I am one of those rare species who excelled (being totally immodest here) at school in History – again being immodest, I was so good that my History teacher would verify with me if she taught right in class. However, my career is not in History or Archaeology or any of those sciences – I work like many Bangaloreans in the IT industry.
But my love for History has always remained and I have learned a lot more about human history in the last couple of decades since my 10th. One thing I wanted to share with you, especially since you also seem to be aware of Historians like Koenraad Elst, is some more about the truth of Indian History. You already know of the Islamization of Indian history and the poor representation of Indian history between 600 AD to 1200 AD. Are you aware of India’s History before say 500 BC? Do you believe Alexander was a contemporary of Sandracotus (Changragupta) the Mauryan? Do you believe the Buddha existed between 600-500 BC? And do you know how the European Indologists came up with those dates?
Are you aware that Indian History has been meticulously maintained locally for more than 5000 years since 3102 BC? I want to request you to know the true History of our land – that we were never invaded by some race called Aryans. No there were no Aryans ever that invaded our land. In fact there is absolutely no race in humanity called Aryan race – its all cock and bull concocted by the European Indologists in the 18th century. In fact the chief culprit Max Mueller himself confessed to the crime in his last years but by then the Aryan bandwagon had somehow brought some kinda identity to Prussia and under Bismarck they formed a collective identity (Bismarck was the Hitler of the 19th century in terms of unifying Germany (Prussia)). The Brit plan to subdue India thru these wild theories of some aryan race backfired like the wrath of their god in the form of Bismarck and later Hitler.
Anyway, I call upon you to know more about our History and the mistakes of how Maurya and Gupta were confused by early European Indologists. Chandragupta Maurya existed in around 1500 BC. The Buddha existed during 1800 BC. Buddhism was an atheistic philosophy that arose because for 300 years between 2100-1800 BC the whole of the Indian subcontinent went thru a drought caused by shifting of a tectonic plate (as confirmed by modern Geologists) which dried up the river Saraswati (as confirmed by NASA photographs of the dry bed of Saraswati and the excavation of more than 2600 cities along its dry banks in the last decade). When people prayed to their Gods and the Gods did not send rains down for 300 years it became a catalyst for atheistic philosophies like Buddhism.
Please find out more about our actual chronology here –
http://trueindianhistory-kvchelam.blogspot.in/2009/06/puranic-chronological-dates-of.html
And here’s another very interesting research on civilization –
http://19000years.blogspot.in/
Want more of it
@ MN dated october 28 2011 : “Even the Jews went around running to Europe – returning back only when Mr. Hitler showed them their place.” ….
Well, this isnt about Jews!!! this is about the atrocities that were committed on our people by the invaders ………. and before you continue about jews, let me tell you that they , just like us Indians , have contributed a lot to humanity , definitely more than the barbarians that KS is talking about in this blog !!!!!
Had to edit your comments man. I tried to preserve your message though. This is a blog, and I don’t think anybody wants a full fledged religious war here. Hope you understand…
Have also edited the offending part from MN’s comment. So Peace 🙂
Wow! I had always heard my parents and elders in my family speak of the atrocities committed by these Afghans and Mughals, and I had also read Shivaji Maharaj’s Biography, so I was aware to some extent. But you have compiled it in a lucid way and I hope that this goes viral over the internet so that most of our generation atleast read it.
And yeah, you should totally make a book out of it! Keep Writing!
Dude, awesomely funny. This is actually an excellent way to learn history.
Even I used to wonder why there was a Big hole in history in the 1st millenium AD. Also why the huge cultural influence of India on the South East asian states (former chola subjects as you mentioned) were never historically explored. A hell of a lot of Interesting South Indian history is also left out. Being from Kerala, I personally felt bad that our Kingdoms’ victories (Travancore against the dutch and the Zamorin against the portuguese) etc were also left out. Places like Muziris etc also find no mention.
While your facts are all agreeable, you need to maybe be a bit more careful about presenting them, especially since it looks like you’re going to be popular. You emphasize much on lineage, about babur being descended from tamurlane etc, which is really not an issue. Babur was a bastard on his own, tamurlane was one on its own, the lineage is a fact. The emphasis is the sort of historical excuse that the hindu right wing draws for continued attempts at alienating the minority. And its a vicious loop, ghettoization and isolation of a community doesnt really lead to a brighter future for the community. I merely suggest that as you get more popular, you closely monitor what sort of people jump on your writing to feed their self righteousness.
But then perhaps it is exactly this sort of concern that caused the assholes to screw up our history to such bad state now. And maybe India is finally ready of awesome irresponsible (in a good way), carefree humour. So i dont know.
Keep this up.
Mr. Rameez has hit the nail on the head. The reason why Indian history from 1000 C.E. has been distorted is to a large extent because the Indian government is extremely sensitive about anything that may increase communal tensions. The recent flap over a 60-year old cartoon featuring Dr. Ambedkar and Mr. Nehru should help us understand why our politicians are so skittish.
Very nice KS.
Couple of points on two events in Indian history:
1. India’s first major encounter with Islamic invaders took place in 712 A.D when the Indian king (Dahir) of Sindh was defeated(as is commonly believed). There was a subsequent battle in 738 AD (called, battle of Rajasthan) where a much bigger invading army was fittingly defeated which stopped further attacks for next couple of centuries. This if true generates considerable pride :), but I am not completely sure of its veracity. So, curious about your thoughts.
2. There have been a few wiki links describing a battle which took place in 1033 AD in present Uttar Pradesh, in a town called Bahraich where again the invading army (ghazni’s nephew being the leader) was completely destroyed. This too if true is a high point of Indian history. Again, I am not sure of the truth here & wanted to see if you have comments.
Lastly, since major defeats against foreigners occurred only 3 times (712, 1000-1020 & 1191) in a span of 500 years (from 700 AD- 1200 AD), I tend to believe that local rulers used to be quite powerful most of the times. I do not find analysis of this observation anywhere. thoughts?
Sid
yes. Hindus fought unitedly only one battle called battle of bahraich(near Lucknow) where ghazi saiyyed salar masud head was cut by sukdev Singh head of rajput army and by slouttering 100000 Muslim invaders of present Iran making sure for another 200 years no invader could venture enter in india
Seriously? Your board didn’t discussed these things? 😐
Anyway, your board didn’t discussed these doesn’t mean “they have been omitted by ‘our’ historians”. All of these are well discussed in text books of West Bengal board and backed by the findings and quotes of ‘our’ historians. I wish I could share my ninth and tenth standard text books here.
I’m not expert in history but I can point out the following discrepancies…
1. In all probability that ’17 times’ is a myth. Sultan Mamud destroyed Somnath Temple only once as suggested by Wikipedia. Even the two sources (Wikipedia link and the book by Sir Elliot) you provided doesn’t ever mention that he did it more than once. Either you should backup that claim with some reference or edit your article. But then this particular fact has been already pointed out fellow commenter Sid and you thanked him. I wonder why didn’t you edit the article.
2. You have linked the portion “smashed the ShivLing made from solid gold into tiny little pieces and then embedded them in the steps of the Jama Masjid back in his home town of Ghazni, so that the people could step on it while going to pray.” to a Wikipedia page. But I guess you didn’t cross check what Wikipedia refers too. One of the citations (citation 19 – Online Gallery (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/other/019xzz000000562u00010000.html)) just says that the folding doors of the Mosque and Tomb was the Sandalwood door of Somnath Temple (which was removed and transported back to India by the British in 1824), but does not mention anything about the ‘Linga smashing’. The other citation (citation 20 – Temples of India (http://books.google.co.in/books?id=TjAA3y1zmBgC&q=“died+on+the+way”)) is rather funny as it suggests that Mahmud ‘could not reach Gazni and died on the way’ and he did invaded Somnath only once. So you (and whoever wrote that part in Wikipedia too) should find some relevant reference to backup the ‘smashing and embedding’ theory.
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Weak in History
KS,
You’ve written some very good stuff here. I’ve already read 4 of your blogposts today itself. Immensely informative and entertaining reading this has made.
Few members of my family would educate me on exactly the things you’ve said and even about older Indian Dynasties. It was awesome to revisit.
Few comments/suggestions.
1. Give citations. Facts should be verifiable.
2. Be Neutral in your tone. It was easy to mistake you for a Right-Winger.
I think you’ve still some ground to cover to write a book. 😛
not some ground, but a lot of it, to be honest.
And, I think I have given citations wherever necessary. If you need more, do tell me where and I will point the source.
KS, Though I agree with your motive (There are other aspects of our history which are neglected in our text books), I think you lay too much emphasis on showing Muslim rulers in a certain way.
What happened in our country during that time also reflect a lot on our native rulers of that time. Gharui-Chauhan saga shows how foolish PrithiviRaj was in his dealings with the muslim invaders. You might want to celebrate him as a chivalrous and merciful king but wasn’t it his foolishness that allowed the Central Asian nomads a stronghold in India.
History is a great teacher, problem is our ancestors never seemed to learn anything from it. Fellow Rajputs (including Jaichand) didnt support Chauhan in the second battle of Tarain. This was the beginning of the elementary form of divide and rule which first the mughals and later Brits exploited in a more advanced form (and now our politicians are in more sophisticated form). Did we learn anything from the example of Chauhan?
And thats not one example, there are many in our history. Why the hell did Rana Sanga (if I recall correctly) allowed Babur to come and invade Delhi. Rajputs at that time were very strong and even had certain portions of Sultanate under them, and yet they allowed Babur to come all the way and capture Delhi. What happened next in Battle of Khanwa is known to all. Chivalry is all good but wars and battles are not won just on them.
And as far as cruelty is concerned, I think even Hindu kings can be questioned on that aspect. Isnt it a wonder, that our history books also dont talk much about why Buddhism suddenly vanished out of India.
Well that can be a topic for one of your blog posts 🙂
the disappearance of Buddhism is an interesting topic. Rest assured, it will be one of my posts in the future.
And can you please tell me where you picked up the fact that Rana Sanga, invited Babur. I haven’t found anything a book or a website, mentioning that pice of info.
Not sure if I used the word invite 😉
One of the reasons given for Babur’s ascendency is that Rajputs of the time thought that babur, like his ancestors, will come, raze delhi and go back to his homeland. And then they will bring the already weakened Delhi under their control. Perhaps they misjudged, perhaps they should have never let Babur take fancy for the Indian lands. In fact, some rajputs even supported him in his conquest of Lodis. And I dont think that they learned any lessons from ibrahim Lodi’s defeat in Panipat. Dont think anyone analyzed what inflicted such a heavy defeat on an army that was much bigger in numbers than the one Babur commanded. Rajputs approached Khanwa the same way as Ibrahim Lodi approached Panipat and result was no different.
Had Rajputs attacked Delhi before Babur (Those Lodi nobles who supported Babur against Ibrahim Lodi could have very easily supported Rajputs as well), perhaps it could have presented another of those ‘What If’ scenarios that you mentioned in your other post.
The reason I read somewhere is that Babur had guns. Lodhi did not.
I think that part of the reason for the disappearance of Buddhism from India is related to Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics, which may be difficult to argue and even more difficult to prove. However, a historical and somewhat anthropological account of the spread, distribution, and disappearance of Buddhism in India (and continued presence in Sri Lanka and elsewhere? – Part 2 :-)), written in your irreverent, humorous style will be extremely interesting. I will be looking forward to it.
As far as I know, Rana Sangha invited or joined hands with Babur to stop the Turks or the Mongols who were at that time well known as cruel and barbaric, while no one had idea fo their intentions.
Also contrary to common belief, Akbar had committed mass murders and that was the reason Rana Prathap turned against him. Had he not killed innocent women n children in Chittor, Prathap might have got into ‘treaty’ with him like other Rajputs
arunshourie.voiceofdharma.com/articles/scandal.htm
The hindus-killed-buddhists theory is a scam of the same “historians”.
excellent do keep it up, waiting for more, but ya why not borrow the good thing from present ncert
Would wait for the next part. Would also appreciate some light on Akbar who was also as brutal atleast in his early years n how he committed mass murders in Chittor. And yet again no mention of the great Rajput king, Rana Prathap
I really appreciate your efforts in bringing out the truth.
Man, you really do some serious digging! hmm.;-)
Recently I too meandered through history of India over last 2000 years via Wikipedia. It was fascinating! It was interesting how over two thousand years ,the horses and men with genes (that originated, mixed, and remixed from as far as Mongolia, central Asia and southern and eastern Europe) must have drunk waters of Narmada. the fact is, whether we like or not, all the invaders of the Indian subcontinent are part of our history and lineage. No doubt they were ruthless. All invaders are ruthless. That is how it works. When Indian kings fought amongst themselves (and they fought a lot), they were no angels with each other. Case in point- Kaliga war. But these invaders stayed, intermarried and mixed and faded in the huge cauldron of humanity that is India. The only ones who were different than those and who truly enslaved and raped India are British. They took everything home. They truly didn’t care about India. The only thing that was good about British was that they were not Spanish or Portuguese. So we didn’t share the fate of native Americans.
MY FIRST TROLL 🙂
bloddy … hindu b*****d, your entire koum couldnt lift a finger against these external rulers and now u are trying to be a hero writing bullshit blogs.
Write about why hinduism is the most lamest thing to happen to mankind, with all this sati shit and casteism and the harms it has done. Bartard.
Casteism is not a part of hiduism. caste system is (just like everywhere in the world). the two are not the same.
Sati is a togetherness concept (live together, die together just like all love stories and songs you love) and nowhere is it suggested to be practised the way it was.
Can’t comment on the rest of your post because you won’t understand it.
Dear KS,
The human kind from the Pharaohs of Egypt to Sonia Gandhi of congress is brutal, greedy, murderous. Fucking get over it.
Point was – why do they make some kings “great” while others are given a miss although all have had their positive and negative actions?
Too good.. Very enlightening…A real eye opener…I was infact looking for information on this topic & when i stumbled upon your article i instantly knew i stuck gold!
Very good article !! I completely agree that our history books are cooked up…I am disgusted Why the students are taught the truth.
Sorry missed a NOT in above statement..which changed the meaning.
I am disgusted Why the students are NOT taught the truth.
Thanks
Hey Shesh,
This is really interesting and going in a right direction.
There is a say that “How you achieve is imporatant than what you achieve”. Any Islamic ruler glorified in India is a contradiction to the this saying including Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan from south. Just that our politicians cannot lose the massive vote bank these so called minorities provide them and hence they are pampered and truth is not disclosed.
When you blame our historians just keep in mind that they are never allowed to do what they are best in doing. Influence of politics is causing this torn and rotten history reaching children and public.
You are doing a amazing job, please let me know if I can help you in some sort in this amazing process.
Warm Regards….
Really shocking!! but one thing i dont understand, what people of Hindustan were doing when an idiot like gazni attacked 17 times. People might be the same as of now who are tolerating the corrupted politicians over 50 years.. Because of the people the invaders are coming and looting us. still it is going on and it is roman empire in India. They are also looting…. and we will be like this forever..
Nice article. can we put it up in our site http://www.ariseindiaforum.org?
BTW I don’t know whether you have come up across this piece of life as lived by Islamist king – http://voi.org/books/mssmi/ch12.htm.
And more here by Elphinstone himself, the person behind the British empire – http://www.archive.org/stream/thehistoryofin02elphiala#page/288/mode/2up. I read it from end to end to realize the immense amount of political, economic and spiritual damage done by Islamists, and in particular Mughals to the nation of India.
The amount of damage done to the nation(as in these chronicles) – is so immense that I was left to wonder as to how we Hindus even survived this holocaust of nearly 1000 years – leave along our religious, spirituality and culture. Its a testimony to the resilience shown by our ancestors to getting easily and conveniently digested by the depraved culture of the invaders.
And, the fact that all of this is missing from our textbooks is the proof of hypocrisy of our so-called secular intelligentsia and leaders. Such negationism should is tantamount to hiding the truth, and in fact a perjury in the court of public opinion. But how long will the truth be hidden? If India has to rise intellectually and spiritually again – these facts have to come up in open, and we have to confront the dark reality of yesteryears…
A sense of outrage fills my being as I come to know of these incidents.
Thanks for sharing. please let me know what you think of my offer.
Sure…Please put up any article you want, no issues from my side.
Thanks for the bit of history.Enlightening !
Bro ……it was an interesting read………..
Different from what I learned in text books…..
But ultimately wot is ur point here…..If there is a point that is you are catering to a community which is hungry about anything and everything like this ….
All the stuff u have written is from some source of history ..all historians have a emotional quotient and based on some propoganda…..for or against
My advice to u is instead of digging the waste bin …..MOVE ON…. Unhate each other …
Any I loved the way u write Hatts off….
Um, you do realize that this is the way the world worked back then? Defend yourself or be conquered?
Not just the Muslims, all the present-day residents of outer Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana are descended from Scythians (Sakas) who were invaders in the post-Alexander era and then settled down in the North West.
Chandragupta Maurya was given the honorary title “Sakamuni” for temporarily repulsing them. Practically all high-caste NorthWestern Indians are descended from this mixed invading population. So don’t feel bad on behalf of “the Hindus”, because the Hindus worst affected were themselves recent converts from Scythian and Indo-Greek Buddhism, and only a few hundred years ago, themselves part of destructive invading forces. There is no monolithic “Hindu” population for you to take offense on behalf of. And religious persecution has always been around. Right back to the Hindu-Buddhist wars in the Gupta and Maurya periods, to Kanishka’s Buddhist invasion and conversions (yes, not all Buddhists and Hindus were peaceful saffron-wearing chubby folk)
You, sir, have a terrible grasp of history. I’m sure you were horrified by the bloodshed in the middle ages. What you ignore is that the world was almost entirely a horrifically violent place back then. My problem is, your source regarding everything seems to be Amar Chitra Katha.
You do know the Prithvi Chauhan story of “initially having Ghauri begging for mercy on his knees” is bullshit? I really hope you do, because that song was created many years after the event. Don’t confuse ballads with history, since you do claim to be “revealing” history in a realist style, which is actually an admirable attempt and one I commend you for, in principle.
If you expect historical figures to be “peaceful” you have another thing coming, man. Your grasp of historicity is, forgive me, truly awful.
You strike me as an intelligent sceptic. I wish only for you to extend the same hypothetical doubt to phases of history you have embraced as sacrosanct. Think about how the only sources we have for the pre-Mughal era (Timur is not Mughal, by the way, hahahaha, but that is the smallest of worries in your largely inaccurate writeup) are ONLY state sources. How do we know about Ashoka? Why do we know so much about him? Because his edicts survived. We are hearing about a great and benevolent king wriitng about himself, about “moral officers” he has appointed, which is a cute term for spies, and treasonous THOUGHTS (yes, thoughts) are punishable by death. Ashoka also held massive conversion camps, which if any Muslim ruler had, I’m sure you would be jizzing yourself about right now.
Dude, relax. Religion is a political force, always has been. There is nothing worse in the name of religion than our beloved caste system. Even Tipu Sultan, true warrior against the British, was a bigot. BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS. You think Hindu Rajputs had some kind of lovely affection for Muslim subjects?
And please, stop the Hindu-Muslim binary. We all know it’s more complicated than that. And these weren’t “Muslim” invaders. They were Persian, Afghan, Turkic invaders, with nothing in common with each other except their religion, not even their cultures were similar.
I was reading the Babarnama for research the other day, and found an interesting passage. Babar writes to Humayun, telling him, “Take care that the women of your household cover themselves and wander not far, the Hindus and Sultani Muslims of this region do not tolerate free movement of their ladies. Show respect to their customs.”
Nasty, isn’t it?
I suggest you ask yourself the intelligent question: Are people really that different? Does being Muslim enable people to enforce worse cruelty? Or is it an invisible bias we possess?
Our country has a violent past. But we sadly pretend that only half of that past was truly bloody. All in all, sir, the reason we’re not taught this in textbooks, is because while history is important, it is far too violent for young children. Best explain it in terms of “resources”, which is what it has always been about.
I was born Hindu. I watched films like Gadar, heard stories from my grandparents about Partition-era violence in the villages they live in. Even today, my grandfather tells me there was no violence till they heard about the Train from Pakistan, which came in with murdered and raped Hindus on it. But it always sounded too convenient to me.
Sadly, I also have another grandfather. Whose father personally engineered the mass murder of Muslims in Dadri, Haryana (he tells me with glee of how his father told local Muslim men, women and children that they would be taken to a settlement, then took them into the scrub and set fire to all of them. He says the entire region acted first, before they’d heard any reports of violence elsewhere). They started much before the train ever came in, even before the official announcement of Partition.
Don’t believe the larger paradigm. Be smart, as you generally are, but try for smarter. History is complicated, not a large X-versus-Y narrative into which everything neatly fits.
And man, I notice you’re not from the North. This is and always has been a brutal place, the North West. It’s not about Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs. Killing has been a profession here for a long, long time. When you think “Hindu” you put yourself in Prithviraj Chauhan’s shoes. Don’t do that. You don’t know anything about him.
Regards,
Sid
I still do not understand the point you are trying to make. Are you questioning my historical sources and my knowledge? or are you questioning the tone of my post?
I am not trying to bring out cruelties of the Islamic rule…All I am questioning is why have they been eliminated from our books and only the glorious parts retained..
I am sorry to say this, but you sir, are just going round and round in circles without arriving at your destination.
And also, Atleast I have stated sources in most of the places, while you sir have not. Please do quote some sir
Yeah right.
Oh the one hand you made sweeping arguments like “all Islamist rulers were fanatics blah blah” and then when you are found out you say “Oh I am not trying to bring out cruelties of the Islamic rule”..Cute bro. You are really cute.
Sid,
Dude you kind of trivialized all the violence KS emphasizes upon by saying North West is like that. Killing has been a profession there…blah, blah… This is a very insensitive statement since basic culture is quite similar across whole of India (incl current Indian NW). Even if one agrees on North-West being like that, did you think why it is so?
Very apparently because of invaders. (You disagree?) and definitely not because of a magic potion which people there have in their supper.
And it is these invaders’ deeds that KS is trying to throw light on.
Another point to ponder is why any Indian kings or British rulers are not (in)famous for destroying any mosque/temple…. though many M-kings can take credit for doing the same to others. Be it Abdali’s sacking of Golden Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Durrani), or Ghazni’s Somnath or Babar’s Ayodhyaya. May be Babarnama you read only contains some less critical rosy details of what happened….
About stopping the H/M binary. Being a pacifist when much turbulence is around is a sign of dumbness & not a helpful greatness. (It can be though good, to you personally, if you have no attachment to others in general)
Timur was an ancestor of Babar (mughals) : read 1st paragraph, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur
You freaking are so busy doing this nasty “hahaha” that you fail to check even basic available material.
Lastly, using personal experience/conversation with relatives to convince others about a point is a very bad practice, precisely because there is no corroboration of the “facts” supplied. They can still be told about, but can’t be used as any sort of evidence.
Siddharth
Indian kings too did destroy mosques etc. though this was not so frequent occurrence as Muslim Kings were doing. In times of Vijayanagara empire Srikrishnadevaraya is said to have destroyed the Muslim mosques etc. during his invasions and also greatly insulted a Muslim king who begged for mercy; and that is said to have paved the way for future alliance of ever quarrelling Muslim states. After him Alia Ramaraya too did such things [though on the other hand he sheltered and brought up a Muslim prince from childhood] – that too consolidated the fury of the Muslim enemy states and ironically Ramaraya was killed (after capture) right in front of this Muslim prince (whom he sheltered and brought up) who did not even utter a plea of mercy to save him!
Sid, you are exactly the kind of person who would be chosen to write the whitewashed history textbooks that KS seeks to correct.
Your egregious naivety comes out in two important points you make –
1. “……… the world was almost entirely a horrifically violent place back then. “ Every Hindu ruler was brutal, so what if the muslim invaders were.
Well, codes of warfare before the advent of the turks and Mongols was a different matter altogether –
When a king subdues a neighboring state, he places over it a man belonging to the family of the fallen prince, who carries on the government in the name of the
conqueror. – Elliot & Dawson’s History of India as told by its own Historians
Whereas among other nations it is usual, in the contests of war, to ravage the soil and thus to reduce it to an uncultivated waste; among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighborhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for the combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they never ravage an enemy’s land with fire, nor cut down its
trees.
India: A Civilization of Differences: The Ancient Tradition of Universal Tolerance by Alain Daniélou, quoting Greek traveler and historian Megasthenes (c. 350–290 BCE)
In all her history of warfare, Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity. – Basham AL (2000) The Wonder That Was India.
So basically there was a code of conduct that stipulated (a) no violence against non-combatants (b) no raping and dishonouring the falling king’s subjects (c) no destruction of religious places and (d) no looting of the vanquished nation’s wealth.
And what happened during the muslim conquests? Just the very exact opposite of the said Hindu codes. Large scale destruction of temples, monasteries and libraries, wanton killing of ‘infidels’, rape and enslavement of unbelievers and massive booty-taking from every available source.
2. “… They were Persian, Afghan, Turkic invaders, with nothing in common with each other except their religion……”
What an imbecile. I am sure you didn’t know that out of the 114 chapters of the most holy quran, the eighth-longest is a chapter titled “SPOILS OF WAR, BOOTY”.
Since you seem so utterly ignorant, I’m sure you also didn’t know that islam, the religion peace, of encourages (with heavenly rewards) deeds such as –
(a) Undertaking military expeditions to spread islam
(b) forcible conversions of the local populations
(c) destruction of temples, gurudwaras, churches, vihaaras and other places of non-muslim worship
(d) subjecting captured POWs to slavery
(e) having sex with slave women
(f) imposing unjust taxes such as jizia and kharaj
(g) taking such measures as to make non-muslims willingly submit, and feel themselves subdued.
I shall not cite any source here. Just read the quran. And if you still can’t get it, the hadeeth, and the sira.
very true
“The Delhi Sultanate, with the exception of Razia Sultana, Balban and Alauddin Khilji, actually was nothing more than a bunch religious fanatics, who rose to power almost miraculously and then somehow sustained it. However, whatever they did pales in comparison to who followed them, The Mughals.”
Hahaha really? You need me to explain why your writing is ridiculous?
I really would appreciate if you did that
Oh wow, Salim Chishti and the Ajmer Dargah? Hahaha come on, “sources” my arse, why don’t you just try a basic google and do us all a favour…
You know even less than I imagined!
Prithviraj Chauhan wasn’t even ruler of Ajmer! It wasn’t part of his kingdom! But nice of you to imply he “allowed” MOINUDDIN CHISHTI (you can pay me for factchecking your horrible post later) to set up his dargah, aww the benevolent Rajputs, weren’t they nice?
If you’re pretending to be accurate, cite your shit. You can’t include sources selectively and then gas out whatever you feel like in the rest of the post. Very amusing, though.
Well Wiki first line…Prithvi Raj III, commonly known as Prithviraj Chauhan (1149–1192 CE), was a king of the Hindu Chauhan (Chauhamana) dynasty, who ruled the kingdom of Ajmer and Delhi in northern India during the latter half of the 12th century.
Read the rest of the page..I am not going to make it easy for you. Google it. Google some more, go to flipkart, buy India A history by John keay and turn to page 233.
I am not a historian and I might have made a mistake. I am willing to correct it. But please use civilized language, so that we can make this post an accurate source of information to all the readers.
And if you desire sources for my comments, why don’t you simply google the keywords, not too hard I hope.
Scythians, Indo-greece, Sakas, Sakamuni for starters.
The rest is mostly common knowledge, but you can google Ashoka’s dhamma officers too if you like.
babarnama is available open-source, translated from the persian. It’s a very good read, if you’re interested in an account of history. Obviously, it’s not historical in the present sense, in that wonderful adjectives are used for babar later on. But it also contains letters between father and son, which are refreshingly clear of the flowery flattery indigenous to Indian accounts (Babar still wrote like a Samarkandi back then)
Did you just cite WIKIPEDIA as a source? Hahaha I’m leaving. Bye.
You do realize wikipedia is just a collection, itself agglomerated from sources. Scroll to the bottom of the page, see if every single line you’re quoting is footnoted and where it comes from. This is why history is tough. It’s not about opinion, but fact. And factual research takes time.
And aww poor bunny, Chishti came with Ghouri as part of his entourage. No “permission” given by any Rajput king to set up his dargah. Hey, who cares, it’s just history, let’s make it up out of thin air!
Hey, but I hope you feel good about “figuring it all out” lol
You’ve found the truth!
Thanks for visiting my blog and taking time out to comment. Will keep the tips in mind when I write the next post.
Thanks again, and I really mean it.
This post is not an accurate source of information. You are not a historian, and you haven’t done your research, that is why it is not. You can write what you want, but pretending to be stating the objective truth even if cloaked with your colourful opinion, is not as innocent.
It’s called lying. Academic dishonesty. But since no one checks your blog, you can get away with saying whatever you want. All I can do is hope your readers are smart enough to treat this as entertainment and realize your desire to find the truth is only cosmetic.
Seeing the comments above though, seems your readership is perfectly suited to your low level of intellectual curiosity. Did enjoy your kingfisher piece (will go back and fact check now that I know what low standards for “facts” you have), everything else is comic.
Aw man now I feel bad. Just became angry because false history has real consequences on how people view the world today. If you genuinely wish to examine the history of India, read the original texts. And what’s more, learn how to separate the fluff from the probable fact even within these texts (herodotus wrote of flying elephants in persia, etc.)
There is a technique to this. And sadly, India is full of amateur historians whose books are embarrassingly unacademic and would fail an undergraduate course in a decent American university 😦
Also, most of our wikipedia articles have been polluted by uncited content, and even when citations have been made, they lead to forums (the main citation on Chauhan’s page, I just saw is to a forum! Not research, but a FORUM) or some small-time amateur historian’s book.
Most of the Mughal period has books written about it (by insiders as well as outsiders), and these make for interesting reading. They are all available online, and they are fascinating.
Also, India’s share of global GDP was actually highest during the early Mughal period 🙂
I was a history student at Harvard (undergrad), and I learnt to appreciate the scientific rigour with which history must be approached, but isn’t in our country. Your attempt is commendable, for our textbook history is insipid and biased (ICSE was what I was exposed to). But not always biased in the direction we expect 🙂
Goodnight, and if you like, I would not mind receiving emails from you regarding any future blog posts you would like a dissenting opinion on. You don’t have to take in my recommendations, but it’d do good to truly examine whether our country’s narrative was as simple as tradition would have us believe.
I would love to share my drafts with you before I publish them. And I would love to have a dissenting opinion, as that is what is required to improve this blog.
Thanks a lot. Please do share your email address, kaipullai@kaipullai.com.
Looking forward to interact with you.
Mr. Sid, I for one would be interested in a civilized and erudite rebuttal of Mr. Kaipullai’s post. I think we would all learn and benefit. You ridicule Mr. Kaipullai’s writing, his research, and his sources, but I do not see anything concrete from you (your general comments on ancient bloodlust notwithstanding). At least Mr. Kaipullai seems to be sincere in his efforts and entertaining to boot.
That’s it! Entertaining to boot. Even as I had “a POV” as all history is, KS’ writing is immensely readable with chuckle every now and then. Go on KS!
Sid why don’t you read Bharatvani http://www.bharatvani.org and then try and disprove anything that is written there. Then let us talk.
I am sure a lot of reading has been done for such a detailed blogging and its on HISTORY :). Now I really feel why do we need History as a subject on our school text books glorifying the wrong people, which surely has a negative impact on our younger generation.
Myself, if I look back on the impact History readings have had on me, I can only remeber Islamic dynasty just because of the wrong glorification and the maximum content speaking abt such emperors than the one who really need a mention.
Thanks for the blog, its an eye opener for many like me.
Having read the last few comments, seems the article should come with a disclaimer as well.
ie., Facts at your own peril ?
Having read ur Kingfisher post ,this one & Dr.Sreedharan’s , i was getting hooked onto ur style of writing,substance & above all ur sense of creating awareness. It would be nice , if there are any corrections to this article or others ,as & when its pointed out by people with expertise on these subjects…it should be highlighted as well for more credibiltity.
I have tried to be as factually correct as possible. May I ask which particular comment you are referring to? Coz there are some people who make claims, but then don’t back it up with sources, which i then cannot incorporate.
But I have corrected the articles,as you can see with the Kingfisher article and the Greatest Heist Part 1 article.
Thanks KS. Appreciate your reply.I can’t vouch on the authenticity as i wouldn’t want to double check the facts on history (Forget about being an ameutuer historian !! , not even remotely an history freak )& also on every article i read .
It was to emphazize that if any of those claims ,if verfied & if satisfied and genuine should be highlighted. My comments were solely based on the last few comments & the discussion veering on it .
1
Keep up your goodwork & look forward to more.
Visiting and revisiting history is good. It can be very enlightening and many times evokes strong emotion, which may help in reinforcing identities. But there is peculiar problem of visiting history of violence. The emotions that it strokes up tries to find a target, especially when it mixes with asserting identity of US and THEY.
Mr. KS, I highly appreciate your study and your effort in bringing out history as it is and calling spade and spade. But I feel uneasy, as people start indirectly identifying themselves with the victims of 1500 year old carnage, and there is unconscious search for finding the descendents of perpetrators of the crime.
If one does objective analysis of history of humanity in general one notices that aggressions and occupations were common vehicles of interactions between societies, as common as trade. But in the final analysis, especially in India, the victim societies, over centuries slowly internalized the arts, crafts and knowledge of the aggressors and in fact grew over the them changing them. It is something like water changing the landscape of rock over eons.
Today, I feel my identity an India is a fine distillation of all those aggressions and counterculture resistance over 2000 years. Pure Hindu is a myth. If you want to see purity of race, you should go to aborigines in Africa- they are absolutely untouched by rest of the world. Dynamism is the life of any culture. Only a dynamic culture can digest and devour its aggressors and change, grow and evolve.
Dynamic does not mean ready to get hurt again for another 1000 years. Dynamic does not mean ignorance of facts.
great job sir ! Keep up the good work !
Nice research and a good write up. My only suggestion to you and all here is do not take wikipedia as the ultimate truth. My friend who was quite active in wikipedia was regularly correcting factual wrongs in wiki articles. It is better to verify the citations in wiki article as well.
Lovely piece … Wrote something similar about Man Singh
http://www.museumnetworkuk.org/talking/imggallery/rajput.html
Man Singh? The traitor?
Good posts.
I studied in a CBSE school. At least in our school the teacher always elaborated and expanded on the textbook. I and my fellow students grew up reading and learning about most of the kingdoms that you have mentioned here. However it is true that most of ‘History’ was dominated by the Mughals and the British. I think that it so because the past 500 years of India have indeed been dominated by Mughals and British.
What actually did (and still does) irritates me is that why do our History textbooks mostly go on only until Indian Independence? There is very little emphasis on the 1960s, 70s, 80s. Is the history of post-independent India not important? If ‘how we got independence’ is so important .. isn’t ‘what we did after getting independence’ also important?? It is mostly summed up in a few paragraphs about the Green revolution etc.
I would have loved to learn (more) about the 1950s Socialist reforms, early trade deficits, Nehru’s nationalization policies, 1975s Emergency, the famines, post-war refugees in the 70s, the Tamil separatist movement etc. Creation of our states – AP, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa etc .. all have very interesting history. It is an affront that we consider Indian History to be only until 1947.
Even the 90s have had so many important things which should be taught in school.
learning from this article (not this one, but one in the link), it is wrong to call wrong wrong…
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv10n1/textbook.htm
enjoy…
Instead of building temple 16 times, we should have built a 1 strong army. But most of our kings were busy in following advice of priests.
You should read the book Guns Germs and Steel and you will learn why advanced civilizations were beaten by barbarians. The folks in advanced civilizations did not have the need to fight for food. They were building irrigation canals, understanding cultivation while the barbarians only learned how to deplete an area for all that roams and move to another areas and their only way to survive is to fight.
On the blog, I think the part 1 raised a lot of expectations and honestly the part 2 was like Rocky V. Though the passion comes thru for the desire to teach more history to next gen, the handling of the subject is very light and superficial.
Looking forward to more depth in Part 3.
Needless to say, your handling of the subject really has kindled my desire to learn more Indian history. Probably my balding has something to do with it.
Heya, I’m a Latina. Wow! What a ‘laying of the cards on the table” article!
Riveting! It’s like the horrors of the Conquistadores in the Americas!
And to think the British cooperated with the islamics, to the hilt!
I thought it was only Hindutva that was telling it like it was….AND still is!
Thanks. Keep telling the truth!
BTW, yes, I’ve become aware that Gandhi was NOT the good boy, historians make out. He cooperated with the islamics and islamic Nehru, as much as possible!
Could Gandhi have been really, islamic?
One Word.. Lovely article
I have a doubt. Don’t you want to think this way that our ‘Leaders’ didn’t want to add fuel to fire by the by presenting actual facts and create historical rift. As an 23 year old, I myself find this history too disturbing. US want to get rid of English rule by modifying metrics, what can India do for a similar case ? Modify facts to reduce rift among people. People tend to forgot their failed love because it’s too disturbing, the same should happen here right !!
There have been repeated comments to the effect that the religion of the attackers and conquerors is irrelevant, as India has seen an influx of other peoples, e.g. Sakas, from time immemorial. However, there is one difference between the Sakas and all of the ancient groups and the Turks, Persians, Turko-Mongols (Mughals), and British who came later. While the ancient groups assimilated, the latter did not; in fact, they created divisions in the Indian polity due to their presence and their actions. Certainly, any advantage these groups had were due to the failings of the erstwhile Hindu rulers and deep divisions in Hindu society itself. And it is probably pointless to try to frame their actions as being vested with intent more malevolent than that of any king or conqueror anywhere. But the fact remains that these conquerors behaved differently from groups that arrived prior to them. I think that we ought to consider this when we chastise Hindus for being less accepting of them than of others.
“Machan” or “Mama” post – well written da . One request – Could you please cross over to any international topic in your next post.. 🙂
In the comments section of a different post of yours, you said that you’ll be writing that Part3 and Part4 of “The Greatest Heist in Indian History”. What happened??
I READ THE STUFF ABOVE AND I THINK THE AUTHOR OWES ME 20 MINUTES TIME OF MY LIFE. The author could have used his writing skills in making some productive and USEFUL stuff like “Self Improving skills” or books to stay and improve health by quitting bad things like tobacco, gutka, alcohol, cricket – which are spoiling our country’s youth power….There’s a lot of stuff in internet for us to improve ourselves and compete with PRESENT World. “Survival of the Fittest”-We Cannot afford to waste our Precious youth, time of preparing ourselves to better future for some kaipulley’s. New situation brings new friends and new enemies – so take care of your new friend for he will take care of you in return AND Wage war against your new enemies…..
I had spent few years of my life in abroad and interacted with 12 nationalities – I would like to share something which my Pak Rajput friend shared with me , He’s an Cisco certified Engineer …….we Indians encounter a lot of bomplasts , every now and then…for which I had a heat conversation with him…for which he starts his tale of his country , about unemployment, Electricity problem ( he has only 4 -8 hours of power in a day) and LPG cost is sky high etc. etc …and all the so called terrorists are just forced daily wage laborer’s with gun in their hand and the mastermind of all these activities is the C.I.A and there are lot of u.s military camps controlling the activities with and without the knowledge of puppet govt……………….and there are many reasons for that , one such reason is – IF India and Paki are in peace , then paki might use our help to stabilize itself and in return India might establish a pipeline right from Iran to India passing through paki..And if it happens – we might pay only TEN RUPEES 10/- ONLY FOR ONE LITRE OF PETROL and imagine if petrol itself is so cheap then everything else will get cheaper……AND WHO HAS THE O/\O TO COME IN THE WAY ON INDIA BECOMING SUPER POWER………….()() and don’t you guys see the pattern of bombing. There’s a blast, whenever the rupee value increases………..and this year is the worst………. It would be no longer that Oil Dracula’s will invade us in a diplomatic way…………AND WE Indians instead of take care of our situation , We are busy in cricket, social evils ,religious fights, tolerating corruption, indulging in waste chat……..
I remember , I too used to fight with my classmates and argue with them that my COMPASS BOX is superior to theirs . It was then , when I was still in “”nikkars””….
THINK OF PRESENT, LIVE IN PRESENT AND CREATE A BETTER PEACEFUL FUTURE FOR OUR COMING GENERATION.
Thalla , Why dont you use your pen to IMPROVE something,someone’s life. You have the zeal in your words/pen , use it to grow…. chellam…………..Being devil is easy , but being devil and choosing the divine path/divine ground is what required.
Please don’t end up yourself as a “”ESPIONAGE WRITER””…….
Dude it was his choice what he wanted to write and on which topic. You say the author owes you 20 minutes of your life as if you have been doing the most important work of mankind and the author of the blog has asked you to spare twenty minutes and read his blog. If you were not interested, you would not have to read whole stuff and waste your ‘precious 20 minutes’. You must have been intelligent enough to know that this is not your kind of article or blog or whatever it is and move ahead. But no, you had to read everything and comment in the end for a ‘God knows’ purpose. If you can’t respect someone’s opinion you don’t have a right to say what he should be doing or what he should not be.
Whatever this guy has written may not be the best depiction of ‘Indian History’, but you can’t deny the fact that our historical facts have been made lopsided.
Thank you for defending me sir..thanks a lot 😀
A 5th Standard response to this blog! …besides from your comment it seems you have no thinking of your own…have you checked with your Paki Rajput friend in CISCO if what you are commenting here is alright.
ii is a matter how one looks at life.you look at and for present day activities and fun but some body goes to past and try to understand the agony his accesters went though barbarism and try to stop and understand how we are spending and save their heritage as a symbol of Hindu slavery.spineless forgets and self respected remembers that is the diffrence
KV, Qutb Minar in Delhi was not built by these idiots. It was authored by Varahmir and was used to study astronomy. A similar one was also made in present Afghanistan.
sorry.when repairs were under taken in debries labour fond shiv lings and Hindus sulpures.papers repotred this.why to repair it?
Fantastic work , KS. Truly shows how we have missed our true history coz of spineless historians. I sincerely request u to read a book called ‘ Avarana ‘ ( its not in English yet). A review abt it –> http://www.sandeepweb.com/2007/06/14/book-review-aavarana/. This book would completely change the perceptions an average Indian has , about Islam .
The revered Chishti Saint from Ajmer is Khwaja Moin ud Din Chishti (a contemporary of Prithviraj Chauhan) as Sid rightly mentions. However, you’re right when you say Prithviraj Chauhan was the ruler of both Delhi and Ajmer . Shaikh Salim Chishti, another Sufi was a contemporary of Akbar’s and one the emperor revered – to the extent that he named his son, Salim after the Sufi. He also built his capital (Fatehpur Sikri) around the site of the saint’s camp, and his Dargah continues to be a prime attraction there (supposedly the first ‘all white marble’ Mughal monument). Interestingly, Akbar’s son Salim (who ascended the throne as ‘Jahangir’) is believed to be the first ‘Rajput Mughal’.
Well, it is said that this Khwaja Moin ud Din Chishti was the main person who helped and even incited Ghori to completely destroy Prithviraj Chauhan and is alleged to have even raped Rani Samyukta first when she was captured and then turned her over for ravishing by others. May be these are cock and bull stories but very much in circulation. You can find such versions on the net. If this is true, then how can either this Khwaja Chishti or the Ajmere shrine for him deserve any respect – even by conscientious Muslims? I would very much like to know.
nice but how Hindus remove the humiliation done by Muslim barbarians.even to day Hindu majority India is not trying or destroying the Islam rulers monuments and graves and more to doing every thing see ensure them as heritage of India.why graves of Aladdin khelji and Aurungajeb graves can not be made as steps to to route to see chtoor fort and auranjeb grave as foot step to maratha shambaji grave to remove our insults?why not bring Back prouviraj chouhan grave From ghavi of Afghanistan where it is laying near to ghori grave and Afghan visitors will kickes it before their enter ghori grave.Hindus are spineless and to day even bjp want black money to brought back from swiss bank and not the grave of our Hindu king from Afghanistan
Very good article man.I am sharing it on quora. With the reference.Hope it is fine.
Friend, some factual inaccuracies.
1. The first islamic invasions of India were not in 1004 A.D. as you claim, but 350 years earlier in 663 A.D. Then first well known Islamic invader of India was Muhammad Bin Qasim in 712 AD
2. If history books do not mention Prithviraj, thank God! The man is a vainglorious fool, an inveterate loser, a 12th century JawaharLal Nehru (only worse), a knave, and what not. He should have been castrated by Ghori for his gross direliction of duty towards his subjects who placed their protection in his hands. What Ghori did to him is mere tickling compared to what I would do with him had he been in my power.
Why dont anyone tell you people that Hindus Worship DICK and VAGINA (Shiv Ling) as GOD LOL .. If I would have been there I too had destroyed the structure and looted the wealth out of the idiots .Bigots /….. Nothing new this crap article full of Errors have been posted by a unconscious rant (inner devil) LOL … Fuck yourself CRAP article waste of time .
islam allah sulla buggers pray in emptyness and hollow mamthochod sala log.hindu got art and beauty and skills.muslin only domes and nothing art except psykic mad lines.people loot and try to dis try others worship places are barbarians and lootara and mather chod log only can like such act.if i were in power will shift all graves of these bastards as steps to mach past on republic day and destroy the structures and remove the domes to modify them as schools or hospitals.all Muslims structures to be modified and occupied large areas to put them in use. and wipe out the bad past.article reminds that has forgotten.shame that still barbarians structures are maintained Hindus has no shame
It is a reverence to creation, as we should all know how we got created. It is a celebration of life.
Very enlightening article, but it also reminds me of the dilemma I had whether propaganda is necessary in a country as diverse as India. This country is founded on the principles of secularism, and yet it would seem a mystery to someone in school why we should entertain the likes of the Mughals (or their descendants for that matter in India). It would truly take a great soul to forget the past and move on, professing unity and brotherhood. And such people are few. Can we expect India to survive without the propaganda. Or is there a fundamental flaw in my logic?
Mr. KS…I read your article and found it very interesting. Though I am not very knowlegable on Indian history, but at the same time, I read comments from Sid and then it raises a doubt: whether I should read books on history or read such interesting blogs. How do I trust the factualty of the blog: by verifying with the books? Then, why ever I would have to read the blog at the first place itself…
It is a very general question and not directed solely towards you…it is
a question raised to all blog writers and the readers of the blog…How can I take it for granted the things quoted in any blog are correct?
Well take it in this way… A single book can’t hold everything happened in history and at the same time a single blog can’t do the same. So, you may need to go through more than one documents. For example, when we prepare for any competition we use to refer 3-4 books to make sure we haven’t miss out anything. It’s true that a good book contains so many information, but it is also a fact that reading 400 to 500 pages and retaining it content is not an easy. What a blog does is to summarize a topic and give you an interesting perspective that you may not find in the book. Both have their pros and cons. Also, veracity of the facts can be confirmed via many mediums like books, wiki, articles, documentaries etc. I like reading KS blogs because of its unique style. And when I have a doubt I refer to other sources. After all, he is not my history teacher and he did not ask me to read his blogs… 🙂
I felt sad in this article. It is completely opposite of the first part. But the new information I came to know made me feel good. Summing it all up, a great article !
Hi KS
Very informative. Waiting for part 3 on this topic.
I have one question.. Do you attribute their doings to their religion or they would have done the same regardless of the fact that they were Muslim or not? Cause what follows the Islamic rule was the Christian dominated European rule of india ..
Mans greed for wealth and power has no bounds . That greed is not attributed to any religion . Probably some of the methods to achieve it are. Indian rulers fought each other for similar reasons centuries before any foreign ruler came into the picture . And your tiff should be and I believe is with the modern historians . Cause what was done by th Mughals was something that was happening throughout history even before the advent of Islam or Christianity or most religions . The Chinese history is filled with similar instances.
But putting a disclaimer at the end you cannot mask your anguish against one particular religion and its ways that were then . It would be like russel peters saying he is not racist but makes millions by being one.
You cannot change history.. It’ part of our history and culture and that can’t be changed either . You can hate it or accept it and move on..We are a nation today cause of these historical events .
On a lighter note many American cities and states are named after British counties and cities ..
You biased little ****. To deface and defile people like this on a public forum. You know descendants of these so called invaders still live in our beloved country right? They are in the army and are just as much if not more patriotic than you. What do you think you are? The invaders came and settled down because..yes you guessed it right, your fricken ancestors didn’t have the balls to face them like men. What are you anyway? Are you South Indian? You fucking dravid nigger cunt. You black piece of shit, you rapist fucking malyali fuck off twat. And if you are so fed up with the historians and history book writers of our country why don’t you become one instead of writing a blog anonymously?
no need to get offended when some one says about barbarian rule of invaders.that is true. but their illegitimate and Hindu converted are living and advocating invaders as they have born to them.even timur and chingis khan were also like this hindus were no match to barbarians
Clearly an attempt to get popular by the writer..and hats-off you are getting popular..
the only thing for the rise of romila thapars is for kaipullai’s to do nothing… anyways this is an interesting way to read history
I couldn’t locate 3rd part of this very good work. Is it that you had not got there in three years or am I not looking at the right place? It feels like the meal is not complete, having whet my appetite. Please serve the remaining part(s) too…
This info is worth everyone’s attention. How can I find out more?
Reblogged this on panindiahindu.
Wrong History wrong Painting the uniform in painting are of British army and Mohammad Ghor was difeted in first war but in second battle of Tarain he killed Prithviraj
Great work man.. I love you…
By the way, cannot find the next part.
well how can you expect that modern historians working under a muslin-christian (aka congress) government will allow the people of the country to know about their original glorious past.
PS I am not a BJP supporter
for a long time i hve been tracing the bloody and communaly violent indian past , and i think so much detailed bloodiness may not be particularly useful for present society due to the presence of communal elements, i dnt know whether if its a good idea for present indian society to teach young impressionable teenagers who are still learning basic values of modern society and democracy all these bloody stuff ,but yes the truth must not be hidden or lost. but its more important for teenagers to understand the values and ideas that has created the modern world we see today(british era) , and thus see the past from a modern point of view.
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It’s heartening that you have gone into the recesses of history and brought the facts out. You have also kept a balanced approach for the most part, not letting any bias surface through the cavities in the article. As a person who deeply respects good research and unbiased presentation of facts, I sincerely request that the use of the term ‘Islamic Rule’ be omitted in the title. Why malign a faith of which we have not much knowledge, but derive impressions only through it’s followers?! Genghiz Khan, even with ‘Khan’ as his last name wasn’t a Muslim; he was a barbaric person ( I will deliberately shun the racist term, Mongol).
I bring this to light so that this article doesn’t stink of communalism like most articles out there. I understand that isn’t your intention, however, juxtaposing a religion and a barbaric ruler together isn’t keeping it steadfast to your intention. A ruler is a ruler with his sole intention of expanding his empire and serving his interests. If they had religion or their faith(clearly the lack of it) in mind, they would have been spreading goodness and just rule like Islam mentions (where taking a life is equivalent to murdering the whole of humanity) and not taking lives in it’s name.
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Although a neat write-up, good intentions (to earth out the truth) cannot be justified by the wrong actions, or by an analyisis which is slightly inclined to a direction that contains elements that some others may may find pointless.
Despite myself being unable to bring out each and every historical event on the table to make sense of who has a worser track record of evil, from the silenced topic of what was done against the Nizam of Hyderabad to the Gujarat & Kashmir of recent times, it is not only the history of the subcontinent but the history of mankind that is stained in blood.
From being overtaken by emotions we are all succeptible to greed, glory and such. I beg the writer and the audience to not be judgemental in connecting these acts with a particular segment of society and their faith as such.
There would be better Hindus if we studied the vedas and started implemented them to the dot…and the same applies to the Bible or the Quran and so on. Diagnosing the illness is pointless if the antidote already exists but we fail to avde the ones keeping us away from it.
…………………………………………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Islam $@&& is @$£¢€π÷ Poison
when I read it blood boils ……..how our culture so colorfull destroyed by barbaric foreign invasions not onley ours but Iranian(Zoroastrian) Indonesian Malaysian culture is completly ransacked by this barbaric black&white ideology known as Islam we can see that all the parts of world invaded by islam are culturally dead in some Islamic republic people are living or made to live life style of medival period. if we will not teach it will means that we have no history ……….at the cost of our culture a black&white culture is deposed on our country
Your style of writing is good. TIMUR ‘s photo and your comment ” this apparently was his best pic,” had me laughing.
Centuries ago, half starving, half naked hindus concocted sick sordid tales about numerous false deities. Today well fed hindus with great command of the english language cook up tales and hold them up as history.
Its a good read to pass time. I wish you should write more. But logically speaking We don’t know exactly what has happened in our past because most of our history is researched and written or edited by the British who ruled us in between the rule or entry of Muslims in India (Which you have mentioned) and our present. The main weapon of the British was their wolf mindset. So they used all strategies to destroy our country and one of their strategy is separating Hindus and Muslims. So I personally believe that what we think we know as truth may not be true (Cause they may be edited). The reasons I believe India had its dark past is 1. because of the our lack of unity and 2. Its wealth. My other belief is may be in future after several hundreds years later. Our descendants may speak how we made repeating mistakes in our history (incl 21 century) without learning even after the dark periods of our history. I did not mean to offend you. I know my points here are completely irreverent with to the objective of your article. But I feel exposing these things to school kids may create hatred and violence in them against other religious people which could result only in lack of unity among ourselves at present. Waiting for reply. Any feedback of mistakes in my thought will be appreciated. Again thanks for lots of info making us think in several dimensions. Keep writing.
Your story is somewhat reasonable. Will u please tell us the story of Advent of Aryans into India who were originally came from Middle Asia.. What are the things that happened in Vedic Age and Later vedic Age. How caste system evolved into our society. Why Buddism and Jainism couldn’t grow in India
You have a good writing skill. But your work comes across anti-secular. Im sure that was not the intention. Also, for the same reason, a possible polarizing effect any talk of oppression, or behavioral effect any talk of violence may have on a child, these scripts are brushed over without detailing. While being with a child, you cannot leave out some things unsaid, but you must also not say it in a way that makes them choose a view that is anything but indifferent. Else, that in itself would be the greatest error ever committed.
Thoroughly enjoyed both your posts. The white-washing of Indian history is truly appalling.
I am an earnest student of Indian history and my special area of interest is the genocidal maniacs Mahmud Ghazni and Babur and their h*mo-e*otic trysts with Malik Ayaz and Babri respectively – an unexplored dimension of Islamic rule in Indian sub-continent. 🙂
If you so desire, you could read my post on Babur’s love for young boys.
Was babur *ay?
Did you pull the ” continuous lineage of 5000 years” out of your ass? In truth, almost nothing in India is 5,000 years old. The ruins of the Harappan civilisation come closest, but the artifacts that have survived, aside from a few pot shards, don’t date earlier than 2500 BC. There’s precious little art that’s datable to a period before 500 BC. The earliest sanskrit literature we have was composed about 3,500 years ago, and that too nowhere close to the Indian subcontinent but somewhere around Syria.
Are you alive KS?????/ Where are the remaining parts we all were looking forward to?On a sarcastic note is it because Sid has not returned your drafts with his expert comments.
I congratulate the writer, open your eyes and see the world, islam is what it is, the lotus petalled dome was never an islamic invention, all the mosques in india are desecrated hindu temples, including the major jama masjids like the one in delhi, muslims could never built anything, those murderous bunch of negativity were too busy wiping their asses with 3 stones. Mohammed the terrorist is the role model of muslims, mohammed killed the meccans, the jews and his own tribe, that terrorist manual called quaran turns human beings into murderers. everyone can read that book for what it is. Mecca existed long before islam came into being with that pedophile psycopath. We must take back every desecrated temple in every city and district. My heart is filled with darkness when I see text books saying that shah jahan built the red fort, or a muslim built anything, the muslims in europe or india did many other things.. Here is a list , read , do not trust marxist shitstorians https://www.hindustanbooks.com/pdfs/10120488-Hindu-TemplesWhat-Happend-to-Them-by-Sita-Ram-Goel.pdf