So it happens again. Scroll, is a so called
“liberal” online publication which usually dishes out stories on social issues. These
stories sometimes have a liberal sprinkling of lies on them. You can read more
on the lies here.
So in its latest attempt, Scroll has “revived”
one of its old articles written by Girish Shahane. Now Girish sits in the same
row as Shoaib Daniyal (also writes for Scroll), another habitual liar. Both
Girish and Shoaib have an unexplained hatred for Indian history. That is
probably the reason they never bother to really dig deeper to understand what
the recent developments in archaeology suggest about India’s history. Maybe
they both had to suffer a boring history teacher in school and hence are so
disgusted with the subject that they decided to singlehandedly distort it.
In the latest “revived” article, Girish tries
hard to “expose” the historical myths of India. A very challenging task,
especially if one has to distort and hide facts. Let us examine the exposes one
at a time. By the way, the article starts with invocation of BJP for some
strange reason. But let it be.
Expose 1. The myth of
rani Padmini
Here Girish makes the effort to establish the
fact that Padmini is a fictitious character, who appears in the epic written by
Jayasi, almost two centuries later. The records suggest that Padmini was also
mentioned as Padmavati, thus introducing the element of myth to the story.
Padmini may well have been a name given to the queen by Jayasi and later poets.
But does that take away the fact that women of Chittor committed Jauhar once
the city fell to Khilji? Jauhar has been recorded many times in Medieval India.
Mostly in the then Rajputana but also in other parts of India. The South East
Asia equivalent of Jauhar (Puputan) was recorded as late as the early twentieth
century. The king with his entire family and the city dwellers would commit
mass suicide by stabbing themselves with a Kris (dagger), when faced with
imminent defeat. So yes the name Padmini may be fictitious but the other
details stand true. The then prevailing war rules of the Muslim armies would
allow the sack and plunder of the city for three days after its fall. The
soldiers were allowed to take booty and slaves, a fifth of which would belong
to the sultan. The women preferred to die instead of being humiliated in the
slave markets.
Girish here goes one step further and appoints
Khilji as “one of the finest generals in India’s military history”. What is not
clear here is whether Girish considers burning of libraries and Buddhist places
of worship as a qualification to be the “finest general”.
Expose 2. The myth of
Prithviraj Chauhan
Here Girish contests the poem written by Chand
Bardai, where Prithviraj is depicted as blind man, captured by Mohammed Ghori.
Prithviraj, with the help of a companion kills Ghori by an arrow. Here again,
Girish relies on a poem, which by no account should be considered history. But
probably Girish learnt Greek history from Iliad and Odyssey and actually
believes that there was indeed a Cyclops settlement in ancient Greece.
In both expose 1 & 2 Girish relies on
poetry. He forgets that what people believe to be the words of god, were
written down by humans. The new testament, the koran, the hadith were all
written down, as we know them, centuries after Jesus and Mohammed died. These
in no way these should be considered history and then rebutted. It is a fool’s
job, really.
Expose 3. The myth of
a non-violent India
Here Girish rebuts the “myth” of a non-violent India
and quotes Vivekanand’s speech in Colombo. “…our religion is truer than any
other religion, because it never conquered, because it never shed blood.”
He then goes on to highlight the Chola naval expeditions to Sri Lanka and South
East Asia. Hence proving that India was not a non-violent country. As it
happens, a quote is taken out form a speech and is “adjusted” to suit the
writer’s narrative. You can read the full text of the 1897 speech Vivekanand
delivered here.
Here the context in which the remark of India being a non-conquering nation was
made was that of propagating ideas and probably religious beliefs through war.
And in this context he says that India has never propagated her ideas through
war. He was probably referring to the Crusades or the Islamic conquest of the
Middle East and North Africa. Later in the speech Vivekanand mentions the
Greeks and Romans who waged great wars but were ultimately erased and sent to
the pages of history while India as a civilisation still stands.
Expose 4. The myth of
Sanskrit
Girish firmly believes that Sanskrit is not the
“mother of all languages”. He mentions the research which puts Proto Indo
European (PIE) as the source of Indo European languages. According to the
research the PIE originated in the Anatolian region and by that logic Sanskrit
cannot be the mother of all languages, since Sanskrit itself is derived from an
ancient language.
Girish in his claim does not tell us which
research he is actually talking about. A quick Google search revealed that a research
with the same conclusion was published in the Science
in 2012. The new item in Times of India suggests that the research took into
consideration 6,000 cognates, fed them into a computer programme and came up
with the conclusion. Now it is interesting that the study claims to have come
up some “convincing” evidence based on mere 6,000 cognates. But that is not
all. Academicians and archaeologists have disputed the claims of the research.
You can read the views here.
So is Sanskrit the mother of all languages? Yes
and no. It may not be the mother of Arabic or Chinese but it surely is the
mother of almost all Indian languages, except for maybe Tamil. The influence of
Sanskrit is evident is the grammar and alphabets of the Indian languages and
that of Tibet, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. All
these languages use the principles of Pannini of arranging the alphabet and
have the same sound as those of Sanskrit. So yes, Sanskrit is the mother of all
languages if you look South East.
Expose 5. The myth of
a 5,000 year old civilisation
 |
| I am Bhirrana, I am 8,000 years old Image: ASI |
This is probably the lamest of the five rebuttals
that Girish has concocted. He says, “In truth, almost nothing in India is 5,000
years old. The ruins of the Harappan civilisation come closest, but the
artefacts that have survived, aside from a few pot shards, don’t date earlier
than 2500 BC”. If the claim made by Girish is to be believed the
Archaeological Survey of India is definitely an organisation that is spinning
lies. Because the ASI has submitted a report suggesting the archaeological
remains excavated at Bhirrana village date back to between 7570 – 6200 BCE. The
entire history of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation has been pushed back by
almost 3,700 years. So yes, the Indian civilisation is not 5,000 years old but
more like 8,000 years old.
It is sad that for the sake of ideological leanings
people not only distort data but also manufacture lies.
