Those readers who have been
following the trail of this blog would remember that it all began with the post
“Should We Re–Write Indian History?” The secular, rational, scientific–tempered
historians who have been re–writing history would have us believe that the objective
for ‘re–writing’ is to present a secular, rational, scientific–tempered (SRST)
version of India’s history and not to ‘Twist Facts To Suit Theories’ as alleged
by ever–whining Sanghi Bhakts.
In keeping with its avowed principles of
SRST, the newly elected government (in 2004) reconstituted the Indian Council
of Historical Research (ICHR) as the ‘Indian Council For Re–Writing Secular, Rational,
Scientific–Tempered History’ (ICSRSH). The ICSRSH has been tasked to re–write India’s
history as ‘secular, rational, scientific–tempered history’ (SRSTH). The
doyenne of SRST historians, Ruma Li was appointed its Chairperson with similarly
qualified and distinguished SRSTHs Irf Ha, Aud Tsk and Ran Gu as its members.
The chairperson and members will have no fixed tenure but will be in office
till the ICSRSH completes its job of re–writing India’s history and bringing it up
to date. Other SRSTHs will be co–opted to write chapters related to specific
periods.
It is not that there was no unofficially–officially
curated history before, or that these eminences were not associated with
history–writing earlier. There was and they were. Like all quasi–government
bodies, the ICHR too was autonomous on paper but in actual practice it was the government
that called the shots. It appointed its members and controlled its purse strings.
In the short interregnum of six
years between 1998 and 2004 a ‘reactionary’ non–left government was in power
and it attempted to make some changes in history–writing. The attempts were
unsuccessful of course. The ecosystem—fuelled by power and pelf—the previous
governments planted took deep ideological roots and it would need determined
efforts of a massed army to undo their handiwork. All that the short–lived
government achieved was a few screaming headlines denouncing its ‘toxic’ efforts
to saffronise history–writing and Op–Eds predicting doomsday if the trend was
not reversed.
As everyone knows, just as the history of
the USA began in the eighteenth century, so did India’s history began in the
tenth century. India had no history before then. The Council decided
that Ruma Li and Irf Ha would write the history from the beginning till the
reign of Shah Jehan. Aud Tsk would write from the reign of Aurangzeb onwards.
The historians have the necessary research experience into the history of the
periods. Besides they have knowledge of languages like Sanskrit and its allied
languages like Prakrit; Avestan and its allied languages like Old and New
Persian; Turkish and its dialects like Chagatai. They have acquired intimate
knowledge of epigraphy in various languages and dialects; archaeology and
architecture to be able to accurately decipher and interpret stone edicts and archaeological
relics.
The Council also decided that Ran Gu would
write the modern parts of India’s history beginning with Gandhi and Nehru. As
Nehru was a talented cricket player—which he played with his English cohorts while
in England—it was felt Ran Gu’s intimate knowledge of the game would stand him
in good stead in interpreting the sporting streak in Nehru’s psyche. Nehru’s
classmates in Cambridge recall that he was a sportive player who played the
game not for winning but for the game’s sake. When he bowled he pitched the
balls not to hit the stumps but to fall at the feet of the opposing batsmen to
enable them to strike them off the field. When he batted he let the balls that were
pitched at his feet alone to enable opposing bowlers to score maidens. By the
by, not many know but in the field of horse racing, the word maiden is
used to denote a horse that never won a race!
Ruma Li began at the beginning, when
Mohamed Ghazni began distributing hoarded temple wealth to the masses. How did
Ghazni distribute hoarded temple wealth if India had no history before the
tenth century? Only bigoted Sanghi Bhakts who lack rationality and
scientific–temper (SBWLRAST) ask such impudent questions. Ghazni found the
wealth in the form of forbidden infidel idols made of gold, studded with
priceless stones. Each idol was estimated to cost several hundred thousand
dinars. He also found wealth estimated at millions of dinars, hidden in temple
vaults groaning and begging to be liberated.
Ghazni was a socialist, whose heart bled
and bled for the weak and downtrodden. What? The concept of ‘socialism’ did not
exist in in the tenth century the way it was since the nineteenth century? You
SBWLRAST! The word might not have been used then but it is the spirit of the
noble thought that is to be understood and interpreted by true SRSTHs. As a
true patriot, Ghazni took away the wealth to be distributed to the people of
his country. He gifted a part of it to the Caliphate but it was not
because he was a bigot but because of his true allegiance to his religion.
The noble, scientific–tempered visionary Ghazni reasoned, quite appropriately, that if the wealth was distributed locally in Hindustan, it would make people lazy and stunt the progress of the society. With the noble intention of providing employment to masons, sculptors and other artisans Ghazni ordered the Sri Krishna temple in Mathura be doused in naphtha, burnt and razed to the ground. It was estimated that it would take two hundred years to recreate the architectural splendor and sculptural grandeur of the temple. The altruist Ghazni wanted thousands of masons, sculptors and other artisans to be gainfully employed for the next two hundred years! He also understood that any new construction on such scale would uplift the economic mood of the society. Earlier historians missed this noble streak in the character of Ghazni. In order to set right the imbalance Ruma Li devoted a chapter to nuance his character.
Ruma Li meticulously chronicled the good
deeds of the subsequent conquerors. There was neither Ganga nor Yamuna before
Babur arrived in north India and of course there was no Ganga–Yamuna tehzeeb.
First Babur dug the Ganga and two harems later his grandson Akbar dug
the Yamuna. In between them they planted the tehzeeb comprising nazrana, jabrana, shukrana and ‘drink, dance and make merry’.
………………
Disclaimer:
This is a purely fictional, satirical piece.