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gandharva	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 07 Mar 2009 11:45 pm
BRFite Joined: 30 Jan 2008 05:52 pm Posts: 159	Quote: Brahasapati is correct, he had to destroy the revolutionary spirit of Bengal which gave India Vivekananda and Punjab who gave activist like Bhagat Singh. The amalgamation of values of both of these spiritual and temporal icons could have easily laid down the foundation of Indic Nationalism which we are still seeking. JLN attacked the very soul of India in pursuit of his own glory and we are paying the price. One reason why Bhaiyas are mocked at is that they constituted themselves as support base for Gandhi and JLN. Nationalist all over India had a feeling of contempt for the people of UP and Bihar for supporting Gandhi and Nehru. It was pretty much like when people from North part of the country can't comprehend the support for movie stars in politics down south.
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 07 Mar 2009 11:55 pm
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	Akbar perhaps is a difficult example - his policies apparently intervene in "Hindu" practice, and his syncretism takes the form of a "new overlay". Moreover he was fighting from a position of strength. His marital alliance with a "Hindu" family, does not compromise on his religion, for its perfectly within the framework of his Islam. The people I had in mind were more ideologues - and I would like to emphasize that I did not mean that it was a fault/weakness - but it could be a particular way of reacting to political impotence. Prime example comes to my mind is Eknath's Hindu-Turk Samvad. Once again I mean no offence to those who highly value Eknaths literary and religious contribution. Keshavji, the script is mostly devnagari. The words are not very discernible at this resolution to me but you can make out some words to the end - these appear to follow standard classical Sanskritic letter styles - it does say "residence Jhansi" (but uses the Persian word for residence) but uses Sanskritic style for addressing. The word amalgamations are done in Sanskritic "sandhi" form. I will not claim to be an expert here so, here I stop.
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satya	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 08 Mar 2009 12:49 am
BRFite Joined: 18 Jan 2005 09:39 pm Posts: 371	Quote: One reason why Bhaiyas are mocked at is that they constituted themselves as support base for Gandhi and JLN. Nationalist all over India had a feeling of contempt for the people of UP and Bihar for supporting Gandhi and Nehru. It was pretty much like when people from North part of the country can't comprehend the support for movie stars in politics down south. Gandharvajee Bhaiyas were/are mocked at for they do hard-labor jobs lowest of the lowest lot tht use to be done earlier by SCs of the concerned states so the usual social norms tht were followed with SCs in state were followed except now with Bhaiyas inplace of SCs . Another tag was they come from poor & hungry region . Being supporter of JLN & Congress was never an issue since many of these states already have Congress supporters in both upper & lower social groups since Independence that has passed down the generations .
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gandharva	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 12 Mar 2009 05:18 am
BRFite Joined: 30 Jan 2008 05:52 pm Posts: 159	A post By Koenrad Elst on Yahoo Group Abhinavagupta: Quote: I wasn't there, don't recall even being invited, so I cannot judge the quality of the proceedings there. On the group photo I saw Nicholas Kazanas, who has been doing very important work credibly establishing the case for an Indian homeland entirely within the framework of Indo-European linguistics. So some progress may indeed have been made. But whether this is enough to offset the secularists' rejoicing at the impending demise of Hindu revivalism? Just last week, coinciding with the conference, in the same California a final verdict was given in the textbook controversy. There has been a deafening silence about it in the pro-Hindu camp and a lot of victory-crowing on the anti-Hindu side. Briefly, it was a smashing defeat for the Hindu parents, now in litigation after their defeat before the California Board of Education in 2006. : : : After the Hindu defeat at the CA Board of Education, I was asked not to comment in public on the emerging CAPEEM litigation initiative, so I've kept mum while the court case was developing. But at no point did I come across any information that indicated I might be proven wrong in the end. The "discovery" process brought to light some interesting links (i.e. cooperation) between the the Witzel faction and Mission- or LTTE-affiliated anti-Hindu hate groups, but that could not affect the basic issue nor the outcome. And so the latest is that Witzel and Farmer are crowing victory over the CAPEEM verdict, which puts an end to the attempt at rewriting the textbooks in a less anti-Hindu sense. Regardless of their own comments, the actual quotations from the verdict, though of course selective, are simply incompatible with any claim of Hindu/CAPEEM victory. It's not the first time. In Delhi too, the textbook overhaul under MM Joshi ca. 2002 ended in embarassment, ridicule and an ultimate massive strengthening of the Marxist hold on the textbooks. At the Hindu history-rewriting conference in Delhi IIC last January, the usual wailing could be heard about the anti-Hindu bias in the textbooks. No mention was made of the fact that the BJP had been in charge for six years and that the textbooks had been changed already, only so miserably that the Congress-Communist combine had no problem at all justifying a return to the anti-Hindu textbooks. The conference had no session on: "What did we do wrong?" This time around, I suggest that all those involved in or cheering for the CA textbook edit proposals face their own failure and do some honest soul-searching. In the 1990s, under SR Goel's guidance, an alternative Hindu school of history was emerging. Today, most people involved (Harsh Narain, AK Chatterjee, KS Lal, BR Grover, Goel himself) have left this world, and their precious legacy has been mismanaged and squandered. MM Joshi and his acolytes in India and the USA have a lot to answer for, but they carry on regardless. As for the RSS, it just keeps on publishing self-praise for imaginary victories. The CAPEEM people will have no way now to avoid facing the defeat they've suffered. I'd like to say something more constructive and future-oriented than this, but for now it is best to let the realization of utter defeat fully sink in. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abhinavag ... ssage/4885 which verdict he is talking about?. I don't see it at http://www.capeem.org/pressroom.php
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Chiron	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 12 Mar 2009 05:46 am
BRFite Joined: 01 Feb 2009 03:37 pm Posts: 265 Location: Mount Pelion	Keshav wrote: I found these letters online and attributes them to Rani Lakshmibhai (of Jhansi). Can anyone translate and/or corroborate these claims? IN my opinion, both letters are truly attributed to Laxmibai.. Her name clearly appears as sender in initial part of both letters. First letter is written from JHaansi, the other one from kaalpi. First one is from Rani lakshmibai to some Raja Mardan Singh... it says that some message is being sent through the hands of some lala dularilal that army is ready.... Foreigner's rule should be overthrown.... We rely on you for help and preparing for war accordingly... so it is important to fight together.... Second is a plan to attack the company army.. lakshmibai writes to Mardan singh that some army of company should be attacked.. hence mardan singh should march for Kaalpi via bakhed-satgarh.. There she will meet him along with armies of Tatya Tope and Nanasaheb Peshwe...
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Keshav	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 13 Mar 2009 12:23 am
BRFite Joined: 20 Sep 2007 03:23 am Posts: 595 Location: USA	Thanks a bunch, Chiron. I suppose its in Hindi?
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Chiron	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 13 Mar 2009 12:53 am
BRFite Joined: 01 Feb 2009 03:37 pm Posts: 265 Location: Mount Pelion	yes... the letters are in hindi..
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ramana	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 13 Mar 2009 06:04 pm
Forum Moderator Joined: 01 Jan 1970 12:00 am Posts: 7269	ramana wrote: I think JL Nehru was a modern day Ashoka in the impact of his policies on his successors. It wasnt a coincidence that the three lions were chosen on the Indian Flag. JLN had partial understanding of the Ashokan impact on Indian history. Modern India's Kalinga was Partition in 1947 and the consequent killings which sapped the fighting spirit of India. HRC page 183 Quote: But the policy of Dhammavijaya which he formulated after the Kalinga War was not likely to promote the cause for which a long line of able sovereigns from Bimbisara to Bindusara had lived and struggled. Dark clouds were looming in the north-western horizon. India needed men of the calibre of Puru and Chandragupta to ensure her protection against the Yavana menace. She got a dreamer. Magadha after the Kalinga War frittered away her conquering energy in attempting a religious revolution, as Egypt did under the guidance of Ikhnaton. The result was politically disastrous as will be shown in the next section. Asoka's attempt to end war met with the same fate as the similar endeavour of President Wilson. For JLN the new Dhammavijaya was the creation/foundation of the secular state (which his daughter Constituionalised) and the syncretic history of India. By promoting this he frittered away the energy of the people of tIndia who had overthrown the colonial yoke and turned India inward while the new threat was on the North East- PRC. It was this turn inwards at crucial time that causes the fracture of India central authority time and time again in Indian history. and Quote: Even though the mantle of "leader of the Free World' was thrust upon the US right after World War I it was taken up truly only after 1943. Unfortunately the intellecutal process was not updated till end of 20th century. The founding fathers were frozen between Reformation and Enlightenment and did not advance the ideas. Their contribution was the founding of a Republic and all the trappings of preModern European especially English society were preserved. England was ahead in casting of her attitudes towards slavery and ant-Semitism. The US Civil War brought about Modernism and Vietnam brought about Post-Modernism in US. So there is a lag of 30 to 50 years in the intellecutal progress. The recent economic meltdown could lead to a roll back of these advances in Western intellectual thought India's partition led to the Modernist revolution in Northern India especially Punjab. So it was a double hammer blow of both Kalinga and WWI for India.
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gandharva	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 16 Mar 2009 06:47 am
BRFite Joined: 30 Jan 2008 05:52 pm Posts: 159	Quote: The Hindus: An Alternative History (Hardcover) by Wendy Doniger Editorial Reviews Product Description From one of the world’s foremost scholars on Hinduism, a vivid reinterpretation of its history An engrossing and definitive narrative account of history and myth that offers a new way of understanding one of the world’s oldest major religions, The Hindus elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds. Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account: many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated even within a century; its central tenets—karma, dharma, to name just two—arise at particular moments in Indian history and differ in each era, between genders, and caste to caste; and what is shared among Hindus is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the things that are unique to one group or another. Yet the greatness of Hinduism—its vitality, its earthiness, its vividness—lies precisely in many of those idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today. Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hinduism in the world. With her inimitable insight and expertise Doniger illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a canon. Without reversing or misrepresenting the historical hierarchies, she reveals how Sanskrit and vernacular sources are rich in knowledge of and compassion toward women and lower castes; how they debate tensions surrounding religion, violence, and tolerance; and how animals are the key to important shifts in attitudes toward different social classes. The Hindus brings a fascinating multiplicity of actors and stories to the stage to show how brilliant and creative thinkers—many of them far removed from Brahmin authors of Sanskrit texts—have kept Hinduism alive in ways that other scholars have not fully explored. In this unique and authoritative account, debates about Hindu traditions become platforms from which to consider the ironies, and overlooked epiphanies, of history. http://www.amazon.com/Hindus-Alternativ ... 1594202052 I can guess which way Camel is going to sit but i will keep my fingers crossed.
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Keshav	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 16 Mar 2009 11:24 pm
BRFite Joined: 20 Sep 2007 03:23 am Posts: 595 Location: USA	I would argue that Nehru, although having much in common with Ashoka, was probably consciously trying to emulate Woodrow Wilson, the American President before, during, and after World War I. Wilson was the essence of the stereotypical, snobby, liberal elite (although he was staunchly racist, having grown up in Virginia) who had a grand vision for the future ala the League of Nations which is now the United Nations. He was greeted as a liberator after World War I in many parts of Europe and was a firm believer in national self-determination, that is, the right of every people (broadly referred to as a "nation") to have a state. He was responsible for the re-structuring of Europe to prevent future aggressions by Axis powers in the future. His one true prophetic vision was of a vengeful German nation if the Allies had their way in the post-war. From the start, he was against demonizing and belittling the German people as the Allies would do, as to prevent future conflict. The Allies, however, were obstinate. They sternly told him that unless they were granted their revenge policy (aka The Treaty of Versailles), none of them would join his little experiment - The League of Nations. So he caved and let the Allies torture the German citizens which was more than a little responsible for the rise of Hitler and World War II. You can actually plenty of parallels with Nehru's life, although its not perfect. In this case, perhaps the LoN could be considered India as a whole.
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Acharya	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 16 Mar 2009 11:30 pm
BRF Oldie Joined: 09 Feb 1999 07:01 am Posts: 4081	Paris 1919 is a good book to really understand who Wilson really was.
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 17 Mar 2009 12:22 am
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	Well, Woodrow Wilson's own country had not respected the right to self determination of peoples, although Viriginia was in the forefront of "secession". Moreover, Wilson would not gain power or his future political power would not depend on the formation of the LON. So in this case we can at most postulate an overweening "altruism" as motivation. In the case of JLN, the picture gets clouded becuase the subcontinental LON was crucial for the future personal power of JLN. Drawing the analogy further, whom do we identify here as the "German" - Pakistan? For Pakistan being the root cause of all "mischief"? And JLN was trying to be prophetic in preventing "reprisals" against "German/Pakistan"? But then were there any other force/"nation" that wanted revenge on Pakistan who insisted on joining JLN's League only if they were allowed to carry out the "reprisals" - can only think of the Sikhs and the Bengalis, but they were far from being able to take any revenge at all. And JLN also was very much aware of the weakness of these two ethnicities after/during the decimation of the Partition, so he had nothing to "give in to". If it was the "British" who was the "German", once again none of the future components of JLN's League were powerful enough to take separate revenges on the "British". As a teenager, long probing of certain "oldtimers" around JLN and active at core levels during the partition, yielded a peculiar and puzzling view - "it was beyond our control". This paralysis of the then leadership around JLN reveals a crucial insight - JLN had no real control over the stream of events, and the game was being played out by other hands. JLN was simply a pawn, chosen for this very same "paralysis/helplessness". His paralysis could have been personal ambition - he could not decide what to do when the prospect of the two most difficult political ethnicities - Sikhs and Bengalis - who had posed the greatest challenges to his personal ambitions (as well as possibly regional interests in UP and among the British) - being divided, and politically destroyed for a long time to come arose before him through a proper "neglect" of what needed to be done. His paralysis could simply be a lack of political vision, astuteness and sagacity. His paralysis could simply have been negligence and callousness. I can never forgive those who claimed to be the leaders of this nation, and at that crucial juncture presided over the blood and tears and endings worse than a thousand deaths of thousands or possibly millions. Wilson and JLN are not comparable, apologies for saying this. The first sign of a nation's degeneracy is its failing to recognize where and of whom it should be ashamed and when it is time or towards whom to feel rage, and what and whom to condemn.
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Acharya	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 17 Mar 2009 12:50 am
BRF Oldie Joined: 09 Feb 1999 07:01 am Posts: 4081	brihaspati wrote: As a teenager, long probing of certain "oldtimers" around JLN and active at core levels during the partition, yielded a peculiar and puzzling view - "it was beyond our control". This paralysis of the then leadership around JLN reveals a crucial insight - JLN had no real control over the stream of events, and the game was being played out by other hands. I have done the same thing talking to people were close to the family or relative of the personal secretary of JLN. Enormous amount of goodwill but failing to understand the real agenda of the British ruling elite. There is sense of naivete and things like - "we never knew Pakistan would become like this". Quote: JLN was simply a pawn, chosen for this very same "paralysis/helplessness". His paralysis could have been personal ambition - he could not decide what to do when the prospect of the two most difficult political ethnicities - Sikhs and Bengalis - who had posed the greatest challenges to his personal ambitions (as well as possibly regional interests in UP and among the British) - being divided, and politically destroyed for a long time to come arose before him through a proper "neglect" of what needed to be done. His paralysis could simply be a lack of political vision, astuteness and sagacity. His paralysis could simply have been negligence and callousness. Not just JLN but the leadership of the party was unable to respond to rapid turn of events from 1946 to 1947. It was a surprise revolution on India by the British and the ML elite. The congress elite was gamed very carefully that it was held holding the last pawns.
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surinder	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 17 Mar 2009 06:02 pm
BRFite Joined: 08 Apr 2005 01:27 am Posts: 457 Location: Badal Ki Chaaon Mein	brihaspati wrote: This paralysis of the then leadership around JLN reveals a crucial insight - JLN had no real control over the stream of events, and the game was being played out by other hands. JLN was simply a pawn, chosen for this very same "paralysis/helplessness". Brihaspati: Could you throw more light on the "paralysis/helplessness" of JLN and other leaders? brihaspati wrote: I can never forgive those who claimed to be the leaders of this nation, and at that crucial juncture presided over the blood and tears and endings worse than a thousand deaths of thousands or possibly millions. Wilson and JLN are not comparable, apologies for saying this. The first sign of a nation's degeneracy is its failing to recognize where and of whom it should be ashamed and when it is time or towards whom to feel rage, and what and whom to condemn. Well said!!!
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Abhi_G	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 17 Mar 2009 08:21 pm
BRFite Joined: 13 Aug 2008 04:12 pm Posts: 180	Circa 1962. "My heart weeps for the people of Assam...Goodbye Assam". This was JLN.
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 17 Mar 2009 10:18 pm
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	Surinderji, Anthony Read and David Fisher : The Proudest Day : India's Long Road to Independence (Pimlico, 1998). "On 8 April (1947), Nehru told Mountbatten that he thought all provinces, including partitioned ones, 'should have the right to decide whether to join a Hindustan Group, a Pakistan Group, or possibly to remain completely independent.' Mountbatten seized on Nehru's suggestion and asked Ismay (Mountbatten's chief of staff) to begin drawing a new plan based on it - though he omitted to mention Nehru's insistence on a strong centre. For the next few days, Ismay beavered away at producing[...]what everyone referred to as 'Plan Balkan.' (p 435)" "When Nehru read Plan Balkan, he raised only comparatively minor points - much of it, after all, followed his own suggestions.' (p 441)" "The official version of the approved plan was cabled from London on Sunday, 10 May (1947), and Mountbatten joyfully announced to the press that he would officially present it to Nehru, Jinnah, Patel, Liaqat and Baldev Singh at a conference on 17 May. But as the day wore on, he began to have doubts. The amendments made to the plan (sent by Mountbatten) in London could be seen as fundamental changes... Before bed that night, Mountbatten invited Nehru to his study... took out the revised plan from his safe, and gave it to him to read.' (p 446)" "On the morning of 11 May, Mountbatten found disaster staring at him... in the shape of a letter... which he described as "Nehru's bombshell." In it, Nehru denounced the entire plan.' (p 447)" "What Nehru most objected to in the revised plan (received from London) was that it encouraged the Balkanisation of the country by allowing individual provinces such as Bengal and NWFP to break away as independent sovereign states... Atlee (the then British PM) had struck at the very roots of Congress by removing from the plan (sent to it by Mountbatten) any recognition that the provinces... represented the Union of India, the successor state to British India... As for the princes, the revised plan was a direct invitation to them to remain independent kingdoms...' (p 446-447)" "At a meeting of party leaders called by Mountbatten on 13 June (1947) to discuss the problem of the States[...]Nehru approached the situation as an emotional politician rather than a punctilious constitutional lawyer... he argued that in order prevent the spread of anarchy within the sub-continent, the existing British political and administrative machinery for the States must be preserved until it could be taken over in toto by the new government.' (p 479)" "The old Political Department, under Sir Conrad Corfield, believed that the longer the princes held out, the stronger their bargaining position would be; indeed, it would be best for them if they could hold out until after partition when they could, he believed, name their own terms. Corfield had been diligently working to sabotage the efforts of Mountbatten and the party leaders to persuade them to accede quickly to one or other of the new dominions.' (p 479)" The entire thrust of Nehru was not to prevent the partition into "Muslim/non-Muslim" India, but to retain sufficient territory to base a "strong centre" which would of course be "headed by him" after Gandhiji's "wish" had confirmed his supreme position.
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surinder	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 18 Mar 2009 05:39 pm
BRFite Joined: 08 Apr 2005 01:27 am Posts: 457 Location: Badal Ki Chaaon Mein	Brihaspati Ji, Thanks. The excerpt is sad to read. It seems that JLN (and possible others) were resigned to Pakistan, they did not treat its formation as an even of monstrous disastor, nor did they seek to wage a fight to prevent its creation. They seem to be seeking petty gains, stability & law and order above national existence.
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Abhi_G	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 18 Mar 2009 07:51 pm
BRFite Joined: 13 Aug 2008 04:12 pm Posts: 180	Some more about the paralysis.... http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/16spec3.htm by Claude Arpi Quote: After his election as Congress president, he gave his support to his friend Sheikh Abdullah (he called him his 'blood brother') who had been jailed by Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir. In June 1946, he decided to go to the valley to free Abdullah. The situation was certainly not shining in Kashmir (as in the rest of India), but to take on the maharaja at this point in time was a serious mistake. However, for Nehru, 'Anything that happens in Kashmir has a certain importance for the rest of India, but recent events there have had an even greater importance, [they] became symbols of a larger struggle for emancipation. Thus Kashmir became symbolic of the [princely] States in India.' He wanted to take on 'the autocratic and often feudal rule that prevails there.' He did not realise that the princes' support and collaboration would be indispensable during this all-important transition period for the nation. Quote: A year later, hardly two weeks before Independence, Nehru still wanted to go to Srinagar. He wrote to Gandhi: 'I shall go ahead with my plans. As between visiting Kashmir when my people need me there and being prime minister, I prefer the former.' Once again he had to be dissuaded. Quote: In September, he decided to offer Kashmir's accession to India. This was refused by Nehru, who first wanted Sheikh Abdullah to be freed and installed as prime minister of the state. This was not acceptable to the maharaja. Quote: On the same day a historic meeting was held in Delhi with Mountbatten, the governor general, as chairman. A young army colonel named Sam Manekshaw, who attended the meeting, recalled: 'As usual Nehru talked about the United Nations, Russia, Africa, God Almighty, everybody, until Sardar Patel lost his temper. He said, 'Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away?' He [Nehru] said, 'Of course, I want Kashmir.' Then he [Patel] said: 'Please give your orders.' Quote: Abdullah had already started his crusade (particularly with the US administration) for Kashmir's independence. He remained Nehru's friend till his scheming became too dangerous for India. In August 1953, he was finally dismissed by Karan Singh, the sadar-i-riyasat. Two months earlier, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, who had been arrested by Abdullah and left without medical care in Srinagar, died in mysterious circumstances. Nehru had visited the capital of Kashmir a few days earlier, but did not find the time to call on his former Cabinet colleague. He later wrote to Mookerjee's mother: 'Indeed, I hoped that the healthy climate of Kashmir might lead to an improvement in Shyama Babu's health.'
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gandharva	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 08:39 am
BRFite Joined: 30 Jan 2008 05:52 pm Posts: 159	Quote: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/wendy_doniger/2009/03/the_battle_over_hindu_history.html The Battle over Hindu History Wendy Doniger For years, some Hindus have argued that the 16th century mosque called the Babri Masjid (after the Mughal emperor Babur) was built over a temple commemorating the birthplace of Rama (an avatar of the god Vishnu) in Ayodhya (the city where, according to the ancient poem called the Ramayana, Rama was born), though there is no evidence whatsoever that there has been ever a temple on that spot or that Rama was born there. On December 6, 1992, as the police stood by and watched, leaders of the right-wing Hindu party called the BJP whipped a crowd of 200,000 into a frenzy. Shouting "Death to the Muslims!" the mob attacked Babur's mosque with sledgehammers. In the riots that followed, over a thousand people lost their lives, and many more died in reactive riots that broke out elsewhere in India. On the site today, nothing but vandalized ruins remains, and, in a dark corner of the large, empty space, a small shrine with a couple of oleograph pictures of Rama, where a Hindu priest performs a perfunctory ritual. Whether or not there ever was a Hindu temple there before, there is a temple, however makeshift, there now. People are being killed in India today because of misreadings of the history of the Hindus. In all religions, myths that pass for history--not just casual misinformation, the stock in trade of the internet{pun intended for Rajiv Malhotra?}, but politically-driven, aggressive distortions of the past--can be deadly, and in India they incite violence not only against Muslims but against women, Christians, and the lower castes. Myth has been called "the smoke of history," and there is a desperate need for a history of the Hindus that distinguishes between the fire, the documented evidence, and the smoke; for mythic narratives become fires when they drive historical events rather than respond to them. Ideas are facts too; the belief, whether true or false, that the British were greasing cartridges with animal fat, sparked a revolution in India in 1857. We are what we imagine, as much as what we do. Hindus in America, too, care how their history is taught to their children in American schools, and the voices of Hindu action groups ring out on the internet. Some of these groups, justifiably incensed by the disproportionate emphasis on the horrors of the caste system in American textbooks, and by the grotesque misrepresentation of Hindu deities in American commercialism, ricochet to the other extreme and demand that all references to the caste system be expunged from all American textbooks. And so I tried to tell a more balanced story, in "The Hindus: An Alternative History," to set the narrative of religion within the narrative of history, as a statue of a Hindu god is set in its base, to show how Hindu images, stories, and philosophies were inspired or configured by the events of the times, and how they changed as the times changed. There is no one Hindu view of karma, or of women, or of Muslims; there are so many different opinions (one reason why it's a rather big book) that anyone who begins a sentence with the phrase, "The Hindus believe. . . ," is talking nonsense. My narrative is alternative both to the histories promulgated by some contemporary Hindus on the political right in India and to those presented in most surveys in English--imperialist histories, all about the kings, ignoring ordinary people. But the texts tell us not just who was the ruler but who got enough to eat and who did not. And so my narrative is alternative in its inclusion of alternative people. How does one include the marginal as well as the mainstream Hindus in the story? The ancient texts, usually dismissed as the work of Brahmin males, in fact reveal a great deal about the lower castes, often very sympathetic to them and sometimes coded as narratives about dogs, standing for the people now generally called Dalits, formerly called Untouchables. The argument, for instance, that Dalits should be allowed to enter temples, an argument still violently disputed in parts of India today, can already be found, masked, in ancient stories about faithful dogs who should be allowed to enter heaven. So too, though Feminists often argue that Hindu women were entirely silenced, women's voices--their ideas and attitudes and, above all, their stories--were often heard and recorded by the men who wrote down the texts. Foreigners, too, made contributions to Hinduism from the very beginning. Once upon a time--about 50 million years ago --a triangular plate of land, moving fast (for a continent), broke off from Madagascar (a large island lying off the southeastern coast of Africa), and sailed across the Indian Ocean and smashed into the belly of Central Asia with such force that it squeezed the earth five miles up into the skies to form the Himalayan range and fused with Central Asia to became the Indian subcontinent. Or so the people who study plate tectonics nowadays tell us, and who am I to challenge them? Not just land but people came to India from Africa, much later; the winds that bring the monsoon rains to India each year also brought the first humans to peninsular India by sea from East Africa in around 50,000 BCE. And so from the very start India was a place made up of land and people from somewhere else. India itself is an import, or if you prefer, Africa outsourced India (and just about everyone else). The magnificent civilization of the Indus Valley (in present-day Pakistan) traded with Sumer, Crete, and Mesopotamian, before it came to a mysterious end in about 2000 BCE. At just about the same time, in the nearby Punjab, a very different culture entered India from the Northwest and created the great corpus of texts called the Vedas, the oldest texts of Hinduism. Other invaders-- Greeks, Turks, Arabs, and British--made valuable contributions to the complex fabric of Hinduism. We can trace certain important ideas throughout the centuries of this unbroken tradition. For example: A profound psychological understanding of addiction to material objects is evident throughout the history of Hinduism. Addiction was the concern not merely of kings or scholars but of ordinary people, like the proto-hippy and the gambler who are depicted in the Vedas (see excerpt). One reaction to this perceived danger was to control addiction through asceticism or renunciation. And so began an ongoing battle between a great tradition that always celebrated sensuality (think: elephants encrusted with rubies, temples that make rococo look like Danish modern, the Kama-sutra) and another that feared the excesses of the flesh and practiced meditation (think: Gandhi). Some of the British, especially in the early colonial period, admired and celebrated the sensuality of Hinduism. Others, particularly but not only the later Protestant missionaries, despised what they regarded as Hindu excesses. Unfortunately, many educated Hindus took their cues from the second sort of Brit and became ashamed of the sensuous aspects of their own religion, aping the Victorians (who were, after all, very Victorian), becoming more Protestant than thou. It is not fair to blame the British for the Puritanical strain in Hinduism; it began much earlier. But they certainly made it a lot worse. And cultural influences of this sort, as much as the grand ideas, are part of what makes the history of the Hindus so fascinating.
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Abhi_G	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 02:39 pm
BRFite Joined: 13 Aug 2008 04:12 pm Posts: 180	gandharva wrote: Quote: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/wendy_doniger/2009/03/the_battle_over_hindu_history.html Foreigners, too, made contributions to Hinduism from the very beginning. Once upon a time--about 50 million years ago --a triangular plate of land, moving fast (for a continent), broke off from Madagascar (a large island lying off the southeastern coast of Africa), and sailed across the Indian Ocean and smashed into the belly of Central Asia with such force that it squeezed the earth five miles up into the skies to form the Himalayan range and fused with Central Asia to became the Indian subcontinent. Or so the people who study plate tectonics nowadays tell us, and who am I to challenge them? Not just land but people came to India from Africa, much later; the winds that bring the monsoon rains to India each year also brought the first humans to peninsular India by sea from East Africa in around 50,000 BCE. And so from the very start India was a place made up of land and people from somewhere else. India itself is an import, or if you prefer, Africa outsourced India (and just about everyone else). Wow! Doniger has great imagination. They can go to any extent in their rhetoric to show that India is nothing but a foreign construct. She talks about plate tectonics here and then goes directly to the out of Africa theory.
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ramana	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 04:01 pm
Forum Moderator Joined: 01 Jan 1970 12:00 am Posts: 7269	Sometime ago I said India owns the AIT and Sanskrit and folks were all worked up. That is the truth and India and Hindus have the trump card. Look how many convulsions Wendy ma is going thru to deny Hindu primacy in the origin of mankind!
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Acharya	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 04:19 pm
BRF Oldie Joined: 09 Feb 1999 07:01 am Posts: 4081	ramana wrote: Sometime ago I said India owns the AIT and Sanskrit and folks were all worked up. That is the truth and India and Hindus have the trump card. Look how many convulsions Wendy ma is going thru to deny Hindu primacy in the origin of mankind! See how she wants to be the expert in Hinduism. The British also tried the same way for 150 years and ended with a false theory. According to my research from initial survey during the colonial times when the British were trying to understand and copy all Sanskrit and Indian philosophy Indian Brahmins gave some false information to them knowing that they may try to appropriate them. These ancestors now must be grateful that they knew what the Europeans were upto. These wrong interpretation and wrong Sanskrit translations are showing up in the western narration of Hinduism and Hindu philosophy. Quote: And so I tried to tell a more balanced story, in "The Hindus: An Alternative History," to set the narrative of religion within the narrative of history, as a statue of a Hindu god is set in its base, to show how Hindu images, stories, and philosophies were inspired or configured by the events of the times, and how they changed as the times changed. These western academics keep interpreting these text without knowing that they come out as less then scholarly. Quote: My narrative is alternative both to the histories promulgated by some contemporary Hindus on the political right in India and to those presented in most surveys in English--imperialist histories, all about the kings, ignoring ordinary people. But the texts tell us not just who was the ruler but who got enough to eat and who did not. And so my narrative is alternative in its inclusion of alternative people. First they said Aryans came from Central Asia and Europe. Now they are saying that Aryans came from Africa Quote: Foreigners, too, made contributions to Hinduism from the very beginning. Once upon a time--about 50 million years ago --a triangular plate of land, moving fast (for a continent), broke off from Madagascar (a large island lying off the southeastern coast of Africa), and sailed across the Indian Ocean and smashed into the belly of Central Asia with such force that it squeezed the earth five miles up into the skies to form the Himalayan range and fused with Central Asia to became the Indian subcontinent. Or so the people who study plate tectonics nowadays tell us, and who am I to challenge them? Not just land but people came to India from Africa, much later; the winds that bring the monsoon rains to India each year also brought the first humans to peninsular India by sea from East Africa in around 50,000 BCE. And so from the very start India was a place made up of land and people from somewhere else. India itself is an import, or if you prefer, Africa outsourced India (and just about everyone else).
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Prem	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 05:44 pm
BRFite Joined: 01 Jul 1999 06:01 am Posts: 1197 Location: JANAZA E PAKISTAN	Onlee thing which can India of Her is these scholars must be living miserable life 24/7 with their fixation to deny India iof her heritage. What next , Indian land mass is also build from the stardust of far away galaxy and not of Milky way.
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ramana	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 05:47 pm
Forum Moderator Joined: 01 Jan 1970 12:00 am Posts: 7269	Prem, Re write to make sense. What you should take away is the singleminded attack on India from the time of the East India company? why? And they are ready to accept the Oppenheimer's thesis of out of Africa but not the out of India. So who do they explain/reconcile the M17 gene? Wendy's attack shows a renewed effort to suppress the true narrative. Brihaspatiji, was talking about the origins of the word "simba" for lion in African languages and the fact that its not native to the people but was from a re-entrant group to Africa. If the rest of the world was re-populated by people from India then maybe languages also got enriched with Indic words. Quote: One of the largest languages in Africa calls a lion "simba" - but this is mainly spoken by a group who had re-entered Africa after the first exodus back through the middle east.Did proto-Sanskrit carry African into India or re-entrants carry it from the subcontinent to Africa? Many interesting angles there, and I am afraid, not many "western schools" will explore that.
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Keshav	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 10:32 pm
BRFite Joined: 20 Sep 2007 03:23 am Posts: 595 Location: USA	I don't know whether you guys seriously believe humans began in India, but given the evidence, it seems incredibly wrong. Cultural markers do not explain the rise of humanity. Obviously, culture is a product of human interaction, right? Evolution sums up the proverb, "Necessity is the mother of all invention." If a species has no reason to change (no predators, faults), then why would it evolve? Evolution occurs through mutation and the failure of flawed organisms of a species to live and reproduce. A lush tropical jungle like India provides no reason for the evolution of mankind. Everything - food, water, shelter - is provided for. Why would anything change? To understand human evolution, you have to understand the geography of Africa over time. North Africa, especially the Sahara used to be a tropical jungle, but eventually began to dessicate (i.e. began to transform into a desert). Scientists, through genetic testing have found that chimpanzees are probably are closest ancestor and we can surmise that they once inhabited the trees of these jungles. As the area began to dessicate, the distances between trees began to grow larger and larger until it became too difficult to swing from one tree to the other. It became necessary for the primates to come down from the shelter of the trees where they had spent the entirety of their lives (birth, life, death) for generations to move to the next tree for food. But creatures with scrawny legs and large upper bodies make for easy prey on the savannah by the larger, faster cats. It wasn't until the mutation of large hips that the necessary evolution of longer legs became possible to support the upper body. Long legs allows for much quicker running than that of an Orangutan but certainly not fast enough for the cats. So we got something even better - our brains. None of these features exist in India to present us with a story of human evolution. Let's be smart about this, not Abrahamic.
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Acharya	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 10:47 pm
BRF Oldie Joined: 09 Feb 1999 07:01 am Posts: 4081	http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ This is what most of Indians beleive in http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stephenoppenheimer/
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 11:05 pm
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	I think the "out of India" was a ref to the much later late pleistocene/holocene migrations of fully modern humans who by current understanding most probably went out in several waves from the subcontinent through the middle east and the north-western passes of India to expand into Eurasia. This ranges from 45000 to 9000 YBP.
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Prem	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 20 Mar 2009 11:15 pm
BRFite Joined: 01 Jul 1999 06:01 am Posts: 1197 Location: JANAZA E PAKISTAN	if India was connected to African continent ( close to Ethopia)then what abiut human might have origin in the land which is now India and then moved inward toward the interior of the continent.
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Kaushal	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 08 Apr 2009 09:06 pm
BRFite Joined: 01 Jan 1970 12:00 am Posts: 402 Location: SanFrancisco Bay Area	It is refreshing to see the diversity of opinion that is prevalent in todays version of BR as compared to the straight jacket that was imposed on discussions such as these ten years ago. All i had to say was that the Ram temple will be built and the heavy hand of authority would rap me on the knuckles with a warning or an ultimatum. My fight was always to the effect that preaching secularism to a Hindu is lilke carrying coal to Newcastle. It is all very nice of Wendy Donniger to preach to Hindus about tolerance, but this is like preaching to the choir. This is very much like the story of the man who dropped his coin in an unilluminated part of the garden , but keeps searching from the coin under a bright patio light. when asked why he was looking for the coin where it clearly could not be found, he replied , here i can see the surrounding area. Let me assure the Wendy Donniger's that India is not where the problem lies. But surely she knows that and it is her dishonesty that makes her scholarship or lack thereof so contemptible. However, this fight for the dignity and respect of a large part of humanity is far from over. we do not have the world's largest property holder to back us up. No government supports us. we have only truth on our side. There is only one way we can be defeated . it is only we who can defeat ourselves . Now more than ever those of us who believe in the philosophia perennis should stand united ... not for an ideology or even a religious belief but for the universal principles on which we progress and evolve, because it is these principles like freedom, courage, integrity the ability to think and reason for oneself, that threaten our elite adversaries the most and that they wish to abridge or even eliminate by snuffing out the Sanaatana dharma I wrote to Michael Witzel ( a Tenured professor in the world s richest divinity school) in another thread They kept coming like ants I might remind Prof Witzel that when it comes to not publishing inconvenient rebuttals , his Indo eurasian group has definitely not been a shrinking violet. He has refused to print my rebuttal to his derisive remarks on the ICIH 2009. People who live in glass houses should not whine when others reply in kind. So when it comes to 'of course it was not allowed ' i say 'physican heal thyself'' So now the gloves are off and the real culprit is the "Hindu" . One can quibble about the fact that he uses it in an adjectival form. The intent is clear - to convey the fact that it was a Hindu list that was the key factor in his reply not being allowed The apalling bigotry with which he condemns the members of the faith by such a generalization is not lost on the rest of the population.If there is one thing the Hindu abhors it is the attempt to stereotype him in a broad category. Too often this individuality of the hindu is portrayed as a weakness by the Occidental and attempts are constantly made to compartmentalize the hindu into subcategories (the Aryan invasion theory was one of them) and to exploit the differences for less than noble purposes. In the 19th century it was the attempt to paint the Vedas as a Brahminical construct, forgetting the fact that even those who were not believers in the Vedas were also part of the Dhaarmic tradition. We, the Hindus of this planet are immensely conscious that the tradition which is continuously morphing itself , has the genetic longevity of a cockroach. This fight is not over yet by any means. We are convinced that there has been a violation of the constitution in not providing us equal treatment under the law , and that the singling of the Hindu tradition for special treatment will eventually be upheld as a breach of the constitutional protection of equal treatment uder the law. It took a while for the African American to win his first law suit in America and he did not win his frist case till very recently. The misrepresentation of the Dhaarmic tradition has been practiced with great diligence by the Occidental ever since St. Francis Xavier instigated the Goan Inquisition in the16th century, which resulted in the unspeakable tortures and death by hanging and burning at the stake of many thousands of individuals for over 2 centuries until it was finally stopped in the 1800's. The Vatican made sure that all associated records were completely destroyed and granted Sainthood to Francis Xavier for his part in the resulting genocide. It continued on as Robert di Nobili tried to pass himself of as a Hindu priest If Prof Witzel thinks the fight is over he underestimates the tenacity of the Hindu. At kargil, the Pakistani captain remarked that the Indians had climbed up the sheer walls of the cliff like ants and that they kept coming despite the prospect of great bodily harm. 'They kept coming like ants' he repeated in a daze. I hope Prof Witzel will continue to spout the drivel that he does, because every time he speaks and writes we get a flood of additional recruits to our cause, Kosla "
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 05:46 pm
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	Can we start an online database of archaeological sites, especially the cultural ones, temples, religious settlements, icons, etc. with grid data, and as much information as possible of timed stages of occupation, building, last known intact date, etc? This would be valuable for spatial and temporal analysis of important questions about "movement of civiizations" in the subcontinent. We have some brief publicly available info from the ASI site. But most of the real data exists in printed form. Also it would be good if we can have cross-checks and any details "accidentally" missed by the Thaparite officially sanctioned historical background to each site. For example, the ASI volume may simply mention "ruins", but will not quote narratives that ascribe the destruction to "ruination" to certain "forces".
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samuel	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 06:07 pm
BRFite Joined: 03 Apr 2007 03:22 am Posts: 507 Location: USA	Brihaspati, That would be a most interesting project! S
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Rahul M	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 06:16 pm
Forum Moderator Joined: 17 Aug 2005 03:39 pm Posts: 3510 Location: aadim kaler chandim him, todaye bandha ghorar dim !!	I've created a blog for this purpose. Interested members can forward their names to my email ID and I'll add their names as authors, so that they can have all the required editorial rights. let's get started ! http://historyarchive.blogspot.com/
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 07:31 pm
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	RM, Is it possible to start off with the ASI site list and expand it?
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Rahul M	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 07:50 pm
Forum Moderator Joined: 17 Aug 2005 03:39 pm Posts: 3510 Location: aadim kaler chandim him, todaye bandha ghorar dim !!	could you please put up the link you are talking about ? couldn't find such a thing on the ASI site at first glance.
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brihaspati	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 08:04 pm
BRFite Joined: 18 Nov 2008 09:55 pm Posts: 1593	http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_alphalist.asp For example within the first state-list http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_alphalist_andhra.asp SL.No Name of the monument / site Location District 1. Hill Fort and buildings therein and the fortifications at the foot of the hill. Gooty Anantapur 2. Madhavaraya temple (old Vishnu temple) Gorantla Anantapur 3. Outer wall of the Mahalakshmi temple Goripalli Anantapur 4. Group of sculptures Hemavati Anantapur Now to that if we could add, map-grid position, dates of occupation, what cultures, incidents known or calimed in narratives etc. or other relevant info.
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Rahul M	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 11 Apr 2009 08:08 pm
Forum Moderator Joined: 17 Aug 2005 03:39 pm Posts: 3510 Location: aadim kaler chandim him, todaye bandha ghorar dim !!	this is an excellent idea ! we can add snippets on the sites as we go along. perhaps allocating statewise/regionwise responsibilities is the way to go ?
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tsriram	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 12 Apr 2009 05:50 am
BRFite Joined: 15 Nov 2007 07:23 pm Posts: 189 Location: Chennai	Rahul, Apart from putting them on a blog, if we could build a database with these details, esp the coordinates, we could do some serious display of the data on maps and see how the various actions happened by plotting the locations chronologically on a map such as googlemaps. We suggested that for the incidents on the west coast but I haven't gotten around to doing it yet
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Dilbu	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 12 Apr 2009 06:00 am
BRFite Joined: 07 Nov 2007 05:23 pm Posts: 676 Location: ഭാരതം	The Lost Temples of India A must watch documentary about how the victorian morality of europeans chose the gothic looking Tajmahal as the symbol of Indian architecture over the more complicated and magnificent temples of the south India.
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Rahul M	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 12 Apr 2009 06:09 am
Forum Moderator Joined: 17 Aug 2005 03:39 pm Posts: 3510 Location: aadim kaler chandim him, todaye bandha ghorar dim !!	ts, any reason why that can't be done on a blog ? I was thinking of the blog more as a collaborative wiki type effort with wysiwyg abilities. your thoughts ?
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tsriram	Post subject: Re: Distorted history- Causes, consequences, remedies Posted: 12 Apr 2009 06:46 am
BRFite Joined: 15 Nov 2007 07:23 pm Posts: 189 Location: Chennai	Na. What i meant was, somebody writing some code to put data in a map form depending on what the user wanted to see. Like items of interest in a single area, or locations affected by a particular event/invading army etc. We could have such scenarios and write code for that and then put it up in the blog for people to use. Thats what I meant. Not a substitute for the blog.