Recently Naseeruddin Shah has come out with a gem of history. He says Mughals are like “refugees” – because they settled here. The Aussies must be kicking themselves. Why didn’t we have a brilliant historian like Shah saheb?! The British too came there as refugees and formed a “syncretic” culture with the indigenous tribes.

That brings us to this topic…that of history and who gets credit for past achievements.

It is so tough being a child or student in India. Especially of history. Our Politburo curated NCERT books tell us a lot of good stuff but we are still left confused by our army of intellectuals.

We are told almost every day that we should be ashamed of everything that is Indian particularly if it’s Hindu. Yet we are also told about the fantastic job done by some of our great leaders and rulers of the past like Aurangzeb, Pandit Nehru, and the British.

Because of tough competition among various leftist intellectuals, “eminent” historians, Bollywood divas, and heroes, and media Pidis to credit these three for all the good things we are enjoying to this day, we are caught in a dilemma.

Who do we thank more? Mughals? British? Pandit Nehru?

Let’s argue for all three! See who “wins”!!

It’s the Mughals!

Depending on which intellectual genius you listen to, Mughals, particularly Aurangzeb has done so much for us, it is amazing we are still behind Bangladesh (yet another pearl of intellectual wisdom), let alone Japan! It must be Modi’s disastrous rule after 2014 that made us this poor! Didn’t Indira Gandhi “hatao” all garibi already by the 70s? Or do we have to vote Rahul and then perhaps Rehan Vadra and his son as PM for that?

It is also somewhat strange that the Mughal benevolence has not benefited Pakistan, which is much closer culturally and geographically to them. 

Everyone knows, thanks to Ms. Audrey the great historian, that Aurangzeb “protected” more temples than he may have destroyed. 

Yea, that’s why there are so many grand medieval temples in North India and the Gangetic plains, each one more dazzling than the other. On the contrary, in the South, where the golden rule of Aurangzeb was not in the good fortune of the people, there are practically no temples. One almost wishes Mughals or Aurangzeb visited Kanchi, Hampi, Talakkad, Madurai, or Tanjore and helped us build some nice temples too. Those places are so barren now!

As if the great act of protecting temples is not enough, Mughals also left us much richer! Ask any leftist economist. They came as “refugees” because they probably took pity on our poor conditions and pathetic life and wanted India to match the glory of their native lands.

What follows naturally is, all those Hindu or Jain kings that ruled before the Mughals avatar-ed in this wretched land to make enrich us, did a pretty bad job. So bad, you don’t even get to read about them in any official history book, other than a passing mention. Who’s Shivaji? Or should we skip the “Ji” and just call him “Shiva” as Audrey wants us? The Guptas, Mauryas, and others were just village chieftains with an oversized ego like Vitalstatistix of Asterix comics.

The Mughals taught us music too. Before that Rig Vedas were recited as prose without any tones. We never knew how to sing or play any instrument. All those idols of Saraswati etc., you see with musical instruments were just Sanghi myths. There is practically no mention of any music in Indian Puranas unless inserted by Brahminical RSS historians. 

No, it’s the British and evangelicals

As if the Mughal contributions to our economy and its richness were not enough, the British too came to make us even more civilized! Of course, this line of “history” is not attempted as often as the Mughal line, given many of our liberal stalwarts that peddle this school of thought also are devoted serfs of the dynasty. But you can nevertheless see it in tweets, books, and articles of eminent “liberals” now and then.

Fareed Zakaria, of CNN, has been quoted from his book

… India’s political system owes much to the institutions put in place by the British over two hundred years ago…and built lasting institutions of government throughout the country–courts, universities, administrative agencies. 

To be fair to Zakaria, he also credits Congress, and hence the Nehru dynasty for a lot of good that the British did but had to be built on. How nice is he?

If praising the British can be politically inconvenient, praising the evangelicals for their contribution to India is truly progressive. And to question the source of the funds or try to trace it to colonial rule and the plunder of Indian wealth, a small part of which was routed through Church as “charity” is heresy and bigotry. 

No, no!!  It was Pandit Nehru!

But all those great deeds of Mughals pales into nothing if one were to consider what Pandit Nehru did for India!

A true Pidi will acknowledge that Mughals left us rich, cultured, educated, musically talented, and glorious. But somehow we fell into bad ways. Until Panditji rescued us. 

If not for Nehru, concepts like going to school and getting educated were alien to us. Of course, Mughals gave us all that, but we forgot about them soon after they declined and fell about. Nehruji built dams, constructed IITs and other colleges, and made sure we could all go to the USA, get our H1-B visas and green cards so that we become American “termites”. 

Please don’t forward Whatsapp history and suggest Sri Visveswaraya or the Wodeyars (among others) too built colleges and dams.

What would we have done without him?! Elite liberal Sagarika Ghose at her pungent best has the answer! Rahulji’s pasta dinner must have had lots of garlic. We will be “processing gaumutra” and there will be mandirs. So the conclusion is that if you go to a mandir, you are a gaumutra fan. No questions asked, no exceptions. 

You see she does not mention Churches because worshipping the true Lord is never an issue for liberals. It is only false Gods that we Hindus worship that are at issue.  Attacking that is quite lucrative. 

And there will be no adult franchise even, if not for Nehru! Move over Gandhi, Patel, Azad, Ambedkar, Shastri, Rajaji, et al, you guys did nothing! Only Nehru gave us all this!

So you see, now we are caught in a dilemma. For all the bad things about us, we know clearly where the problem lies – us remaining a Hindu and daring to say so. 

But for all the great things about India, we have a tough choice to make! Mughals, British or Nehru! Who’s your vote for?

References:

opindia.com - Ganesh R