The Left's politically correct and sanitised reconstruction of history has prevented a free and open inquiry into India's past. Similarly, the Left's claim to a monopoly on diversity and dissent has stymied genuine and plural discourse. Both should be challenged so that history is not held captive by a sanctimonious few
n the aftermath of the controversy surrounding a curriculum revision by the Delhi University, a curious line of argument has been advanced by many Left -liberal commentators and a few Liberals who would otherwise mark their distance from the Left on economic issues. At the heart of this line of argument is this blind and almost fanatical faith in the sanctity of ‘dissent’ to the point where the pursuit of such dissent becomes an end in itself. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta remarked in a recent article, the invocation by the Left of diversity is a mere formal gesture with no real space to discuss in depth even a version of that which is considered to be diverse.
The debate on how history is taught and popularly perceived must go far beyond the specific controversy over AK Ramanujan’s essay. The political Right has not helped itself with its egg-headed response to the controversy that has only ended up reinforcing previously held negative stereotypes based on past incidents of violence.
Much of the political debate over history has been burdened by unresolved emotions over Muslim conquests of ‘Hindu India’ . Emotions which to this day fuel secular-communal polemics within India while continuing to offer a deeply flawed existential rationale to the failed state of Pakistan.
A politically correct reconstruction of the sub-continent’s history has not helped resolve these emotions. Far from bringing closure it has had the opposite effect of fuelling and sustaining conspiracy theories, thus breeding bigotry within all shades of political opinion.
A popular retelling of the story of those many conquests of India starting with the Arab conquests of Sindh begins the process of removing some of those prejudices and overcoming those unresolved emotions. It is interesting that all of the Muslim conquests of India have been welldocumented by chroniclers writing of events in their lifetime, albeit through the lens of the conquering armies. It must be said that the tradition of documenting these conquests from the Arabs to the Mughals is remarkable and praiseworthy.
Such a popular retelling will have to rely on texts like Chachnama that recount the earliest of the Arab conquests to texts
like Tarikhi-Rashidi that offer a fascinating glimpse of the Islamisation of Kashmir.
A reading of these texts also puts AlBeruni’s work and Abul Fazl’s Ain-eAkbari in perspective in their attempt to understand a Hindu India. As one treks the lifetimes of successive Muslim dynasties through the eyes and records of these observers one also gets a glimpse of the
evolution of their own engagement with a Hindu India. Last but not the least are early British records that offer a picture of how dysfunctional this process of engagement had become by the 1700s.
One must thank Google Books for compiling a comprehensive digital archive of the British era and the subsequent English translations of these mostly Arabic
and Persian texts as well as a wide collection of digitised British era records. At the risk of being accused of making an exaggerated claim, it must be said that the body of knowledge available digitally of original texts and English language translations allows for an amateur reconstruction of the events of that era with near professional accuracy and completeness. A reading of the Chachnama reveals in letters exchanged between the Arab ruler and his general leading the conquest, strategic advice with striking similarity to the Arthashastra on how to engage with the enemy. This early Hindu influence puts Al-Beruni's India written almost 300 years later in perspective, for Al-Beruni never really ventured into the Hindu-ruled heartland of India while sourcing almost all of his material from scholars within Sindh and frontiers of present day Punjab within Pakistan.
While the Mughal era is popularly understood within India, more riveting are the raw accounts of conquests during the pre-Mughal era spanning the Ghori invasion, and the Turkic Slave dynasty years followed by Tughlaq’s rule. These accounts narrate not just the plunder of temples and cities but also the factional intrigue and many mutinies. Accounts of fidayeen style assassination attempts and sectarian violence at the old Jama Masjid remind us of contemporary incidents of terror in Pakistan. Where Delhi is described as the City of Islam out of bounds for nonMuslims, there is also the bizarre tale of an openly gay Muslim ruler and his cross-dressing lover.
So in Delhi there was an era of permissiveness and intimate contact. The manner in which Amir Khusro completely glosses over Khilji’s homosexuality and the surrounding palace intrigue of that era should lead us to question the credibility of his historical records. In stark contrast to Khusro’s sycophantic narrative is the raw detail of that era captured in chronicles like Kitab-i-Yamini, Tabakat-Nasiri, the two Tarikh-i-Firoze-Shahis and the Futuhat-iFiroze-Shahi.
The British era compilation titled, The history of India as told by its own historians and available digitally on Google Books fills the gaps on many works that do not have independently available English translations.
Also noteworthy is the digitally available copy of the Early Records of British India by J Talboys Wheeler that completes the picture on the dysfunctional nature of political and administrative engagement between islands of Hindu and Muslim controlled India as the Mughal Empire declined.
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is often quoted on his sage advice that a book must be answered with a book.
The Left’s politically correct reconstruction of Indian history and the Left’s claim to a monopoly on diversity and dissent must be challenged by an alternative tradition that is neither burdened by political correctness nor overwhelmed by victimhood. Perhaps a beginning can be made with a popular reconstruction of medieval history.
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