February 8th, 2001

We return to the accusation that ‘Itihaas’ suffers from prejudice, partiality and lack of balance. Perhaps it would be as well to provide some details of the machinations of British historians of the 19th Century.

We are in the third quarter of the 19th Century. The Great Uprising of 1857/1859 has seen Hindus and Muslims unite against the British. The nominal head of the Maratthas, the Peshwa Dhondho Pant [Nana Saheb] , the Rani of Jhansi, the zamindars like Kunwar Singh of Bihar and Ahmad Shah of Nili Bar all accept the last Mughal Emperor Sirajuddin Muhammad, Bahadur Shah II ‘Zafar’ as their supremo against the British. This uprising is put down most brutally and some quarter to half a million lives are lost on the Indian side. Delhi and Lucknow are punished by being despoiled vandalised and gutted.

It is decided that the natives have ‘no sense of history’. All ‘native’ chronicles such as the great intellectuals Abul Fazl and the erudite Chander Bhan Brahman and the meticulous Ferishta are consigned to the dustbin.

Henry Elliot proceeds 1867-1877 to provide a ‘History of India As Told By Its Own Historians’ by perusing one hundred and twenty Persian chronicles and transforming annals into ‘useful’ history. He says ‘In Indian History there is little which enables us to penetrate beneath the glittering surface and observe the practical operation of a despotic government……’

‘If, however, we turn our eyes to the present Mahomedan kingdoms of India and examine the character of princes… we may fairly draw a parallel between ancient and modern times’….

‘We behold kings, even of our creation, sunk in sloth and debauchery and emulating the vices of a Caligula or Commodus….’

‘Had the authors we are compelled to consult portrayed their Ceasers with the fidelity of Seutonius, instead of the more congenial sycophancy of Paterculus, we should not, as now have to extort from unwilling witnesses, testimony for the truth of these assertions….

‘The few glimpses we have even among the short extracts of this single volume of Hindus slain for disputing with Mahomedans, of general prohibition against processions, worship and ablutions, and of other intolerant measures, of idols mutilated, of temples razed, of forcible conversions and marriages, of proscriptions and confiscations, of murders and massacres, of sensuality and drunkenness of tyrants who enjoined them show us that this picture is not overdrawn and it is much to be regretted that we are left to draw it for ourselves from out of the mass of ordinary occurences’

We now quote what Sir Henry Elliott, author of ‘The History of India As Told By Its Own Historians’ had to say on Hindu chroniclers of Muslim reigns.

‘The fact that even Hindu chroniclers wrote ‘to flatter the vanity of an imperious Muslim patron’ was, Elliott thought, ‘lamentable’
‘there is not one of this slavish crew who treats the history of his native country subjectively or presents us with the thoughts emotions and raptures which a long suppressed race might be supposed to give vent to’.

Elliot set about to gouge out whatever instances he could spot in order to set them up as exemplars of ‘oppressive Muslim Rule in India’ so that he could achieve his objective.

This objective was to ‘ make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantage accruing to them under the mildness and equity of our rule – We shall no longer hear bombastic Babus, enjoying political advantage and privileges than were ever conceded to a conquered nation, rant about patriotism and the degradation of their present position’.

‘If they would dive into any of the volumes mentioned herein; it would take these Brutuses and Phocius a very short time to learn that in the days of the dark period to which they yearn to return, even the bare utterance of their ridiculous fantasies would have been attended, not by silence and contempt, but with the severe discipline of molten lead or impalement’.

While it is true that some Muslim rulers did, sometimes, wrongly and without any possible justification, use Islam for punitive administrative and legal purposes the numbers were minuscule.

There was Muslim rule over most of India for many centuries and the country remained Hindu majority/Muslim minority.

The use of religion as a means for the punishment of recalcitrant and rebellious non Muslim subjects has a comic aspect which appears to have escaped the rulers of the middle ages. Just as the RSS cannot see that ‘Garva Sey Kahoa Meiyn Hindu Houn’ makes one think of the saying ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much!’.