Translation of Bhyrappa's article in Vijaya Karnataka dated 8th Oct 2006

[Disclaimer: This is a 'casual' translation from me (just took me 5 hours!). Don't hold me or Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa :) responsible for any of this. I am not doing it for any lucrative cause]

[Legend: Words/Phrases that are coloured in blue are the ones that I am not too happy about the quality of translation]

What would be the fate of ‘truth’ if historian too is driven by convenience like writer?


[Minister Shankar Murthy’s statement that ‘Tippu was against kannada’ has, apart from starting a controversy, given impetus to a healthy discussion at a broader level. Many famous writers, play writes and innumerable readers have participated in this discussion which was started by famous novelist and thinker Dr. S.L Bhyrapa. In continuation of this, Dr. Bhyrappa, in his second article, has broadened the scope of the discussion and has raised the objectives of the discourse. We believe this will motivate a meaningful discussion in the direction of exploration of truth.]



I am thankful/indebted to all those who have responded to my article dated 24th Sept (Vijayakarnatka) titled ‘It is not possible to strengthen/build national integration over a false representation/depiction of history” (title translated) including Shri Girish Karnad, Sumatheendra Nadig, Dr. Chidananda Murhty, Dr. Suryanath Kamath, Dr S. Shettar, Shataavadhaani Ganesh, all the readers who openly shared their views in their letters to the editor and to Vijaya karnatka’s editor(s) who provided/created an opportunity for an open discussion. It is heartening/good to know that readers of Kannada are preserving their alertness/awareness.

To continue with the discussion of Muhammed-bin-Tuglaq and Tippu would be to collect mere details. What we need to analyze now is the current political standpoint/viewpoint on the teaching of history. I will first put forth the nature of this political grip from my own personal experience. During 1969-70, under the agenda that we will achieve national integration through education, Indira Gandhi’s govt appointed a committee under the leadership/presidency of G. Parthasarathi who was, apart from being close to Nehru-Gandhi family, an ex-ambassador/envoy. I, who during that time was a professor of philosophy in NCERT, was appointed as one of the members of the five member committee. In the first meeting, Mr. Parthasarathi set forth the objectives of the committee, in diplomatic words: “It is our duty not to plant seeds of thorns in the minds of growing children, which would later become hurdles for national integration. Such seeds are hidden/contained in most of history texts. They are to be found even in language and sociology texts. We need to do the job of searching for these and removing them. We need to include only those topics in the history and other text books which would foster the sense of national integration in the minds of children. This committee has this important responsibility”.

The other four in the committee were respectfully nodding.

I asked:

“Sir, I did not understand what you were trying to say. Could you please explain with examples?”

“Gazni mohammed looted the Somnath temple. Aurangzeb demoslished the temples in Kashi and Mathura and built Masjids in their place and imposed Jesia….What is the use of making them study such irrelevant/useless incidents in building a strong nation in the contemporary context?, apart from sowing hatred among them”

“But, aren’t they historical truths?”

“There would be many truths. The maturity (of history) is in using them prudently/with proper judgment”

The other four nodded “Yes Yes!” in agreement.

“You gave an example of Kashi and Mathura. Even today, lakhs of people from all around the country, visit these places for pilgrimage, every year. It is very striking to every body that their temples have been destroyed and big masjids have been built using the same walls and pillars that the temples were made of and in the shadow of the Masjid, the temple resembling a cow-shed has been reconstructed recently . Pilgrims feel the pain every time they witness this scene. They depict these things to their friends and relatives when they return to their towns. Do you think national integration is achieved by this? You can hide the history from school text books. But, can you hide such scenes when they tour these places? Researchers have listed more than 30,000 such ruined temples in India. Is it possible to hide all of these?...”

At this stage, Parthasarathi interrupted me and asked: “You are a teacher of Philosophy. Please tell us what is the purpose of history?”

“Nobody can tell the purpose of history. We can’t tell how science and technology will develop in the future and where they will take us. A few western thinkers have written about Philosophy of History. Most of it has turned out to be kagga (lengthy, complicated and boring). What we need to discuss here is: What is the purpose of teaching history?
History is the truth-exploration that we do about the life/lives of our ancestors. It is the truth-exploration that we do with the study of artifacts such as scriptures, records, works of literature and fossils/remnants/relics. Historical truths help us to not repeat the mistakes committed by our ancestors and to inculcate the good attributes that they had developed…..”

“But, does that mean we can hurt the sentiments of the minorities? And divide the society? And plant the poison-seeds…?” He stopped me.

“Sir, in the very classification of minorities and majorities, there lies a conspiracy to divide the society. The notion of poison-seed is ridden/filled with prejudice. Why should the minorities feel one with the Aurangzebs and the Ghazni Muhammeds? The Mughal kingdom was split because of the religious bigotism/narrow minded ness that Aurangzeb showed/followed. Where as, Akbar’s religious broad minded ness resulted in the glory of Mughal kingdom…Can we not teach such lessons to children without compromising truth? Shouldn’t we first teach the details of historical truths before trying to learn lessons from it? All the ideological teachings which hide the truth are politically motivated. They won’t last long. Be it minorities or majorities, if we can not develop the emotional maturity required to come face to face with truth, such education is wasteful. And dangerous as well” I said.

Mr. Parthasarathi nodded in appreciation and admired my knowledge/wisdom and analytical power. During the lunch break, he called me separately and inquired about my origins (town I come from), putting his hands over my shoulder, showing a sense of closeness. He asked me to write a kannada word and spoke a couple of sentences in Tamil and indicated that we are from neighboring states and that our tongues are siblings. Later he said “Your thoughts are academically correct. You should write an article about this. But, when we are designing a policy of education applicable to the entire nation, we will need to achieve a convergence/balance/integration of many different interests. Pure theories will not be of much use here” and smiled victoriously.

I stuck to my stand when we met again the next day for the meeting. History not based on truth is useless and dangerous, I argued. Mr. Parthasarathi started showing dis-satisfaction on his face. But, I did not budge. That day’s meeting too had to end without reaching any conclusions. Mr. Parthasarathi did not speak to me again. The council/committee met again after a gap of 15 days. This time, I wasn’t included as a member. The reconstituted committed had a history lecturer by name Arjun Dev with Marxist affiliations in my place. Going forward, the textbooks of history and social sciences that were refined by NCERT were developed under his management/guidance. The same works went on to become the text books in the congress led states and the communist led states.

(I have quoted the above incident from my speech from Alwa’s Nudisiri, the second Sammelana, October 21-23, 2005).

If we analyze the NCERT’s X1 standard books ‘Ancient India’ written by a Marxist historian R.S. Sharma and ‘Medieval India’ by another Marxist historian Satish Chandra, it becomes clear how people of this group are conspiring to take control of growing children’s minds. According to them, Ashoka following the policy of religious tolerance advised people to respect even (my/Bhyrappa’s emphasis) the Brahmins. Since he abolished animal sacrifices, Homas and Havanas had to come to a stop thus depriving the Brahmins of their means of earnings through dakshine. After Ashoka’s decline/demise, many parts of ruins of Ashoka’s kingdom came under Brahmin rule. A religion which had spread all over India and was even reaching out outside India, came to a halt because of dissatisfaction of Brahims who were deprived of their dakshine? What a childish explanation! The explanation that Muslim rulers destroyed temples only to loot the treasures/riches/wealth in it evades the reality. But, Dr. Ambedkar, in the section The decline and fall of Buddhism (Writings and speeches Vol III, Govt of Maharashtra 1987, pp 229-38), after explaining that Muslim looters destroyed the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramasheela, Jagaddala, and Odanthapuri, and massacred the Buddhist monks and that monks who managed to escape ran away to Nepal and Tibet to save their lives, has remarked “The axe struck the very root (of Buddhism). By killing the priest class of Buddhists, Islam killed Buddhism. This has been the biggest disaster to fall on Buddhism in India.”

It is one of the prime principles of Marxists in India to quote selected portions of Ambedkar’s ideas/thoughts when it is convenient in order to ridicule Hinduism and to strategically skip over the statements of Ambedkar, who fought against the racist system of Hinduism through out his life and accepted Buddhism eventually, that Muslims became the cruel reason for the destruction of Buddhism in India.

R.S Sharma writes thus in his ‘Ancient India’ (New Delhi 1992 P 112) NCERT’s text book: “For their wealth, Buddhist Viharas attracted Turkish looters. They (viharas) became the special targets of looters’ greed. The Turks killed many Buddhist monks. Yet, a few monks escaped to Nepal and Tibet”.

Here, the smart Marxists, by calling the destroyers of Viharas by the tribal name ‘Turkish’, have concealed the aspect that they were Muslims and they acted in accordance with their religious doctrines when they destroyed these religious places. At the same time, they also write that Buddisht religion of Ashoka’s times was destroyed by the dakshine-hungry Brahmins. Their smartness in hiding the truth and creating untruths (fallacies) is indeed laudable.

The English scholars/researchers/experts who started writing Indian history following the same methodology of European History did indeed show us a good path. But, there was an ulterior motive to their expertise as well. They built a perception that Indian culture is fundamentally Vedic culture and the creators of Vedic culture, namely Aryans themselves came from outside and established themselves here by destroying the local cultures. All the aggressors/invaders who came later came from outside. At one stage of time, Muslims came. We (English) came later. Therefore neither you nor we are natives of this place: This argument was strengthened and popularized through universities and media and in the minds of the English-educated people. With the argument that, RigVeda the religious texts of Aryans was created when they were outside India and therefore the roots of Indian religion came from outside, they cut off the very spiritual connection between the Indians and India. For about a hundred years, the English-educated Indians were a victim of this alienation/estrangement/disaffection. This argument caused a divide in India between the alleged outsiders Aryans and supposed natives Dravidians sowing the seeds for mutual racial hatred and aggravated that sentiment. Those who have known human nature know that hatred is born easily but dies hard even when the reasons for hatred are proved wrong. Even though, there were many later evidences and finding against the theory that Aryans were external aggressors/invaders, no one had constructed/created/developed the complete history of India from an Indian outlook/standpoint. At this juncture, Kanhiah Lal Munshiji, who was a freedom fighter, a Gandhian, a famous lawyer, a member of constitution development committee, the founder of Bharathiya Vidya Bhawan and a great scholar drafted a plan for creating/writing the comprehensive history of India. For this, an eminent historian and an expert reasercher, Mr. R.C. Mujumdar was invited to take on the role of editor. There was an agreement between Munshiji and Mujumdar. According the agreement, Munshiji was to be responsible for arranging all the funds and tools/infrastructure as requested by Mujumdar, but, he shall not interfere with the Mujumdar’s editorial responsibilities of selecting/choosing authors/experts for the development of various sections of history. Munshiji acted as per the agreement. Mujumdarji created, with the help of specialists trained in different areas, a comprehensive, highly matured and objective work of 11 volumes THE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE, which no one could do in the last 50 years. I have read all the volumes in the past itself. If you refer the related volume for a certain specific period or topic of history, you will get the complete source of all the research that has happened till that date. Only adding the later/latest findings into its newer editions remains to be done. I have all the 11 volumes in my personal collection.

National Book Trust put forward a proposal for translating this work to all Indian languages. As this was a history book, the proposal was forwarded to Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR). ICHR put together a council consisting of S. Gopal, Tapan Roy Chowdhary, Satish Chandra, Romila Thaapar to review this proposal. By this time, ICHR was under complete control of Marxists. Note that all these people are Kattar Marxists. As expected, this committee sabotaged the whole proposal giving an explanation that “These publications of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan are not appropriate for translation to Indian languages. This proposal need not be taken forward”. Not only that. This committee suggested alternative books/works for translation. All these alternative works are from the committee members and their Marxist comrades. ICHR president R.S. Sharma’s five books, S. Gopal’s (son of philosopher Dr. S. Radhakrishnan) three books, Romil Thapar’s three books, Bipin Chandra’s two books, Irfan Habib’s two books, his father Mohammed Habib’s two books, Satish Chandra’s one book, Indian Communist Party’s senior leader E.M.S Nambudaripad’s books, British Rajani Pamedat’s book who was controlling communists of India during 1940’s , were among these. No books of Lokamanya Tilak, Jadunath Sarkar or R.C. Majumdar were proposed.

(Regarding this, see Arun Shourie’s ‘Eminent Historians: Their technology, Their Lime, Their fraud. ASA 1998’. Arun Shourie is hated by different groups for different reasons. Whichever topic he takes, to reach to the roots of the subject is the nature of Shourie’s writings. In the Eminent Historians book, Shourie has researched and published how much and in what form, the authors of the books recommended for translation received their remuneration/fees.)

There was a decreased influence of Gandhiji’s ideals in the Congress party during his last days. Nehru was never really a follower of Gandhiji’s ideologies. Even though, he had appreciation for England’s democracy, his inner love was for the communism of Russia. Once, Nehru came to power, he gradually marginalized the other leaders of Congress. Patel’s demise proved a blessing in disguise for him. As a president, Rajendra Prasad got confined to a formality-sake/ceremonial role. Rajaji and Krupalani never really became influential/effective even after splitting from Nehru and forming different parties. Nehru, who did not fall under the influence of kattar communists like Krishna Menon was not naïve. Even though, he gained some international popularity as one of the important proponents of international non-alignment (non-allied) policy, since it was primarily a support of communist Russia, he had to face the wrath of western countries like America. It turned out to be a loss for India. India’s loss was not Nehru’s loss. His faith in communist principles was so strong that, chanting of ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’ went undeterred by Indian Govt and the Indian media alike, till such point when Chinese actually kicked us and drove us out of our land. By then, Communists (call them Marxists rather) had already occupied the Indian intellectual circuit. It was Nehru’s trick to divide Hindus and appease Muslims for his political survival/gain. Nehru simply continued the same technique that British were using before for their continuance in the country. Castism was a blame/ridicule reserved for Hindus. Secularism meant the duty that we need to show towards Muslims and Christians. Nehru spread the myth that minorities will never become casteist. Mr. M.C Chagla (Mohammad Karim Chagla) has written in his autobiography ‘Roses in December’: He was born and brought up in Mumbai. He was well known for his honesty as a lawyer there. He went on to become the judge of Mumbai high court and retire. Later, he felt like contesting for Loksabha. He requested in a letter to Nehru, a ticket for a constituency in Mumbai. In a response from the Congress high command, he was allotted a constituency in Aurangabad. Chagla asked back: “I was born and brought up here in Mumbai and people here know me because I was in public service here. Why did you allot Aurangabad for me?”. The answer he got from Nehru’s high command: “Aurangabad is a constituency of Muslim domination (higher Muslim population). Since you are a Muslim, please compete from Aurangabad.”
I was a boy when India got independence and when the elections were conducted subsequently. But I have seen and heard how Congressmen used to discuss which constituency had a dominance of which caste and whom to select for competing in the constituency based on caste.

Indira Gandhi, whose sole aim was to save and protect her chair (rule over the country), needed communists to dominate over the then-budding Jansangha and old time Congress men like Nijalingappa, Morarji Desai, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and Kamraj. Communists reasoned that if not in person but at least their ideologies will be holding on to the chairs of power that way. Thus, Indira Gandhi helped them occupy strategic positions in ICHR, NCERT, Universities and Media. That it would be such, was a demand from Communist Russia as well. By then, Nehru and his daughter had lost the guts to oppose Russia. They had some how learnt the techniques of controlling the entire machinery of the country after occupying the nerve centers of country’s intellectual life from the models used by communist dictators of Russia and China. In any case, Sonia Gandhi’s UPA government’s life chord is in the hands of communists.

People from Media were knowingly silent while leftists were occupying country’s education, history board, Universities’ history, sociology, literature and other departments. When Murali Manohar Joshi of NDA attempted to slightly Indianize education, by introducing Saraswati Vandana as a start for the day’s schedule in schools and by trying to introduce ancient India’s contribution to science as a topic in science teaching, the leftists raised hue and cry / uproar. People from Media depicted this as a huge disaster. Congressmen and secularites (saamyavaadi) saw a dangerous future of nation erupting in violence in this and started a movement (chaluvali) against it. Now, no one is objecting when UPA government’s Arjun Singh is trying to resurrect the leftist agenda more vigorously. The media people, especially the English media are even supporting this.

Congress, whose sole objective is saving its chair/rule, has lost the ability to think on its own. It is sleeping in the contentment that it is enough if it can borrow it (thinking) from the communists. But, with the awareness that nation went bankrupt due to its earlier ‘nationalization oriented’ policies, it is trying to adopt liberalization. In the heart of hearts, communists have accepted this policy, but they are not able to come out of Marxism which is the foundation of their identity.

The method(s) that leftists follow to spread and grow their roots everywhere is not different from the caste based / caste driven politics which has become a menace to India. These people systematically carry out tasks like, pushing their followers into media like T.V and news papers, seeing to it that writers with leftist leanings get appreciation and good reviews, conspiring to marginalize writers who have different/opposing views/opinions, attracting young minds by arranging seminars/workshops/get togethers(kammata) for the propaganda of their ideas, seeing it to that government honors are bestowed upon only those who believe in their ideology etc. These were the ones to start the system of evaluating works of literature on the basis of ideology (being endorsed by the work). They think that they have successfully destroyed the traditional concepts such as Shuddha Saahitya, Soundaryaaswaadane and Rasa Dhwani auchitya (I dare not translate these) pertaining to literary criticism. For communists, even TRUTH is an opinion/stand taken/decided by the party. There is no need to explain this to people who have had a chance to read cheap books on this subject that Communist Russia used to publish and sell in India and other countries.

I was always interested in subjects under humanities, such as sociology, psychology and history. And I have read these to a little extent as well. Philosophy is related to my occupation. Aesthetics (soundarya meemamse) is my field of research. But, by interest/nature (pravrutti), I have turned towards creative writing / literature, and within that novel writing. I have all along been interested in the nature of relationship that exists between the truth and beauty, especially truth and literature. I have always been haunted by the question as to the nature and the amount of freedom that a writer has while depicting historical characters which are synthesized from evidences such as scriptures, records, relics and excavations. The words of H.D. Sharma in his prelude/prologue to his book “The Real Tipu” (kannada translation “Tippu – Nija Swaroopa” by Pradhaana Gurudatta, Saahitya Sindhu Prakaashana, Nruptatunga Road, Bangalore) have intensified my thinking on this subject: “Tipu sultan recently has jumped from history books to small screen. This has kindled interest in him and his times. But this has also caused a big controversy. Because, many people, especially people from Kerala, feel that Tipu was really not like how he is being depicted on Doordarshan. Bhagwan S. Gidwani’s novel ‘The Sword of Tipu Sultan’, which the T.V. serial is based on, is full of untruths and misrepresentation/ wrong depiction of real events. Doordarshan’s serial has given its own gift/present of untruth (far from truth). This controversy made me study Tipu in a little more detail. And I was actually flabbergasted/shocked when I came to know real things about him”. (Pradhaana Gurudatta’s translation)

In the contemporary India, especially the people of Bollywood cinema are sales experts of sensational entertaining commodities. The laavaNi writers and the play writes for fairs and flee markets (santhe, jaathre) are also the same. But, why do people who are involved in creating serious literature create another kind of sensational and purely-for-entertainment scenes/sceneries? Why are they not loyal to historical truths? Why don’t they come out of the clasp/clutches of historians of their group and try to understand the artifacts of history independently? History expert S. Shettar (he was also president of ICHR) who has justified/supported Girish Karnad has said “Girish Karnad, while writing the play about Tipu, has tried to explore Tipu’s good attributes alone keeping in mind only the play. Historians and creative writers have different ideals/principles of their own.” (Vijaya Karnataka, sept 27, 2006). Where/what is the difference here between ideals and ideology? A write can some how escape by utilizing the convenience of his ideals. But, if the historian also tries to utilize such convenience, what would be the fate of truth of history? The Marxist historians themselves do not seem to understand the subtlety of this question at all how (much) ever we explain it to them. Then, you can imagine the plight of the writers who are under their spell.