Shiban Khaibri
Keeping India away from India or from its glorious past, its early Vedic history, seems ludicrous and a conspiracy craftily hatched by those who are under unwritten responsibility to do things consciously right. The question as to who are behind this conspiracy is as much important as how to erase the effects of it. If we blame the governments led by the Congress Party at the centre for having intentionally allowed doing it for petty interests, they can shoot back, “Who prevents the present dispensation to reverse it “. The onus therefore, is on the present government to do justice with the deep roots of the magnificent tree to strengthen it rather than take care of its selected leaves. For the last nine years, NCERT books have two most important chapters dealing with the Vedic history of India as deleted. Class 11 students used to be taught about the intrinsic soul of India, the Vedic history but the “experts” found it unnecessary to be continued as curiously enough, one of the “intellectuals on ancient Indian history” gives an (un)intellectual argument for its deletion that since at some point of time, some dogmas or what he puts it as “Karam kaand theory” got incorporated in it or the concept of worshipping of rivers and other precious sources of nature , it was thought to have it deleted. Does not the entire world realize now the importance of preserving and sustaining rivers, trees and other precious sources of nature which existed in Vedic period and even before, in India? History cannot be written as what it ought to have been but what it was and what we know about it. The argument goes like this that the invader looter Mehmud of Gazni , should have not defiled the soil of India and hence should not be included in the history books of India. Who are these “Vedic villains” and why should such a perverted approach based either on personal whims , prejudice towards the issue , particular political affiliations and the like , be allowed to do a gross injustice with the students in not allowing them to know about the glorious Vedic part of the ancient history, needs to be analyzed.
After the British left who had a particular purpose to see some period of the history written and interpreted in a way that suited their interests but after their exit, instead of any change for the better, it was more or less the same, if not any worse. In the absence of there being a systematic authentic details of our events, kingdoms and periods , history writing has been exploited by a blend of Marxists and imperialist scholars, Christian missionaries and Islamist scholars, each trying to do it in its own way. They felt quite free to write Indian history as they liked with no prospective contradictions backed by historical actual accounts of the yore supported by the governments. Marx had a peculiar view far from the realms of sobriety both for Hinduism as well as for the concept of the “self sufficient village society of India” as according to him, these were impediments for his socialist movement and finally the “world revolution”. Materialistic interpretation of history, the oft spoken political contribution of Marx could not see its relevance in Indian context and hence most of historians with Marxist leanings resorted to falsification, exaggeration and concealment in writing of Indian history. In their writings, especially on ancient Indian history where glorification of Vedic period cannot be brushed under the carpet and either ignored or criticize it simply because there could be expected no contradictions as those, if any, otherwise would get equal exposure from the governmental side.
Can historians, especially those claiming to be from the Marxist class affording to be political activists first and then any historians? We have such historical activism distinctly visible in Ayodhya dispute with regard to what is called harping on and creating enough doubts with regard to “historical evidence”. That JNU was the hub of such an “intellectual” conglomerate of the “collectors of historical evidence” could not be a surprise as we saw, early this year from the same campus, a brazen display of the activities of forces inimical to even the sovereignty and integrity of India. The same feelings were immediately echoed elsewhere across the country where extremist Marxism has crept in especially into the educational institutions. They must exhibit “impartiality” and selective secularism, their quality of scholarship thus getting outside the realms of scrutiny.
Not allowing Indian Vedic history to be taught in India now completely for the last one decade is the handiwork of such a club of Historians and at least, a few owe explanation that when in India, Vedic history (not the Vedic philosophy) cannot be taught, where else in the world could it be taught. Prof. Hari Vasudevan of Kolkota university, Prof. Neeladari Battacharya (JNU), Prof. Kunal Chakraborty (JNU), Najaf Haider (JNU), Jaya Menon (AMU), Farhat Hassan, Ramchandran Guha , Prof. Muzzafar Alam etc must unravel the reasons . It is tantamount to snatching the right to education. Why should NCERT feel reluctant to revise the curriculum and the syllabi that is now overdue ? We, as students of history rue, over the satanic acts of the dreaded ISIS in mercilessly erasing ancient historical signs and symbols in Syria and Iraq etc or the Al – Qaida in Afghanistan, but are mum for our country in what we see being done in an “intellectual way”. It is hard to believe that an RTI was replied on the subject from the NCERT bosses who happened to be the same ones responsible for stopping Vedic history to be taught in our country. HRD Minister Javdekar must come up with a revised, National Education Policy, fully Indian to preempt any such attempt in future. The subject of history cannot be the sole monopoly of the Leftist Marxist Leninst leaning intellectuals who distort and undervalue the ancient greatness of India.
India existed as a top civilization much before Marx or Hegal were born. Anti Hindu streak of such Marxist historians does injustice with the greatness of India as well in so far as ancient, classical historical matters of India were concerned. Many Marxist historians do not conceal their ideological hatred for ancient Indian ( Vedic) traditions , ethos and the philosophy This contempt is visible in their work on history books, in line with Left wing politics. That speaks for the freedom fighter Bhagat singh having been labeled as a “terrorist”. When pointed out to Delhi University scholars, they just treated it as “a mistake”. Ex – HRD Minister Smriti Irani was compelled to observe, ” If I am to be called as intolerant to ensure that Bhagat Singh was not a terrorist, then that is the tag , I will proudly wear.”Likewise revolutionaries like Chander Shekhar Azad, Surya Sen and many other revolutionaries were branded as terrorists.
How painful, in the same manner, it looks to see that these “intellectuals” treated the heroes of the famous Chittagong uprising just as a non entity and produced it in the text books in a way quite different from the actual happenings. The Chittagong armed struggle was not only fierce in character but its composition was unique as small children and women took part in it against the British. Surya Sen or Surjya Sen as he was known, was a calm and courageous teacher and a leader of reckoning of the Chittagong movement of 1930-34. History books have done injustice with the revolutionary Surya Sen rendering him to the status of forgotten hero. History books have done injustice with many stalwarts of freedom movement so much so that even Neta Ji Subash Bose was relegated to the background, even Sardar Patel was not given the prominence he deserved, even just to name Vir Savarkar was thought as a crime. The 30 year strong rule of the Left or the “Vampanthi” Parties in West Bengal might have done some improvement in agrarian reforms or some other welfare measures; it however, did a bad service to Indian history. For three decades Marxism and allied matters got so much prominence in West Bengal that the Vampanth Front got so much emboldened so as to issue circulars officially captioned as “Shudi – Ashudi” and under these circulars, were instructions issued, ” Refer to page so and so of so and so text book and incorporate the revised lines instead of as mentioned. …..” In one of such Ashudi and then Shudi were the “revised” instructions., ” Aurangzeb was not a fanatic as falsely put against him but in fact was a tolerant emperor who had political “differences” based on ideologies with a few kings of other states in India …” Just analyze and evaluate the truth behind this historical “find” and see the motive inherent. That speaks for the decision to delete Vedic history from the text books. This trend needs to be reversed.
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