“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ― George Orwell.
Many in school dread history as a subject. While the other subjects like mathematics, sciences, geography, economics apart from the languages that we study in schools are likely to have a palpable role to play in providing us with some pragmatic, practical, purposeful knowledge for our progress in future life, one is prone to ponder as to what pertinent purpose is going to be provided at all in studying history. Why should we know the past on which we do not have any control at present and consequently cannot attempt any corrective action? Is it not an absolutely futile exercise?
But, the answer is ‘no’. An emphatic ‘NO’. We are the products of the collective history of our nation, the crux, completion, culmination and consummation of our past. We derive our customs, conventions, creed, culture and civilisation from the past. We take pride, a justifiable pride at that, at our hoary history, its heroes, their honourable feats, the hallowed values bequeathed to us by them. In addition and more importantly, we can learn vital lessons from the past and, in case our predecessors had faulted somewhere, we can avoid, at least, monotony in making mistakes.
But what do we have as history today?
Do we get such lofty emotions or, for that matter, any worthwhile lessons while reading our history now? No. The reason is simple. What we are studying in our schools is not the real history, but false, fabricated, fictitious, farcical fish stories by a forum of fake, fraudulent pseudo historians. Yes. It is just a concocted, counterfeit, corrupted, camouflaged chronicle compiled by colonial/pseudo-secular/communists cloaked as history.
In every lesson, we are loaded with ginormous conquests of foreigners over us: Starting from Alexander, through the Moghul invaders and upto the British rulers. We are told to repeat parrot-like, Alexander the Great, Akbar the Great etc. But, were they really great? Alexander was in fact, miserably defeated by Chandragupta Maurya and he ran away to save his life. Akbar was defeated by Maharana Pratap of Mewar. Also, the atrocities of Akbar were no less gruesome than that of the notorious Aurangzeb. But, these facts are never revealed to us. And as for as Asoka is concerned, he is grudgingly included as ‘Asoka the Great’, only for the sole reason that he switched over to Buddhism, which has now been conveniently misinterpreted by the pseudo historians as absolutely hostile to Hinduism in furtherance of their sinister agenda.
We are stuffed with the complete genealogy of the Moghul rulers, the succession of British viceroys; we are indoctrinated with imaginary stories of their victories, their ‘humanitarian’ approach towards their subjects, while our own native kings are either completely ignored or relegated to the background with as much negative statements as they can, as a result of which the nascent minds of the young neophytes are nurtured with favourable feelings about the foreigners vis-a-vis a dismal, depressing, disheartening, demoralising, discouraging perspective of our own rulers. We routinely repeat with awe and ardour names of Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jehan, Aurangzeb as also Robert Clive, Warren Hastings, Corwallis, Wellesley, Minto etc. But, how much do we know of the details of the abilities, adventures, achievements about our own Chola, Chera, Pandya, Pallava, Chalukya, Maurya, Gupta, Haryanka, Vijayanagara, Hoysala, Shishunaga, Sungas, Kanvas apart from the sixteen mahajanpadas? The list is just indicative, not exhaustive.
Okay. We understand. The reason is simple. Before independence our history books were written by our alien rulers and one should not be puerile enough to presume that they will project the positive side of our nation, since, apart from pillage and plunder of our properties and possessions, propagation of and pushing their faith on the provincial population was their prime purpose. For achieving their diabolical aim, they deliberately disparaged and deprecated all our glorious past and thus succeeded in creating an indelible inferiority complex in the credulous common man.
Still, the perplexing question is that why are we still continuing the same curriculum even after seven long decades? Should we not have promptly and painstakingly pored into the pages of our past to present the positive records of our rulers with precision and perfection?
Incidentally, a deep analysis of history will reveal that even those ‘victories’ of the foreigners were not achieved by any innate talent or intrinsic superiority in them but only thanks to the pathetic fact that the enemies were able to ignite the basic weakness of jealousy among the different local rulers successfully and defeat one with the help of the other. Consequently, the vital lesson that we should learn today from our original history is the most elementary axiom, ‘United we stand; divided we fall’. This is the first chapter in our ancient Panchatantram stories, titled, ‘Mithra Bedham’. Unfortunately, even today, looking into the dirty feuds and despicable disputes we are dealing in day in and day out, it seems that we have not learnt that cardinal, crucial lesson at all.
Now, here are a just few names: Lachit Borphukan, Chhatrasal, Banda Bahadur, Tanaji Malusare, Durgadas Rathore, Kittur Chennamma, Velu Nachair, Abbakka Rani, Onake Obavva. Do our history books tell anything about them? Does anyone know that they are warriors of extraordinary valour, indomitable spirit, ever ready to sacrifice their lives for the honour of our motherland and have fearlessly fought with the foreign intruders and defeated their mighty armies in many cases? Many of them are women possessed with vigour, valour and valiance. Still, they may be, at best, known in their local areas, mostly as folklores. That is all. [In fact, such restrictive localised knowledge within the limited vernacular area will have pernicious effect and will impregnate narrow parochialism instead of a nationalistic perspective in the pliable mind.] But, the exploits of Allauddin Khilji, Timur, Gazni, Robert Clive etc. are eulogised with extreme extravagance in all our history books. Further, flagrant falsehood and fanciful fables are unabashedly forced into the books to create an impression that the aliens were altruistic in their approach. The time has now come for us to execute a tectonic shift in the teaching text of our school books and provide our children with the genuine history of our motherland, legacy of her nonpareil heroes, glory of her heritage, elegance of her lineage, the pride of place that our nation had been occupying till invasion by the aliens, so that our future generation grow up with their heads held high, hearts brimming with patriotic spirit, propelling them to face the world with courage, confidence and composure, with pride, poise and a positive perspective.
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