When (Mughal) History Is Defined And Discussed By Those Who're Not Qualified Historians
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
12 April
2023
Nowadays, a
sane person doesn't watch debates on news channels, but if accidentally one
gets to watch, the uncouth behaviour of the participants and panellists will
surely put you off. What annoys the most is the participation of 'scholars' and
' pundits ' who call themselves historians and justify this government's
decision to expunge all that ever belonged to Muslims and Islam.
First of
all, they're not trained historians. Secondly, most of the 'experts' invited to
opine on Mughal history have no knowledge of Persian, the language of the
Mughals. When you've not studied the papers and documents of that era in
original Persian- and also in early Turkish/Ottoman Turkish or Uzbeki
dialect-how can you condemn an entire dynasty and justify its omission from the
text books?
I ask the
BJP spokesmen Dr Sudhanshu Trivedi (a qualified Mechanical Engineer) and Dr
Sambit Patra (a medico), have they studied the Farmans ( edicts) of
Mughal emperors written in Persian? Have they ever read even their
translations? Before spitting venom, did they study Mughal history beginning
from 1526 to 1857? Do these so-called Mahram-E-Tawareekh (scholars of
history) know that Babar knew very little Persian? Babar's language was
dialectical Turkish or Uzbeki and he wrote his memoirs Tuzuk-e-Babri in
early Turkish. Have these pseudos’ ever bothered to pore over Akbar and
Aurangzeb's 27 Farmans/decrees in Persian, condemning the custom of Sati
and warning the Hindus (esp. Brahmins) of severe punishment if they continued
with their reprehensible custom of burning Hindu widows along with their
already departed husbands?
This
benevolent aspect of the Mughals will not be taught because these 'experts' are
simply ignorant and the govt is also hell-bent upon not eulogising any positive facet of the Mughals.
Maratha
historian Govind Sakharam Sardesai wrote of the legendary Sir Jadunath Sarkar
that to know Shivaji and his times during the Mughals in the sub-continent,
Sarkar learnt Persian from Muslim and English scholars in Patna, Tehran and
Oxford. He came to Poona to learn how to read and write Modi script as all old
documents of Marathas were written in Modi. Only after learning Modi script and
Persian, did he start writing his erudite volumes. This is what we call writing
history in a holistic manner. Sir Jadunath also learnt Quranic Arabic in Cairo
to comprehend Quran and Aurangzeb's Fatwa-e-Alamgir.
English
historian Sir Arnold Toynbee learnt Latin and Greek to understand the Roman and
Hellenic civilizations.
British
Poet laureate Sir Ted Hughes became a scholar of ancient Greek language to
translate Odes of Pindar and 'Fragments' of Greek poetess Sappho.
And what do
these prejudiced 'pundits' of the current political dispensation do? They can't
even write their names in Urdu. But they cast opprobrium on Mughals. Agreed,
most of the Mughals were worth-criticizing, but in their long history in the
sub-continent, didn't they perform even one small noble deed?
Govt. is
deleting and distorting history and appointing all substandard and sickly
biased 'scholars' to justify its silly actions. Alas, generations to come will
have skewed and truncated perceptions of India's past.
------
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/mughal-history-defined-discussed-historians/d/129545
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