The Making of India: A Journey Through Eight Centuries

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Preface

It is a privilege to edit this book, titled "The Making of India- A Journey through Eight Centuries". The book contains articles written by reputed historians and budding researchers from different parts of the country. The Institute of Objective Studies is indeed grateful to our esteemed contributors who come from renowned institutions, spread across the country.

The present book contains the proceedings of a two-day national seminar held in collaboration with The New College in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) to mark the 30th Anniversary Celebrations of the Institute of Objective Studies. The broader theme of the seminar was "Towards Equality, Justice and Fraternity in Contemporary India - Creating a Better Tomorrow through History".

The New College, Chennai, hosted this grand academic event on December 2-3, 2017 at its beautiful and vibrant campus under the dynamic leadership of the then Principal, Dr. Major Zahid Husain, who was also the then Coordinator of the Chennai Chapter of the Institute of Objective Studies.

The Institute entrusted the task of editing the papers presented at this seminar to this humble student of history. A review of the seminar proceedings revealed that more papers were required to present a serious study on the seminar theme, while many papers were not considered for publication, as they did not suit our theme. We approached historians known to us closely to submit their recent research relevant to our theme. It however, took a long time to get their unpublished papers. We stuck to the decision of the Institute to prepare and produce a book, which wins appreciation from our readers. I have tried to edit carefully the papers now included in the present book. Still, if errors are found, I am alone responsible for them.

I am personally grateful to Dr. M. Manzoor Alam, Chairman, the Institute of Objective Studies, who always motivates me and our associates to continue to promote historical studies, in particular the cultural ethos of the country and the Muslim contribution to the country's intellectual legacy. Though he specialises in economics, his interest in history abounds. His great concern about how relevant history is in our time accounts for his concepts of several historical projects the Institute has undertaken, giving me the follow-up tasks.

In the end, I express my gratitude to the contributors without whose contributions it would not have been possible to produce the present book. I am thankful to Mr. Ataur Rehman, Administrative officer at the IOS, for his abundant support in conducting all affairs related to the historical projects. I also thank Ms. Huma for her assistance in arranging study material from different sources. Mr. Saad Niyazi, the librarian in the IOS Library, helped me get access to the books and dictionaries whenever I required them. Last and not the least, I would like to thank Ms. Samra Firdous, Projects Coordinator at the IOS, who performed a tremendous task of compiling and arranging all the papers received by the Institute. Without her dedicated and active support, it would not have been possible to make the book worth publishing.

I feel sad that my revered teacher and senior colleague in the Department of History & Culture at Jamia Millia Islamia, Prof. Kunwar Refaqat Ali Khan, left us all for his final abode. May Allah grant him maghfirah and a high place in Jannah. He adorned the office of the Vice-Chairman of the Institute of Objective Studies when the seminar we have talked about was held in Chennai. He delivered the Valedictory Address at the Valedictory session of the seminar in which he discussed several points relevant to its theme opening new areas for future research. He particularly discussed how history is being distorted and what the distortions aim at. This Valedictory Address is included in this book as Introduction, under the title "Introduction: Towards Equality, Justice and Fraternity in Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic India- Creating a Better Tomorrow through History".

Alas, Refaqat Saheb, as I used to address him adoringly, is no more with us to see the proceedings of the seminar published.

Introduction

While reading the Introduction, readers should keep in mind that it was delivered as a Valedictory Address on December 3, 2017. So, many of the developments in the Address refer to episodes and trends at the far end of 2017.

In the topic given above I have taken the liberty of adding Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic which is a part of the preamble to the Constitution of India so that the attention of this learned audience is drawn to the values of the socialist and secular content of the Constitution and the existing situation wherein the new concept of nationalism is being forced upon the entire nation. In spite of being a Socialist Republic, the work of the Planning Commission is taken over by a bland slogan 'Make in India' and Big Business has received all possible concessions it desired. The secular character of the state underwent a perceptible change during the 1999-2004 NDA government. In 2003, the Supreme Court held that it was the duty of the state to provide "instruction in religion" in its schools. This, in fact, was a death knell for secular education, especially when an RSS-backed party is in power at the Centre and in several states. Already schemes are in operation to create mythical history to inculcate hatred for Muslims. The forceful agitation against screening a film, Padmavat, is part of such a programme. The story of Padmavati conceived and written five hundred years ago by a sufi poet, Malik Muhammad Jayasi, did not bother the Rajput pride of the legendary hero, Rana Pratap Singh of Mewar or any other proud Rajput in any part of India.

The RSS and the parties and institutions supported by it have taken up the Nazi (German/Hitlerian) way of politics. The Nazi way inflicted the Second World War upon us, ending in the death of many millions of people and shattering the world economy. The pride of being Aryan emboldened the followers of Hitler and the same Aryan pride is exciting some people in India. The Vedas repeatedly advised all to learn "to progress happily together or perish miserably together". This happened before our eyes recently in Bihar. United they won, disunited they lost. United we march for equality, justice and fraternity with watchful eyes on persons and parties which strive to bring about division in society. The dividers are successfully using history to their advantage for more than one hundred years.

History works both ways. The flag-bearers of pluralism and inclusiveness can meet the challenge of dividers by using the same tool-history.

India has a history. Its development up to its present socio-economic level has not been smooth or easy. No period of Indian history has been free from conflict of one kind or the other, but such tussles or struggles were more over economic or political matters rather than over religion. People were either indifferent to or respectful of the religion of their neighbors and tolerated them, even if the latter's religion was to the former's dislike. Such tolerance was universal in nature. The intolerance of a king or bigotry of a religious head created very unhappy situations, but such occasions were rare. They did not change the course of socio-economic development in ancient or medieval times.

Whoever be the invader, killing on both sides was natural. The combating sides were not exclusively Hindus or Muslims. The population of the towns or composition of the army was mixed. Under such circumstances, it is unhistorical to say, "Hindus were killed and enslaved" as has been said by many historians. We have no evidence that, while killing, the victor made any scrutiny of the religion of the persons under his sword. Killing and enslavement were quite common in India before the Turkish invasion. Among people, almost wholly Muslim, the practices of war and battle were alike. Ambition was inherent in kingship. The greed for power, money or territory was infinite. It was for these reasons that all kings, Hindus or Muslims, ruled alike. They used religion if it suited them, otherwise ignored it and sometimes they opposed it, if it was necessary for the execution of their policies. They were not liberal, democratic, or secular, nor did they have the qualities of modern times. They ruled by the values of their own times. Theocracy, which limited their authority, was against their interest. Power was their religion, all politics was a tussle for power. Religion hardly played any role. The armies were mixed at all levels. Rana Sangram Singh of Mewar fought against Babur. In his army, the Rana had the support of a Lodi prince, Mahmood Khan, and Hasan Khan, a Mewati chief. At the time of Akbar's siege of Chittor, Todarmal and Bhagwant Das were with him but Ismail Khan as the chief of artillery was on the side of the Rajputs. Similarly, in the famous battle of Haldighati, Hakim Sur fought for Rana Pratap, while Man Singh led the Mughal army. Aurangzeb and Shivaji were at war but the composition was mixed. Aurangzeb had Jai Singh and Jaswant Singh among his top commanders and Shivaji had Siddi Sanhal and Haider Khan Kohari among his top brass. The above said conflicts were in no way about religion or the country.

There is a large market for anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic publications. Prestigious publishing companies are also printing poisonous communal histories. The Oxford University Press published James Lain's 'Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India'. The author had a communal agenda. The very title of the book has a foul odour. The book contains the worst kind of antagonism between Hindus and Muslims and also Hinduism and Islam. The author cites Hindu Marathi authors for his agenda of establishing a perpetual Hindu-Muslim conflict, although there are a large number of books in Marathi by Hindu writers on goodwill among Hindus and Muslims. Dr. Rafiq Zakaria (Indian Muslims, Mumbai 2004, p. 312) points out that James Lain has carefully concealed the secular activities of Shivaji.