January 7th, 2001
‘What is the Truth?’ asked Pontius Pilate and would not wait for an answer. Our current rulers do not ask. They manufacture what they want to be seen as the truth and the RSS/VHP/BJP propaganda machinery springs to action to repeat a lie over and over again until it comes to be perceived as the truth.
The object is to purge India of all that is non-Hindu and cleanse and purify everything back to the state of pristine purity it is alleged to have been in before the Muslims came and spoilt it all.
To this end names like Tipu [Tippou] Sultan Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ and Ashfaqulla and slogans like ‘Inqilaab Zindaabaad’ which represent the devil and the tongue of the devil have to be obliterated even if it means forgetting the freedom movement.
The ‘patriot’ label can only be awarded to Savarkar, Hegdewar and Deoras who always stood against the nationalist leaders like Gandhi Nehru Patel and Azad and sided with the British even to the extent of opposing the Quit India movement of 1942 and giving full support to the War effort 1939-1945.
This attitude is now being translated into policy engendering a most short sighted move. This is to ignore the age old ties with Afghanistan Iran and West Asia. This area is perceived as the happy hunting ground of Pakistan. India is alleged to have nothing in common with that lot. The thesis is that all influences to India came from the South East.
The frenetic pursuit of an Aryan identity has a propagandist masquerading as a scholar use computer graphics to fake evidence of a horse existing in India in the period when the Indus Valley Civilisation flourished. This enthusiast took a fragment of a seal showing just the back or rear half of a bull and ‘worked’ it into a horse. Perhaps this worthy is unaware that the Bengali idiom for ‘nonsense’ is Ghoadaadeem or egg of a horse!
Hyderabadis have to sit up and take note because the Qutb Shahis who ruled Golconda from May 12th 1507 A.D were Central Asian Turks of the Aaq Quyinlou [ the tribe with the emblem of the White Sheep on their totem poles and flagstaffs ] and their founder, Sultan Quli came to India as a horse trader. The RSS’s new thrust in history runs counter to the facts on the ground in Telugu Desam.
What is untrue in the Deccan also rings false in North, East and West India. The Aiybeks, the Iltutmishes, the Qubaachaas and the Tughluqs amongst others were all Turki speaking Central Asians. The Mughals who followed were Chaghatai Turks. This is a plus point in relating to West Asia as the rulers of Asia Minor who gave their name to the area and had it called ‘Turkey’ were Osmanli Turks of the same Central Asian origin as the Mughals.
The ruler of Diyabakir in mid 15th century was Uzun Hasan Lord of the Aaq Quyinlou. He married a Byzantine princess, Theodora of Trebizond on the Black Sea and his grandson Ismail became the first Safavid ruler of Iran.
The Qutb Shahis and other Deccan Sultans had direct links with Iran bypassing Dillee and Chandra Babu Naidu may be well advised to study that period. The Char Minar and Char Kamaan, the Golconda Fort and the Qutb Shahi Tombs, the superb metalware and painting the exquisitely calligraphed inscriptions all show a much higher standard of culture than anything the RSS has to offer.
What then should we do in the 21st century? Perhaps we should again study our Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Where the Mind is without fear….’ The RSS have come to power by making the Hindus afraid and inculcating a minority complex in a majority community. They do not address the real problems like feticide, infanticide dowry deaths and widow burning. When the producer unit, the female is destroyed [thirty million between 1981-1991] Hindu reproductive rates will fall below those of Muslims and Christians. To divert attention from evil social practices which they refuse to address Hindu leaders claim that conversions are at the root of the lower growth rate. Muslims, it is alleged convert through the abduction or seduction of Hindu girls. Christians convert by bribery. Poor Hindus!
Another poet who saw the light was Iqbal. He wrote ‘Saarey Jahaan Sey Uchhchhaa, Hindostaan hamaaraa’. [ Better than anything in the whole wide world is our India!] He also wrote ‘Muzhub nuheen sikhaataa aapus mein beyr rukhnaa ; hindee hein hum watan hai hindoastaan hamaara’[ Religion does not teach enmity; we are all of India and India belongs to each one of us].
Here is hoping that 2001 and the new millennium will see Tagore and Iqbal prevail.