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The average Indian can make use of his puncture kit to repair the tyre in his home and not take it to the mechanic everytime he has a flat tyre. I do it.

I am not surprised that you fail to get the difference between getting experts from different fields to opine on fairly complex issues and changing a car tyre. That is at the root of your cavalier disregard for process or a structured approach to academic discipline.

Believe me it is very easy to figure out the marxists and the influence of the class struggle theories in their interpretation of history (which mostly results in a negative portrayal of Hinduism and almost anything Indic) when one reads it. Perhaps its has got to do something with Islam and Christianity supposedly being egalitarian religions (aligned with communist utopia), and Hinduism being hierarchial (capitalist bourgeois tendencies).

For your information, whatever their other failings, and they have many, Marxists have been far more hostile to Christianity and to Islam than they ever were to Hinduism. As examples, look at the way Soviet Russia treated the Orthodox Church, and the way they almost wiped out Islam in the central Asian republics. And at the way China treats the Catholics, or the Uighur.

The trouble with you is that you do not wish to disturb your fixed ideas and hence do not bother to read about anything. All that is available from you and your friends is prejudice, preconceived notions, and xenophobia. Why don't you find out about a subject before you write something? Will it kill you?
 
I am not surprised that you fail to get the difference between getting experts from different fields to opine on fairly complex issues and changing a car tyre. That is at the root of your cavalier disregard for process or a structured approach to academic discipline.

No rather you fail to understand the difference between the effort to write history and the effort to read history. Historians are needed to write history -- but a common man is enough to read history and understand the 'tilt' of the historian.


For your information, whatever their other failings, and they have many, Marxists have been far more hostile to Christianity and to Islam than they ever were to Hinduism. As examples, look at the way Soviet Russia treated the Orthodox Church, and the way they almost wiped out Islam in the central Asian republics. And at the way China treats the Catholics, or the Uighur.

In India Communists supposedly believe in democracy. :lol:

To be more precise, I was talking about how marxists view Indian history. They would love to do a cultural revolution like in China in India too. For China it was confucianism, for India it is Hinduism..hence the unmitigated hate towards it. For the theoretical part of that they have the pen. That is where these marxist historians play their part -- only that here they don't have the gun for its practical implementation..


The trouble with you is that you do not wish to disturb your fixed ideas and hence do not bother to read about anything. All that is available from you and your friends is prejudice, preconceived notions, and xenophobia. Why don't you find out about a subject before you write something? Will it kill you?

Again resorting to personal attacks are we. How many times it has to be said that the age old marxist MO of trying to browbeat the opposition by be-littling them as intolerant, bigoted when cornered would not work.
 
Wrong analogy -

Dissent against political establishment is NOT to be confused with a general loathing of their history. You wont find many Americans disputing their greco-roman civilizational roots or Judeo-Christian moral value system. And even if they are present, they are just academic runts whose importance does not extend beyond the four walls of their research studios with absolutely no political influence.

As far as I have observed Americans are at the very forefront building a grand narrative around their history, promoting icons, giving it an aura of grandeur..Perhaps second only to Chinese.

And JNU students have political influence? Or loathe their history? I have heard them criticizing certain aspects of Indian history, but loathe it? What a bizarre idea! Why should anyone loathe his country's history? That is a matter of record, and what sense would there be in loathing it?

I wish you would examine your beliefs very carefully. You are replete with strange and distorted images of reality.
 
Sadly, the linguists don't agree! :azn:

I have huge respect for the linguists.

I won't disregard my personal observations either. There is a very large Sanskrit based vocabulary in Dravidian languages that are immediately familiar to someone like me who just studied Sanskrit for 3 years.

We can either emphasize the differences or the commonalities. Both exist and both are valid.
 
No rather you fail to understand the difference between the effort to write history and the effort to read history. Historians are needed to write history -- but a common man is enough to read history and understand the 'tilt' of the historian.

As I said earlier, and if I may borrow and re-use my phrase, a common man is no more competent to understand the biases of an historian than he is to design a naval warship.

Which was the last history book you read, by the way?


In India Communists supposedly believe in democracy. :lol:

Who cares? They are a discredited, rapidly decaying bunch anyway, and the CPI is about to lose its recognition from the Lction Commission as an all-India party. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And most happily, the Congress and the BJP, who also supposedly believe in democracy, are following close on their heels.

To be more precise, I was talking about how marxists view Indian history. They would love to do a cultural revolution like in China in India too. For China it was confucianism, for India it is Hinduism..hence the unmitigated hate towards it. For the theoretical part of that they have the pen. That is where these marxist historians play their part -- only that here they don't have the gun for its practical implementation..

You are such a mess.

Can you name the CPI or the CPM member who suggested this? And where he did so?

It is sad to see that you have taken to fabricating facts now.


Again resorting to personal attacks are we. How many times it has to be said that the age old marxist MO of trying to browbeat the opposition by be-littling them as intolerant, bigoted when cornered would not work.

Ummmm...I'm not a Marxist, actually. I'm opposed to them, being a liberal and a democrat.

Try the next canard?

I have huge respect for the linguists.

I won't disregard my personal observations either. There is a very large Sanskrit based vocabulary in Dravidian languages that are immediately familiar to someone like me who just studied Sanskrit for 3 years.

We can either emphasize the differences or the commonalities. Both exist and both are valid.

You are right, and you are wrong.

There are very many loan words in Dravidian languages, and they were transferred to the language at a very, very early stage - one of the reasons, interestingly enough, why it is thought that Aryan-speaking people encountered Dravidian speaking people as early as on the right bank of the Indus.

There are also very many loan words from Sanskrit into Tamil, and Telugu, Kannada, Tulu and Malayalam. In fact, the name of a very prominent Dravidian leader is pure Sanskrit.

You are right to recognize the loan words. That is as far as it goes, unfortunately.
 
I am not surprised that you fail to get the difference between getting experts from different fields to opine on fairly complex issues and changing a car tyre. That is at the root of your cavalier disregard for process or a structured approach to academic discipline.



For your information, whatever their other failings, and they have many, Marxists have been far more hostile to Christianity and to Islam than they ever were to Hinduism. As examples, look at the way Soviet Russia treated the Orthodox Church, and the way they almost wiped out Islam in the central Asian republics. And at the way China treats the Catholics, or the Uighur.

The trouble with you is that you do not wish to disturb your fixed ideas and hence do not bother to read about anything. All that is available from you and your friends is prejudice, preconceived notions, and xenophobia. Why don't you find out about a subject before you write something? Will it kill you?

Marxists here doesn't mean real Marxists like Russia/China,we are talking about fake Marxists and secularists like we have in India.Time and Again,they have shown clear ignorance to details.

One more thing, you may never find archaeological/historical evidence for many truths in life,word of mouth is often the strongest reality.

Thats why people believe there is a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Most of the political/historical research in India is heavily funded by interest which are inclined to hurt the original knowledge of Indian civilization.

It takes intuition to realize it and if you want proof for everything,perhaps Jesus & Mohammad are the first two people they should be rejecting as myths.
 
Looks like you missed the second part - "as much as you are a madarsah graduate". So by taking me to be a Shahka student you agree that you are a madarsah graduate.

I never mentioned that but you did agree of being a Shakha product.

No where did I quote a single source from RSS sources. So its is irrelevant as to what they teach in RSS shakhas. But whatever they teach, its always better than the trash they disseminate in the madarsahs.

All your assumptions and statements are more or less manufactured in Shakhas. Well Madarsas are any day better than Shakhas as atleast they live in reality unlike Shakhas where Taj Mahal becomes Shiv mandir and Kaaba's black stone becomes Shivling :rofl:. I must say these guys who manufactured these 'theories' must have being Shaivite fanboys...

Ofcourse it was for the "Islamic conquest of India" - how it panned out in reality and how the marxists portray it as one of french kisses and red-roses. That you could not understand that simple statement either says you are brainwashed by your Mullahs or you are exhibiting willfull ignorace here.
I did not mention even one one source from marxists for Islamic conquests of India. Read my previous posts again as I keep reiterating again and again:hitwall:.

Why talk about Aurangazeb from a third person point of view cherry picking isolated incidents to try paint a rosy picture.

Let his firmans speak for himself.

Aurangzeb, as he was according to Mughal Records

I can accuse the same abt you, why not include the all the firmans instead of being choosy.


I have already explained through a generalization how Islam spread in variousparts of India - Arab taders in Kerala, Sufis (with the protection of sword) in Bengal and the Sword with some doses of sufis in North/North-West.

That you madarsah graduates try to white-wash it out of a feeling of guilt does not matter.
Guilt of what?? Choosing something which they felt better

It doesn't matter who says what - I would take the words of contemporary muslim historians/chroniclers themselves over someone who spoke out of sheer opportunism. And he was no God either.

It does matter as to who said that as it was said by a man who was called MAHATMA by your own brethren...:agree:

1) Good that you accepted "forceful conversions" was indeed there.

I never denied it:no:, I just dispute the scale.

Yes, our ancestors remained unconquered - maybe not physically, but definitely spiritually. We may have been physically subjugated. That was temporary, but never mentally. We dont bow before Arabia five times a day. Enough said. Not that I have a problem with it, but when some one comes and tries to whitewash everything and portrays that fateful era as some kind of God's gift to India, then I do have a problem.
You can say that you were spiritually not subjugated but I can say you were stubborn enough not to accept the facts. I don't bow to Arabia as you like to believe but I bow to ONE God who created this Universe and its beings. I prefer worshiping the creator rather than its creation. People do try to whitewash but truth seldom changes and the Shakhas should bear that in mind before creating fairy tales abt Indian history...;)
 
<sigh>

If you only knew what you are saying!

History is one of the most difficult disciplines, and not, as unwary people seem to think, one of the easiest. People read it like a story, not knowing, perhaps not caring what an elaborate process of acquiring, sifting and weighing evidence is involved before a theory is accepted by the academic community.

Apart from the process, the biggest difficulty is that the discipline is very subjective. Everything depends on the historian's judgement and evaluation of a situation, because the evidence, not being immediate, is subject to many different interpretations. Subjects like the history of the French Revolution, for instance, have huge amounts written about it. Opinions and interpretations have been put forward, had their day, and been joined by other, sometimes radically different interpretations.

This has led to the development and growth of a highly specialized subject called historiography. This subject deals with the development and evolution of 'views' of history. It is important because to understand an historian's biases, one needs to be familiar with the beliefs and values that he sought to express. Marxist history is one such history,but much modern work in a similar vein is being done by members of the Subaltern School. There are numerous others, many - most - being conservative or liberal in approach, and including some schools of thought that have been legally banned in some countries.

The situation in India is that the Marxists had a dominant position in writing history and teaching it, and this continued for decades after independence. Before independence, there was the inevitable struggle between the original British imperialist schools, reform minded British historians and Indian historians of both a pro-independence and a neutral point of view.

Now for some two decades, there has been a severe reaction against the monopoly of the Marxists, and their stranglehold has been broken. Unfortunately, there is no replacement, none as yet, as no non-Marxist historian of any quality has emerged. I suppose we have to wait for some more time, for some of those teaching abroad to return.

There is no question of commissioning somebody to write histories, as only those already in the subject can take up such work at all. People like Ramachandra Guha, Abraham Eraly and Dalrymple are popularizers, not academic historians, although Eraly taught history very well in Madras for years. This is not journalism or public relations, for people to write over a few weekends and produce a meaningful work which adds value. An exception to this is Jaswant Singh, who has written an admirable book, the best I have read by an amateur.

Agree with everything you say here.

The major issue for me is the highlighted part from your post. I will call the subjectivity and interpretations as treatment.

We need Indian treatment of objective facts. That is all I am asking.

And yes, I don't have a solution dotted to the last i and crossed to the last t.

I also did't mean that some government minister or babus need to get some people and commission history books. It should be done by a panel of well known and objective historians who care about objectivity and who also care about giving it an Indian treatment.

Let me give you an example from my perspective that would demonstrate what I am want to say here.

For many British, Churchil was the greatest Briton who ever lived as per a recent BBC Poll. Noone can grudge them this.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Churchill voted greatest Briton

For them he was a wartime hero, great orator who led and kept the country motivated during their "best hour", witty, "a statesman" and fully deserving of the honor.

For me as an Indian, his defining image is his contempt for my country, my people and my leaders.

Even more, the deliberate genocide of millions of my countrymen in Bengal when it could have been easily avoided. The ships full of grain from Australia passing India by, only to be stored in godowns in Europe.

The life of Asiatics was after all expendable.

For the Germans, his defining image may be that of Dresden bombing where a hundred thousand were burned alive by firebombing because this bigot wanted to impress a visiting Russian diplomat.

And went ahead with the bombing even though the diplomat failed to turn up. He caused the people to first come out in the open by an initial bombing raid and then the second raid burned them in the open places.

Now, I don't want my history to teach me and fellow Indians that he was a great statesmen. I would have preferred that this genocidal maniac be part of the Nuremberg trials behind the bars. Even if it was fashionable for the whites to look at Asians in a poor light at that time.

I don't want to read "white man's burden" to tell us our identity. I want to see it written like it was, the white man's great robbery.

Here is one example of what I am trying to say again.

The Imperialist History of India

What is the gist of this British imperialist-tailored Indian history? In this history, India is portrayed as the land “conquered” first by the ‘Dravidians’, then by the ‘Aryans’, later by Muslims, and finally by the British. Otherwise, everything else is mythical.

…For example, even though the Mughal rule from Akbar to Aurangzeb is about 150 years, which is much shorter than the 350 year rule of the Vijayanagaram empire, the history books of today hardly take notice of the latter. In fact the territory under Krishna Devaraya’s rule was much larger than Akbar’s, and yet it is the latter who is called “the Great”. Such a version suited the British rules who had sought to create a legitimacy for their presence in India.

…In this falsified history, it is made out that Hindus capitulated to Islamic invaders. But on the contrary,unlike Iran, Iraq and Egypt where within decades the country capitulated to become 100% Muslims. India despite 800 years of brutal Islamic rule, remained 80% Hindu.

…Just because India did not have a nation state of the present boundaries, exercising control through a unified modern administration, does not mean that there was no India. On the contrary, there was always as India which from north to south, thought of fundamentally as one country.

…on the agenda for National Renaissance has to be a new factual account of our history, focusing on the continuous and unbroken endeavours of a people united as a nation. This history of India must deal with the conscious effort of our people to achieve a civilization, to reach better standards of life, and live a happier and nobler life.

» &#8220;Defalsify India&#8217;s History&#8221; by Subramanian Swamy &#8211; Excerpts . || Satyameva Jayate ||

What is true for British colonial history is also true for Islamic history that tries to justify its own bigotry.

Last point: it is a sad sight to see you joining in the chorus calling Romila Thapar a Marxist. Why she is accused of this is beyond me. It is a canard spread by those who hate her analysis of Muslim raids into India, but why that hatred translates into that particular accusation is beyond me. Perhaps because only a Marxist could be evil enough to be a Hindu and defend Muslims, or refrain from criticizing Muslims.

I am searching for something that made me form my opinions about her. Marxist label may be wrong, the issue is about her treatment of history from the apologetic perspective and not Indian national perspective.

Obviously I dislike her also for the fact that she made me dread the subject of history for a decade or more by the NCERT history books that were tailor made for this purpose.
 
And JNU students have political influence? Or loathe their history? I have heard them criticizing certain aspects of Indian history, but loathe it? What a bizarre idea! Why should anyone loathe his country's history? That is a matter of record, and what sense would there be in loathing it?

I wish you would examine your beliefs very carefully. You are replete with strange and distorted images of reality.

JNU students are perfectly dumb enough to ignore realities, i repeat extremely dumb enough to ignore everything and be dumb.
 
Rajiv Malhotra is a good example of Indians presenting Indian history from an Indian POV.

Though I would not call him a historian, more of an interpreter of past events and analysing future through that prism.

Thanks. I am finding him on Youtube. Somehow never heard him before.
 
And what happened to the illegal Bangladeshis in Assam..?
Lets cut the offtopic discussions.
 
As I said earlier, and if I may borrow and re-use my phrase, a common man is no more competent to understand the biases of an historian than he is to design a naval warship.

Which was the last history book you read, by the way?




Who cares? They are a discredited, rapidly decaying bunch anyway, and the CPI is about to lose its recognition from the Lction Commission as an all-India party. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And most happily, the Congress and the BJP, who also supposedly believe in democracy, are following close on their heels.



You are such a mess.

Can you name the CPI or the CPM member who suggested this? And where he did so?

It is sad to see that you have taken to fabricating facts now.




Ummmm...I'm not a Marxist, actually. I'm opposed to them, being a liberal and a democrat.

Try the next canard?



You are right, and you are wrong.

There are very many loan words in Dravidian languages, and they were transferred to the language at a very, very early stage - one of the reasons, interestingly enough, why it is thought that Aryan-speaking people encountered Dravidian speaking people as early as on the right bank of the Indus.

There are also very many loan words from Sanskrit into Tamil, and Telugu, Kannada, Tulu and Malayalam. In fact, the name of a very prominent Dravidian leader is pure Sanskrit.

You are right to recognize the loan words. That is as far as it goes, unfortunately.

But the loan words are the reality and a clear and existent reality. You cannot separate the loan words and the original ones just like that and it is impossible.You can do so if you live on a hill or an island,not so if you live linked with a broad subcontinent.

trying to stress on these things is useless as always.
 
Hmm..this discussion is going absolutely nowhere.

As I said earlier, and if I may borrow and re-use my phrase, a common man is no more competent to understand the biases of an historian than he is to design a naval warship

Again, you dont need to be a celebrated chef to say that a particular dish has more salt.



You are such a mess.

Can you name the CPI or the CPM member who suggested this? And where he did so?

It is sad to see that you have taken to fabricating facts now.

I did not claim that the CPI(M) or CPI suggested that openly. Even the Communists are not that stupid to say that openly. It is more of an inference about the marxists and communists in general. As I said, the theoretical part of that are the JNU intelligentsia, the marxist historians who try to create a disconnect between the average Indian and his civilizational identity for the guns to take over later. Is it any coincidence that most of the Maoists are virulently anti-Hinduism ? :no:


Ummmm...I'm not a Marxist, actually. I'm opposed to them, being a liberal and a democrat.

Try the next canard?

Even I'm opposed to them. So I'm also a liberal and a democrat.
 
A meaty reply. Let me respond to it in parts - divide et impera, as some older imperialists put it!

Agree with everything you say here.

The major issue for me is the highlighted part from your post. I will call the subjectivity and interpretations as treatment.

We need Indian treatment of objective facts. That is all I am asking.

And yes, I don't have a solution dotted to the last i and crossed to the last t.

I also did't mean that some government minister or babus need to get some people and commission history books. It should be done by a panel of well known and objective historians who care about objectivity and who also care about giving it an Indian treatment.

We CANNOT have an history written from a national perspective; that is an absolute betrayal of the task of an intellectual involved in academics. Nationalist views of history, or economics, or politics, is a political matter, not academic; it becomes those concoctions for which the Soviet Union became infamous.

Please find some way to get your hands on a book, preferably an English version unless your French is very, very good, written by Julien Benda, called La Trahison des Clercs. It might explain some very critical ideas better than I can.

Let me give you an example from my perspective that would demonstrate what I am want to say here.

For many British, Churchil was the greatest Briton who ever lived as per a recent BBC Poll. Noone can grudge them this.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Churchill voted greatest Briton

For them he was a wartime hero, great orator who led and kept the country motivated during their "best hour", witty, "a statesman" and fully deserving of the honor.

For me as an Indian, his defining image is his contempt for my country, my people and my leaders.

Even more, the deliberate genocide of millions of my countrymen in Bengal when it could have been easily avoided. The ships full of grain from Australia passing India by, only to be stored in godowns in Europe.

The life of Asiatics was after all expendable.

For the Germans, his defining image may be that of Dresden bombing where a hundred thousand were burned alive by firebombing because this bigot wanted to impress a visiting Russian diplomat.

And went ahead with the bombing even though the diplomat failed to turn up. He caused the people to first come out in the open by an initial bombing raid and then the second raid burned them in the open places.

Now, I don't want my history to teach me and fellow Indians that he was a great statesmen. I would have preferred that this genocidal maniac be part of the Nuremberg trials behind the bars. Even if it was fashionable for the whites to look at Asians in a poor light at that time.

I don't want to read "white man's burden" to tell us our identity. I want to see it written like it was, the white man's great robbery.

Too late.

Contra: Books: Churchill's Shameful Role in the Bengal Famine - TIME

The book in question is widely acclaimed as an author's single-handed exposure of a western hero. It is very professionally written.

Pro: The Bengali Famine

You might like to ask yourself why this article leaves you with a faint sense of unease, and list down the reasons.
 

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