Sometimes people are made to believe the descriptions in the historical novels as the real history. Even the Courtier historians who present the history as per the convenience of the rulers find the way to the textbooks polluting the minds of the young generations. The Pervert history is being taught to the students by the rulers till historians dare correct or present before the rulers to get it corrected. Normally one would find the Heroes in a democratic India painted as the Villians in the neighbouring Pakistan which boasts to have a 5000-year old common civilization. And the villains in India like Mahmud Ghazni are considered Heroes in Pakistan !
The Pathan scholar, Panini, born nearly 10 centuries before the birth of Islam in the 7th century, on the border of present-day Afghanistan wrote the grammar of Sanskrit, may not be considered as Pathan today since the terms Pathans and Arabs are commonly used for Muslims only. One would be shocked even to listen the scholars in TV debates branding Chinggis Khan (also known as Genghis Khan), the 13 th century Mongol Ruler as “Muslim” where as he called the Jews and Muslims as “slaves” and forbad Islamic traditions of slaughtering the animals. The first person to embrace Islam in his family was his grandson, Berke Khan at Bukhara! Qutlug Nigar Khanum, the mother of the founder of Mughal Empire, Babur, was the descendent of the founder of Mongol Empire, Chinggis Khan.
Jawaharlal Nehru, born at Allahabad and educated in England at Harrow and Cambridge, a visionary and idealist, scholar and statesman of international stature, was Prime Minister of independent India for seventeen years. In his scholarly book, “The Discovery of India”, written in Ahmednagar Fort prison during the five months, April to September 1944, Pandit Nehru writes: “ Unlike the Greeks , and unlike the Chinese and the Arabs, Indians in the past were not historians. This was very unfortunate and it has made it difficult for us now to fix dates or make up an accurate chronology. Events run into each other, overlap and produce an enormous confusion. Only very gradually are patient scholars today discovering the clues to the maze of Indian history.”
One would be surprised to read Prof. Shanta Pandey, a historian of Delhi University, presenting Sanskrit as the official Durbar language of Mahmud Ghazni who was responsible for loot and demolition of the Somnath Temple way-back in 1026 AD. Mahmud was son of Sabatgin who was a Hindu or Buddhist who had embraced Islam and ruled over Ghazni having a large population of Hindus including his own Chief of the Army, Tilak, according to a historian, Shambhuprasad Harprasad Deshai, IAS (Retd.), who wrote “Prabhas ane Somnath” (1965) published by Shree Somnath Trust. Late Deshai describes how the King of Gujarat, Bhimdev I, ran away leaving his subjects at the mercy of the invader, Mahmud, instead of challenging him. When the King of Gujarat had no guts to face the army of Ghazni at Anahilwad Patan, the capital of Gujarat, at least 20,000 Rajput warriors laid down their life to defend the motherland at Modhera!
There is a misconception about PM Nehru refusing to grant government funding for the reconstruction of Somnath Temple in 1947 when his deputy, Vallabhbhai Patel, took vow to get the historical Temple of Somnath reconstructed at Government cost. Some Courtier historians try to malign Nehru presenting their all time favorite argument of rift between Nehru and Sardar. Despite such efforts, one comes across K. M. Munshi writing in his book “Pilgrimage to Freedom Vol. I”: “When Junagadh fell, Sardar Patel, as Deputy Prime Minister, pledged the Government of India to the reconstruction of the historical Temple of Somnath. The Cabinet, Jawaharlal presiding, decided to reconstruct the Temple at Government cost. But Gandhiji advised Sardar not to have the Temple reconstructed at Government cost and suggested that sufficient money should be collected from the people for this purpose. Sardar accepted his advice.” The Nehru Cabinet took the decision after Gandhiji expressed his views twice publicly in the prayer meetings. Patel died on 15 December 1950. PM Nehru criticized Munshi, his Cabinet member, “for working for the reconstruction of the Temple” and even advised Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the President, to abstain from attending the ceremony of installation of the deity. Dr. Prasad went to Somnath on 11 May 1951 and performed the ceremony. Of course, the Government of India did not find it worth to even issue a press-note! Nehru always tried to project his secular image and to some extent an image of an atheist.
One would be surprised to know that the President of All India Hindu Mahasabha, Barrister V. D. Savarkar, was an atheist! In fact Nehru was not an atheist as Munshi records in one of his Commentary letters (Kulapatina Patro ) dated 8 January 1967. As one of the founder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Munshi expressed happiness about a change he gathered in the religious attitude of Nehru after the Somnath episode. Nehru participated in the religious ceremony at Sanchi and approved generous grant for reconstruction of Sarnath. Even in 1954 when UP Governor Munshi had accompanied PM Nehru to Allahabad to take stock of the arrangements of the Kumbha Mela, Nehru got down from the jeep and washed his face with the pious water of the Ganga. One of the newspaper correspondent who followed them reported that Nehru performed Sandhya (evening prayer) and washed his Janoi (a sacred thread)! Munshi quotes the “will of Nehru” and his approach of “Scientific Temperament” where his love and devotion for the people, the Ganga and the Jamuna rivers can be seen. In the historic document dated 21 June 1954 (a decade prior to his death), Nehru expressed his desire that “I do not want any religious ceremony performed for me after my death”, “my body to be cremated…my ashes (be ) sent to Allahabad.. A small handful of these ashes should be thrown into the Ganga…The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India’s age long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga…The Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present and flowing on to the great ocean of the future…a handful of my ashes be thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad to be carried to the great ocean that washes India’s shore.”
Next Column: The Last Nizam who was nominated the Caliph
(The writer is a Socio-political Historian. E-mail: [email protected] )
