Indian History Congress

HISTORY IN THE NEW NCERT TEXT BOOKS

FOR CLASSES VI, IX AND XI

--- A Report and an Index of Errors

IRFAN HABIB SUVIRA JAlSWAL ADITYA MUKHERJEE

Approved and Published by the Executive Comm ittee

Indian History Congress Kolkala, 2003

Published by Ramakrishna Chatterjee, Secretary, Indian History Congress. Netaji Institute or Asian Studies,

Kolkata 700020

Olndian HislOry Congress. 2003

Price: Rs.50

Type-set by Aligarh Histolians Soci~ty, and prinl~d by Ratan Gupta at the Litho-Colour Primers.

G.T. Road. Aligarh 2020() I.

Preface

Report

CONTENTS

Page

I ndCK 01 ElTors 6

I. Makkhnn Lal. ct al . /"di(l {/lid rhl! World, lor Class VI 6

2. M3kk~an Lal, Anc:ienf India, for Closs Xl 27

3. Mecnakshi Jain. Medieval India, fo r Cla~ XI 58

4. H:l.I'j Om. el ai, COrlll!l!Ipormy India, for Clas," IX gg

Preface

The Ind ian History Congress has, ever sll1ce l is founding s ixty·eig hl years ago. been constantly concerned with th..: improvement of the sy llabi and of textbooks in HlSlory' in our school s. colleges and universities. It gave support to the effort of th e NCERT (National Council of Educa t iona l Research and rrain ing) from the 19705 o nwards to produce school textbooks o f high standard. books such as lei students have a tas te of Hi story as seen wi th the expanding vis ion and critical apparatus of modern time s. Eminent hi s torians like Professurs Romila Thapar. R.S . Sharma, Salish Chandra and Sipan Chandra were involved In the writing of the textbook s on indian hislory. while Professol' ArJun Dev of the NCERT wrote a very imaginatively planned history of worl d c ivili zatio ns. These books were regularl y updated , and ~erved not onl y as teKtbooks for schoo ls of the CBSE system, but also as models for textbooks in the schools of the Stale boards and o ther examination boards

An outcry agai nst these books arose suddenly with the t:hanged political atmosphere of the last few years. Controversies were raked up o ver a few statemenlS made in Ihe textbooks. The entire campai gn rrom the beginning lacked convic ti on. But there was obviously official determination from the beginn ing to 're place tho. books wilh a different kind of lex-IS .

The first step taken wa s to c hange th e "curril'ular framework" in order to be able to say that new textbooks are in any case needed. Already at liS Callc ut Univers ilY sess ion <28-30 December 1999) the Indian His tory Congress expressed serious reservat ions in thi s rega rd . When in 2000 the NCERT pu bli shed its policy statement "National Curricu lum Framework of Sc hool Education", the Indian Hi story Congress meeting at Kolkata, 2-4 Jan uary 200 I t passed a detai led resolution questioning the way History was now to be treated in the sc hool curriculum , and the way '·values" were bei ng linked to "education in re ligion".

In the year 2002 four textboo ks were published by the

vi Preface

NCERT, two for Classes VI and IX , which had units tlssigned to Hislory, and two respectively on Ancient and Medieval Indiu . r<lr

Class Xl These are presumably designed to meet the rcquin:l)lcnl~ of the new "Curriculum Framework."

The textbooks caused much disquiet nmong lho~c will; read them, and there was considerable discussion in the pres~ and other media .

In view of the importance of the mailer. the l ouian HiHory Congress at its session at Guru ~anak Dev University, Amrilsar. 28-30 December 2002 , decided that the Executive Committee should arrange for a scrutiny of the textbooks and iswe its repor( thereo n. A committee was th ereupon constituted. compris in g Professor I ffan Habib (A lig~I1'h ), Proft.'_ss or SUVInI lai .swal (Hyderabad) and Professor Ad itya Mukherj~c (New Delhi). 1<1

examine and report on the books. As wi ll be seen from the Committee ' s report. till.!

Comm iuee members weill through each of the books in a very meticulous fas hi on, and, instead o f o nl y giving. a ge neral assessment, compiled an extensive Index of Errors. From this Index a ll readers can form Iheiropinl0n of tile n:l.tureoflhe new NCERT Hi slory textbooks.

I should like to express my deep sense of gl·.1t ituue to the three members of the committee who have spent so much lime and labour on the work. /

Atter Professor Dwijendra Tripathi , President o f nur Congress, approved the report , it was c ircu lated among memher' of the Executive Committee. With their unanimous approval, il is now being re leased as a publicati~n of the Indian History Congress. I am grateful for Professor Shireen Moos-vi, In-charge of Publications, THC, for seeing this volume thro ugh rhe pre ... s.

lL IS hoped that the Report and its Index. of Errors will he of much use 10 teachers and students of our schools as well <I!\ 1(1

general readers interested in a true depiction of Qur past ,

)0 June 2003

Ramaknshnu Ch~rt(" l"Jc(,"

Sec.:retary Indian History C()llgrcs~

Report

In September-November 2002 the National Counci l of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Government of India, New Delhi. released four textbooks dealing wholly or In

part with Hi story, in line with its new con trovers ial Currku lam Framework. These books are: 1. Makk han Lal , e l al.: Indian and thi' World , for Class VI

(Hi storical port io n: U ni t II) 2 . Had Om, el al.: Contl!.mporary India. for C lass IX ( Hi.~wriC :11

portion: Un it I) 3 . Makkhan Lal : Anci~nt India, for C lass XI 4. Meenak"shi Jain: Me.dieval India. for C lass X I

Though the textbooks nos. 1 and 2 are attributed 10 two groups of writers, it turned ou l from post-publicati on statemen ts in the press that the historical portions in Nos. t and 2 were respectively authored by Professors Makkhan Lal and Hari Om. who admitted their indi vidual re:>ponsibility for them.

Upon the release of the books, r.here was widesprcau criticism o n the score of their language, approach , bias, anu fuc ts . Since these books are bound to be read by a very large numhcr of sc hool students. notably those of schools in the CSSE system. and so have an immense capacity to cause damage, much co ncc.rn has been repeatedly expressed in the media about them.

In these circu mstances the Indian History Congre s.~.

mee ting for its 63'~ annua l session at the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amrilsar, 28·30 December -2002, desired th<ll Ihe Execulive·Commiltee shou ld have the text books scrutinized and issue a report giving an assessmen t of their content s.

A committee consisting of the three of us was accordingl y const ituted by the General Secretary, Professor Ramakrishna Chatterjee, in order to subject the textbooks to a detailed scrutiny and submi t its concl usions to the Execut ive Committee .

We decided that the tex tbooks should be read by each of us and where ver errors and queslionab.le statements were

2 Report

found , tbese should be taken up for comment. For ,hi ... pUlpll~e lrfan Habib read and co mmented on Textbook!. Nos.] and 4; Suvlra JaiswaJ did the same with te~lboo lo: Nu 3 . and A. Mukherjee with No.2 . All th e members re ad eac h \l lh e l" '; co mments. and the resultant Index of Errors has .helr ~n l lccllve

e ndorsement. They wish to ac kn owledge with gratitude omel; and commen ts made available to them by many s..:;h o lllrs, IHll.lb ly Professor Arjun Dev, with hi s own vast ex perience of the' prevlnu~ e ffort a l the NCERT al produc ing textbooks in HislOry and Ot her Social Science subjects. We, however. shQuld like il 10 be unders tood that we alone are responsible for the conte nt s l)( the rodex, as II is now presented.

The practice fo ll owed in this Index is to glv~ 10 \:.H:h case 3S extensive a quotation as possib le under the relcvil nl p:lge no. from the new NCERT textbooks. and the n !>I ubJ'::'!:1 e~lCh passage to concise analy sis o r comment Thi s m!;lhod hu ~ the advantage thai teachers and pupils can check with aUf Index as they read the textbooks , and tak e into account the correctJ,~n ~ that arc given here page-by-page.

In our Index we have taken nOle of the changes mude In

the 'second reprint ' editions of Textbooks nos. I and 2. brought o ut in January 2003 and October 2002 respec ti ve ly . Where In the s tatements quoted, changes ha ve been made in the reprmt ed itions, these ha ve been indicated. Generally, the quotathm~

from these two books are taken from the reprint e(hti om •. unle .,s otherwise indi cated.

The arrangement o f the Index follow s rou g hly 11

chrono logical arrange ment. That is. Professor Makkhan La1's lex ts covering the Ancient World and Ancient Indi a. for Classes V and XI are dealt with first, (allowed by Dr Meenak shi Jain 's text on Medieval India for C lass Xl, and, Ihen. finall y ProfesSClr Hari Om's text on Modern and Contemporary India for C l lIs~

IX. Lest readers be surprised at the enormou~ number of

errors that have bee n nOled , il needs to be s tressed Ihal· unfortunately the Index of Errors cannot s till stilt be deemed to be complete; and man y slips and misstatements of varying deg rees of serious ness have had to be overlooked to keep our rndex within manageable limits.

It is to be noted that all the four books Uniformly suffer from similar defects. The language is poor. with many spelling u!ld grammati cal errors, infelicitous expressions and qbscurities .

Report J

which are all pnmary lapses that any sChoOltCXlbook must avolli If these books are to be translated into Hindi. one wonders how the translators will be ab le to understand many of the statement .. made in them. One also fears for students who might model thelL' English prose after the texts of these books.

There is universally an absolutely poor grasp of hi",loncnl facts . Failure here is. of course. far more 'serious than poverty (I f

expression The Index of Errors shows that the depanures from facts arc so considerable Ihal one sometImes begins (0 feel whether a pupil reading these books wdr really learn much History at all.

Often the erro rs are apparently mere product.s 0 1 ignorance; but as often they stem from an anx iety 10 prt:",ent History with a very s trong chauvinistic and communal bi:I";. The te~lbooks draw heavily on the kind of propaganda that the s(\­called Sangh Parivar publicat ions have been prOJecling for quite some time. The major features of the presentation of Indi un history in the new NCERTbooks may be summed up as follows '·

I. India IS held 10 be the original home of !he Aryans. N,)

concern at all is shown with the origins of peop les ~peakin~ Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic languages.

2. The Indian civiliza tion is supposed to have liS S(,1e

fountainhead in the "Vedic Civilization" which i'i given much greater antiquity than histOrians have been Willing 10 assign 10 It so far. The lalter is claimed to have embraced the Indus Civilization. now to be ca lled the "Indus-Saraswati"' civil ization. which is thus entirely credi 'led to the Aryan::..

3. All substanlive, scientific discoveries (from zero and decimal placement of numerals 10 heliocentric ast ronom y) ure supposed to have been made in the "Vedic Civilization."

4. The Hindu religion is held superior to other religions. The Upanishads are proclajmed as "the mosL profound work s 01 ph il osophy in any religion". Both Buddhism and lainism are held to have emerged oul of Chern . Hindus had no sense 01 constrai nts about chronology. unlike the Christians . Hindu.~ .

moreover, have been by their faith true pat rialS. In the modern freedom struggle 100, they alone are held to have been sincere, while the Muslims only dreamt of a Muslim empire or a separate nation. Medieval Mu s lims and mo'dero Christians are also held to have been deeply influenced by racism:

5 .. The caste sys tem was all right in the neginlo.ng; on ly "rigidities" (not inequities or oppression of Dulits ) are seell

4 Rt'port

in its later stages and very lightly touched Upoll . The Dalits, ill effect, are excluded from history,

6. A neutral or even admiring sta llce is mllintained about practices such as sat, 3nd jaulrar in ancient and medieval Indi a. Abduct iollS of women are described as a leg itimate form of marriage (rahlwsa), not 3pparently illco n .~istcnt wi th women being he ld in honour.

7. Fore igne rs ha ve taught litt le or nothi ng to Indians, while India has given so much to the world in all realms of cultu re.

8. Muslims brought linle new to India. e'!(cept oppression and temple-destruction . All the dark co rners are thoruughly pr~senled in th e narrative of medieval Indlu . 11.\ regards Muslims, while they .I re coolly overlooked in Ihal of ancient India.

9. The rise of a composi te culture is ignored or downpJayed Kllhir getS with difficulty a sentence in the Med ieva l Indi !! textbook (w here. on the othe r hand. Guru Gobind S ingh appears as II "devotee or Goddess Chandi ").

10. in modern India. "Muslim separat ism" is the grcat bughear, whi le Hindu communalism is not even mcntiuncd , and the Hindu Mahasabha leaders appear uniformly as great patriot~ .

II. The growt h of the great modern values of democracy. gende,' equali ~y, secularism. welfare state, etc . is neglected . ~r pas~cd over in silence.

12. Therc is litlle or nothing on Indian social reformerlo like Rilln Mohan Roy, Keshav Chandra Sen, l ot iba Phule and even B.R. Ambedkar - since apparently traditional Hindu ~nclc ty

is not thougbt to hrlVc been in need of. reform. 13. The mainstream sec ular :lnd democratic e lement:> in the

Nat ional Movement arc presented as unimportant or /11en.' obstacles to the growth or (Hindu) "Cultural NatlOnilli~m" Harsh words are used for the Moderates; there is a deliberate effort to eit her ignore or present in unfavourable light Jawaharlal Nehru. and also Ihe Left. es pecially the CommunislS.

With such parochialism and prejudice as the dri ving force behind these tex tbooks, illS clear that Ihese cannol be converted into IIcceptab le textbooks by a mere removal of the. linguisli<.· and f,lclual errors pointed OU I in our index . In many cases lhe basic arguments in the textbooks are built on these very error!. or fact. and so the errors cannot be removed without chung ing the main ideas behind the textbooks.

Report 5

These textboo ks are therefore beyond the realm of salvage, and they need to be withdraw n altogether.

Until such a withdrawa l takes place , we hupe our Index will help both teachers and students to rectify the more seno us errors in the books and so attain a more balanced view of our past.

Trfan Habib Suvira Jaiswa l Aditya Mukherjee

Postscript: As thi s Report goes to press, the NCERT ha s issued three more textbooks conta ining materi al on Hi story, for Classes VII, X and XII. These would need to be sc rutinlz.ed Will'; as mu!;h care as the books eovered by Ihe present Report. Indeed, Ihis Report should be trea ted as an advance warning thai th e three new book9 too cannot by any means be accepted on trust.

Ramakrishna Chatterjee June 2003 Secretary, Indian Hhaory Congress

INDEX OF ERRORS

1

Makkhan Lal, et. al., [ndw and the World - Social Sciences Textbook for Class VI

FirSI ed ition. September 2002, reprint cd" Junuary 2003.

Unit II People and Society in the Ancient Period

7. Introduction

Page 50 (Page 51 in reprint cd.):

Songam literature arid Tripitakas". The Tripitakas, being chronologically earlIe r. shoulll

precede Sangam literature.

8. The Ea rly Humans

Page 52

"Stone Age ,., is diVIded into three phases - Palaeolithic. M eso lithic and Neolithic",

The terms are not defined, nor even rendered mto Engli Sh as Old, Middle and Ne' \' S lone Ages.

Pages S4~S5

"The discovery of the wheel made a signific:mt difference. It was used also to spin COLlon nnd wool and wcave cloth. Some time aner it was lIsed In making transport v.chic les like bullock caris and chariots."

The spinning wheel was not known 10 ancient India; and its use (even in . ils country of origin. China) is much l:uer thun the use of the cart-wheel. Wheel was not u~ed in weaving al all (Hal> the author never seen an old hand-loom being worked? j

Page 56 Exercises: Things to do:

Ancien' Illdia. Class VI 7

"CUI out the pictures of tools and other materia l remain!. from old magazines and h,story books and pasleY

Curious "values" being Iaughl; mutilate history books .

9. Eal"ly Non-Jndinn Civilizations

Page 57

Map "Early Civilizations' shows the same frOn!iers (w hi ch are largely those of Harappan Civilization) as Iho.')e of ' Harappan and Vedic Civilizations'. It IS wrong to Insist through such a map that the terrjtory know n to the t:omposers of the Vedas was the same as mat of the Indus Civilization . See commen t under Page 88.

Page 58

.... In dian Civil ization \ .. Ihich has unbroken history of nbo!!t !WOO years, Le. from Ihe neolithjc ttmes."

The Iudus Civilization, held to be Ine enrlle.<i t in India Ceven by B.B. Lal) , LS dated 2500-2000 BC. How then I.":ou ld India have had a "CIv ilization" from 6000 Be?

I)age 58

"You may be surpri!>ed It) know lhat Indian and C hinese civili zations are the only ones which have survived ... All other I:arly civilizutions have disappea.red and the prese nt people I c ivilizations have 00 connection with the past ones."

The s tatement IS wrong and tendentious. HlS modern Iran no link with its old civilization (cf. Firdausi's Slwhnama). or Greece with the Greek Civilizalion'?

Page 59

" The Egyptian c ivili zation is one of the o ldest one (.I'it"). It developed around 7500 years ago [5500 BC) and lasted ahout 5000 years".

• The Egyptian civilization developed no earlier than c.3200 BC. Makkhan Lal's dale is wrong by a mere 23,000 yea rs!

Page 63

"In this .region [Mesopotamial a Civilization developed around 7000 years ago (ltbout 5000 Be)."

Eltcessivcly early datin g: the Mesopotamian Civili"llltion.

8 Index of Errors

like- the Egy pti an, cannOl be held to begin before c.3200 Be. The author seems to have no sense of what Givi li zulion means. the term being never properly defined.

Page 66

"Corinth", nOl' "Cornilh", is the correct spel ling.

Page 70

"Some (s ic !) of the important Roman kings were Julius Caesar and Octavian Caesar."

Juliu s Caesar was not a king; and Augustus Caesar (\0 give the correct name for Octavian when he became Cuesar) came on ly later to be regarded as the one with whose accessio n to power the hi s tory of Rom e us a republi c came to a close. Characteristically, the textbook desc ribes Roma n polity as a republic, but does not tell the reader when ;t lUrned into e mpire. and what areas the Roman e mpire (and . therefore. the Ro man Ci vilization) covered.

The re is no information on Julius Caesar ot her than in the senlence quoted above, ye t in Exerci ses on p.72, tho pupil is asked (0 answer the question: "Why is Juliu s Caesar famous'?"

Page 74

"Taoi sm and Confucianism were the popular relig ions". To describe the two (placed in wrong sequ e nce) as

religions is erroneous . They were essentially eth ic al and philosophical systems, though Taoi sm in time develo ped cert ai n religious features.

Page 75

"The invention of paper and silk are the greatest contribution s of the Ch inese 10 the world ."

What of printing, spinning wheel, magnetic compass gunpowder, etc., also invented by the Chinese? Were Ihey less important?

Page .77

" The (sic!) Zoroast ri anism was wi ped (Jut as a rnnjor re li gion of that area [Iran] by the spread of Is lam in the seventh nnd eight (sic) centuries A.D. and later" However, its traditi on continues in the fa ith and pracl:ce of Parsecs who left Ir:m Hnd came In

Ancient India. Class VI 9

Ind ia to save their faith and religion." Tendentious statement: Zoroastrian comm unities 'in Irtlrl

survive to the present day.

Page 78

"Temples of" Altura Ma zda ... . " The pupil is not told that Ahu ra Mazda means God.

10. Indian Civilization : Harappan Civiliza t ion

Page 80

"Ghagghar IHakra (ancient Saraswati) " There is no proof that the Ghaggar~Hakra was ever known

as Sarasvati, si nce the small Saraswati stream is far small er Ih an Ih e G haggar, of which it is, In the ra iny season, a tri butary.

Page 80

"lndu s-Saraswati Civi li zation" A tendentious name, from a desire to suggest, t.hrough

imposed nomenclatu re, an Aryan affiliati on of the I,ndu l; Civili zation. Why not "Indus- Hakra Civilization"? In any case Hakra belongs to the Indus basin, so that the name "Indus" covers the bas in of that ri ver as well as that of the Ghaggar, whil,:h is the name of the higher course of the same ri ver..

Page 80

" J[ [Harappan o r Indus Civili zation ] s larted developing Mound 4600 BC .... "

This date for the beginning o f the Indus Civili z:lt ion is fantast ic. Even the Pre-Indus cultures. li ke KOI-Diji or Sot hi­Siswa l cu ltures, cannot be dated to much beyond 3000 Be.

Page 80

"Its geographical area was almost 20 limes [that] o f Egyptian <: ivi li zation and 12 limes of the Egypt ian an d Mesopota mian Civ ili zations combi ned." (Em phasis as in ori gina l).

This is sheer fantasy. The area of the Indus Civjfil.3£ion was about 700,000 to 800.000 square k.m. The area of the Egyptian civi li zation was abou t 300,000 and oJ' th e Mesopotamian about 400,000 square km. Where is the question of the Indus Civi lization being 12 limes the wmhine.d si~c uf

..

10 Index of Error~'

the other tWO in 3fi.'!a? Or of being 20 limes Ihe' tcrrllory of Ihe EgYPli:1O civilization?

Page 80

"It [the Harappan Civilization1 developed in Pakistan , Sout hern Afghanistan .. ....

There is I/() known Harappan. bite in southern Afghanistan.

Page 81

The map shows totally wrong limits of the Harappan Civilization . . making it include Kashmir. NWFP. much of western Rajasthan and even Bombay ! Alamgirpur is wrnngly located; Taxlla IS shown as if it is an Indus site.

Page 82

" Even in the modern world this kind of town plunnmg only began on ly ar\,lund the eighteenth century AD,"

Surprising ignorance is only how one can cfltcgorise thi s. Even in India lhe authors could have looked up S hahjahanabatl (Walled city of Delhi) laid OUt under ShahJllhal\ ( 1628-58), and earl ier ci ties like Th ghluqabad .

Page 83

"The presence of the horse is also indicated by lerracoua figurines and bones."

A statement like this, which is disputcd by mOSl archaeo~

zoologists. as far as bones are concerned, should nOI be made in such a definite manner in a school text. No specifically horse~

like features (to distinguish Ihe animal from onager or wild ass or even neelgai) appear in the terracotta figurines .

Page 84

"These people also worshipped Siva (sic/) in the form of linca which is done also today:'

There is no prool' that the stone cones found arc nOI pes LIes but phaJlus stones: and no proof that they were conn~cted with Shiva-worship.

Allciem india, Cl(Js~' VI " Page 84

"One of such stories paimed on a pot is the story of tht- thirsty cow ~hich we read in the story books even now. Another [pot] has the painting of the cUl/ning fox."

This linking of the pictu,res on pots with any known later stories is without foundation.

Puge 85

''The famous slone statute of the YogL . ." See also illus tration with legend "Yogi figurine" o n the

same page. To call the famous :'Priest~king" (so labelled by modern writers) as Yogi is preposterous. The cut of beard an d the trefoil embroidery suggest . o n the other hand. a s tro ng Mesopotamian co nnec tion. The baseless "yogi" ascripti on seems s impl y to fo rce an Aryan mould on the Indus Civi lization.

Page 85

"The most frequently portrayed animal on the sea l is bu ll ". Again. a piece of sheer mi srepresentation. The uni corn,

a mythic an imal , is ttJe most frequent ly portrayed (on 1,150 sea ls) as against humpless bull (95) and l,ebJI or humped bull (on ly 54).

Pages 85·86

"The seal of (sic!) a dei ty si tting in a yogic post ure and surrounded by ani mals has been identified wi th god Pasllpari (S ic!) which is another name of Siva (s ic!)." See also Fi g. on p.87 (':Seal depictin g Siva·Pasupati').

This is a very disputable proposit ion: the system or yogic postures ca nn ot be traced beyond 200 BC, if, indeed , to even that date. There is a bull ·deity fo und in sim il ar posture in the Proto·E lamite culture of Mesopotamia, and 'it is more reasonable to link the Indus seal fi gu re with that deity. On suc h doubtful mailers schoo l textbooks shou.ld (read most 'carefu lly.

Page 87

Exercises: Things to do : "Make a collage of some phOIOrnphs cut out rrom lin old Hi slory book ," ,

The st udent is thu l: l SllJ n encounged (0 practise book· mutilation .

12 Indl'.f of E,-,ors

Page 88

"II. The Vedic Civilization"

The title "Vedk Civilizati on" is hardly tennille. Si lh.'C Ill)

town s arc named o r described in the RiRlI l'(/rL The word "Culture" should have bee n used in stead of "Civi li zatIOn."

Page 88

"Vedic literature does nOI signify any indi vidual rclig i {\u .~ wW'k lik e Koran or Biblc ,"

By no stretch o f imaginatio n can the Billk he cutled an " indi vidual religiou s work." The writer does nOI 'Iccm HI IHlve any idea of the Old and New Tel- lament. It is not c kar wll n! th ..: pupil is being to ld here. Does it mean thai in the Vcclic literature thel'c arc no "indi vidual re li gious" teltt s like the Rigl'l:'lW ?

It is bettcr 10 use the spelling 'Quran ' Ihan ' Kuran ",

Page 8S

" During Rig Vedic times. people we re settl ed in the su me :J !'cn n~ re prese nt ed by H a rapptln C i v ili t, Olioll, i.e . Afg h unis i ll n . Pak is tan. Punjab. Guja ra t. Rajas than Haryana and Wcstl.'l"Il U.P."· (Emphasis as in original).

There is no Harappan s ite in Afghani s t an, cxt.:cp t S hurtughai, an Iso lated outpost on the Oxus - a ri ver nOl al illI mentio ned in the Rigveda . No o ne has c laimed 10 10e,lIe a ll y reference to Gujarat in the Ri gvcda. It cun. t herefurc. he ~I.'cn Ih al the territories of the Rigvedic peopl e and In du s C lvlli z:lli un \ln ly part ly coin cided .

Page 88

" You have a lready learnt thai Ithel large st num ber of Hanlppan sett lements are found on Saraswali river."

Few Indu s s ites have been found on the Sa raS\311 I' ivcr. The hager number is found o n or ncar t h~ PlIlhtli. Gh.lg g.a r. Chuut ilng and Hakru rivers. The twu largt.:st t\l\vns Harappa UII\I Mnhcnjo Daro are o n the Ra vi and Indu s flvcrs.

Page 89

" The name of this coun try us Bharal is after the Rig Vedil' pl.'up k Bharatn ...

This is by 1\11 mean s cstahlished . The PU rallll' .lII d 11th., .

Ancient India, Class VI 1;1

sources suggest more than one indi vidual after whose son,' the count ry cou ld be so named .

Page 89

"There were rules which governed the debate and behav iour \ )1

membe rs in Sabha and Samit; like (sic!) in'uur parli anlcnl.·· We 'll be next told th at a Speakcr wa~ also pruvllJed fu rt

We just do not know what rules, if any, were made (by\ wholll'.'l fo r proceedings o f the Sabha and Sami t; . Dice wu~ abH phlycll there, which is not done as yet in "our parliamen t"!

Page 89

" Economic LIfe"

" Vedas prescribe punishmcnt for inju ring or ki ll ing llhcl Cl'W hy , expu lsion from the kil/gdom or by deaIh pellalty. :l ~ the case may be". [Emphasis as in the original].

The bold lellers in whi ch th e words "expu lsIOn from the kin gdom" and "death penalty" are pu t show thut Makk hnn L:l1 wis hes to invite the pupil 's favourable anen ll on to 5u~h "'value~'·. Where preci sely these pu ni sh ment s are menti oned i~ not 'HHed .

How does this re li g ious prescription Clime unller "'Economic Life"? There is no doubt that cattle were .\ I:tughtered wi dely In the Indus Civi li za ti on as we ll as in such lItter l' uluHl' ''' as were contemporaneous with the Rigveda. as is shown by ampk re mai ns of ox-bones. This is not mentioned here .

Page 90

Socia l 'Lire

"'The Rig Vedic society mainl y compri sed four I 'Mllas .... The teachers were called brahmal/(u; rule rs and admini s t~.:ltor s

bharriyas; farmers. merchants and banhrs I'u;.ryw (s ic!): and artisans and labourers as sudras (sic!)."

There is' no proof that there was a separate profess ion of " teachers"; Brahmans should be designated pries ts . THe te rm bhutri)"Q does not occur In the Purusha-sllktu; rajel.ll)"(1 is the.. term used: " Rulers and warriors". rathe r than " rulers and admiOl strators (a very modcrn- looking designation)," would he a better description o f the rajanY(llkshatriya castc. There is no proof that artisans and labou rers were shuilros. The textbook to tall y omits to mention slaves (dasas). whereas they, inciUding fe male s laves (dasis), are mentioned frequently in the Rigve.da,

14 Index of Errors

wh-i le the four varna$ are on ly menti oned once .

Page 90

..... Child marriage was unknown. One cou ld marry the persnll of hi s Ot her own choice ... Father's property was inherited hy all hiS children .....

Such statemems are without basis and meant s imply 10

project the Vedic Period as an idea l age. There is no proof th UI daughters Inherited their father's property along with the sons.

Page 90

Food and Drink

·'Howe-ver. drinking of soma and su ra wert; lsic! I disuppruveJ and discouraged because it caused ugly behaviour by peop le,"

There is no proof thai soma was disapproved of. It W:\i>

throu ghout highly praised.

Page 90

:'The , yajnas were the most common rituals", It is not explained what th e yoj1lQS were : and it I ~

con c~a l ed from the reader that these in vo lved an imalh::Iulc sacrifi ces.

Pllge 91

-Upanishads are the works o f most profound phi ll)s\lphy In .my religion."

This is a characteri stic way of instilling In the mHld of the pup il the superi or it y of the Hindu religion abov<; (llht'r re ligions. There was no need to insen " in any religion" ufte r Ihe word " philosophy" .

Page 91

"Sciences"

The first paragraph is wrong in sialing thut " Vcd:ls. Brahmanas and Upanishads" di s (ingubh the sci..::nc l':; (If "Geometry (rekha gOIl; Ia), Algebra (bija gal/iw) and A~ tmn(lIl1 Y

and Astro logy ljyotisllO)." The Vedas do nOI eve n me ntion the~e sciences by the Sanskrit names given or by any other.

Ancien! Ilidia, ela$.\ VI L'

Pag~ 91

"The ;:ero was known ... Also the positional value o r each number with its absolute val~e was known."

The claim thai the Vedic people knew of lero and the method of representmg numbers by giving pogilional value.' tu digits (accordi ng to the decimal syslcm'!) IS absurd. When the an of writing was not employed, positional values r..:ou ld Just nOl have been given to the digits. Even later on, In the Brahmi sc ript u/1tilthe 6th century AD, higher numbers were represented by different sy mbol s. such as for len twenty, hundred . etc" and there was no sy mbo l for zero, Page 91

" In the Vedic period. astronomy was well deve loped ... It helped them in accurately preparing their calendars and predh.:ting the time of so lar and lunar edipses ."

l'here is no proof of either the use. of e rus o r pr~ci sc predic tio n uf eclipse§ in Vedic times.

Page 91

';They also knew that the earth moved on i/S (/wn (.ui.)' Wid

aroulld the sun ." (Emphasis as in o riginal) . This is ent irely baseless, Aryabhatta W(lS the f irs t

astronomer in tndi.a to present the hypothesis of the ehrth moving on Its own axis. as this textbook ltself notes on page 117. This too was not accep ted by other Indi an astronomers. No one claImed thaI the earth moves uound the sun .

Page 91

"These ca lculations lor movements of hea ven ly bodi~sl arc almost the same 85 calculated by the modern scientifIC methods,"

This is an absurd mis represenlaljon of the facts . No such calculations su rvi ve from the Vedic period.

Page 91

"The Vedic Civilization appears to have been fairly adv anced . People li ved in cities (nagar). fortified cities (pura) and vi Jiages."

That urban life had developed in the Vedic period is a most dubious proposition. aod is not accepted by most scholars .

16 Index of Errors

Page 91

Some Ge neral Co nclusions

"Sc.:ience was studied and vari ous branches of science were we ll developed . They . made accu rate calendars and could predict thc li'TIC o f ecli pses. Even today us ing their method we can predict the time of eclipse with 3. margin o f only one to two hours."

Sec com ment made above on a si mil ar statemen t made earl ier o n th is page. Mere repetition of a claim does not make it mote acceptable.

Page 91

" Many sc ho la rs th in k th at Rigvedi c Cult ure and Harappa n Cu ltu re arc the same. However, some scholars do not agree wit h t hi s. "

The actual position is the reverse. Nearly all , except for ',,\ few re~enl co nverts to the opposire view, reject the identity of the Vedic cultu re with the [ndull (Harappan ) Civilization and wo uld place the Rig veda much later than the Indus C ivilization .

Page 92

Exercises

In the exercises the importance given to unhi storica l claims is funher underl ined, such as the Vedic people's knowledge of zero, earLh's revo lution a ro und the su n . and exact prediction or eclipses, The de ath penalty for killing or inj uring a cow is also not allowed to be forgotten .

12. Indian History (600 to 100 BC)

The Age of Janapadas and Mabajanapadas

Pa ge 93

"Here [in the "Ganasanghas, i.e. republics" ] the ru lers were chosen by the people of the kingdom (sic!) like (sic!) Wl! choose Our govern ment today."

Were they c hosen by universal adult surrragc? Such Inis represe ntation is inexcusable , T he republi cs were clearly tribal aris tocracies. the chiefdoms being largely hereditary.

Page 95

"They also raised three crops in the year." 'Ihey coul d have on ly raised two main harvests. One does

AII(:ielH India. Clau VI 17

not know how the author gets hi s three crops.

Page 96

" Buddha was very critical of thi s jali system and preached simp l.: li vi ng."

Read in context. the sente nce implies that thc Buddha approved of the va rna system. b)n not of jali.\·. The term jm; meant 10 Ihe Buddha an endogamou s tribe like thc Shakyas. while the main discriminations in law (a s in puni shments) werc on the basis of llama, n01 jari (as in the Arthashastrll and M (JIIIl.I'lIIrili) . The Buddha was certainl y opposed to the 'va rna sys te m. and thi s should have been clearl y menti uned.

The Age of the Mauryas

Page 98

" He [Chandragupta MauryaJ ovenhrew Nandas with the help 0 1

his teacher Ko",if)'a. also known as Clumakya". The cred il of thi s unifi cation (Chand ragupta's co nquests l is ri ghtl y given Ic)

Chanakya ...... Since all references to Kautil ya's advice or aid he long

10 much later tradition. a statement abou t hi s aid to C hllndraguptil can hardly be made in positive or unqualified terms. lei illune assigning to him the credit for creating the Mauryan emflire .

Page 98

.•. .. Greek General So!ljjcus" . The s tandard spelling is Seleu eus. Moreovl! r. Sclcucus

was a M acedonian . like Alexander. and not 'a Greek.

Page 98

" At (he lime of Alexander ' s a tt ac k. lndian kings behaved cowa rdl y (s ic!) and indifferently. This hUft C hanak ya deepl y and fi ll ed him with anger. To defend the country .. . and to get rid nf the weak rulers . Chanakya encouraged his students 10 rai!\e an arm y under the leadership of C handragupta Maurya."

Such patrioti c sentiments lhat arc attributed 10 C hanak Y;1 do nOI occur even in the traditional lore (e.g. in the DivyavidwI(J or Mlldrarakshasa) and are apparentl y laken fro m a TV seria l.

Page 98

" H e (C hanakya) was a teach e r of Ar th ashashtra (J'ic C ) in

18 Index of Errol's

Takshashila Un ivers ity." A sheer fantasy. In any case, Mukkhan La] should ha ve

spell "Arthashastru" correctl y.

Page 98

"Megasthenes" is the correct spe lling, n OI "Megas thenc.se."

Page 99

Map: The Mauryan Empire. "Taksasila" (Taxjla ) is shown as s ituated we ll to the wesl

of th e Indus. not , as it s tands, [0 its east near ls larn abad. Kapilavast u is s imilarl y wrongly plo lte d a littl e nOrth 0 1 Allahabad; and there is no spot fOr 'Sravasti ' .

Page 101

"In no other period of [odian history do we find so many t y pc~

of officers as in the Mauryan period." There is no basis for thi s statement. No suc h co mpariso n

h~s been made anywhere. ft is in any case a primalacie du biou~ assertion: The Mughal Empire is likel y to have maintained a much larger bureaucracy than the Mauryan Empire.

Page 101

"KuUl ilyu 's Arthashashtra (.~iC!) is one of the g reatest books on pol it y" .

But can we get its spe lling ri gh t! Read: Arthal'II(lSfra ,

Page 101

"[Under the Mauryas] Because of very strict admi ni stration and the people o beying the law, life was peacefu l and prosperous."

This kind of 'Go lden-Age' stal eme~llS are p'a rlicul arly te ndentious when one kno ws from the Arthashasrra (w ho se testimony is obviously used to describe Maurya a admini stratiOn in thi s book) that the lower cl asses were severely repressed .

Page 101

"Forests. mines, wild animals and other nalural resources were considered as publi c property and protected by law."

Not ' public property', but 'roya l property', sure ly. The form ul a ' by law' is still more misleading ; kin gs' ed icts, not laws. a re more rel evant here. And th e King 's e di cts reServed the

Ancien( India, Clan VI I ~

animals, mines , etc. , for the king' s use rather than 'prOte"clclr th em . Tbe claims as made here for environ mental protection in Mauryan times are shee r fantasy, not history.

Page: 101-2

"Ashoka in his rock-edict XII advised people to maintain harmony in the (sic!) society by respect for each other and not critici sing each other. He said Ibat one musllearn and appreciate the other's point of view. He further said that disputes must bl! sett led by talks among the elders of the communi! ies." '

Thi s is a gross misrepresentation of Ashoka's Rock Edict XII. which warns against members of religious I.:ommunilie~ exalting their own and condemning other religions. Th e fact that such warning was needed mi gh t suggest thai there in fact existed religious or sectarian tensions in soc iety" Thi s Impression tht! author seemi ngly wishes to avoid\ and so reduces Ashoka's ca ll for reli gious toleration to a mere advice fOr apprec.iatiOn of ead": olher's "point of view", unconnected with rel igion. There is, finally, nothing in the edict about '·dis putes .... [being} ~e"tlled

by talks among e lders of the communities" -Ihis is an invention pure and si mp le.

P3;ge 102

"It is said that Ashoka dedicated all hi s energies and resources to bu"ild a moral society and welfare state. ·This weakened the army an d admin is trative machinery. Due to thi s, neighbouring Indo-Greeks invaded and conquered many parts (If n9rthern India. "

All this is baseless speculation. There is no proof thaI Ashoka weakened the army. and very slight one that the "lndo­Greeks invaded and seized any parts of India during the time 0\

the Mauryan empi re. But suc h .criticisms. o f Ashob occ ur frequently in Parivar writings.

Page 102

"The Army Chief Pusliyamilrll Sung" (sic!) killed him LIas! Mauryan ru ler, Bri hadratha] in 187 Be. This is the only incide nt in the history of India till twelfth century AD when a k.ing wal>

kill ed and replaced ." The aUemp! here is to show Ihat the crime of regicide

was brought in by Mus lims. However, ancient Indian political

20 Index of error.f

history is replete with sim ilar in stances. In tbe Buddha's own life-lime Prasenajit . the Kin g o f

Kosala , was dethroned and kill ed by hi s son Vidudabha ; and Bimbisara. the King of Magadha , was killed by hi s son , Ajatashatru. The Nanda dynasty of Magadha was fou nded by its founder after murdering the last ruler of the Sishunaga dynasty. A s trong tradition developed that Chandragupt 3.I1 (c.38 1-414 AD) killed his cider brother Ramagupt3 and married :he lalle r 's widow (vide DevichandragupUlm), showing that such an act wu:-. by no means co ns idered eit her unthinkabl e or necessarily immoral. For the murders of kings, there is ev idence enough in Kalhll.fla's Rajafarangilli as well: Unmatthavanti (937-39) kilktl his father Partha (931-35). Parvagupta (949-50) slew the l:hild* king Sangramadeva (948-49) to in stall himself on "the throne. Putling king Bhimagupta (9'15-8 1) to death , Queen Didda (98 1-1003) herself ascended the th ronc. Uchd<f la (reigned. I lOl ­l I ) overthrew and killed king Harsha ( 1089-1 10 1), Ii! he himselr s lain by Radda. who then crowned himse lf ( 1111,.

Much can be added in thi s vein. The above is sulTit.:ien t to show the utter lack of histo ricity in the claim made in the textbook about the rareness of the occurrence or regicide in ancien t India.

Page 105

"13. Megalithic Culture of Deccan and South India"

In stead of "CUlture", it should be "Cultures" , s in ce there was no s ingle megalithic c 'J ltu re.

Page lOS

"00 you know that it (iron ) bega n to be used in lndia about 1600 BC."

The dale is excess ive ly carly: the undi sputable usc of iron is no earlier than 1000 Be. There is no consens us behind "tl.ny earlier date.

Note: The short chapter (pp.1 05-6) on Deccan and South [ndian megalithic cultures contains no men tion of th e origins o f the Dravidian lang uages, a very important aspect o f not only south Indian hi story. but In dian hi story in general ,

Early History or the Deccan and South India

Page 107

"The Sa[:lvahanas had a large fleet or ships ."

Ancient Illdia, Class VI 2 1

There 'is no proof available for this statemen l.

Page 107

"The Satavahanas were succeeded by H(I~'I"r(lk/l'(JS in Maharashtra .... ,. (emphas is as in original).

A gross blunder: The Vakatakas (who arc IIOt mentioned) have been obviously confou nded with the Rashtrnkutas.

Page 109

"Sanskrit language, Indian names and religIOn also spread' widely lin Southeast Asia]."

W .. s there only one In d ian religion '! What about Ih..: spread of Buddhism In south·east Asia along wilh BrahmllnKIll'!

"14. North India after Mauryas and Sungas"

Page 111

"The Kushnnas came from Chinese part of Taklamakan de!'en." The who le of Taklamakan D<!sert is in China, n04 jU!'t

any part of it alon~.

Page HZ

"With in Buddhism two sects developed. namely, Huwwlllu and Mahayana . In Ihe Mahayana the images of Buddha arc worshipped".

There is no difference in respect of images between "Hi nay ana" and "Mahayana." Moreover, "Hinayana" is the term MahayanislS use for the rival sect. "Theravada" should better be used instead of "Hinayana".

Page 112

Not ·'Oharmashas htras." but "Ohan.n3shastras". is the correct spelling.

Page 112

••... most of the invaders who came to India during lhis period accepted one Indian religion or the Olher. They absorbed the (sic!) Indian cuhure and became part of the ('\'ic!) Indian society ."

The s upplementary statcmcnI that they (espec ially the Greeks) influenced Indian culture, science and art i!' nOI made-_ though this aspect is equally important.

22

The. Gupta Empire

Page 114

Index of Erron'

'This piJlar inscriptIOn of Samudragupta is also known as Prel,m,lt P, (JShashri."

Read "Prashasti."

Page 117

"The Guptas Cont ributed signi fi cantly tow3rds the development of sc ience and technology by gIving patronage to great scienl i ~t:;."

No such act of patronage is kno ..... n to us.

Page 117

"He (Aryabhatta) rearfinned thaI the earth revolvc1> anjun,1 the sun and rolates on its own axis. which IS accepted even ·h)Jay.··

The word "reaffirmed" is used in ... iew of the faci thai the two discoveries are already attributed to the Ved ,c. times ! Aryabhatta did not say lhal the earth revolves around the sun: on ly Ihat it revolves on it s own axis .

T ht' Era or Harsha

Page 120

" Harsha was a devOlee of Siva (.~;c ). He supported other sec.!!. I reli g ions also."

The purpose here seems to be to sidestep H:.trshu·s uwn persona l attachment to Buddhism , well descnhed by Yuan Chwang. and corroborated by Dana.

Page 121

Heading o f Map: "The (sic!) Harsha 's em pire." What kind of EngliSh will chi ldren learn from such

Ignorant use of the articl e "the"?

15 Deccan and South India

Page 124

"A painting in an Ajanta cave show s PtJlkes llln II [rl!ct. Pulakeshin II] receiving the ambassador or Iran".

Thi s interpretation o f two panels in Ajanla Cave I is now generally doubted, and o ught not to be repented wi thout much qua lification.

Ancient India , Class VI 23

Corre,ct also the exerc ise 3(ii i) on page 127, accordingly.

16. lndia 's Cultural Contacts with the Outside WOI'ld

Pages 128-129

.... , there were t rading a nd culfural con tac ts b~ t wecn the

Harappa n Civ ili zation and the Egyp tian and Mesopotamian Civi lizations .. ."

There is no evidence o f any co ntact between the Harappan Civil ization and Egypt.

Page 129

.. ... As hoka sent his missionaries to five western countries on dhammavij ayayatra" (emph as is in origina l):

While dhammal'ijaya is a ge nuin e Ashokan term, dhammavijayayatra (3 hybrid Sanskrit-Prakrit combi nation) is a purely manufactured one ; an d its use here, as if i t was an Ashokan te rm. is uncalled for.

Page 130

'·Ashoka senl his missionaries to Central Asia ." A baseless statement.

Page 130

"Larges t statues of Buddha at Bamiyan were a landmark in Ihis region since 151 century AD."

The Buddha figures in Bamyan were cu t in ro(:1;; no carlier than the 6 (11 century and they are first described in the 7th cen tury by Yuan Chwang. There is no sa nction for the date of lSI cen tury given here. See D. Klimburg-Saller, The Kingdom (1/ Bom(wH/, Nap les, 1989.

Page 130

·From the days of Ramayall(l India had close li nks with Sri L.anka." (Emph asis as in original)

Does the author mean that ou r "close" relations with Sri Lanka began with Lord Rama's overthrow of Ihe S ri Lan kan ruler land demon) Ravana? Nice way 10 win friends in Sri LHnka~ The incident of Ram a's invasion of Sri Lanka and the killing vI' Ravana fi gures in no history of Sri Lanka·, nor. I'o r that maHer. I ~

Ihe story recognised a~ historical even in the leltlbook under

24 Index of Errors

review. How can. then, Indian-Sri Lankan relati ons have begun with the R4mayalla .

Page 131

" . .. the Indians lea rn t the art of g rowing s il k and making papel' from China,"

Neither sericu lture nor paper- manufacture apPCilrcd in In dia before the 13th cen tury, and bot h came here Ilia Muslims. A s th e se nt e nce s la nds it suggests misl ead ingly t hat the. tech no logic al adopt ions belonged to lhe anc ient period.

17. Major Retlgions

Hind uis m

Page 133

" Hi ndui sm ... js also known as Sal/aWfUl Dharma, i.c. the Et e rnal Spiritual Trad it ion of Indi a." (Emphasis asin original)

Sana rana mea ns etern a l , ancient. One can render SlHwtallo Dharma as eternal fa ith or 3m:ient cuslOm or tradi ti on. The j,ddilion "of Indi:1" is unwarranted , apparentl y dOne to ins inu ate that Hi ndUism as the S(/I/i/wna Dharma is th e o nly spiri tual tradition of India (not eve n Buddhism or hlini.sm ).

Page 134

" H ills and mountains are also g iven sanctity by Hindui sm. MOlillt

Kaila,w (sic!) Iln d Vaikuntha (the abodes of S iva lind Vis hnu ) and ri vcrs such as Ganga, Saraswati and Kaveri are considert!d holy." (Emphas is as in original),

One needs to go to China to revere Kailash , but hu w docs One go to Mount Vaikun rha (paradise)?

Page 134

"Hi nduism laid great stress on varnashrum dlwrmtL, These four stages o f li fe were meant ~o be fo ll owed by all ind ividuals irrespect ive of their caste, creed and belief."

And also irrespective of§ex, if they wereJuSI individual s ' BUI 10 say that women and persons other than the. ·twice-horn ' (dvija,. s uch as chandalas and sh udra s , cou ld I'o ll ow vamush ram dhurma is absurd. It is strange that neither the c:\ste (vl/ m a(jati) sys tem nor the dhamwsJlllsfrll texts llrt' mentioned ;n the chapter on Hi ndui sm.

Ancient Illdia, Clan VI 25

Page 134

"Upanishads are the greatest works o f philosophy ill the hi stOry of humankind ."

For the Upanishads. the adjective 'great ' could of course have passed; but "greatest" implies a kind of comparison of whi ch none is capable. It gives away th e autho r 's own anxiety to es tabli sh Hinduism's superio rity over a ll oIlier re ligu:ins and philosoph,cal traditi o ns.

Page 134

S ince Kabir exp ressly critIcised bpth Hinduism uml Is lam;-hi s name canno t figure among those who accepled Hind u bllllk,i Ui; is done in the las t but o nc paragraph on thi s page .

Page 135

·· It (Hinduism) does not believe that there is only one Way of achieV ing salvation like other monothei stic religions:'

Here 100 the compa ri son is uncalled for, Almost every monotheistic r~lig ion embraces several paths to sulvation , liS IS seen In Is lam, w ith differe nl pe rceptions'of sa lvation and 0 1 different ways to salva ti on in .,u fhm as well as theologica l Is lam.

Page 135

"Fol lowing the philosophical traditi o n of Upanbhad!> and six philosophies in Hinduism , quest fo r salvatiOn through knowledge con tinued . This gave rise to 1ainism and Buddhism."

The obv ious anxiety is 10 show thil l Jaill1sm unJ Buddhism arose o ut of Hinduis m and nol in opposit ion 10 It. Thi s is unh isloricaJ; ilnd there was no nced 10 make ~uc h II on~'­

, ided .suu..:menl.

Judaism

P~gc 137

.••..• UIIC of the Israelis called Moses .. .'· Read ·· Israeli te" fo r ·· Is raeli:· ··Israeli·· m C;lIUi 11 dlil.Cll

uf the modern state of hrael.

Zoroastrianism

Page 138

··Zuru<lstrianism was the rclig iOll IIf Iran unit! Its \·nn~lucs l oy

26 Index of Errors

the Arabs when most of its people were convened to Is lam." The wording suggests to the reader .t hat the I rani an

peop le were immediately converted (0 Islam upOn t h~ Arab conques t of Iran in the 7th cenwTy. On the co n tra ry. th e conversio n was a long-drawn oul process . Tn fac t, [he Umayyad regime (660-750) strong ly ,d iscouraged conversions for fiscal reaso ns.

Chris tia nity

Page 138

"He (Jes us Chri~l) emphasized o n (sic!) one God. " "Other sects also emerged who (sic!) ca ll themselves Free

Churches." The lingui stic errors here are just illustrative of what

the who le textbook IS like.

Pages 137 ·138

Neither in the account of Judais m, nor in that of Christianity, is the re any reference made to the spread of the rel igion concerned to lndia, though both Jewis h and Christian comm uni ties have ell.isted in India since ancien! times . The coming of these fa iths to Indi a is also not mentioned in Chapter 16 (Ind ia's Cult ural Contacts with the Ou tside Worl d), where the spread of H indu ism and Buddhism 10 other countries i.~ much commented on.

Page- 138

"The Holy Book of Chris ti ans is known as the Bible ." Sure ly, the New Tc:stament shou ld have been especially

mentioned he re, as th e tell.t containing the core of Christ's teachings. The author is obviously unawa re of the degree of influence the New TeStament exercised in the formation of the: thoug ht of lhe Father of our Nation.

Page 3

2

Makkhan Lal, Allcient Inclia (Textbook for Class Xl)

Puhlished: bClobeJ" 2002

"Ashoka, in his Rock Edict XII , insisted nn . ... SC I1 "C of unity (If

all religions ... [mectln,gl of exponents of dilTerent rcliglOn~ assembl ie~, and ... learning [he lex Is of other rdigitlo".:'

These delails. viz., unity of religions. IOIc=r- religiom assemblies an d learning of ather religions' texts. are th e f1utho,j" 's own in ve ntions. These are not at all to be found in Ashokan edicts. inc luding R.E. XII, which last is essentially concerned with religious tolerance and removal of sectarian discord .

Page 5

in all the Purallos royal genealogies are <kat! Wllh Iwith1 the reign of Parikshi t. the grandson of ArJulI, 3S a bcnchm:.r~. All the earlier dynasties and kings have been mentioned in pa,t te nse. While .the lalter (sic) kings and dynasties have been narrated in wtu re tense. This may be because of the f:lct that the coronation ot Parikshit marks the beginning of Kali Age. Many sc holars think that this also points to the fact that perhar!' Ihe Puranos were completed during the re ig n ·of Parikshit , .

. As no comment IS made by him on the vi.lid ity of th ' l­view (of the Puranas being compiled in the reign 01" Pariksh il). il will be assumed thaI the author agrees with such un absurd vie w. Arc students required to believe that the au thors of the Puruntls were omnisciem and could see into the future . bein~ nhlc to predi ct who Parikshit's successors would be for two thousand years? And then why djd they s top where they do, e.g. most·ty in the 9th century? Cou ld they nOI foresee the future any further '!

A lso to be noted lire the punctuation anll spe ll ing mi stakes in the passage quoted above.

Pages 5·6

O n page 5 th1: student is told: "t he knowledge of history w:.l~

28 Indu of Errors

gIven a very high place in ancient Indi a. It was :1.I.:cordcd san cti ty e qu al to a Veda : ' On page 6, however, he di .sc u v er~ Ih :u " Kathana's RajaIongini . . . is indeed a so litary example of II~ kind ," The date of Rajararangini (c . 1 1 50) is concea led from hi m. nor. its subject matlcr; and he is never told why, d' hi story was such a respected branch of knowledge , Itlis work remnincd "8 so litary eumplc",

Page 6

Pargiter is spe lt "Pargilar", The s pell ing of Mega sthane s is Incorrectly given throughout the book. here as we ll as elsewhere . as "Megasthenese".

Page 6

"The Greek a mbassador Megas thenese (sic) in the co urt of Chandragupt a Maurya (c.314·300 S .C:) tes tifi es (s i c) th e existence of a list of 153 kings whose reigns had covered a pe riod of about 6051 (or 6015) years ... This ex tra~t fro lTI Megasthenese 's (sic) Indica is in conformity with the pO~I­Mahabharata war royal genealogy preserved in the Puratf(j .~ . "

. This wou ld p lace the Mahabharata war somewhere around 6377 B.C.! No hi storian . not even Proressor B.B . Lal, who excavated the "Mahabharata" sites in order to eslab l i~h the ' historicity of the Mahabharata story, gives such an ea rl y dale.

The present author, Makkhltn La!, writes in Ihis connect ion that H.C. Raychaudhuri (misspelt as " Raycha~dhury" here and elsewhere) attempted "to write hi story o n the basis of genealogies of various dynasties given in Purana:;," BUI he doe~ . not tell hi s readers thai Raychaudhuri place ~ the' dale of Mahabhara(a war and accession of Parikshit in Ihe ninth ~entury B.C. Further, Raychaudhuri ex.pressed agreement wi th Rhy~

Davids that Megasthenes possessed very liu le crit ical judgcmcnt and was often misled by hi s informants .

See also our comment o n a similar slatement rcgard;n!!! Megaslhenes made on page 116 by MaHlum Lal.

Page 6

" (After Megaslhenes] nex.t important phase o f historiography begins with Alberun i .. . "

All this comes under the headin g "Early Foreigners" . and Makkhan Lal clearly confuses foreign !\l:counts 1I$ ~oun.:es

AncielH India (Class XI) '" of history with historical works, when he s peak s here o f "h is toriography." In any case he o mit s altogether th e verv important Chi nese accounts, especially, those of Fah ien, Yuan Chwang and I-Ising which are such imponanl histori ca l sources.

Page 7

"Some of the: leading Intellectuals of {he nineteenth cen tu ry trading (sic) of (sic) thi s path ar~: William Jones ... Kurt Mar}!.

" Whatever might be sa id of Karl Marx., it is absu rd to say,

as is here implied , that he shared wilh others any "i nterest in enl arging the Eu ropean colo ni e ~ for econom ic exp lt)i lalion ," Makkhan Lal seems unaware that Marx was a trenchant critic of co lonial exploitatio n of India : Thus the state ment also on page 14 that "Marx was a great votary of India being ens laved by Briti s h" .. a nd th a t " he was not really free from rac;'a l cons ideniti ons," belongs equally to the realm of fantasy.

Pages 8-10

" Imperiali st Historiography" The larger part of the text of thi s secti on is taken up nOI

by how imperialist historians shaned their view at Indian history, but by how. as Chri stians, tbey tri ed to understress the an.ti.quity of Hindu cu lture because of their belief in th e Bible and the dating of Creation, on its bas is, to 4004 BC. Statemenls such a!> the foll owing (p.1 0 ) show an unaq::eptabl y b iased attitude towards Chri stianity ; "Such effort s on the part o f Europel1 n . scholars, c hiefl y Briti sh brought some relief (to Christian!;?] and m~de thi s approach safe fo r Chri stianity al;ld its followers."

Page 9

" .. . Therefore ... a ll he IM a}!. Mull e r] had was [Us her's ca lc~lation of) 6000 years, i. e. upto 4000 Be. wi thin which the entire history of uni verse had to be fitt ed . It was under th is gui di ng principle [that) William Jones, Max Mulle r, Vincent S mith and OIhers wro te Indian history."

ft is s ill y to su ppose that if someone was a Christian and believed in the truth o f the Bible (including th e Genesis), he must have dated the creat ion of the Unive rse to c.40UO B,C. Makk han Lal forgets that those who had worked out th e sequence of geological ages and their long-t ime-span were also Christia·ns.

'Ii flJdex oj Errors

not Hindu s. How false are Makkhan Lal's allegations one nccu~ 10 read on ly the follo wing lines from Vincent A. Smllh. O.if"rd HisTOry of India. Chapter I: "Man has existed o n the earth till';J

time bc,Yond com putation, but certainly to be estimatell In hu ndreds of thou sands rather th an in thousands of yC <lr~ ... certain pariS of India were occupied by human beings at <l time imll1el1 .~c l y

remote ... " These lines and Olher statement s in the sa me paragraph show bow absurd it is 10 attribute to V A. Smith "and others" the kind of belief in the lime of creati on th at Makkhllil ' La l assigns 10 them.

Page 13

' -The cont ributions of all these gretH lindianl scholur .. helped III

dearing the mi st built ( .ric) by the miSSIOnaries amlth(, impcriniisl hislurians."

No "mi ss\ona ry" hi storian ha s hcen . mcnt1(lnci.l Int' c reating the undefinci.l " mist. " The reference i .. Just a pan of the ilnli-Christ ian position Mukkh:tn Lal wishes 10 pn1d:um . NUl 1\

hi s assert ion a fa ir comment on the many Indlall hi "lu rwo , Ill'

.nam es, who wished to unravel Indill' s pa!>\ 10 :I crHlcal lind ubject ive m a nn er. rather th iln just g lCHify It I" pal'll S:l1l propagandists.

Page IJ

" Karl Marx and F. Enge ls clearly ud.oowlcdgclll hcir ilH~'llcctlial

dellt 10 F.W. HegeL" Marx and Engels ackn<lwlcdgcd their "kilt tllth~ ..:lcllll' nl

of dialectics in He gel ian philosuphy; even ,\\1 the} n .. 'Jl'\: I.: J Hegel's idealism, and therefore hi S enlire vil!w 1)1' !-I n.lllry. II , .. therefore lo tall y mi s leading 10 give so mw.:h SP;U':IC In Hq!d', hi storica l ideas on puges I ~- 1 4 under the Iteallillg " M:I!·s i .. \ Sc hoo l of His tory".

Page 14

Col.l. line 12: Read 'appall ed' for ' ;JPP:lUlcd '

Page J4

" In 1nd ia also there IS a sig niri canl traditi on \If ·Hcgdl,IIH:-.IlI '. 'Nc(l-Hegcliani sm ' - and ·Anti-Hegelianism· ...

This is jusl one of Ihe many meanin gless slall'lU\.'IlIS III the book .

Anciellf Illdia (Cla.\·.\· XI) .11

Page 14

"Thh, (Marxist] schoo l al $O like the imperialht school find anything good in the Indian civiJizati(/Il."

Makkhan La[ see ms to finu himselr cntitk_u til say anything he <likes about anyone whom he uisJikes. He uues nnt seem to have heard of D.O. Kosamhi 's ClIlwre amI Civili ::.,(lfitm of India or D.P. ChaUopadhyaya's Lolwyar. It is no wonder that Makkhan Lal makes suc h s ill y statements as thai Marxi.~ls

cons ider the age of Kushanas on ly as , I "Golden Age'} and the period 500-1200 as a "Dark Age".

Page IS

fn the list of Marxist hi s torian s of ant:i\;n l Indiu , II I~

strange to find the names of " frfan Habib, Blpan Chllndru". WlllhC

main fi e ld,S li e in medieval and modern history , A-" ror "Rnllulll Thapcr" (.so spe ll). there seems no ba.~is (except Ihe new urge 10

ca[ 1 all scientifically minded hi storians as "Leflisl s'") fur cla-"-,,ing her among Marxists . On the o ther hand . so pronuunced a sclf­proclaimed MarxiSI historian of ancient Indian philosophy and science as D.P. C hattopadhyaya is left oul.

Page 17

Perhaps following A.A . Macdonell, Makkhan LaJ enumcr;llc~ Vedic and Sanskrit separately among the literary sourcc~. But unl ess the students are also infOrmed that Vedic and Silmknt constitute onl y two phases of the same language a~ i ~, done hy­Macdo nell , who by $anskrll mean$ class ical Sanskrit. thc stu J ent wi ll tarry the impress ion that these lire t\VO separate. unrd~ted languages, Makkhan Lal writes. that Ihc " Vedic literature .,' ,Ire entirely in n different language." Docs he me an th at Vedl ": lang uage is nOI Sanskrit al all?

Page 17

thi s cltcellenl an of writi ng in ~'utrQ (precept s)." S/Ura meiln s a Ihrend, whence a line, When works were

composed for memori zation it was convenient 10 lu ve rule:.. c le ..

framed in shari , preferably rhyming sentences. ' Prece pt\' IS a furthe r denved meaning from the facl that legal texts (tht !lO'

ca ll ed sutras ) were wrillcn in sutra-form . The two menllln g~ are here co nfl"Hlnded. Furthermore, writing was nOI known thc.n. The "c.\(ce llenl art of writi ng" could o nl y ha ve heen Ih al or

32 IIlde,t of Errors

composing short se nte·nces (surras).

Page 19

"Sangama (s ic) ... arc. in all, 30,000 lines of poetry arranged in two main groups, t'ari"e"kllkallakkll and PattI/pauli . The former is older (hun the · latter."

This is a mi sleading statement. In all Refounts the enumeration of Sangam works begins with ErlIltQgal (Eight Anthologies), which is followed by PattltplJIw (The Ten Poems) and the "Patinenkilka"akkll (the collection of Eighteen Works). The Tolkappiyam. the great grammatical work of Tamillanguag-e . is also generally included in Sangam literature. Makkhan Lal makes no mention ,of EUlitogai and Tolkappiyam. How does he arrive al 30,QOO lines of poctry when he leaves Ollt EUI/roga;? This is only one example of the splipshod way Ihis textbook is written ,

Page 20

"But with the cxcavaliom, at Mohenjo Daro. Kalibangan and Harappa, the antiquity of Indian civilization has gone back to abollt 5000 Be."

Apart from the infelicity of placing 'excava tIon s al Harappa after those of Kalibangan. the ~ho l e statement IS <t

simple piece of misrepresentation. Nothing al the three s ite s ca n be possibly dated before c.3200 - if even that. And, if "civilization" means presence of cities, no city in India can possibly be dated earlier than c,2600 Be.

Pages 22 and 23

In place of the obverse side of a coin, the texi has "obse rve side" and "on the observe",

Pages 25

"In ancient times this whole mass of land (Indian 5ubcbntinent) was known as Bharatavarsha or Hindustan:'

The Puranas speak of Bharatavarsha, buY which ancient lext mentions Hindustan?

Page 26

"The Hindukush Mountains , right from the Pamirs , form the natural western boundary of the Indian subcontinent. The

AI/citml India (Class XI) 33

mounlains of Safed Koh, Sulaiman and Kirthar JiCparafC fran from the Indian subc~mtinenl".

The IWO sentences conta in notbing bUI geographi .... ul nonsense. If the Hindukush Mounlaim; mark the boundary of "'tbe Indian subconlinenl". two-thirds of Afghanistan wou ld be included in it. The assertion conOicts with Ihe very next Slalernenl Ihat the Indian subconllnent reaches only up 10 Safed Koh l Sulairnan and Kirthnr ranges. This would naturally exclude the who le of Afghanistan and Baluchistan from it , II wou ld be finally news to some people that the borders of Iran come up to Safed Koh , Sulaiman and Klrthar ranges, so Ihat no country like Afghanistan exists at all!

Page- 28

'"Ptwchanarida (sjd ) de~11ll or Punjab'". If Makkhan Lal musl use a name ( 'Panchnnada ' ) from

Ih e Mahabharata, he should at Jeasl get il righl. Punjab IS a Persian w9rd meaning five (pan}) rivers (ab) . Panjnad or Panchnad is the small seclion of the river after Chenab and Sutlej unite until they run intO th e Indus.

Page 32

"The name 'Ind ia' was first applied by the Achaemenid Persians to the region watered by the Sindhu."

The Achaeme nid name for the Indus reg..ion was 'Hindush', not "India ' .

Page 32

"'The Sapta-Sindhu referring [0 the region of the seven rivers of Sa raswat i (o r five s treams of the Sarasw31i together wi th the Ganges and the Iamuna) was the term used for India in the Zend­Avesta, the sacred book of Parasis (sic)."

How many errors can be collected together in just one sentence! The Avestan name for the region was Hapta Hendu. not Sapta Sindhu, which is its Vedic equiva.lent. Hupta He.ndu was nOt used (or India in the Avesta, but for roughly the Panjab as o ne of the sixteen regions created by Ahura, Mazda. The name ill both its Avestan and Vedic forms. Hapta Hendu/Sapta Sindhu shows that the Indus and its IribUiaries are concerned here, not Saraswati or "the five streams of Saraswati" whatever that strange expression means . Finally, the Ganga and Yamuna have never

34 IIU/ex of £rror.\

been counted among the 'Sapta Sindhu'; und the two rivers HI\,'

not at all mentioned in the Avesw ..

Page 32

" HinJu in Persian. Indos in Gl'cek .. art: .:nrrupl rorlll ~ ,01 Sindhu ."

Not at alL They nre des..:cndcd trom Avo.;s!<lll· ' I-I\!mlu' which corresponded to Vedic 'Sindhu ', Neither was <I o..:oll"uPI for m of the olher, but ba~ed on th e inten;hungcahilily ~)r 'I;' ,1110.1 ·s ' between the Ave'Han and Vedic languages.

Page 32

"Thus the descend:!.nls of Bharala Clune \(I be kll\)wn as Indian., or Hindus."

This slalement suggf!sts thaL all In dians Ufo.: Ul:SL'CIHkd

rru m a s ingle ind ividual Sharat3.. who in traJiliull IS Dilly Ih ... · progenilOf of t he tr ibe of Bharatas. belonging to the ~II·<.':I uf Kurukshctra. Thi s is just the crention of a new (:Ind i mros~ihk)

genealogy for the Indian people llt the mos t ahsurd level , AI,,} to be noted is the cllsy indentification of Indians with Hindu :­made by Makkhan Lal here: non- H indus are. hy implication , 1101

Indian s.

Page 3-1

"Tn saml:: of the sacred Lexts like the Bh tHP'tl/{1 PUI'(Utu til"

Mallu.nll,;, i are found passages of palriOli!.. fervour dc~<.:rihlllg Bha nua varsha as fashiollell by t,h e Gods themselv..:~."

Setting !l.SH.le the oddness of placing BI/(I.~\'{lf(' Pur/illu before Mallwmlriti , and spelling "Gods", YJith a capil:11 G , tilt aut hor dOeS nOI allow himself the luxur), of l'hecking wlwthcr Ihe name Bharala-varl> ha ever occurs in the Mallloilifili . The ,s tatem e nt he Ilttribules to it is not at all found there. It un ly reft: f ~ La Aryav3n3, o bviously making il identical with North India , and never speaks of il ~ being especially divinely fa"hilllH:: LI (Manu, n, 23-24). MOreover.lhe Shudras arc nullrcaleLi a" heing bound in any way !O Aryavana - n curious aspect of :...:riplunll "pa triOfi :\m"' that is narurally overlooked by Mnkkhan LaL

Page 34

" Sectaria1l1sm is thu s an aid 10 nationalism in Hindu c ulture ... A ll these prayers and passnges show lhal a Hindu h:l." CkVall"J J ):l1 riotj ~m min a religion:'

Ancient India (Class XI)

Such extraordin arily irratio nal in fere nces from du b i o u ~

asserti o ns (see preced ing com ment) are made to suggest that true pal'rioti sm can onl y be practised by Hind us, for whom it is :1 pan of their re lig io n! Su pposedly, then, Hindu s in Nepal and Sf! L ,mka mu st by their faith be loy al o nl y to, Bharutavarsha!

Page 38

~'Salim C hi sti " sho uld be "Sa lim C hi shti ".

Page 42

"The hum ans evol ved o ver a period of thes.e 42 lakhs (sic) years and the present for m reached about 50,000 years ago."

The dal.in g is obso le te. The Anato mi ca ll y Modern Man is much o lder than 100,000 years, as has been show n by fos~ i l

rema lllS in both Afric a and Palestine.

Page 45

"Th e iden ti cal shape, size aod nature o f the Upper Pal aco lit hi ,,: spec imen , dated 9000-8000 BC, and the o nes that are kept in the modern vi ll age shrines is sig ni ficant."

Thi ~ refers to u piece of ferrugi nou s sands tone fou nd 011

s:lIldstone ru bble platform belongin g to Bagho r I c ul tu re datable to 25,500- 10,500 years ago (not just 9000-8000 BC). Si nce we do not knO\v its exact Signi fi cance, it is not legiti mate. \0 a!>Sume that liS "nature" is the same as that of Sim ilar 'stones worshipped "a~ female pri nci ple or Sakti fsic ! Shaktil in .he cou nlrys ldc" as Makkha n La l arg ues, tryi ng to push back modern be liefs to a period over 10,000 years ago.

Page 46

""Th e C- 14 d ates ava ilabl e for the Mesoli thi c culture ... " There is no explanat ion provided in the textbook o f whul

C·l"; dati ng js.

Page 50

" Rk c seems to have bee n domesticated in India hy ahout 70(H) BC as the cvi J cncc rrom Koldihwa in the Belan vllllcy ~h()w\ .

T he author should hav e noted that Ihis clai111 I " IhlW

wluely di~puted

36 Index of Envrs

('age 60

"Likewise the fiddlc.~.shaped figurines lin M:llw8 culllJrcj probably resembling srivarsa, the symbol of Lakshmi. .. In a painted design on a pot. a deity is shown with dishevelled httir recalling Rudra of laLer period. A painting on a jar [ouod from (sic) Daimabad ... some scholars compare It with th e 'Siva Isit·~ Shival Pashupati' depicted on a seal from Mobanjo Oaro ... Two figurines from lnamgaon. belonging \0 Jorwe cullOre. h~vc been ide ntified as prolo-Ganesh ... Several headless figurines found at fnamgaon have been compared with Goddess Visira of the Mahabharrlla. "

All these stalemeniS amount to sheer ~pet:u lati (ln; ;JnJ the reader is never made conscious of the distance in time and of the difference in actua l depiction between th c c hakolithi c figurines and e lement s of very late Hindu iconography.

Page 6S

The name of n.R. Sahni is missspclt as "Sailn;" ,

Page 66

"This ancienl civili zation lthe Indus Civil ization} of India like any other, cannot properly be studied on the basis of its present, day (l) political boundaries. The geographical distribution [of what?] should be its basis."

Does the author himself know what he wants 10 say?

Page 66

"The tOlal geographical area over which this civilization flourished is more than 20 t imes of the area of Egyptian anti more than 12 times of the area of Egyptian and Meso potamian civilizat ions combined. It covers an area of about 12,50,000 !'IoC(.

km." The area of Egyptian civi lizat ion covered about 300,000

and Mesopotamian about 400.000 square km , Even if one accepts Mak khan LaJ's inflated figure for the Harappan cultu re area (1,250,000 sq. km. instead of just 7+ or 800,000 sq. km.) . ;1 cannbt be 20 ti mes the size of Egyptian civilization or 12 times that of Egypt and Mesopotam ia combined.

Page 66

+-- " it is clear from the above distribution pattern of .sett lements

Ancient I"dill (Class XI) 37

that the focus of Harappan civiliZation was not the In dus bu t the Saraswati Ri ver and its {I' ibutarie.s which flowed betwee n 'the Indus and the Ganga. lr is because of thi s reason tha t so me scho lars call il Ind us - Slraswati Civilil3tion and few prefcr the nomenclature Sara swat! Civ ilizatio n,"

Thi s is a hi g hl y tenJentious statement. What is le/l un s:uJ is the fact that no ne of the major Harappnn sites (with th e excepti o n of Kalibangan), suc h li S Harappa.' Mohenjodaro and Dhol avi ra are located on or close to Ghagg ar, identified hy Makkhan Lal as Sarasw:lIi . Moreover, the distnbution pattern of Early Harappan . Mature Harappan and'Late Harappan !O ite~ dearly shows a chronolog ical moveme nt from the sou th ·wes t [0 the north·east, from the Indus region to the Ghaggar area, Mo~t

of the sit es in the laHe r area belong to th e declining , hl.le Harappan phase. Hence it IS IIlcorreclto hold th at Sarasvutl Ri ver and not Indus was the focus of Harappnn Civi lization.

Page 66

"Some of the settlements like , .. Rakhigarh i (+80 he!;tares) . Kalib3ngan (+100 hectares), and Dho lavirn (+100 hec tare,,) cll n eas il y be classed as large c iti es."

Only Makkhan Lal can give s uc h Inaccurat e data' . Kalibangan occupied an area of 11 .50 hectares, nOt + I DO, Rakhigarhi , 40 hectares nOI +80 ; and DhoJavira, 60 h ~clares ,

nOt + 100, See Posse hl 's list of s ites in his IlIdu .~ A Rt'. rhe , Btgjnnillgs. Kalibangan could barely make il to Ihe ran~ o f a small township, let alone "a large c i ty. ~' The o ther two coul d just have been s mall lawns.

Page 74

" Bones of horses have been repofled from Lothal , Surkoldil , Kalibilngan and several other s ites. l'erracolta figurines o f the horse have· been found at Nausharo and Lothal. "

Thi s is a much di sputed claim. In all fai rness the swdenl sho uld al so be informed that as aga inst the controversial clai m:; of a few horse·bones d iscovered in the Harappan (more proRerly late Hu.-appan) layers, bones of thousands of horses have been d iscovered in the archaeo logical layers dating from 6000 Be in the regio ns of Ural, the Volga and lhe Ukraine ; and il is undi sputed that the animal was first domesticated in these area~,

38 Index of Errors

Page 77

"A male deity ' the prototype of historic Siva' is portrayed on it

seal wi th three faces. sea ted on a low throne in the typical pol>IUrC of Yog i. with two anima ls on each s ide - elephant and tiger on right and rhinoceros and buffalo on refl, and two deer (sir:) standin g under the thron e. T he depiction shows ~jva.(~·ic!) as Pasupmi (sic!)."

This idc::ntifi carion tentatively sugges ted by Sir John Mar.dldll ha s been serious ly ques tioned si nce then by a large number of sc holars such as 0.5 . Ghurye ( 1979, Vl!dic Illdiu . Mum~a; , p. 156t); H.P. Su lli van (1964+5, Hisrory of Religioll .\'. Vo l.I V, pp.115-25) : Air Hellebeitcl ( 1978, A/llhrop ()~i, Vo!.? 3 Nos.5-6, pp .769-79); Dori s Srinivasan ( 1984. Jourl/ol of 'h~ Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. No.1. pp .77-81). and A.L Basham ( 1990, The Origin and Devdopml!lIt of Classical lfindltislII, OUP, Delhi, p.4) . II is more likely (hili lhe figure represenls a femnle deit y and what Marshall :.lssumcd (0

be the ithyphallic feature js merely the tail end of the double waste-band. as pointed out by H.P. Sull ivan. In any case. all evidence of such doubtful nature no categorical SI:llement should be made in a textbook . It should be noted lhal among the an im als shown on this seal . Ih e bull , an anima l c losely assol.~i:lled with PuraOlC Stllva. is conspicuously absent .

Page 78

"Al Kalibnn£an, Loth al. and Bannwali a number of 'fLre-ahar~' hnlle been found wh ich seem to have been used as sacrificed altars _"

There is nothin g to show th;lt alltllcse fire-places which vary in nature, many of them are simple hearths. were 'sacrificlal alla rs' _ Nor doe~ Makkhan Lal exp lain how with ox-hune!> indicating cattle-s laughler at sacnfic ial nltars al Kalibangan and Lothal, the religion 01 the Harappan civiliz,ali('n could be the same as the Vedic, when. according [0 him. cow :.Iaughtcr wa, ullerly prohibited in the latter.

Page 80

..... the ·baraburian' (.shl ArY:ln!> !phl:he atlributcu tl) Morlim!.:1 Wheel e rl· ····

M"kkhan Lal' s spelli ng '" cCI'I:llnly barh:Lluu,. WIH.'tlll'l

the Aryans were burburialls or not.

Ancient India (ClaJ'S XI) 39

Page 80

" In fact. there is no archaeolog ical or biological evidence for in vasion o r mass mi gration from west or central Asia to Ihc Indus or Saraswati valleys between 5000 and 800 Be. At! ~ke lelon., found during lhi s period belong to the same. group of peopl!.'. "

This ,argument to comes t the view th at people speaking Indo- Iranian ("'Aryan") languages entered from the west or north­west. overlooks. fir s t of all, th e lingui sli c ev ide nce. which overwhe lmingly suggests such a migration .. The blithe statement that there is no archaeological ev idence for an Aryan migrlltioll over looks what the archaeo logists have uneart hed about the horse - a r~1 mark.er for the Aryans, It is found success ive ly in BMAC in north Afghanistan (2200-1700 BC), Galighal Culture IV in Swat ( 1800- 1400 BC), and in Pirak I(b) (1600-1400 Be). Final ly, the idea lhat panic ular language -s peakers (c.g. Aryans or Dra vid ians) have any specific genetic charactertsti!; s (and so form a "race") is absurd , No genetic evidence testifies to Turkic migrations into Turkey, a fact lin guist ically and historicall y establi shed , There is furt hennore no truth in the ... tatement thal .!o keletons found in the Indus basin from 5000-800 BC ""belong to the sa me group". The population o f Mehrg!lrh III (c.4300-c.38GO BC) had I.ranian affiniti es whi le Ihat of Mehrgar!l I and II (c,700-c.4000 Be) shows South-Asian affinities ... 0 that there was so me change he re around 4000 BC . The skeletons 01 H3rappa show c haracteri stics si mil ar to those of Mehrgarh III. but di fft. r from those of the people of Mohenj o Daro and or "modern Punjabis". Thus Ihe Indus Civilization itse lf had a geneticall y mixed popU lat ion,

Pages 82 and 83

"The Vedas are ne ither any indivi<:lual re li gious work nor a collection o f definite number of books co mpiled at a parlil:ular time ."

What is meant by the phrase '"i ndi vidual re li gious work"'~

Doc:; thc author mean that the Vedas are neither a ' single' work rior 'separ:tte' works. o r does he wish to co nvey thc idea thai the Vedas arc not wrill en by an ind ividual ? What would Ihc sludei\t learn from suc h a clumsy. confused piece of writlllf! '!

Pages 83-84

"Age of the Rigveda"

·IU Index of Errors

Under this heading an effort is made to di s rni~s Max Muller's dating of the Rigveda by auributin g il to his VICW (1 1 the creation of the world in 4004 BC. "as a (fue'Chri st ian ." Ap:JrI from the insens itiveness to Christian sen timent in putting the argument in this form, it is not shown how a Rigvedic dille. say. of 3000 Be would have conflicted with a dale or 4004 Be for the world's creation! Makkhan Lal is so taken up by Ihis ",ruc­Christian" bash ing thai he says the same thi ng again on page 8-9 .

Makkhan Lal goes on to give a string of names of scholar.!. who give very early dales for the Rigvedc.. while neg lecti ng lilO.')t

who give coge nt enough arguments for a late dale. Th e faCI thaI ce rtain gods mGntion ed in the RlglI~da are men ti oned in tt)e Bog hazkoy in scription of 14'" century Be by no mcans "proves" that " the Ri gveda must have come inlo exis tence much before Ih al date": it could have been composed much later also. by the same token.

F in all y, M:lkkhan Lal coo lly a mi n to tell the reader thai some like 11lak, who give very ea rl y dates to the Rigveda, argue that the Rigveda Was composed outside India!

Page 84

" Ri g Vedic geography, therefore. covers present~day wes te rn Ullar Pradesh, Haryana. Punjab . Rajasthan, G ujaral. who le of Pakistan and soulh Afghanistan ,"

Thi s is highly exaggerate", There is no proof that Guj arat and mos t o f Rajas than were included in, a reas the Rigvedic composes were familiar with, As for Ihe " whole of Paki s tan," there is no proof th at Baluchistan southwest of the Bolan pass was known 10 them . Th is would be [he case wilh soulh Afghanistan if all Rigvedic references to Sarasvati are attributed to the Haryana stream instead of the Aves tan Harak hva it i (the Arghandab·Helmand ri ver), as Makkhan Lal does. He can no t ride twO horses at the sa me time!

Pag~ 86

"The Rig Vedic soc iety co mprised four varnas. nam ely Brahmana, Kshatriya. Vaisya (s ic) and Sudra (sic) . .. The teacher and pri ests were called Brahmanas. ru lers and administrators kshatriyas . . farmer-s, merchants and bankers vaisyas: a nd arli~an s and labourers as Sudras,"

The Rigvcda o nly once mentions these four categories, T here (the PUrl4Sha-sukta hymn) these: categories of people are

Allelent India (elllSl' XI) 41

ment ioned without describing the m 3S vamas. Here ~he second category is called Rajanya, meaning the kinsmen of the Raja , and not Kshatriya . Evolution of the Rajanyas into a i;<shalrl)'3 varna category is a later deve lop ment. The s tatem ents in tht! present textbook are thu s full of anac hro ni sms. What is th e evidence that Rig-vedic people bad the in stitution o f a "'bank " for Valshyas 10 be des ignated "bunkers"? There is no proof that arti sans were rega rded as Shudtas in Vedi.c times . ' Brahmana ' was the designation o f a priest o nl y. not " teacher" . It IS a different matter that later the pro fession of teaching became the prerogati ve of the brahmana caste.

Page ~6

"Soc iety "

Under thi s heading a practically idea l society is described. The reader is not told about dasyus (the suppress~d ' non-A ryans') and dasas or slaves arid the dasis or s la ve-g irls, whom even the priests desired in girlS-<

Page 86

""The cow was already deemed llgllllya "not to be kilied'·. Tht: Vedas prescribe a penalty of death o r expul sion fro m the kingdo m to those who kill o r injure cows ."

A majo r defec t of thi s c hapter is tha.1 th e au tho r has c lubbed together a ll the four Vedas as !f they represe nt an identical, unchanging phase of Vedic society, although there is hardl y any difference of opinion over the fact that the Riglledu reflects a mu c h ea rli er pha se tha n Th e Yajurveda and Ih e Arharvaveda.

As for (he killing or injuring of cows being II capital o ffence in Ved ic times, Makkhan Lal does not menti Olrthe source on whieh th is statement is based . Such recommend ations a re made in later texts and not in the Vedas.

Later, Makkhan Lal him self realized th e unte nability of his assertion; and in hi s The NCERT Social S,:jellce Books: F.alse Propaganda, Political Agenda and th l' ""E", il/ !! '" HiSTorians " publi shed by him (Nov. 2002, p.7). he In c!> to make a distinction betwee n the meat of a ' bull' , ' ox' , male ca lf. th.",

and that of a cow, and asserts '"From RiRveda and Ath~n'ul'e"ll we know that some of Ihe domes tic animal s like buf(ulu. hu ll. ox. male calf, e iC . were eaten but NOT COW~ wh ic h was held a~

42 Index of EI'I'Or.f

sacred all thorugh. " The following hymns of tJle Rigvt'do may hn'1cvc r. hI..'.

considered: Rjgl/tda 11 .7.5 speaks of worshipping the firc-god . Agm'

with barren cows (vasah ), bullocks ( Ilksha ) and 'kin~ in call" (llshtapadiblllh). This is the explanation given by Say:tnlH.:harya of these term s and it is c leM thai nOt only bull M ox but abt. barren cows and sometimes even pregnant cows were sac l'ific.:Li perh aps for increasi ng fe rti lity. Barren cows ("Wid'" and \).\CI1

we re regu lar food of the fire-god Agni, who IS dcsnihecl a ~ Ihcll' ealer in Rigvtda VII1.43 . 11 . Rigl/eda VI.16.47 IS a hymn III pnm..: of Agni in whith the poet prays that hi s r.:.ompo~ltu)n may he acce pta,ble to the god in the sn me fashion as he al'\:cpl:- Ih;: offerings of oxen (lIkslulIlall) Ilnd cows (vasa /r ). In {he welhhnt; hymn (X.85. 13) we arc told that in the Magha (Na/c.l'/w /1'lI 1 t:l)W~ (or callie, gavah) are slain. The Rigveda X.9 1.14 $peaks of Ih.: offering o f horses (as vasa h). oxen (ukshollu/r ), oll Trc n cOws (vasah) and sheep (mesllalr) [0 th e fire·god Agni. The word V(/.wll is translated as 'a barren cow' or a barren woman . BUllhc conlc-xt clea rl y shows that a barren cow is meant.

V.M. Aple, Professor of Sanskrit in Karn:m k College . Dharwar, writing in The Vedic Age, His/Dry (wd Cutrur'e of thi' India" People, YoU. ed iled b y R.C. Majumdar (pub li shed by Bharatiya Vidya Bhava n, 511• edition, p.396). recognises th:l.! in the Rigveda. VO.faS. i.e .. barren cows . were:. sacrifil.:ed . It I ~ we-II known thlll whate ver is offered to gods is late r ca ten hy the worshippers . In Rig\'eda, X.6S.3, cows (galr) are descnbed 11\ atflhinih, fit for g uest s. apparelltly refe rrin g 10 the wdl­documented cuslom in the G,-jhYU-SUUllS of killing a cow IIJ feast a guest. V.M. Apte Thinks (ibid . ) lllat barren COWl> musl have been meant in this Rigvedic passage. and he Hnd s il diffi cult 10 reconcile thi s evidence with the de scri ption of cnw 11:- lI,r<hln'lI in several passages. But the cow may have been deSCri bed a~ oghllyo owing to' its usefulness and eco nomic impurtant'l! There is nothing 1.0 show Ihat i.t was considered 'sac red' and thai the eat ing of cow-meat was prohibiled.

While it may be argue d that th elie details ncctl nUl encumber a Class Xl textbook . it is improper to make ~s.\ocrtion~ manifestly conlrary to racts, as Makkh:m Lal has tlone . It wuuld have been enough for him to s tate that thl! reverence for thc cow increased with tim e in the Brahmanica l trudition .

Allciel/l India (Class XI) 43

Page 87

"A lcoholic drinks sura and Soma were also consumed, though their consumption has been condemned because of It S (.11("1

inloxicating effect." Soma is a divine drink highly ex tolled in the Rig"ftt/a

and offered to gods and even gotldesses sucb as Indrani , Varuntllll (Rl8veda , 1.22.9- 12), goddess Earth and Aditi (IX,8. J -5) . II ... preparation was a household affair (Rigv~da, VIl1.2 .7). RigvC'da , VII1. 31, vividly describes how a hu sband-and-wife couple' (dampatj) wash nnd press out the soma juice and perform the sacnfice together for gaining 'strength' and 'g lo ry'. Thcre is thu r\ no condemnation of soma consufTlption.

Puge 87

"The Rig Veda auached great importance to agriculture. The p lough ~as drawn by the oxen at times in teams of six., eigh,"or even twelve,"

There is no reference in the Rigveda to such plough­teams of oxen,

Page 87

" Barter was' in vog ue ... The conceptio n of money can be traced in the mention of a gift of 100 nishkas. Money-lendin g was also known."

If barter ';was in vogue", ho w come there were coins (n;shkas) and also money-lending?

Page 88·89

"The Rigveda does not give even an inkling of any migrati on of Aryans from any other area. It does not even have a fai nt memory of any such mi gration, II does not have any knowledge even of the geography beyond the known boundari~s of ancien! India:'

Makkhan Lal apparently fee ls it is unpatriotit: to suggest that the Aryans C"arne from outside [ndia. He needs to be reminded that Lokamanya Sal Gangadbar Tilak . whose patr ioti sm in leading the struggle against colonial ru le can hard ly be , doubted . had suggested that the Arctic was the origi nal home o f the Aryans . fo r Rigv~da 1.76.3 speaks of Mmany days (that] have passed before the sunrise" ; and such a phenomenon occurs onl y in the Polar regions . II is the pr~sent votaries of Hlndutva who see in the genuine hi storical problem of the o ri gin al home of the Aryans.

44 Ind~x of Errors

or rather speakers of Indo-European la nguages. as an obS l ru(.:tiOn to their harping on the 'fo reign character' of the non- Hindu [nd ian population.

A s to the amount of geographica l knowledge In the Rigvl!dq, the text locates seve ral Vedic tribes in the regions of Kubha (Kab ul), Suvastu (Swat). Krumu (Kurum ) and.Gomati, modern Gomal, the rivers of eastern Afghanistan ::md NWFP. It shows no knowledge of the Indian territories beyond the we stern limits of the Gangetic river system in the east >Ind south of Punjab. What should the students regard as the " known boundaries of ancient India?" Did 'ancient llldi a' of Dr. Makkhan Lal's conception include Afghanistan bOt exclude the enlire sou thern and eastern regions o f present.day· lndi a?

Page 89

"Many sc hol ars think that the Aryans' were Originally inhabitants o f India and did not come from outside ... "

The s tatements made in this paragraph repeat those mllde , on page 80; see our comments above under that pag~.

Page 90

To justify the identification of Harappan civilization wi th Vedic "c ivili zat ion" the author mi stranslates ' Pu,randara', nn epi thet of god lndra in the Riglleda, as "Lord of CHles". The term means "destroyer of forls (or towns)" (Purah Satrunam nagarani darayati khach, V.S. Apte, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, s.v. Purandara ). Hence the ep ithet is a'lso applied to god Sh lva, famou s for destroying three cities (Trfpuralllaka) .

Page 90

"Most of the animal s kn,own [Q the Indus people are also known to the Rigllcda."

Rhinoceros was known in Harappan culture bul is nO( mentio ned in the Rig lleda. It is cu rio us thai the ho rse wh ich played a very important role in the material and re li gious li fe o f the Vedic people and is mentioned in the Rigveda 2 15 times, as against the cow, 174 ti mes. and bull, 170 times. is conspicuously un tracea bl e in a c lear and uncontroversial ma nner in the Harappan milieu. It is not shown, for example. on any Harappan seals, an d a horse·seal 'discovered' by one of the saffron brigade enthusiasts has been ex posed as a fraud.

Ancient India (Class XI) 45

Page 92

:'The whole question of the Aryan invasion theory has most apt ly been summed up by Ihe famous anthropologist Professor Edmund Leach of the Cambridge University. [n his famous article' Aryan Invasion over Four Millennia' .,. "

The joke is that Leach reaches his conclusion. "The Aryan invasions never happened at air ' , by arguing that there had actually been no Vedic culture. not even a Vedic religion . and that Vedic texts cannot be used as eVIdence for any period: "the Vedic religion", he says, "is a fictional en tity about which not~ing is genuinely known;" and "The Vedas add up to a miscellany of undatable doc.umetHs of unk nown origin" . Thu.\, neither were there any Vedic Aryans nor, therefore, any Aryan invaders! Makkhan Lal most misleadingly picks up a few statements from Leach for quotation, while carefully excluding , those relating to the crucial nihilistic reasoning of thai author, equa lly destructive of &fly " Vedic civilization" as of Aryan invasion. Such a deliberate act of distortion on Makkhan LsI's part cannot be too strongly deplored.

Page 94

"Upanishads do not believe in the sacrificial ac.quiring ceremonies (sic)" .•

What is the meaning of this sen tence'? The Upanishads show no opposition to sacrifices.

Page 9S

"Wi thin the framework of kingship there were operating certain democratic elements. These were : ( I) the people's right in choosing the king ... "

Does this mean that the kings were elected by lA.", franchise and the monarchies were not here(litary in nature? Thi s is just one example of Makkhan Lal's tendency to so idealj sc the Vedic Age as to make everything ridiculous .

Page 98

"The Uponishads. being the highest leve l of inlellectual attainments, which was no doubt the outcome of the intellectual pursuits of the time."

What a tautology! Could an " intell ectual attainment" have come out of muscular pursuits?

46 Index of Errors

Page 100

Correct 'Schoperhour' to 'Schopenhauer '

Page 100

"Vedic people knew the methods or making squares equal in area to' triangles. circles and c alculate the sum s and di fferences of squares. The Zero was known in Rigvedic times itself and du e 10 thiS, large numbers could be recorded . Also. the positional va lue of each number with its absolute value was known. Cubes . c ubcrools, squareroots and underroots were a lso known and used,"

The entire statement is fal se and propagandist . made wllh a view t.o crediting the Vedas with all kinds of knowledge and scientific discoveries. No doubt, the zero and the positional value of numerals in the decimal system were invented in India, and Aryabhata in the fifth century AD was familiar with the system of writing decimal numerals; but these discoveries were made some lime in the early centuries of Ihe Christian era, Positional value of !lumerals was '.lot known to the engravers of the Maurya. Satavahana, Kushana and even Gupta inscriptions. which use different ·symbols for teo, twenty, thirty, hundred, tWo hundred and so on. Large numbers have nothing to do with the knowledge of zero. For a detailed criticism of Makkhan Lal's stateme nts. see Gunakar Mule in Saffronised and Substandard: A Crifique of the New NCERT Textbooks (Published by SAHMAT New Delhi , 2002), pp. 138--160.

Page 100

lin the Vedic period} '·they also knew that the earth moved on its axis and around the sun. The Moon moved around the eart h."

This is again a deliberate falsehood. Even the great astronomer Aryabhata has not said that the earth moved around the sun. His great discovery was that the earth moves on its aXIs . But this view was not acceptable (0 traditiona l orthodoxy, as in the Athar'llo'lleda the earth is said to be stable (pruris,ha). Both Varahamihira in his Pallchasiddhanliko (Xlll.6.7) written in 505 AD and Brahmagupta (628 AD) in his Braghmasl'hl/w , Siddhullta rejeet Aryabhata's assertion and describe il as again:-I the tradition of the Vedas and Smritis .

Page 108 " Bolh [Jainism and Buddhi sm] are organised .:as ascetic urders

Allcimt India (Class XI) 47

and brothe rhoods. Ascetic ism in fact has its origin In Vedic thought and has been- directly encou raged by the Upanishads."

Again, an attempt to see the Vedic corpus a~ the foun tainhead of all subsequent ancient religious thought anLl pTlu':lice, including Jaini s m and Buddhism . BUI therc is no suggest ion in VediC tradition of the monastic o rder (.wnK'1lI1 ch;lractcri st ic of these two religions. H is furthermore Incorrect to attribute to Buddhism any element of ascetici:.m .

Page 110

·' He [!.hc Buddha's father, Sudd hodanaJ, was the king of Sakyil repuI)Jie".

A 'ki ng' of a 'republic' is surely a strange phenomenon. And it shou ld be 'ShakYIl' not 'Sakya'.

Page 111

··Both lMahavira and Gautama Budd haJ ... derivcd their baSIC principles from the Upanishads."

T his belittling of the break that Jaini sm and Buddhism make with the Upanishidic tradition, is li nked to an Insistence Ihal these two religi ous arose out of Ihe very system, the Vedic, that they rejected. What these t':""o reli gio!ls obtained from the Upanishads is not at a ll made clear. Indeed. there i!\ hardly anything common between them, if we go by the author'", own summary of the U,Janishads · beliefs on page IU2 and hi~ summary of the beliefs of Jainism and Buddhi., m hc.re, on page, II 1-12.

Page lJ2

" It may be said that within fi ve hundred years Buddha spread far and wide in different paris of the world."

' Buddha' or ' Buddhism'?

Page 114

No exp lanati on is offered why in early Vedic litcrorun: only 'janos' are mentioned and jallapad(1s figure in later Vedic and post· Vedic lite rature.

Page 115

Like all other maps in this book, the map on thIS page is also very poor. Kurukshetra is shown in Northern Rajasthan . The

48 Index of Errors

upper section of the Ganga is actually that of the Yamuna. which is s hown as rising in lower Haryana! Pataliputra is spell '·Patliputra". The Brahmaputra is not shown at all.

Page 116

"This extract from Megasthenese's (s ic) ItJdia is in conformity with the posi-Mahabharata war genealogy preserved in the Pu"'anas. "

Here Makkhan LaJ repeats a statement made also on page 6. fI deserves to be noted that , as quoted by Arrian. Megaslhcnc!> re ported that " from the time of Dio ny sus to San dracollu s IChandragupta Mauryal the Indians coumed 153 kings and a period of 6042 years, bUI among these a republic was thnce establi shed." There is no reference to Ihe Mah abharat8 War in Megaslhenes, o n the o ne hand , Bnd none to Dionysus or 153 ki ngs or a pertod of 6042 years or three republi can interludes In

the Puranas. on the o ther. H ow, then , ca n the twp be "in co nfo mllty" with e3ch other?

Page 120

" [Achaemenian dominions) comprised some terri lO ry to thc cast of Sindhu."

The recogni sed name in English for the river is fndu ~ (so also in the Survey of India maps). The const3nt usc of "Si ndhu " for Indus is unjustified Sansk.ritisation. Yet on the very next page 12 1 Makkhan Lal forgets hi s Sanskrit learning and speak.s o f " the Jhelum and the C henab". ~nd on page 32 we even read of "the Ganges and the Jamuna". No Sanskrit form s here!

Page 125

"Chandragupta Maurya was the first ruler who unifi ed entire Indi a under one political unit." '

'Entire India'7lf so why did Ashoka have had to conquer Kalinga or to describe Chola. Pandy a. S3tiyapurra an d ' Keralaputra. located in Tamil N.du lind Kernla, as' fronti e r Kingdoms? This isjust another example of an inaccurate. slipshod way of writing. inexcusable in a textbook. .

Page 130

" '11u$ Ashoka tried to instill moral law (Dharma) 3 S Ihe governing principle and forced [it?} in every sphere of life. "

Ancient India (Class XI) 49

What is the meaning of this sentence? Does it mean that Ashoka ' forced' arbitrarily the principle of Dharma into every spht"re of life? Makkhan Lal has

Page 131

"Ashoka took for the propagation of Buddhism," Ashoka took what? Makkhan Lal ha s forgotte n tn

com plete this senten ce ,

Page 131

"His (As hoka's) reign constitutes one of ' the rare and lighting (sic) epochs in the annals or nations.'"

Whatever is a "li ght ing epoch"? Makkhan Lal seems usually to pick out unnamed aut hors for quotation whose utterances are as woolly-headed as his own.

Page III

" A-shoka i~ the only king in th e history of human kind who apo logized to his conquered subject (.sic) for having waged war against them ... The Rock Edkt XlII is a moving document."

This is an obvious misinterpretatiQD of the contents of Ashoka's Roc k Edict XIII. It expresses Ashoka's sorrow and repentance over the Kalinga war, but it cannot be construed a~ an apology. It should be noted that thi s particular Rock Edict does not form part of the royal edicts found in Orissa. The two separate Rock Edicts sent to different provincial centers, are here inscribed in lieu of Rock. Edict XlII. It Rock Edtft XIII was an "apology". il was not tendered to [he people of Kalinga .

Page 131

"Apparentl y due to concern for the empire a nd 10lal disillusionment on kings (sic) unworthiness . Pushyarnitra. the commander-in-chief killed the king Brihadratha while he was reviewing the army ... This is the only recorded and uAdisputed incident in the history of India till the twenfth century AD where the king was murdered and replaced."

The obvious attempt here is to show that whereas regicide was an exception in ancient Indi a. it became a regu lar feature of Muslim politics in Medieval India . It may be poimed out that according to the Buddhist tradition all kings from Ajatastialru . the kjng of Magadha and contemporary of tbe Buddh.a, to Naga-

50 flldex of Errors

Dasaka were parricides. "The c itiz.ens drove ou l the family in anger a nd raised an (lmatya (offici al) to the throne" (H C Rnychaudhuri, Political History of Allcie,!r [ndio , OUP, 2000. p . 19 3). Shishunaga, the new ki ng had been ac t ing a~ th e Magadhan viceroy at Varanasi . The vio len t death of KUnlkn Ajalasalru , who had kill ed hi s father Bimbisara, is confirmed by {he Jaina sources.

Anot he r contemporary of the Buddha , King Prascmlju of Kasa la. WS'S kille d by his son Vidudabha. who had heen appoi nted asenapari or a general of a s tanding army by /II S father. (For more exampl es s~ comments in Ihi s Lndc.x on M ukl..han Lal 's te xtbook for C lass VI). under p.l 02.

Pnge 132

" Bul weak eco nomy does not Rppear to be the cilse, as. [he . excavation s of Mauryan seltlernents and also ot her evidence point 10 an expe ndi ng (sic) and flouri shing economy."

Both the language and argument are poor. In adequalc s late reso urces a nd a flourishing economy are IWO dirferent thin gs. In any case. o ur knowledge about th e pos i- Ashoka M ::mryan Empire is so small that anyone can just say anyth in g

Page 135

"A married woman had her own property in the rorm (It bndc­g ift (slru dlrana), and jewels."

Th ere is obvious cO{l fusion here between srri -c1I/(U/u ,lIIeJ kanya·dan . DIJafla means wea hh , prope rty. nOI gift.

Page 143

" He overthrew Nahapana and restruct (s ic) large numPer of hi ... s il ver co ins."

Correct ' restruct' as ' restruck' and inser! the aTl icie 'a' after it.

Page 144

"The Yavanas [Greeks] were the firs t ones La establish foreign su premacy over Ind ian soil. "

Su rely not the fi rst! What of the Achaemenids? For thaI malt e r, A lexander was a Macedonian , no t G reek, and Ill S

conquests cannot be he ld to be Greek conques ts .

Ancien/India (Closs XI) 31

Page 146

In place of "provincial governor Chandrag upta Maurya" read 'provi ncial governor of Chandragupta Maurya'.

Page 151

" TJ'oe detailed descripti o n of south Indian states is found in Snngam literature belonging 10 the first fou r cenluri es of the Christian era",

Here the Sangam. literature is ascribed to the "first .four centuries of the Christi an e ra," But in the same paragraph after a few sentences we are told, "The Sangam literature preserves folk memory about the society and life in South Indi a between third Century BC and third Century AD,"

Page 154

'The greatest king of the Chera dYllasty was Sengulluran ', Read 'Senguuuvan ' for 'Sengulluran' .

Pages 158-160

"Social Conditions" It is remark,,;b le thaI in this enlire section. the ,statemen ts

the Manusmriti makes on the "mixed" jar;)' ou tside the four vamos, of which a long list is prov ided by that text, arc silently passed ove r; a nd the di sabili ti es im posed on them are nul me ntioned, Thus the 'dalils' are firmly kepi out side our history.

Pagts 159-60

"Ashramos" The long passage on ashramas makes curious reading .

It omi ts to mention. that these stages of life were 1/01 open to women and shudras, let alone dalits. The statement (p. 160) thai this "scheme" of four ashranllls "was designed to · give a wide scope to individuals in the choice in a vocal io n of life whi ch was best suited to the i r in te ll ectual and m'enl"l capaci,ty" ove rlooks the fact that the "scheme" was part of the cas te syste m. and the dharmashastra did nOl permit One 10 adopt a "vocati on" not assigned to o ne's caste,

Page 160

" Marriage between the members of the sumejaris was preferred. though intermarriage between different jaris was preva lent ."

52 Index of Errors

The fact was that women of a higher \lama could never be married to n man of a lower "ama. while a man belonging 10 a higher varna had to marry a woman or" hi s own varna and. lhen only, successive ly women of lower varnas. The statement that intermarr iages were prevalent thu s need s to be great ly qualified.

Page 160

"Eight forms of marriage are mentioned in the Dharmasaslra.J (sic!) , These are - bra/,,"a. daivu. arrha. prajapllt),o. as/1ft ••

gandl,arvQ, raJcsha sa and paisac/Ja . Among these the last is condemned by all the Dharmasatras (sic!). Women . ,' held honourable ' pos ition in the (s ic!) society and household."

Wtiat is the use o f g iving thi s Siring of terms for different kinds of marriages if these aTe not explained? The (act that the rabila$a form of marriage - in which a woman is forcibly abducled against her will and her family's wishes - was recognised as valid for at least Kshalriya ma les, is hardly compatible with the unqualified s tatement made in the nex t senten ce Ihat " th e women __ . he ld honourable position In the society" ,

Page 161

" . .. the division of Buddhism into two broad sects - the Hinayana and the Mahayana."

It shou ld be noted that Hinayana (' Littl e Vehide') is the name the Mnhayan isu give to the ot her sect. A more suituble designation is Thcravada for Hjnayana .

Page 162

"the Mahayamsls consider him [Ihe Buddhal as God." The Mahayanists are not theists at all; so this s ta tement

is not correctly worded.

l'age 163

.. ... the Harappan deity know n as Pasupal; [=Pashup8tiJ." We do npt know,. word or the H(lrappan languIIge; so

how do we know the deity on a sea l, found by some to be ~ im i lar 10 Pashupati, was actually so ca lled.

Page 163 "Saivism", "Saiva", " Siva" "Saktl" are all errors, respectively

Allcielll India (Clan XI)

for Shaivism, Shaivite, Shiva and shak/I.

Page 165

53

"Money was lent for interest on pro mising rtlle S to be renewed e.very yoar."

What are "promising" rates? High or low'!

Page 167

"The large statues of (the] Buddha at BamiYlln were o ne (sid one of the finest examples of the Gandhara arc"

The Bamiyan Buddhas , which belonged to a later period {6'~ century}, do nOt be long to Gandhara art proper.

Page 169

" It was based on the theory of three humours - air. bile , phlegm - the correct balance o f these gave in (sic! ) a healthy body:'

What kind of comm uni cation skill s would a s tude nt acq uire by reading such incorrect expressions?

Page 170 . . "Charaka and Sushruta were the contemporaries uf Kushana king Kanishka ."

Charaka was a contempo rary of Kani sM:a but nOl

Sushruta who is generally regarded as later, than Cha raka and placed in the fourth century AD

Page 174

"The Lichchhavis (to whom Gautam!l Buddha belo ngs [sic ! IJ were an old and established Ganaralya."

A blunder. again. Gautama Buddha did ;1Ol be long to the Lichchhavi bllt to the Shakya clan. (Compare page 11 6 where Shakyas of Kapilavas tu and Li c hchav.is of Vai sl1ali are enumerated separately in a list of the ganaraj),as. Generall y the latter ganarajya was known as Vajji . and Lichchav is formed a part of it.)

Page J90

"This period is characteri zed by a remarkable growth of the loca l self-govern ing institutions such as village committees and district commiltees. Their existence from a very early period has been nOlieed, hundreds of in scl:,i ptions and Iile ralure (sic) of thi s

54 Jndex of Errors

penod from driOUS parlS o f the country throw a nood of light on their nature and activities and testify to the mO~1 wunJerful organisation Ihat Ihe nncient Indians evolve(I."

Makkhan Lal is characlcrlsl ic:ll1y long. On ddJe(>lIvc.~ and "hon on facts. If a "flood of light " is, indeed . thrown on thc_'c "se lf~govcrning inSlllutions" il is surpri sing. thaI he has not caug ht eve n a ray of it 10 provide th e reader with sultle spedne description. He has no time 10 consider that the mass of pcaS<lm ... were excluded from these institutio ns (e.g the well-known passage In Milirida -pollh Q) and thaI the poorer Slr:HlI were subjc(,led 10 much personal oppression and humiliation by higher rural elements (see Kamasutrll. 5.5.5-6 ).

Page 190

" 11 appears thtlt royal powers were more ... · Ircum~cribcd In the Gupta period and later during the Mauryas."

Were the Mauryas later than the Guplas?

P~ge 190

"Evidence that the king maintained a l>landlng army is cf)nl"irmcd from the conquest!. of Samudragupta and Chlindraguptu fl ..

Another instance of wooJty-headednesl>. There have hecn t:onq uerors who made use not of stand ing armies bul uf spe .... lal levic~ (or their campaigns. like Chinggls Khan and Timur.

Page 192

"The .... ommentaries on Buddhist text s were writtCll in Pali.·' in the period in question (Gupras to Harsha). Sanskrit.

and not Pali, W:lS the language in which Buddhist ..... ommentnric~ were mainly written in India . Pall wa s mainly used by Buddhists in Sri Lanka during this period.

Page 196

"The Study shows that the to tal area given ill land grant IS

between 0.017% and 0.026% of the total fand area of lhe kin gdom." .

No records ex ist by which such statistics .... an be worked out. In any case we are not even to ld , which kingdom is the subject of suc h a remarkable slatistical study.

Page ] 99

"Lingayata was anolher important sect of Saivl:-m (~'icl ) in South

Allcient India (Class XI) 55

India. whose ph ilosophy was influenced both by Sankara (~'i(' / ~

and R:lmanuja."

The {jates or Shnn~ a ra and Ramanuja are eigh th and eleventh centuries respectively Th e Lingayat sect came. in to prom inence in the twelrth century AD. It is not clear why II should be discussed in a chapter tilted ··SOCIETY. ECONOM'Y AND CULTURE. FROM THE GUPTAS TO HARSHA."

Page 207

·'Varahamihira . who flourished in the court of Chandr:lgu pt ~\ II . has preserved in his Panchasiddhamika, wriuen in AD 505. the accounts of five astronom ical works . .. "

_ On page 178 the reader is to ld Ih at C handraguptn II died abou t AD~413 _ As the Panchasiddhantika c lea rl y mentions a date corresponding to AD 505, how could Varaha mi hira have adorned the Caliri of C handragup(8 n ?

Page 212

"Nagabhatta {II] defeated Sultan Vega. who 'was Ih e son of the Governor of S ind under Caliph~AI-Mamun".

No 'Sullan Vega ' is heard of in the sou rces of Arab Sind . ' Vega' is . in any case, nol a possible Arab name, nor i:i Su ltan a like ly ti tle for anyo ne al that lime . ft is s in gular that whi le Makkhan Lal describes other kin gdo ms. he does not si mil arl y o ffer any separate description of Arab power in Sind and southern Punj ab. Even the Arab conquest o f thi s area 0 11 - 14) is passed ove r in si lence. It is . therefo re . not surpri s in g th ai he also maintain s s ilence over the considerable body of Indian scienlitic le'arning and philosophi cal thought that reached Ihe Arabs via Sind.

Page 1.14

"The History of Bengal from the Death of Harsh a up to th~ ascendancy of the Palas remains in (.fic) obscure" .

Note linguis tic errors.

Page 224

On thi s page the four dictionaries composed by Hemachandra are described as " famous dramas" . In fact, the Abhidhaflu Chi"taman; contains synonyms; Duhinamamala is a Pra.krit dictionary; An~k.Qrlhasamgraha contains a li st of homonyms:

56 Index of errors

and Nighantushesha is a a botanical glossary.

Page '227

The Sai lendra Kings arc abruptly mentioned on Ihis page without te lling the students who they were, where they ruled, etc.

Page 228

" In this way it is also connected with Saka·Sak,j CUll." There is no cult known as Saka Sakli cult .

Pages 228-29

..... because of popular demand for a morc personaf religion (sic) deity",

What is to be understood by this phrase?

Page 239

" From the days of the RamayonQ India had Jinks with Sri Lanka . which was popularly known as Lanka in Ramayafla ."

Does this mean Ihal the existence of the ralcsha:m ruler Ravsna and his overthrow are hi storical facts with which llur links with Sri Lanka began?

Page 250

It is perhaps not strange to find in the Bibl iography a title by "S wami" David Fraw ley. Vedic Aryans and the Origin (If Civilization, in which as all civilizations of the world , including those of Pre-Columbian America, arc attributed to Vedic Aryans. N.S. Rajaram. the publisher, of this book. is the person who invented a "horse-scal' to prove Ihat there were horses in the Indu s Civilization. Of a similar kind is Bhagwan Sing h's V~dic Harappans , its title conveying its propagandist character. Is thi s the kind of reading 10 be suggested to C lass XI students and their teachers?

NOTE: This textbook contains so many 'spelling mi stakes of Sanskrit terms that one begins 10 wonder if the author knows even clemef1tary Sanskrit. Many have already been noticed Listed -below are others which will have to be correc ted ror students. The text has:

Page 17: \lYakarna for \o)oakarana.

Page 18: Mudfarakshasha (or Mudraraksha.m

Ancient India (ClllS~' XI)

Page 84: Purushani for Pumshlli.

57

Page 85: grami"i for gramani. This mi stake is repeated on page:. 92. 93, 96 and elsewhere.

Page 85: rajana for rajan.

Pag~ 85: yadva·janaha for yadava .• jtHWh and 'Bharma·jwlllh(,· for Bharata·)Imah. (How the Visa rga of Sanskrit language came to be transliterated as ' ha', only the author can e;'l;plai'n.)

Page 87: Maruta for Marut.

Page 95: Vajpeya for Vajapeya and' Rajsuya ' for Rajasuya.

Page 96: Vajsaneyi Samhita for Vajasaney i Samhita.

Page 'ffi3: Janan for jnana.

Page 114: Pundara for Pundra.

Page 116: Apranta for Aparanta .

Page 157: Asvaghosha should be Asllvaghosha·. correctly given on p. 16 1.

Page 164: sresthies for shreshthis.

Page l 74: Lichcha vis· dauhitra (or Lichchhul'j·duuhitra.

Page 178: and elsewhere - KaUda.f for Kal ,dasa.

Page 19]: Abhijnashakunralam for 'Abh ijnonashaklUllalcwl '

Page 209: Nayanarcu for Nayana rs

Page 223: Raghavaphandavija for Raghavap(wdaviYu

Page 223: Dhanajaya Shrutokriti for Dllananjaya Shmwkirli .

••• Kuarapalacharira for kumarapalacharita.

Page 224: Rajmariga nkll fo r Rajamriganka.

Page 240: Kaudinya for Kaundin ya.

Page :2

3

Meenakshi Jain, Medie.'af./n.dia - A,Textbook for Class XI

Published : Nove mber 2002

[Of Yashovarman of K lInauj:] " A reputed warn or. he is even said to have allied with C hina again st the g ro wing power o f the Ara bs."

The suppos iti on borders o n fantasy. The only fat' l know n to us is that according to Chinese sources, ),as hovarm an (' I-c ha­ron-mo' ) sent an e mbassy to Chin a in AD 731 .

Page 3

" Buddhi sm was for all practical purposes absorbed inlO Hindui sm: ' Such a statement is not justified: What the author shows

is o nl y that some e le ments of Buddhism (and Jain ism) li ke uliimslI came greatly 10 influence Hindui sm. Thi s does not mean thai Budd hism thereby went out of exi s tence by abso rption . Otherwise one might say thai Buddhism. because of its taking over some elements of Brahmanism. "absorbed" Hindui sm!

Page 5

"The countless new towns in the Gurj ara Pratihara domll.in s ha ve been linked to a realignment of trade routes in consonance with agrarian and merchantile e xpansion ."

The word "countless" is an exaggeration . The aUlho r totally ignores the contrary view. that of a decline in commerce (the basi s of the concept o f "Ind ian Feudali sm"). AI class X l such a one· sided view of (he period c .650-1200 ought nOI to be presented.

Page 8

For "Fawadul Fawnid" read "Fawa idul Fawad" .

Page 8 "Medieval Indian historiography fall s into three neat phases with the first covering the works of medieval chroniclers who wcre usually court historians."

MedievlI/lfldja (e/IUS XI) 59

Th e s tateme nt that medi eval historians were usually ·'.court" historians is often made, bu t it needs 10 be t:xp lained that several major hi stori ans. like Barani and B~dauni. were /lOf ct)ur his(o~ian s and wrote from a s trongly critica l po int of view. Si milarl y. the further statement ,,on the same page. thai medi eval hi s torians "examined no source material" (when many o f theil' hi s tories were actual ly based o n official "news-report s'!, ear li er histories, e tc . ) is equally untenable.

Page 8

"Their [medieval hi s torians ' ] histories were court-centric and generally took no note of tbe world beyond the royal durbar:'

This sta tement again is fa r too sweepi ng as is shown by the author 's own reference to Abu ' ) Fazl and Ali Muhammad Kh an. Such works as go beyond court-centred polit ical his tory are fair-ly nume rous1and include works like Ma~har-j Shahjaho1li, Nuskhl'-I Dilkusha, Mir 'atu 'l Haqa 'jq, etc .. and cannot just be dismi ssed as an ·;exceplion."

A notab le omission in the author's account of sources IS

the category of autObiographical memoi rs (e.g. of Babur and Jahangit), biographies of no bles (including such biog raphi cal dictionaries as Zakhiralu '{ Khaw{Jllin and Ma 'asiru '/ Umara ). and coll ections of notic~s of poets. schol ars. e tc. Such lite rat ure lml

had no precedent in pre-med ieval times.

Page 9

" Despite the authoritative nature o f hi s (Moreland 's ) monographs . which included the Agriculture of the United Pravinces f 19(4), The Revenue Administration of the UI~ited Provinces ( 19 1 I ) .. . ··

These two works are not hi storical in nature, and their inclusion engenders the suspicion that the author is mentiuning books she has never herself even seen.

Page 10

The separate classification on thi s page of Muslim and Hinuu hi sto rians is very tendentious. C learly, Tara Chand (author 01

Influence oJlslam on Indian ClIlwre) (who is not at all ment ioned!) and R.P. Tripathi (Stu.dies in Muslim Adminis.lrariall) ought to have been classed with M. Habib and K.M. Ashraf. on th..: hasis ofihei r point or vie w. No r Will it be acceptable to all to pl ace Faruki "JO book on Aurangzeb among important historical WClrJ..S.

60 Index of Errors

Page 12

II is strange to see in the chapter heading (Chapter 2: "Struggle for Chakravartitva") the use of a Sanskrit word of purely modern coinage (from the genuine term chakravartilt ), when "Po li tlcnl Supremacy" would have se rved as well.

Page 23

" Scholars have therefo re viewed the new religion a s 1l

manifestation of Arab nationalism." A doubtful proposition, since the concept of "nalion" was

not preSent al the lime; nor is it supported by any verse in the Quran. The sentence should at least be qualified by saying "Some scholars" instead of "Scholars".

Page 2S

''The Arab forces were vastly superior to those Gf King Dahir, in numbers and equipment , ., Even so heavily outnumbered , It was the information supplied by a traitor that finally tilled the ~c3 les against Sind."

These statement.~ have no s upport from either the Chachnama or Balazuri, our two main sources and arc Inventions modelled after the usual explanations for one's hero's defeat. . namely, the opponent's larger numbers and the aCIS of a traitor.

A singular omission in the textbook is that of any rererent:e (0 Sind after the Arab conquest (c.712-c . IOOO). The ract that In the IOtbcentury Mansura. covering an area ofabouI400 heGtares. was the largest town (archaeologically attested) in India till th:lt

time is nowhere mentioned; nor is the importance of Sind undt'f the Arabs as a conduit of cultural transmi ssion between India and the Arab-Iranian world touched upon .

Page 26

"The Chachnama says that the king of Kashmir had estahlished suzerainty over Zabul."

An utterly baseless statement: there is no reference 10

Zabu l in the Chachnama .

Page 26

"Subuktagin ... became master of the region UplO thl" SinJhu.·· The name of the river In English is Indus. lind there IS !Ill

need ror the Sanskrit form

Medie\'Ql india (Clan· XI) 01

Page 26

··Thus from the first Arab foray into Sind 10 the Tu rkish ~onqilcst of L~hore. it took the invaders fou r hundred year!> 1(.1 e .. tabli~h 11

footho ld in the continent." The statement is doubl.y rallat:illus· ( t ) The Arabs he ld

Sind and soulhem Panjab from earl y 7th century onward .... and that was surely enough of a " (OOlhold ·'; and (2) thl! Arabs and Ghaznavids are lumped together as "invaders": lhe authul' might have st ill better gone back to Alexander; then she l,;ould have sa id that it took thirteen hundred years for the invader.s to estahlisil 1\

fOOlhold here!

Page 26

"Muhammad Ghur's Indian ven tures ... " Mu hammad GhUT is a piece of illiteracy, and the illiler.te

fo rm is t.i ~cd throughout the book. It shou ld be " Muhammad uf Chur" Or "Shihabuddinl MU'lzzuddin of Ghut'''. Ghur' is the name of a district: so 'Ghuri' would also do.

Pages 26-27

"Mahmud Ghazn i invaded India seve nteen times . "Mahmud Gha.lni" is again a piece or il li lcracy Should

be "Mahmud o f Cha7.ni"

Pilf!es 27-28

While the destruction of ido ls and lem.ples by Mahmud of Gha;.ni needs to be mentioned , there is liule rea~on to go Into de[ad~ ,

such as. the doubtrul assertion (page 28) that Somnath ··dunng lun ar ec lipses drew as man y as tw o to three lakh pilgri ms." or the particulars (page 28) as to wh ich part of which idul went where (a long quo ta tion from Alhcrun i). I t is notewo rlh y I ha! o ther s tatement s suc h as those rega rding Indi an · sc ience or the caste syslcm made by .l\lberuni are passed over in silence.

P age 29

"The rarn()u~ l.;ol1ege of Ajrner built by Vigrohar:lja IV Visa ladeva wa.~ converted mto a mo:.q ue by the invading Turks :tntI hct:amc J..nown as the Adhai din kaJhompra.'·

The s tatetm;,nt (repeated on page 381 IS tty n(l rncilns c:,tJbI J~ hed. Clearly, the bulldlllg of the mosque IS ~'l '3~ritcen i t:' design. though making use or ma terials of Hindu bu il dings . which

62 Index of Errors

include an inscription of Vigraharaja. It does nOI nece~ s3ril y

occupy the s ite of an earlier "co ll ege."

Page 30

"Meanwhile another slave Bakhliyar Khalji .... ' Bakhtyar Khalji was nol a slave. but a free-born man of

the Khalji tribe.

Page 30

"In one expedition he [Bakhtyar Kh a lji I reached as far ,\S

Uddanapur Vahara. a university town inhabited by monks. h was destroyed, as were the famous mo nasterie s o f Nalanda and Vikramslla ."

One vihara alo ne is said to have been destroyed by Bakhtyar Khalji (vide Minhaj Siraj), Meenakshi Jain makes it three without any basis', Nalanda was in fact visited bY,a Tibetan monk soon afterwards.

Page 30

" the colonial period when the British for the fi rst lim~ di sarmed the Hindu peasantry."

The statement that the British 'disarmament' of the peasants was Hindu-specific is absurd .

Pace 30 "The kshatriya varna had always been an open-ended category ... the Rajputs ..• well into tne Britisn period married into armed groups like the r-asis to augment their military might ."

Rajput-Pasi marriages were sure ly so rare as to be insignificant. Throughout the textbook the author adroitly avoids admitting any defect in caste society. She is entirely si lent over 'What the dharmashaslra texts prescribed for outcasles, This is in sharp contrast to her readiness to underline all the imperfc..:tio ns in Islamic society.

Page 30

"There is noth ing to show that Islam mitigated socia l discrimination against low-caste Hindu converts. Certa inly thc;:y (sic!) did not regard the converts as social equals,"

Apparently, the author seems convinced th 31 Musljm law has the same rules for lower castes as the DharmaslWSfra. In fact.

Medieval India (Class XI) 63

a mitigation of circumstances for low cas tes wou ld have been an obvious result of any app lication of Muslims law, though mitigation does not mean elimirfation of all disabilities.

Page 31

"The Arabs ... In fact had developed a hi ghly refined system of rac ial discrimination ... White slaves, des ignated Mam luks. were entru sted with hi gh office .. Black slaves, howe ver, were used mostly for hard labour."

The autho r seems to labour under the false impression that Arabs [i.e. the ori gina l people of the Arabian peni nsul a] were whi tes, and that the word mam/uk was o nl y applied to no n· African ( 'White' ] slaves. The extent o f colou r·di scrimi nalion in the Is lamic world is thus described in unnecessarily exaggerated terms . The autho r also forgets thaI in the 13th century she has to deal wi th Turks. Tajiks, and Indi an Muslims, not Arabs!

Page 38

•.... Turkish troops of the ruler of Sind [in mid·ninth centuryJ." There is no reference anywhere in o ur sources to the am in:

of Sind employing Turkish troops in the ninth century.

Page 62

" [The Delhi Sultanate rul e rs] effec ted an ex ploit:uion of Ihe peasantry unparalleled in the ann als of India".

There is no proof that peasants were any less ex ploited before the regime of the Sultans.

Il is also worth nOling that while treating the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate as '"a landmark in Indi an hi slOry," the author­onl y notes as reasons their religion and exploitation of peasantry, and ignores altogether the cultural contributions of the Sultanate or the cons iderable infusion of new production technIques (geared wheel , spinning Wheel, paper, arcuate construction , ~tc .)

Page 64

" He Ultutmis h I settled two thousand Turkish soldiers in the JUllb region ."

There IS no statement in any source that the ;qtu ' ·holding soldiers were Turks.

Page 66 "Meos ( inhab itants of the reg io n of Mewat corresponding roughly

64 Index of Ermr.I'

10 nOllh·eastcrn Rajl!.sl han and said to be Yaduvanshi RaJpu!li) ..... The terntory of the Meos also included southern ,Huryana:

and the author tries needle"sly to 'RaJputiloc' them. for WhH.:h (hl!rc is no contempo rary authority.

Page 67

" Hulaku 's successors, the II-Kh an Mongols held a kingdom of scarce resources and were hurdly a force to reckon with .. . '"

The Il-kharid emp ire was by no me:lns a well" pllwcr ;,1,

suggested by the author; and the statement IS seemtng ly ITlad~ to suppOrt "some s,,;ho lars" (whom it is diffil,;ul, 10 identify) whu wi~h simp ly to run down B alban. lind suggest thai he was not al all th reatened by the Mongols. The Il-khanid Empire extended from theOxus and Indus to Syria during Ba lban's time. and so CQnt:lim:d Iraq. Iran and Afghanistan. and was I1m!1 well mto the 14th century one of the great empires of Asi a.

Page 67

"Balbal1 appears to have been a poor military le:luer. ... The dbnl:J1 record o f Balban's army ... ,"

These statements :'Irc hardly borne out by the facts. No ev idence of "dismal record" IS provided by the authur. There I~ no known military campaign by Balban in whi c h he sustatned discomfiture.

Page 67

"Despite his c:taggerated praise o( Balban, the medieval chronicler Minhaj us Siraj is unable to present him as a patron of cu lture,"

The author obviously does not know tfrat Minhaj wrOte his Tabllqll1·i Nasir; some six years before Balban came 10 the · throne!

Page 68

.. .. .. the polity included other foreign groups such a~ free Turki sh nobles. Khaljis. Ghurids find Tajiks,"

"Tajlk" w as now the name for all' Per s ian- speaking peoples, and thus Tajiks included Ghurids and, by thi s lime. Khalji s as WeU.

Pagen

" He tAlauddin Khalj iJ returned with immense trcusures and In

Med;e~'a f India (Class XI) 65

the evocative. words of a modern hiSlOflon, 'the inevitable idol to be trampled under the zealot's feet' ."

if a contempol1lry historian cannot be found, let It 'modern ' scho lar be used to underline Muslim fanatici sm.

['age 73

•.. ... the first inst ance that a Turkish arm y had intruded In lO southern India."

The anny was by no means Thrki sh in composi tion. Why no l " Delhi Army" , its usual name (Lashk.ar-i DeM;) among contemporaries.

Page 75

"The rate of taxation in pre-Is lamic India was usually one-s ixth of the produce and appears to have been far less than the exact ions under the Delhi Sultans."

This is a characteri st ic piece of allributing ideal conditions to ancient India and presenting medieval India in dark colours. No serious historian supposes Ihe burden of taxation to have been Just one-sixth of the produce in 'pre-Islamic ' times.

Page 78

"A convert of the Parwari caste, it is sa id that ... he (Khusrau Khan) reverted to his ancestral faith ."

There is no proof at all ort he reversion to "ancestral faith :" lhe author seems exceptionally co ncerned all the time with conversion and reconversion .

~age 79

"The near unanimous contemporary condemnation of the Su ltan could perhaps be auribuled to his [Muhammad Tughluq's] open consorting wi th Hindus andjogis, which provoked chroniclers like h am! and Barani to denounce him as irreligious ."

Such s tatements tend to portray medieval writers as far more communally inclined than they aClUally were . Burani , our major historian, never castigates the Sultan or hold s him to be irreligious on the ground that he consorted with Hindus. On the contrary. he criticises him for encouraging rationalism. Similarly, Ibn Batluta whjlehc saw him consorti ng withjogis, docs not at all criticise 111m for this . Il is QlIl)' Isami, who makes the 'consorting' 3n issue ; and he is a partisan of the Bahmanis who had rebelled

66 Imlex. of Errors

aga inst the Sultan. Thus Jain's statements are here fac tu ally wrong and. in purport, mi s leadi ng.

Page 82

" ... . And according to Ibn Battuta, [Muhammad Tugh luq 1 himself shi fted to Swargadwari ... "

Not o nl y according 10 Ibn BaitUia. but also according 10 Barani and !sami as well. It i$ specifically menti oned in these sources that the Hindi nainegiven to the place by the Sultan mea nt " Door of Heaven", The cu ltural significance of thi s nome nclature is passed over in s ilence here by Meenakshi Jai n.

Page 82

"amiran-i soda or amirs of a hundred vil lages (cen!urians) ." "Centurians" are captai ns of a hundred men , not master~

of a hundred village!i! The most plausib le view also is that (III/iral/ '

i soda meant captains of a hundred troopers.

Page 83

"S·ar:mi pith ily com mented, "at l:lsi the people got rid of him :lnd he got r id of the people" ."

T he quotation is from the much later historian Sadauni , not Sarani , who never says such a thing.

Page 84

" He [Fi ruz TughluqJ then blockaded an Is land near the sea coas t, where nearly a hundred thousand inhabi tants or Jajnagar (Orissa) had taken refuge and 'converted the island infO :1 ba sin of blood by the massacre of the unbelievers'."

T here is no isla nd off Orissa coast which can possibly con tai n o ne lakh people o r a tenth of the number.

Page 85

"A Barlas Turk., Timur, wound up the remnants of the Chaghal:l ), Mongo l kingdom ... "

Whatever does Jain mean by T illlUr 's "winding up" of the Chaghatay kjngdom 's remnanu ' 1

Page 85

"The Mugha ls were acwa lly Barlas Tu rks. n\l! Mon gols, though mey also ack nowledged thei r links with the hmer" .

Medieval India (Class XI) 67

The Barlas tribe was a genuine Mongo l tribe and traced il s descent from the legendary Mongol ancestre.~s Alan Qua. with whom the imperial line of Chengiz. Khan also orig inated. Such Mongols as mo ved into Transoxania, includ ing mem bers of the Chengisid house, Barlas and other Mongol c;lans took to the Turkk tongue, and so became Turk icised , bu t co nt inued to regard themselves as of Mongol origin .

Page 87

"Thi s limited support base obl iged him (Ghiyasuddin Tughluq ]10 cou rl Alauddin 's nobles in his carly years, but the alliance wa ~

short- lived and ullimately many Alai nobles were executed ." Ghiyasuddin Tughluq did not kill off any group of nobles.

in his 4-year long reign, except those few who had revolted against hi s son VI ugh Khan during the Warangal expedition. Most of hi s nobl es were those con tinuing from the Khalji period, and thu!>. like him, were "Alai s·'.

Page 87

" Indian converlS 10 Jslam, related to the Su ltan ]Firuz Tughluq) , by marri age, were al so represented in the nobility, as were a few

,princes." The qualifying phrase "rel rHcd to the Sultan by marriage"

. is uncalled for. Kannu , Khan-i Jaha.n , Firuz 's Prime Mini ster and a convert from Andhra , was not at all Qriginally related to the Sultan. As to the "princes". Jain fails to mention that th'c princes (ra'is) mentioned by her here, were Hindus, a point that deserves to be noted, since she ot herwi se enlarges upon Firul. Tughluq' s policy of religious intolerance (on pagc 86).

Page 91

"Vira Ballaln []I , ofte.n described as the champion 01 Hindus 10

the south ... " Described by whom? There is a constant harpmg over

the Hjndu-Muslim st rife through statements such as this one.

Page 92

..... the Bahamani kingdom , founded in 1347, byAlauddin Ha~an Shah Bahman, an Afghan rebel oflicer. ... "

The correct spe llin g is ' Bahmani ,' n OI Baham:)ni, as followed in thi s book throughoul. And Alauddin Hasan was not

68 Index of Errors

an Afghan .

Page 92

" Bukbl ._ , freed practica lly the whole of the sou th from foreign domination."

The author's view clearly is ro e qual!: Musi[ll1 s wilh foreigners.

Page 9S

" Ouring the 175 years of its ex istence . the Bahamani kingdom had witnessed the re ign of eighteen kings , fi ve of whom were mu rdered , th ree deposed, two bl inded ; whil e two died uf intemperance"

All this may be true. Bul if the studen t ... need to be told about s lJch tellI ng fac ts about the wickedness or the ruJingc lasses. th e aulhor sho uld have told them also of the practice of burning ail ih e wives and s lavegir ls of the dead rulers in Rajpul and other dynasties: in the Vijayanagara E mpire 400-500 women were thus ki lled al the death o f every rule r II is important that balance be mai ntained 10 such maltcrs.

Page 100

>'Ti mur repeated ly states in hi s memoi rs. the TII :; lIk - j Timllri .. . , These so-ca lled "Memoirs" are not genuine, an9 the lex!

translated by Elli ot and Dawson and quoted her~ was ex pli cit ly written in 'autobiographic' form in the reign of Shahjahan . The carli er 'aulObiography', which these especially crafted memoirs sought to replace. and which might or might not be genuine. SlOpS at a point much earlier Lhan Timur's in vasiqn of Indi a.

Page 101

"Some modern sch<1 lars assert that there is no reason 10 assume that Muslims were spared in th is massacre Iby Timu r!, ' ,

Not only " modern scho lars" : Yazdi, our main sou rce. says '>kalima-reciting in fidels" [i.e. Muslims) were sla ugh tered. Yahya Sirhindi, the contempo raneous Ind ian historian , "I ~o speaks of MusliplS as the victims ,

Page 101

"Khi zr Khan was appointed governor of Multan by Firuz Shah Khalji,"

Medieval India (Cla.u XI) 69

l a laluddin Fjruz Khalji ruled a hundred years ea rli er (1290-96) and had nothing to do with Khizr Khan

Pngl' 102

"The l:.Ist ruler o f this dynasty wa~ slain in the battle 01 PtlnipUL' The name of fbrahim Lodi should be inserted hcrl<. W :lVoid

needles~ obscurity.

Page 105

tllc renowned Rana Srl ngha __ . ,. This spelling of the famous Mewar I'uler·.~ name I~ wrong;

the c()rrCI.' l spel lin g "Rana Sanga" is given on page 132,

Page 111

" At till S pomt, the iqtadars ( holder~ of ii/tas ) also served us governors."

The governors werc actu ally ca lled //Iul/,a's or mUl/li'~ never iqra 'dars. a term reserved for small asslgnment-holders_

'''age 116

"Th e famous Iron Pillar. uprooted from Malhura . There is no certainty thaI the Mehrauli Iron PiU ar WIIS

brought from Mathura.

Page 117

.. Its [Alai Darwaza '~ 1 refined appearance has neen um ibuted to the Influx of Mus li m artisans and craftsmen Lo Indi a lollowing Lhe

coll apse of the Saljulo. Empire ." The Seljuq Empirc had co llapsed in the 12th century. How

cQuld this have anything to do with the building of the Alai Darwaza in early 14th century?

Pages 119-120

"Persian Literature"

It is si ngular thaI Amir Khusrau is jusl passed ove r in o ne sentence (p . 120); "Among the prominent poets of the age were Amir Khusrau, Amir Hasan Dihal vi and Malik Muhammad lais l : '

Jaisj was nor a poet of Persian . The author omits to refer to Amir Khu srau 's ve ry Important metri cal accoun t of Indian c.u lture in Nuh Sipihr. perhaps since thi s wou ld hav{:!: clearly

70 Index of Errors

indicated the evo lu tion of a composite culture.

Page 121

'"The new [Islami c] identit y became so pervasive Ih al a ll traces of pre-Islamic forms were erased from pub lic memory ... the,Egyptian conver\S, who even forgot their Pharaohs,"

These comments show profound ignorance. The author does not seem [0 have heard ofFi rdausi's Shahnmnll (11th cenlUry). which is regarded as Iran's National Epic and is concerned en tirely with Iran's pre-Isl amic greatness. As for Egypt. she fo rget!> that the Pharao hs had di sappeared morc th an 1200 yea rs before the Arab conqu es t. at w hi c h lime the bulk of Egyptians were Ch ristians: Islam practically entirely adopts the pre-Is lamic Biblica l tradi tion, which it shares with the Chri ~ ti ans. And Pharaohs are remembered in that trad iti on: Meenakshi Jain should read up the stories of Joseph and Moses.

Page 122

"The extreme racialism [contempt of recent Hindu convert!.1 reac hed its pinnacle under Balban, though such senlimcnb pers i ~ tcd we ll into thc seventeenth century."

This th eme, Invoked more than o nl;c. is ce rta!!ll } overstressed. Balban himself was a conven. Khan J ahsl) Muqbul. the powerful Pr ime Milllster of Firuz Tughluq , wa", a Hindu convert. No~one held him in contempt.

Page 123

" It was only after the Bntish arri ved th at the IdeSlhat Isla m ros tc r~

social equ ali ty, as opposed to religious merit . was floa ted:' T he statement is so one-s ided as to be lotall y misleading .

It is mainly fI questi on of what o ne means by l'soc ml equality." Is lamic law does nm fo rmally distinguish betwecn men on bi1'1l> of birth for purposes of judging crime and puni shment ; nor does it countenance anything approachi ng caste-hierarchy. Women are not treated as equals, but are still assigned rights to mheritance (ha lf that o f men), and are definjte legal persons. As early as II th centu ry ( long before the Briti sh conquest). Alberuni, writing on the Ind Ian caste system. contrasts it with Islam 's secular equa lity. Thus Jain's stateme nt that "equality" in Is lam IS a modern idea. is factually in correct. .

It is remarkabl e that this bQQk now here cd nl ains a

M~dil!vallnd;a (Clo.ss XI) 71

description of the treatment of dalilj' or of untouchability under the caste system, 3~ if the da/iu' have no part in our heritage.

Page 123

"Scholars note that Is lam registered Its greatest gains in wt!stern Punjab and eastern Bengal. both areas on the periphery of settled agriculture ... Communiti es of hunter-gatherers ... took to the new fait h in both regions' .

The argument has. no basis, nor logi c. East Bengal ha!> been a rich agricultural region, and the history of Indian agriculture began in the Indus basin (mainly Panjab and Si nd). No reason is also advanced why "hunter-gatherers" should rush to become Mus li ms in Punjab and Bengal and nOl e lsewhere

Page 124

"Sagun Bhakti" Kabir appears only briefly in this book and in a sub-chapter

on Saguna Blwkli.' Only one sentence is devoted to him: "The nirguna school was best represented by Kabir. cons idered the spiritual preceptor of all subsequent north Ind ian ptJ,ntl!s."

Comple te s il ence is thus maintained over his low ly profession (weaver) and Muslim o rigin. hi s rcjct.:tion of bOlh Hinduism and Is lam. his denunciation of caste disabilities and ritual. and his popular vibrant verses . Ravidas, the great dalit sa int , and Sain, the barber, both disciples of Kabir. and g iving ven t to simil ar ideas , are totall y ignored . The omiss io n of such a vital aspect of our common cultural heritage is clearly pan of hin's design to exc lude all inlegrative or t.:ritical c le ments Frum our history.

Pages 126-127

"Guru Arjun . .. " The proper spelling of [he Guru '5 name i ~ ' Arjan· .

P,ge 127

"Sufi Movement" Strangely, S ufism is nowhere described : The student is

nowhere told that Sufism lays emphasis on Luve of God, holds (orlh no expectation o f reward in afterliFe. and aims at :1 t.:Ol1lp !cle absorpti on in God wit h the annihilati o n IjUlW) of st ir. ThI S definition would explain why sufism is distinct from urthtldux III

n lildex of Errors

theological Islam, where there is a strong stress on earning relig i ou~ merit for reward in aflerlife . Without such an ex planatio n the s\Udent wou ld have no notion of what kind of thuught is being talked about. Mere mention of importilnt sufis' names i~ of little use.

Page 127

" By the twelJth century. Suri sm had been com pletely integrated into orthodox Is lam as a resu lt of the effort s of al-ChaZ'lli. al· Hallaj and Ibn a)· Arabi."

Thi s is an Ignorant piece of nonsense. Sufi sm had by n{l means been "completely in tegrated into orthodQx [sl:.lm" lly till'

12th century (ortill date). The question then was how far it ..:ould be tole rated by the orthodox. Ghazali (d, 1'111 ). indeed. pl:lyed ,[ part in securing for it a limited tolerance; but Sl!li~, like Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi (d 1324), conti nued LO pour scorn 110 Ghat:;li· ... own ritu ali stic "uilude. As for al-Hallaj and ibn al- · Arah •. th ... inclu s ion of their nam t:s among those who hrought !)U fi ~m nearer to o rthodox Islam is just absurd. Hall aj was execu ted In earl y t (hh century for exclaiming "I am God ITruth '. 1i nd (hll " coull.! hanll)' be deemed to have striven rOT peace with the orthodox. Ihn al· Arabi (d . 1240) en unei:1tcd his theory of ' Unity of Ex i s l ~ n ce ·. by whicb both tbe world and rel ig io n were held to he an illusion . Thi s proposition convulsed Is lamiC tbought, and ··to the urlhodox theologians Ibn ai-Arab i was little better th an an infi del'· (H ,A.R. Gibb). Hallaj and Ibn ArabI thus co ntr ibuted no t 10 any reconciliation with orthodox Isl am. but 10 · a fundamen tal break with it.

Incidentally, Meenakshi Jam 's chronO logy IS .lIrnciuu ... . Hallaj is placed after Gbazah. 311d ibn .II- Ara bi be fore ( Ir in the 12th century,

Page 127

"In the Indian contex t, Suri;; m.:'ticulous ly reso lved their djrfcrence~ with the ulema, and cmpha:-;il.cd the need to foll ow the Sharia"

This s ta tement 100, wilh words like "mclicul\)l.l" ly" and "emphasized" , seems to be driven by a desire!U show lhat ~ u fi ~ nl wa:-; jus t Ihe other Side of the coin of orthodox bl am. While the sufis"nad no qll3rrcl w ith the slwria as perceIved by th~'orogian~ per $e, the y did not regard themselves as bou nd by it in truly s pirilUal or even moral matters. How would ~IOC otherwise e xplain Ni zamuddin Auliy:.· .. critica.l attitude (oward:. IhMe who went 011

Medieval lndia (Class XI) 7J

Haj pilgrimage. or hi s approval of the freeing of co nve rto!d s l ave~.

even when this meant co lluding in their apostasy.

Page 132

"The death of Rana Sanga and severa l Rajput leaders 01 note lul the battle of KhanuaJ considerably weakened the possibility of:t Rajpul resurgence ... :

An inexcusable blund er: Rana Sanga was not kil led at th e baule of Khanua. but ned from lhe fi e ld.

Page 134

"The~J{es [for Babur's mosques I were carefull y l>clected Sambhal was where the tenth and last Ollalar of Vishnu was to appear at the end of the J'uga, and Ayodhya was rcvered as th e birlh place of Rama."

It is most implaus ibl e thul Babur knew (unlike Mcenab;hl Jain) where Vi shnu 's last alllllar would appe ar atlhe end (If tllne; as fo r Ayodhya, it was then the headquarters of a large provi nl:c. and there is no indication from the Babri Masjid inscnptlonli' thaI any particular des ire to bu ild a mosque in a Hindu holy place was being entertained. Such baselesl> speculation.~ should have no pla..:t' in a sc hool textbook .

Pase 13S

" He (S her Shah) al so real ised jaziya from the Hindus", There is nb e xp licit statement In the sou rces that he did

so. The correct spelling is ji~)'a .

Page 139

"He tHemuj then dec lared himse lr independent. and Invoking the sanskriric traditions ass umed the title of Raja Hemchanura Vikramaditya."

The fact of Hemu declaring himself independent is by no means certain; and there is a statemen t in one source that he had rc;ceived the title of Bikramajit (Vikramaditya) from hi s sovereign Muhammad' Adil Shah after an earlier success at Chunar. Thai he bore the name Hemchandra I S a pure piece o f speculation . h I ~

thu s not al all clear that he himself had invoked any 'samkritLI, traditions' ,

74 Index of Errors

Page 140

" Abdu l Rahim Khan Khana .. The tille was ' Khan-i Khannn ' C the khan of khans') no r

;K han- i Khana" (the Khan of the house).

Page 148

" Little wonder thatsuldl-kul, peace with all , was Akbar' s mono", The correCt spell ing is s/llil-; kill . and the meaning i~

' absolu te peace', not 'peace with all' .

Page 149

'' In 1579. Akbar abolished the jaziya". The jjzya was abolished in 1564, re- imposed (on ly

nominall y) in 1575. and finally aboli shed in 1579. Since mosl text books give (correctly) the date orthe abo lit ion of thcjiZ}'Q as 1564, an explanation of why 1579 is bei ng g iven as rhe da te of its abolition is necessary.

Page 149

"The same year [1579J, he [Akbar] issued the controvers ial M ahz.ur . ... The Mahzar was a decree, which enti tled the Emperor to choose one of the interpretations of Muslim law ... ,.

The author here continues to commi t. an error long refuted . Mahzar means a statement, a decl aration o f facts, attes ted by witnesses, or opinion. on a point of law given by au\n ori tative exponems of law. By its very name, it could not be ttn imperi al decree. The mahzarof 1579 was, in fact. a declarati on of opinion by no ted theologians on the enti tlements of ajusl !>overeign in the rea lm of legal interpretation . It was fl ot issued by Akba r. but presented 10 him.

Page 149 "The move that has attracted the greatest alten(ion, however. h: Akbar's proclamation of the Din-i /lahi. "

There is no state ment in any of our source!> thaI Akbar ever proclaimed a religion known as Din-i Ilahi . As ,has been repeatedJy pointed out, the term appears obliq ue.! y through Ihe q uotation from a sycophan t's document. Akbar himself believed both din (religion) and dun.ya (world) 10 be illusions, as Abu \l Fazl makes clear; and so the question of hi s es tablishing a religion could hard ly ari se. He had only a limited c ircle of disciples to

Medievalilldio (Class XI) 75

promote his views ofS/4th·i Kul (derived from Ibn 'Arabi ) and Ihe iIIuminalionist doctrine of Shjhabuddin Maqtul. As for "c laiming propl)ethood for himself' (author's words on the last line of the page), the author should have noted that in a saying of his (recorded by Abu' l Fazl) Akbarexpressed<iisbelief in both proph.ethood and divine incarnation .

Page 150

"But Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi ...• who often criticised the Emperor for failing in his duties as a Muslim ruler, never accused him of apostasy ...

Sirhindi called Akbar '·the Opponent of the Cause of Islam" (mana '.j daulat·; Islam ); so the above s tatemen t is hardly accurate.

Page lsd "Akbar' s Hindu nobles preferred to remain aloof [from Akbar's · eircle-of disciples] ......

So, indeed , did Muslim nobles: the c irc le was nOI apparently intended to be a duplication of the durbar.

Here it is important to note that Jain totally ignores Akbar 's views on social mailers. She ignores his prohibition of slave .trade in early 1560s and hberatlon of his own sla\tCs in 1582. Still more curious is the total omi~sion of any reference to Akbar's harsh disapproval of sati, and prohibition of il1volunlary sari. The author tends to gloss over this practice everywhere, and so avoid!> mentioning it in connection with Akba'r's social reforms. She also omil:.; t.o mention Akbar's prohibition of child marriages, an institution so strongly entrenched in India.

Page 151

..... the mjr saman was in charge of the supply department" . He was actually in charge of the Imperial hou seho ld,

Page l53

"Given that India was almost free from the scourge of foreign invasions during Mughal rimes it is apparent that this awesome military apparatus W3S directed towards conquering and reconquering the sal1)c old territories and restive peoples.·'

The author supposes obviously that. other states were nut as: militaristic as the Mug-hal Empire. Yet how c lsl:, then . cuul{1

76 Index of Errors

the Rajputs have been "the swordarm of Hmdu society " ( the author's own words on page I 50)'! One may also wonder why an army shC?uld reconquer a country already conquered . There is no logic in such flamboyant statements. As to the freedo m from " the scourge of foreign invasions." should not .the credi t for thI S he placed al the door of the very "awesome" Mu g hal mi litary apparatus, which discouraged any auempl al in vasion'! When i\ co ll apsed, invasions like those of Nadir Shah and the Abdali s. and, of course, the Briti sh could altain success.

Page 153

"The overwhelming majority of the beneficiaries of such (mat/lId­j rna 'ash) grants were Muslims ."

While it is true that the majority orthe benefic iaries were Muslims, Akbar and his successors also gave larg¢ gran ts to Hindu temples and divines. a fact which should 31 least have been mentioned here.

,Page 154-5

On Ihese pages under the subheadings "Magnitude of Revenue Demand" and "Rural Taxes olher than Reven ue'" Meenakshl J;.IIn , constantly slresses th e oppressive nature of Ih e Mugh ul administration. free ly using statements relating 10 late r reigns for the reign of Akbar. with which Ihis chapter ("India under Akbar") deals. On the other hand, she does not refer anywhere 10 the sysh!rn of laceavi loans. reduced la .ltation rates for newly culti vated land and incentives for c ultivating highe r-value c rops, which were important ways of developing agricultural resou rces under Akhar and his successors . Her omission here may be contrasted with hc r treatment of Sh ivaji's fiscal system on p . 191 . There Shi "uji is praised for "extending developmental loans (i .e . laecavi loansl to agricuhurisu"; and his high rates of taxation are passed over in silence.

Page 160

lIIustralion : " Meeting of Jahangir with the Persilln king Shah Abbas."

It should have been nOled that the meeting is ~m imag in ary one.

Mediemllndia (Class XI) 77

Page 162

" .. . lahangir was attracted to· the greaf Vaishna~a as.:ct ic, Gosain Jadru·p."

Jadrup (::::Chadrup) is the popular form o f Chitrarupa , U

Shaivile yogi , who believed tn Shankaracharya ' ::; ve r.')lt.n HI Vedanta .

Page 162

" Many learned Muslims .. . rejected hi s (Ahmad S ,rh'lldi 's ) cI,lim to be a manifestation of thi:: Four Pious Caliphs."

Shaikh Ahmad Sirh indi ne~et c laimed lO he "" manifestation" of the (jrst four Caliphs in any form whatsoever. HIs high claims to have access to God in the spiritual sphere. were naturally not accepted by those who were not hi s foll owers; but Ihi s contr.ovcrsy did not.. in~olve any daim to caliphal incarnation .

Page 162

"The new queen soon becllme the favourite of the Empe rors ' (.fic) wives."

Favourite of the Empe ror's other wi ves? The author perhaps meant to write simply: "favourite wife of the Empe ro r." She sho uld have done so.

Potge 165

"A I no point cou ld the Mughal s Ihr'eaten th e Uzbek ca pital [Bukhara] or even co me close t(] th e It c h erish~d city ('i f Samarqand."

, The two ci ties were not the objective in the Mug h:.11 expedition of 1645-46 (the dates are not given by the author) . The MughaJs aimed at seizing Balkh and Badakhshan (modern northern Afghanistan), which they occupied , but cou.ld not hold o n to

Page 166

"The shift in the imperialist IShahjahan 's] attitude was reflective of the growing ascendancy of revivalist forces within the wld,r Muslim community,"

It is a noticeable trena in this book to reserve the words "orthodox" and "revivalist" for Muslims alone. As for the ~ta lemenl

made here, had Shahjahan been as orthodox or intolerant , he would surel y not have favoured Dara Shukoh, who made a PerSIan translation of the Upanishads, and o therwi se showed great intcrest

78 Index of Errors

in Vedanta (see pages 167-8 of the book).

Page 167

.. . .. Dara's apparently less than conformist behaviour earned him the ire of his coreligionists."

This statement has no basis. Dara Shukoh's cause was supported by a large number of Muslim nobles. and none is known 10 have deserted him for rcasons of his 'nonconformity'. The most prominent person who changed sides with a vcngeance was Mi rza Raja Jai Singh; and Rana Raj Singh favoured the cause of Aurangz;eb as against that of Dan Shukoh almost from the beginning of the war of succession.

Page 168

"Assisted by Murshid Quli Khan. a talented revenut:: officer, Aurangzeb substantially improved the outflow of resources from the Deccan."

There is no proof that Murshid Quli Khan 's measures led to any "outflow of resources", Rather, the sources suggest thal a 'modest and fair assessment led to an extension of cul~jvatjon.

Pale 1458

"His {Aurangzeb's} plans for a joint invasion of Golconda with Mir Jumls were not approved by Shah Jahan. who also withdrew from a proposed invasion of Bijapur. At this moment Shah Jahan fell ill, triggering off a war of succession among his sons:'

The political history as given here is all wrong Aurangzeb not only planne'd , but undertook an invasion against Golconda in 1656 aDd imposed a harsh treaty on it. S hahjahan showed his approval by summoning and appointing Mir Jumla as his Wazlr. Bijapur too was. invaded with his approval in 1657, and Bidar was seized; this war was not yet over when Shahjahan fell ill.

Page 171

"The imperfect integration of several parts of the subcontinent with the Mugbal Empire necessitated repeated expeditions 10

conquer the same regions," Only two regions. Assam and the Afghan tribal area are

mentioned (pp.171·2) after this broad statement. These do not make up "several" parts. In fact. most provinces of Mughal Empire during the 17th century witnessed 3 remarkable state of peace .

Medieval India (Class XI) 79

Page ]72

"[Aurangzebl replaced the solar calendar by the lunar hijra." The solar calendar for calCulating the regnal years had

already been replaced by Shahjahan in his tenth regnal year. For revenue collection as weil as salary payments Aurangzeb continued the use of the solar calendar as hitherto. S.H. Hodivala long ago explained that what he dispensed with was the annual fixation of fJauroz (the first day of the solar year) by the astronomers.

Page 175

,. Aurangzeb's religious interventions provoked wides pread revolts in the empire."

It is arguable whether under the heading "Political Ideology" the author needed to go into all Ihe det<lil~ o f Aurangzeb's measures of intolerance, without adequately exp laining their limitations. The s tatemenl thallhese measure!> led to "widespread revolts" is certainly not borne out by facts.

Pages 175-76

"The Jats" and "The Satnamis" Lisdng the lats among revolts reflecting "Hindu

resistance", the author omits to mention lhal exped iti ons against them were undertaken by the Kachhwaha Rajpuis. Nor is the fact ment-joned that the Salnamis destroyed both mosques and temples.

Page 178

" ll is said that the Guru was a devotee of Goddess Chandi." We have a claim here reminiscent of the RSS's old claim

that "S ikhs are Hindus ." It is characteri stic of the author ' s vein that wh ile she thus inlerprets Guru Gobind Singh's lilerary compositions Chandi di \lar and Chandi chariuar ufwt i?ilas, she does not quote Guru Gobind Singh's ZAfarnama (also in Dasam Graflfh) where he declares that while the Hindu chiefs "are ido l­worshippers. I am an idol-breaker." Elsewhere too. the Guru forbids hi s followers to believe in gods and goddesses . He can. therefore. hardly have been a "devotee" of any goddess.

Page 179

.' ... an Afghan, linked either with Wazir Khan or with un imperial officer. mortally wounded Guru Gobind Singh ."

There is no proof that [he Afghan had anything to do with

80 Index of Errors

any Mughal noble or officer. including Wazfr Khan. Theakhbanll show that the Emperor sent a mourner's robe to the Guru 's <ldopteJ son in token of condo lences.

Page 180

"The Emperor offered to confer the title of raj a on him lAji l Singh I when he attained adulthood on the conditi on that he be rai sed as a Muslim .. . "

The sources ment ion no such condition hav ing been laid . When lndar Singh was made the raja after the spir iting. away or Aj it Singh. hi s appoinlrnem was not made subjecT \0 any such cond ition either.

Page ]80

'Th e cornered Rajpuls urged Prince Akbar La revo lt against hi ~

father, whose an ti-Rajpul and anti-Hi ndu poli cies. they daimcd, were ruining the Empire ... bOI the Emperor's tri ckery foiled thei r joi nt attack .. ."

The words "anti-Hindu" are gralUilous ly att ributed to the Rnjpul s by the author. About Au ran gzeb's "trickery" , the reader is g iven no clue . It is, perhaps, a reference to the long di scredited Story of a false letter fTom Aurangzeb that was allowed 10 fall into the wrong hands. [f so, instead of using a pejorative word, whatever happened should have been directly s laled.

Page 180

·' In his panoramic The Discovery of India , Jawah arla l Nehru prcsenu::d a graphic portrayal of Aurangzeb . .. "

In the quotation that foll ows the po int s th at Nehru discourses on, are all those which the author has already underlined wi th much d"elai!. II is characteristic that Ihe only quotation from Nehru taken should be on this theme, and not on Ihe evolution of common cuJture or on Akbar, where his ideas are at total varian ce with the NCERT author's approach.

Page 183

Exercise No.6: It will be seen that the mate-hing exercise is rea lly poinlless , with C hh alra Sal atone being a personal name, and so obviously linked to the o nl y answer requiring a person on thc matching options. It is not even a test of commo nsense.

McditvallntJia (Class XI) 81

Pa~e 186

"Groups like the Mararhas, Sikhs, and Jals '--took on th,e mighty Mug~'lIl ls and splintered and shattered their domains,'"

The Iranians... under Nadir Shah und the AfghrlO s. who played'"a miljor part in weakening and splinlering the Mughal Empire. are here ignored. presumably just because they were Muslims, -

Page 186

" Bijapur had a sma ll Muslim e lite because thc Portuguese occupation of the WeSI coast cut off migration from Arabia and Persia, while the Mughals disrupted immigrati on from the nonh, "

This is a baseless slt1lement. The Portuguese ceased interfering with much of Asian sh ipping by latcr decades of the sixteenth century, and the Mughals never slOpped travcl to the Deccan through or from their empire ,

Page 190

"Several administrative denomination s were taken from the ancien! pas t 311d Sanskrit technical terms coined .. ...

In fact, the offices or departments were largely those instituted in the Deccan kingdoms of the lime , and the Persian disignation s (ralher than their Sanskrit equivalent~) continued in use, as for al least six. of the Eight MInisters , viz. .. Peshwa, Majmu 'adar. Waqia~navis. Sh urll~navis, Dabir. and Sar·i Naubal.

Pages 190·91

[n the description of Shivaji's administrati on on these pages no refe rence is made to chaulh (one~foUrih of revenue) and sardeslmw.khi (additional one· tenth) exacted by Shivaji from areas not under hi s cont rol, under the threat o f putting them to sack - in which event no difference was made between Hindl..l and Muslim. The dCJscription of Shivaji's adm ini stration and fiscal sys tem is thus seriously incomplete.

Page 192

"The Brahmin and Telugu officials or the two states [Bijapur and Golkundal, however. were almost to~lIy discharged from service".

The author does not make the qualification that Marntha olTicia ls of Bijapur were taken into Mughal service in large

82 ·Index of Errors

numbers. As she formulate s her s tatement s th e reader would ass ume that in both slates after anne.'lati on H indu official s were universally di scharged . As for TeJugu officia ls or chiefs, e ight of them are known to have obtained a mansab of 1000 or above before 1707. So they 100 were nOI excluded.

Pag~ 193

"'A':urangzeb now declared jihad on the Marathas . • , Aurangzeb conducted campaigns against Marathas wh ic h

m ay be described as jihad in the sources. BUI ttJere was no particular point at which Aurangzeb " decla red jihad on the Marathas." Such rhetoric need s to be avoided .

Page 193

"European trading companies in turn began to entrench themselves in places such as Bombay and Madras",

Th is is a very confused kino of statement. Only the En gli sh llJdia Company en trenched itself ill Bombay and Madras; no other European Companies had their ' factories' there. The major Dutch factory was at Puli (:at; the French at Pondicherry.

Page 194

"Aurangzeb died at Aurangabad .. The author seems incapab le of accuracy_ Aurangzeb died

at Ahmadnagar; his bOdy was taken later ~o Khuldabad near Ellora where he lies buried.

Page 197

..... offi cial documents like Daslur-ul Amal-; Alamgiri The Dasturu'l 'Amal-i 'Alamgiri is nor an o ffi c ial

document but a privately compiled exp lanation of offic ial .procedures.

Page 198

" Population , too, sc holars say, grew at a low average annual rate of 0 . 14 per cenl during the years 1600- 1800."

Shireen Moosvi , giving the most thorough calculation yet availabl e works out an annuaJ growth of 0 _21 per cent fo r 1600-1800. This was not " low" by world standards. The rates for 1600-1700 in Europe were : Fran!?e, 0.08%; Britain, 0.31 %; Spain and Portugal, 0 . 12%, Germany. 0.00%; and Ru ssia, 0.12%. We b-ave

Medieval India (Closs XI) 83

absolutely no knowledge of the rates at which population had grown in India in earlier times.

Page 198

, •.. . the muqarrari raiya", . The correct form is either ra 'iyat or ri 'aY(l, not rtliya. The

term ri'aya-i muqarrari is not found in the Persian documents, but may mea!) peasants paying a fixed (muqarrari ) rale of tax. The author does not herself explain what the term nlllqarmri stands f9r .

. Page 200

"Thousands and thousands of peasants were enslaved and deported, many sold to countries west of India ... Kabul became the centre of this trade."

In support of this statemcnt, with its "thousands and thousands", the author gives (page 20 1) two instances on ly from the whole of the Mughal period: one of Jahangir ens laving ··poor. mi serable theevish people thai li ve in woods and deserts" wh il e hunting (Finc h) and the other a tradition about Abdullan Khan Firuz Jang capturing and selling away captu red peasants and their families to Persia in course of military operations in Kanauj -Kalpi area (source not -s tated ). In fact. however, slave trade had declined great ly in Mughal rimes. and there is no statcment about thero being any large mart for Indian slaves at Kabul from Akbar 's time onwards. Indeed, information about Indian slaves imported inla Central Asia dries off after the early years of Akbar's reign. The author ought to have men'tioned that in 1563 Akbar totally forbade export of slaves. and orde red harsh punishments, lik.e cutting the ears of merchants engaged in thi s traffic .

Page 201

"When asked by a visitor how many infidel heads he (Abdullah Khan] had cut off ... Scholars believe that the account , though possibly exaggerated, may contain a grain of truth."

This en tire passage has nothing to do with "Sluve Trade" under whi ch headmg it is placed. It was in a conversation with Farid Bhakkari , author of a biographical dictionary o f Mughal nobles, that Abdullah Khan claimed to have slaughtered 200,000 persons . Farid Bhakkari clearly shows that these claimed numbers included both Hindus and Muslims , and "ot simply tho se of

84 Index ofErlVr.l

"infidels" as Meenakshi h in tells her readers. The claims were undoubted ly exaggerated in terms of numbers. but these ~pparently serve the NCERT author's purpose in presenting as dark:l. si de o f the pic tu re as possible. w ith an appropriate communa l message attached.

Page 201

"The Mughal s adopted tI policy of sealing Afghtills in areas 01 i nsurgence,"

This is no t at a ll true. The MughaJ s, by and large, were wary of Afghnn elements even in the ann y, although they we re recru ited as soldiers. That Jah angir seuteJ Dilzak Afghans in India . or Au'rangzeb invited Afridis 10 Muzaffornagar DIstrict IS by no meanS based on reli able reports. Aurangzeb himself had been fated by a powerful Afghan rebellion. In any case [hl' fe is no rcason why thi s paragraph , like the precedi ng one, should appear under "S lave Trade".

Page 205

"Water and wi nd power W~fC not unknown" , This state me nt is incorrect In respec t of wind power,

Windmills (e mployed in Sislan outside the Mughal Empi re) nre not known to have been used in India , except for a s tray reference to a disused win dmill at Ah madabad .

Page 200

"S ince grain pri ces incrcased by more than a hundred' per cent during this period, the re was a ,eal decline in earnings of the lowest paid workers,"

The year 1637-38, whose pri ces arid wages at Agra arc being compared with normal prices and ~ages at the Imperial Court, Lahore, 1595-96, included a period of,great scarcity ; so the in ference of a decline in real wages over the who le period i!o>

not a jlJ:jlifiab leone, especial ly i f one notes 111C facl Ih:lllhe plac~ concerned are at much distance from each oth er.

Page 206

" Money'" In the text whether under (his headi ng or elsewhere in the

c hapter o ne would have expected a reference 10 deposi t-bunking. the deve loped network of bills o f exchange (hl/fldi;),) and insurance ,

Medieval India (Class XI) 85

which are noteworthy features of the financial sys tem of thi s penod. Meennkshi Jain has nol a word about them.

Page 2J2

..... Jodh a Bai's palace ... and Raja Birbal"s home .. It should be pointed out that the bui'ldings al Fatchpur Slkn

have been given these names in the 19th century by ignorant guides

Page 216

··Shah Jahan forbade the construction of Hindu temples and destroyed several others, as ror example, the temple const ru cted by Bir Singh at Oreha."

Statements to this effect Rre already made on pages 164 and 166. in much more detai l; so their repetition here IS ... urely dictated more by the author's brief than need.

Page 217

"Auran.gzeb destroyed several Hindu temples . .. the Emperor"s attention."

The entire paragraph is a mere repetition of whal has been said in much greater detail on page 173, See the precedIng comment .

Page 218

"Early projects of Akbar's reign include the/-lhmzallomu, the ~tor)' of Amir Haml-a, an uncle of Prophet Muhammad , who Iried lu convert the world to Islam" .

Haml.a was killed at the battle o f Uhud in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad; and he had earlier cons tantl y kept company with the Prophet - so there WitS no time for.~im to try to convert the world! Later on, Imnian folk-tales of chivalry got attached tIJ

hi s name: and it was !.hes!! tales (rrot Hamza 's alleged status a~ II

missionary) that attracted Akbar and his painters.

Page 218

"Translations of Arabic. Turki sh and Kashmiri works were also undertaken fat Akbar's court) ."

No. book in the Kashmiri language was translated

Page 220 " Persian literature in this period, they ['some scholar ... 'I say. wa.,

86 Index of Errors

uninfluenced by Sanskrit , even as Sanskrit and Hindi rema ined immune to Persian cultural tWllins."

It is the same siory of emphasizing tne belief thal lhe twain ha ve never met! How can it be said that Persian literat ure remained uninfluenced by Sanskrit., when Akbar's poet laurcilte Fai zi wrote the lo ng metrical rom ance (masllawi), Naf-Daman. on the Jove of Nala and Damayanti ? As for Hindi it is enough 10 point to the considerable amount of Persian influence on its vocabul ary and idiom.

One major omission in 'Literary Developments ' is the absence of an)' attention to Persian poetry and of the ri se of Urdu and the first phase of its literature. Another o mi ssion IS in respect of reg ional literatures . The period represen ts a ric h ph ase in Bengali , for ex ample. It also saw the flowering of Malayalam after its separation from Tamil,

Pages 220-21

" Bhakti Movement Continues" The author thinks 'this th eme is the o nl y o ne from th e

re ligious sphere that needs to be described .. S he thu s ignores the interaction o f religious thought at higher leve ls whi ch is suc h a feature of the cultural developments of the Mughal period. It is seen not o nl y at the Mughal COUit (under the pall'onage of Akbar and Dara Shukoh). but also outsi de. The Dabistan-i Ma zaMb, ::l

book on reli gions written in c. 1655 by a me mber of the Si pas:i sect of Pars is, is an unbi ased account of the major rellgions. unique in the world during its time. Surely th is needed a mention, if nol an adequate description _

Pages 221-24

"G lossary" T he Glossary is rather unbalanced with several obvious

term s mi ssing , especially from vario us regio ns. for example: IIr

(Cho la Empire), pa/aiylIkkartls or ' poligars' (Vijayanaga ra Empire), swarajya (especiall y with reference to Snivaji), Wllftln or vantha (Maharashlra, Gujarat), GIlru (Sikhism).karon· (Mugha J administration). Eyen the word sati is missing, Many meanings are ra,ther inaccurate, e.g. amin (meaning official concerned main,ly with revenue assess ment. not collection), or ulama (spell IIlemu in the Glossary) which means si mply learned men, from 'if",

(know ledge) , Waqf is not a grant to religi ous bod ies, but a trust established for a parti cul ar purpose. Sarkar was not o nly u

Medieval India (Class XI) 87

territorial division, but also an official establishment (such as that of King or a noble). The correct spelling is khanazad\ literally ' born in the house', not khanazada.

Pages 22S~28

" Bibliography" One marks a notable omission: Tara Chand. Influence of

Islam on Indian Culture.

4

Hari Om, et al. C01Jte'~lporary India for Class IX

lSI edition' , August 2002; reprint edit ion , Oclober 2002

Unit J: INDIA IN THE TWENTIETH- CENTURY WORLD

Note: Page No from the reprint edition IS given only when differcrH from that of the first ed ition .

Page J

" India in the Twentieth-Century World: .. , Some of the most nOleworthy [developments] were the completion of [he age-o ld process of colonialism in Asia and Africa",

European colonial domination has by no means been " age­old" , having begun 10 lake shape on ly after 1592 (the yea r of Co lumbus's epochal discovery of America, soon to be followed by Vasco da Gama's voyage 10 (ndia, 1498 ).

Page 1

" (Other 20th century developments included] Worl d War I, coup ill Russia . World War n ... The lsic ] Communism also represe nted almost a simjlar trend (like " Fasci sm and Nazism"] in Ihe sense that il stood for the dictatorship of a particular class".

To describe the Soviet Revolutio n of 1917 al> a "coup" should su it a very cheap Right-wing propaganda sheet rather than a school textbook. And if Commu ni sm and ils deadliest enemies, Fascism and Nazism, are to be equllted . thi s hold hypothesis demands more than a reference to the Communist theory of dictatorship of the working class, since the Fa~cists and Nazis. or course; had an absolutely opposite be lief.

Page]

" All these developments consti tute just one side of the world

Contemporary India (C/as.r IX) 89

picture. The other s ide is the liberation movements in Asia, Arrt ca and elsewhere in the world. This s ide is :I renection of the rise and growth of national ism and freedom struggle ill Indi a,"

To say that aJi lhe nat ional liberation mo veme nt s in Asia and Afri ca an4 "elsewhere" were simply a "reflec ti on" of the Indian National Movement is fantasy taken to the extreme. What ought to be said is that the National Movement in India drew inspiration from simi lar movements elsewhere. snd vice versa,

Page 3

" Man~ cenlUrie s before Chri st . Europe was importi ng [ndlan tex tiles, spices , jewellery and other lu xury goods."

111ere isj ust no evidence fo r such Indian exports to Europe "many I.:en lu ries before Christ."

Page 3

.. .. . The Pope, the supreme head of the then Chnstian wo rld . by an order c alled Papal Bu ll, authorised the two European States ­Spa in and Portugal - to explo re alt ernative all ~ wlHer routes to India .... With Pope's b less ings and authority, kingdom s of Spain and Portugal acqui red monopoly overthe newly discovered lands, their wealth and maritime trade:'

The Pope was not the ht:ad of "the then Chri stian world". un less aJithe Christians ow ing alleg iance to the Eas te rn Orthodox Chu rcht:s ; as well as Syrian Chris tians, Copts and Ethiopians, are exc luded from the Cll n stian worl d. The senlences by attrihutlng Spanish and Portuguese co loni ali sm to the Pope's "blessings and authori ty" totally misreads the actual mo ti ve rorces behind coloniali sm. But what the author says here is in li.!le wi th an ex.tensive sn iping at Christianity ,hat the new NCERT His tory books indu lge in ,

Page 3

"yasco da Gama, taking a round of the African continelll. landed at Calicu!. .. "

Vasco da Gama did not take "8 round of the African continen''', he sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. ,

Page 3

"They [the Portuguese I also indulged in a large sca le conversion of Hindus to Christianity. As 8 re sult th ey 10,;1 the Indian

90 I"dex of Errors

sympathy .... " One wonders why the Portuguese had gained " Indlan

sy mpathy" earlier. Or why Had Om refers on ly to conversions of Hindus, and not also to similar conversions of Muslims by the Portuguese.

Page 3

"Coincidently, protest (s ic!) for religious reforms led by Mart in Luther, Knox and Calvin was also taking shape,"

If one takes cudgels-against Chdst~anj lY, one shou ld at least lake care nqt to di splay one's ignorance in so gross ll' fashion. The correct order should be Luther ( 1483-1546), Jean CHlvi n ( 1509-64) and John Knox (1514-72) not only chronologically, but also because Knox was a follower of Calvin. Incidentally. while the Reformation is touched upon, though in this inadequate manner, there is not a word here about the Renaiss.ance. so vital for the st uden!'s understanding of (he development o f modern thought, science and technology.

Page 4

"In 1600 A.D. the English East India Company was established jn lndia."

This stupid mistake has been rectified in the reprint edition by deleting the words "in India."

Page 4

" ... Madagascar. an island in the Arabian Sea."' So in the first edition of the book. In the reprint ed .. thi~

gross e rror, pointed o ut even in newspaper reporiS, has heen removed. We now read: "Madagascar, a french (sic) po.~scssion in the Indian Ocean":

Page 5

" tn 1765. steam engine was iovented in England" The correct date is 1769, when James Watt patented his

steam engine.

Page 6

"Trade led to politkal conq uest and potitical power was used to propagate Christianity ... The English Ellst India Company in the name of religious neutrality was giving maximum support and

C(lmemporary I"dia (Class IX) 91

encouragement to Christianity." The idea that the major aim of co lon ialism in [ndia was

the spread of Christianity is in line with the anti-Christian bi:!s of Ihe book . The East India Company in fact had generally been wary of miss ionary activity in India, seeing it as a possible cause of popu lar unrest.

Page 6

"What is relevant here to remember is the failure of this upheav al 11857 Revolt] and the famous theory of evolutio n by an Engli sh thinker Charles Darwin ." In the reprint edition we find· a fUrlher e laboration: "The British success rn suppress in g the revo ll of 1857 was seen as a victory of civ il ization over barbarism in those days. It was also associated with the 'Theory of Evolution ' by an English thinker(!) Charles Darwin."

The link between th e two eve nt s ( 1857 Revo lt and Da rwin's scientific discovery) is not at all clear. Darwin 's.theory of the evolu tion of species is wrongly equated with the theory of "whi te man '5 burden" onhe notion that the British victory ;nI8'.57 represented the "victory of civ ili zati on over barbarism ." That others used Darwin's theory to evo lve racist theories has been confused with Darwin 's genui nely path-breaking dl scQveries. In any case. the notio n o f the 'w hite man 's burden' did not bave 10 wait for Darwi n's theory of evolution (which came with rhe Origm of Species, 1859) si nce both the Briti sh victory in 1857 and the raC ial th eories lon g preceded il. (Sec: T ho mas Metca lfe, The Aftermarll of Revolt, c.g . pp .309ff. ) App3rently, Bari Om thinks that the Darwinian theory o f Evolution of Species is not to be believed !

Page 6

" Max Muller ... till his death in 1900 aeted as an intel lectual hridge between England and Germany".

This is a statement of7extraord in ary exaggeration .

Page 6

"Max Muller did his max im um to popularise the idea of an Aryan race and the Aryan invasion of Ind ia ... hi S theory laHI the fo undation of a rac ial interpretation of India's manifold diversity ... Th is Aryan in\:.as ion theory was used as an iCllcll ect uul instrument to furthe r the well-known Br;tish p~ li cy of divide and rule as we ll as convert the Briti sh political conq ues t intn a

92 Indu uf Errors

permanent c ullural conquest." These s tatements reflect the current tirade of the ~afrrnn

brigade against Max Muiler, who promoted with great dedication a s tudy of ancient Indian cultu re. He himself rejected the conce pl o f racial .superiority. It is also not clear how a con..:cr' of "ArYlln invasion" should be divisive in its effects. Sal Gan£adhar Til:!k . the great nationali st, himsel f held [hat the Aryans had corne from an Arctic homeland .

Page 8

The map (Fig.I .2: " Alliances and World War I") IS technica lly very incompetent. Spa.;n is shown as one o f the Triple Entent e powe~s and a large non-exi s ting isl and en is show n in western Mediterranean . How Morocco and Tunisia already occupied hy France before 1914 cou ld be " neutral " in Wo rl d War I is nOI aI all clear. While Italy is shown as an ally of the Triple Entente, Sardini:i, the large island belonging to ii , is show n as " neutrJ.!." Finally. the line patterns in the refe rence table do not til those aClUa ll y used;n Ihe map.

Page 9

"Generations-old rule of the Czars was swept away by a cuup Jed by Lenin, the leader of the Bols hevik party. Thi s event is popularly known as the Russian Revolution."

There are twO majo r errors here: (a) The rule of the Czars was "swept away" nut hy Ll!nm

and the Bolsheviks in their October Revolu tion of 19 17. bul ('arllcr in the February Revolut ion, led by other po litl c,,1 panLe~ and factions.

(b ) The Russian revolut ion of OClOber 19 17, the firlol soc ialist re volution. o ne of the most important cvent5 01 20t h century, is described by the author as simply a 'coup' Jed by Len in . Thi s revolutio n aboli shed landlordism and capita lis m. and began the construction of a socialist so(.~ i e t y; so it is not o nly populm usage. but also substant ive change. that makes hi s lorian ~ nIl! it II

" revolut ion", in the sa me way as. say, the French Revu lution .

Page 9

··tAfler World War [J , Europe 's map was redrawn and a n..:.w Slate ca lled Czechoslo vakia was c reated in her heart (s ic)".

Not only Czechoslovak ia . other new s tates wer-= ;.t"n created. no tably, Po land . Yugos lavia and the three Baltic ~Iutc~ .

CQmemporory India (Closs IX) 93

bes ides th e sepa ral~ states o f Austria and Hungary,

Page ,9

'·Whatever success it (the League of Nations) I;ould ach ieve wa !> at the cos t of smaller coun tries li ke Ethi opia and Manchuria ( 193 1)."

What Hari Om wishes to sa)' here is not clear, The League of Nations won no "success" at the cost o f Ethiopia or Manchuria, but s imply faHed to protect them from aggression. Manc huria was incidemally nOt a "smaJl country" but was and is a pal'! of C hina ,

Page 10

"The ideology of the Nazi party was a sort o f fU ~lOn of German ~

nat io nal ism and socia lism," Thi s amounts 10 uncrilicnl ly accepting the clanns o f Hi tler

Hnd the Nazi ,party who ca lled themselves 'Nat ional Social ists', In fac t the Nazis promoted the total control o f capita li sts over the workers, h is also astonishing that the most well known aspeCts of Naz.i ideology like racialism and anti-Semi thm which led 10 the I-dling of about seven million Jews IS not even mentioned I

Page 10

" Mu ssolini and the Fascis l Party attracted many sccl ions of socielY because, as he himse lf said, he aimed 3 1 rescuing ' Jlaly fTO m feeb le government' ,"

The feebleness of the Italian governmen t lay pre:dsely in not confronting Ihe chaos and disorder created by the .Fasci sts, who overthrew tbe co nstitution al government by force an d the n suppressed Ihe opposition by a campaign of terror and murder.

Page 10

"Nazi~m and fascism were a sort of counterpart oj' the dit.:tatorship of the proletariat '(working class) imposed upon the Soviel Un ion by Joseph Sialin ,"

The words "imposed upon th e Soviel Union by Joseph Stalin (not Lenin!}" are de leted in the reprint edition, so now the innocent reader would nOI e ven kllow wh¢re Ihe "d ictutorship of (he pro le tariat " had bee n es tabli shed! 111 ::my ca .. e. In any case, bOlh the Nazis and Fascists we re inveterate fo~s ut COlllmLlnlst~ who m the forcib ly suppressed. with IO rturc and e.llccutlOl1l>, and so how cou ld they be a "counlel'part" of tht! CommuOl~ 1 tC!,!i lllc III

Ihe Soviet Union?

94 Ittdex of Errors

Page 10

"It is also interesting to note that Stal in was the first Euro pean leader to enter into a peace agreement with Hitler ... "

What is interesting is only the lac k of I..nowledge of elementary facts displayed here. The first European leade rs ()f

major European powers to enter into an agreemerH with Hitler were Joseph Cbamberlain. Prime Minister of Britain and Eduardo Daladier, Prime Minister of France, who signed ~hc MUflh.:h PUC I in September t 938 , in effect giving away Czechoslovakia 10 Hitler, whereas the Soviet Uni on had offered aid LO that country. The Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact came almost a yea r later in August 1939. and followed the failure of Anglo-Frend negotiations with the Soviet Government ov~r a deren sive alliance against Hitler.

Page 10

"For the first time Hitler carried the fury of war lo'tO the very house (sic!) of England, England had always fought the war of de fence on the soil o f others and n'ever had to suffer destruction in her own home. It was for the first lime that the Germans bombed British cities, including their (sic) capital London ,"

Hari Om's admi ration fo r Hitler is again very perceptible ;

Page 10 "The German invasion of the Sov iet Union in 1941 pushed Ru ssia and the believers in the concept of Communis m all o ver the world into the anti-German camp., ...

The sole significance of Hitler 's attack on Soviet Unio n for Hari Om seems to be the opportunity it offers to him (or sneeri ng at Communists for supporting the war against Hiller, He seems to forget that the Congress leaders too were in "the anti ­German camp," even while issuing the Quit- rndia call. See al~o co mment under page 54 ,

So hostile is Hari Om to the Sov iet Union that now here in his account of World War II does it appear that it was the Soviet army which turned the tables against Hitler by it s victory first before Moscow in 1941 Rnd then at Stalingrad in 1942 .

Page 11

"While Japan 's moral and material su pport he [Subhas Bose l and his Indian National Army was (sic!) able 10 liberale the is landlo til' Andaman and some part or Manipur."

Contemporary India (Class IX) 95

The statement is entirely inco'rrect . The Japanese had occupied Andaman Islllnds early in 1942 and refused til hand over its administration to INA, except in name. The attat:k o n Manipur in 1944 was launched mainly by the Japanese forces. with INA g iven a qUIte minor role (with forces comprisil"!g less than 10 per cent. of the e ntire attacking force and the command placed exclusively in Japanese hands).

Note: Having learnt some history of the INA by the time o f the reprint edition. the author restricts the areas " liberated" 10

"some parts of Manipur." Even this, as we havc just seen, is u piece of fantasy,

Page 12

·'Britain . because of her internal weaknesses as well as prcssure from the tWO super powers [US and USSR] was not in a position to relain her hold on Indi a. Hence, she decided to whhdraw."

This view completely denies any role to the Indian Nationa l Movement (of which RSS was never a part) in creating the s ituation in wh ich Britain "was not is a position to rctuin hcr ho ld on India" and was forced to withdraw. The position taken by Hari am is quite similar to the colonial view, which too atlcmpted to ignore the role of the Indian National Movement .

Page 12 (Page II in the reprint edition)

"But independent India chose to carve OUI a path of Non-Alignmcni foc hersel f."

Strangely. Hari Om omits to mention the architect (If this policy, lawaharlal Nehru . Thi s is in line with his policy of making Nehru practically a non-person in modern Indi an hi story,

Page 12 (Page II in the reprint edition )

This just o ne paragraph , desc ri bing the "Olher sigmncan l developments" of the post-1945 period up to virtuli lly the end o f the 20th cen tu ry, f inds place on ly for details on 1he retreat of Socialism forces in the world. namely the unification of Germany in October 1990, the collapse of the Soviet UnIon and th e conseq uent eme rgence of II unipolar world led by the USA . No mention IS made of the Chinese Revolution of 1949. of the Korean War and of the prolonged struggle in Vietnam leading to the vicwry of lhe Vietnamese people and defeat of the USA. The Cuban Revo lution. the Palest ine Issue and the eAd of lhe Apartheid

96 Illdex oj E:rm,..~

regIme in South Afri ca and many such equa ll y impo rt an t developments that occurred in thi s pcriQd are s imilarly ove rl ooked.

Page 14

"Soon India became a land of free loorers" (lSI cd. ) Thi s remarkable observation about the [odiftn peopl e has

thankfu ll y been removed in th e repri nt cditon .

Page 14

"Il is inleresting to note ,hal the rise and gro'wlp of British rule in Ind ia coi nc ided with the indust ri al revolUlien in Europe. The immediate resull of the revolution was the need of new markcl~ and more of (sic) raw materials"

Here the author links the beginning of colon ialism wilh th e industrial revolu tion and the search far markets and raw malerials. Th is rather limited view of colonialism ignores theentire firs t stage of co lon ialism wnere tne metropoli tan coun ty was nol yet indus tri alized and instead o f loC!ki ng for markets so ught products including manufactured goods from the coloni es, which we(c approp riated fully or partially wi thout pay menl throug h a sys tem of tribute or drai n of wea lth. [n Ind ia thi s s in ge of colonialism belonged to the second ha lf of the 18th century and in the case of the Dutch in IndQl'lesia illas ted fo r nearly two centuries (17th to 19th centuries) , Colon ialism of thi s stage strongly aided the .process of industriali zatio n in the metropolitan countries.

Page ]4

'"In certain cases, dutieS lev ied were as higl"! as 400 per cenL" It is not made clear that the duties here men tioned were

customs duties imposed on imports from Indi a into Eng land , or ex.cise dulies On Indian goods in India. Such ex.ci se ratc.s are not known to have been levied. [t is true, however, thal fro m 172 1 to 1774 import of all [ndian cotton fabrics into En g la nd was p rohi bited. Th is shoul d have been mentioned.

Page 15

"The British used to call them [Indians] ·Niggers ·." (1st. ed.) The British used to call fndians ' natives·, not ·ni ggers'

(The quoted statement is removed in the reprint ed ition).

COIllImtporary India (Clas.f IX) 97

Page 15

'·Bes:dcs. it [British rule} also created among the In dians Ii dal'S o ( loyali sts. first in the shape of landlords . and then the middle classes .. . British policies had offended all sections of indilln socicty .. ,

Extremely s implistic assertions lead to bllllant contrad1ctions as one can see when these tWO statements on the same page are juxtaposed. It is, in any case. certainly wrong to assert that the Indian middle classes were, as a rule. made up of "loyali s ts"

Page 15

"These had led to the pass ing of the Religious Di sahili(ies At: t ( I 851) , the Widow Remarriage Act (1856) and large sca le unemploy mcnt of Indians. "

One is at a loss to see the interconnection between the three facts , and apt to wonder why removal of religious di sabilitic ~

and proyi slOn for widow remarriage are to be consider~d bad amI anll -Indian.

Page 15

" Lord Curzon and severa l other administrators committed many provocative acts." (1st. Ed.)

Hari O m forgclS th at Lord C urzon came to India a~ Viceroy over 40 years after the 1857 Rebellion and so hi s "proyocat iyc acts" could have had no role to play in the popul ar reyolts and the 1857 Rebellion with which this chapter dea ls. <Lord Curzon's name is now omitted in the reprint edition!) .

Page 16

"Recent researches have estab lis hed that the 1857 rebellion was a well-planned affai r. II had all India dimensions ... Nana Saheb. son of l3.sl Peshwa Bajirao II was {he brain behind the Whole plan."

The abs urdity of these assertions is patent; and the desire to raise Nana Saheb (who had nOlhing to do with the crucial ri s ing at Meerut and the sepoys ' occupation of Delhi) above all the 1857 rebel s , is ridiculous in the extreme.

Page 17

The name of Bakh! Khan. the famous rebel co mmander' at Delhi , is wrongly spell as "Blilkhat Khan".

98 Index of Errors

Page 17

" H owever, th e most important hClO r which cO nlribul cd cons iderably to the collapse of the upheaval (sit) was Iha l il 11hc 1857 Rebe lli on) lOok place before the rixed date (31 MflY 18S7):'

We are not lOld, who fixed the dale of 31 May <'lnd why. All thi s is myth , pure and simple.

Pages 16-18

In th e lo ng descliprion of th e 1857 revolt, Hari Om vcry significantly o mit s to underline one aspect 'wh ich man y freedom fighters as we ll as a number of historians have repealedly hi gtllighted: th at of Hindu- Muslim unity. Indeed on page 26 Hnri Om specifically says thaI Muslims shed their blood In the 1857, rebe lli o n o nl y " to regain the lost grou nd lor their powe r presumab1yJ and restore the Mugha! Em pire ... " In olher words, he ho lds that their motives were different fro m those of the Hindu s. See comment under page 26.

Page 18

While discussing ·'several anti-Britis h revohs" wiwr.!s:.cd in ·'India aftt;r 1857", the author starts with the Benaras protests against imposition of house tax which occu rred in 1810. The author, whu him self does not g ive any dale, has again nOI tollowed the e lementary rules of chrono logy.

Hari Om's selection of an ti-British uprising:. I:' also rather strange. The indigo disturbances, the Wahabis and Birsa Munda find no men tion here.

Page 19

"After a prolonged st ruggl e likendraJitlaid down hi s Ilfc··. He was, in fact , defeated and executed.

Page J9

lo In Maharnshtra Vasudeo Bnlwant Ph adke o rganised a revolutio nary society ( 1879) in o rder to overthrow Briti sh ru Ie,"

Phadke did not organise a revolutionary soc lely. He had some 300 men lIod raided hou ses of the rich to buy arms. 1879 IS

the year of his capture by the British, afler a shorl spate til' disturbances the same year.

Contemporary India (Class (X)

Page 21

"Chapter 3 Congress, New Spirit and Muslim League" The t ill e of thc chaptcr itself is biased. Wh y include

Mu s lim League in the titl e and not Hindu Mah asabha. A lso, as we will sec be low, "Ncw Sp iri! " (a strange description of a political stran d) is wrongly treated as a strand di s tinct from , if no! opposed 10 Ihal ofille Congress and secul ar mlli onal ism, and prcl':cnlcd a:; an exclus ively Hi ndu pheno menon.

Page 21

"Thi s [the failu re of the " repress ive measures" imposed hy Lord Lyttonl made the British government to (sic!) befri end the In dian nationalists and landl ords."

Here thc author is factually wrong. The Briti sh ttl no stag.e in [he co loni al period "befriended" Indian nationalis ts. Even Ripon cont inued 10 remove aJl import du ti es o n British cl oth. despite Indian prolests. As fo r "befri en ding" bi g landlords. taluqdars. CIC.,

Ihis was all empted precisely to c reate break wate rs aga in~ 1 thc national ists, not to ' befrie nd ' th em. Also, the strategy of making concess io ns to th e big landlords was adopted much e;,rli c r. following the 1857 revoh. and was part of a wider st rategy 01 co~binin g concessions with clear assertion of Briti sh su premacy. The ;be fri ended' landl ords were nOll eft in doubt as to who ca ll ed the s hots . The lands of tht" \aluqdars in Oudh" for example, were confiscated after the Mutiny and tben restored onl y in return for su bmiss ion and loyal ty.

Page 21

"The s truggle over [his (l1ben Bi II ) and severa) olher such issue:. led Ind ian nationa lists to jo in hands and make their ca mpaig n nation-wide."

If " the Briti sh Go vernment ... befriend{ed) thc Indian Nationalists" then agai nst whom were the Indi an Nationalists j o ining hands to mak.e a nation-wide ca mpai gn? The paragraph suggests that it is against th e opponents of the IIlle rt Bill. This is an extremely inadequate explanati on for the rise of I~I:: Indian National Movement , which emerged because o f thc confli c t o f econo mic, political and other inte rests of the Indi an people wi lh Imperiali sm.

Page 21

"The establishment of Indian Associati on wa~ nOI to th e liking 01

100 bIder of Error.f

several Englishmen, both in India and England. Hence they thought of an alternative to Ihi s org:.misation [by the formation o f the Indian Nationa l Congress )" ,

The who le paragraph is f3cwally wrong and does nOt lake into account the advances in indian hl slonograph y on Ihis question made decades ago, especia lly after the opening or the DulTerin papers. The points to be noted are:

First. the Indi an NatIOn al Congress was not anullern ative to the Indian Associat ion. The In dian Associat io n JeaJcrs suc h as Surendranat h Banerjea played an important.role in the emergence Of the Congress. In fact they hosted the 2nd sess ion of the Congr!!,,,s in CakuLtu In 1886.

Second, Dufferin did not give Htlme " hi ~ full suppo n " in the fo rmutlo n of the Congress. He In fact did not want the Indians 10 form any politi c.al orga ni zation but to engage in sodal refurlll . He was critical of the Congress virtually si nce its incepti on and became quite lilJspicious and coo l towards Hume.

Third , no sig nIfi cant s trand of "Briti sh opinion saw the Congress as an organisai ion ·which would play the role o f a sa fcty ­valve. II was seen by and large as an irritant, if nOl, at the beginning. hostile. Even ifHume and a few like him did project the Congress as a sa fety-va lve. in realit y the role played by the Congress was quite the opposite. To hi s honour, Hume him se lf strongly .defended the Congress against allacks by Lord Dufferin in ' Flgg

Page 22

Tht descriptio n of the In dinn Na tional Congress be tween 1885 -1905 is extremely s light f' ll in tone and inaccorate ab\)ut it s leaden •. " Mosl of them" djd nO[ conside r " Briti sh rule. as a bless ing for India" , Th e fact Ih al the. Moderates produced a very stro ng economic cri ti que of imperialism (among the firs t in the world to do so) is not mentioned by Hari Om, at all. The Moderates brought home to the Indian people the evil econom ic: impact of British rule thus questioning a l:Iasic ele ment of impcri ali st ideo logy spread assiduously in India. The Moderates' role in popularising and fighting fo r key issues such as civil liberties, freedo m or Ihe pres s, democracy and popular sovere ig nt y also is altogeth er ignon;d here. Some of the tallest Moderate leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Go khal e a nd M. G. Ranad e are no t mentioned as leaders of the Congress by Hari Om and Moderatc leade rs like R.c. Dult, G. Subramani ya Iyer, Badruddi"n Tyabji, K. T. Te lan g. Pherozes hah Mehta, all household names in the

Coruemporary India (Class IX) lOt

nationalist pant heon. urc nOI mentione.d at all. This is not accide.ntal. as a mention of these names would nol accord wilh Ih e projection of the Moderates as virtually loyalists and ' mendi~anl ~'

Page 22

"The British ru lers did nOI pay any heed 10 the Congress demand s which were modest by any standard." (The reprint cd. J'ead s "very modes t")

To deSCribe the Co ngress demands in the Moderate phase as "modeSl by any standard " is not. to understand the meaning o f the Moderatc domands at all . Even some of the demand s described by Harl Om himself in Ihis and the previous paragraph . ~uch as "reductio n in land revenue and army expenditure and usc of In dian wealth for the Indians themselves", introduction of "democratic instituLions in India" and .refo.rm of "the legi slative councils. by inducting in them elected indians", were hardly Illodest "by an y standard" .

Page 22, col.l, lower portion

" Lord Curzon even went to the extent of saying thut the people of India were ' the peasants, whose life was not vne of. political aspiration' . This had it tremendous impact on the Indian freedllm struggle".

Writing in o ne's sleep?

Page 22

"A parallel wave of sprituaJ and cultural awakening .. . popularly known as 'Indian Renais sance'. Its ground had been prepared by Bankim Chandra Chanerjee. Swami Dayannnda Saraswati and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa."

This misleading sentence needs [0 be corrected. The ground was prepared almost half a century earl ier by Ram Mohan Roy. the Young Bengal movement, etc. Whal i'S truly ashtonishing here is the complete omission of any reference to Keshav Chandra Sen. the dom.i nant figure il) ~ocial reform movement in the laller half of the 1 91~ Century. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is also similarly ignored. In fact the whole paragraph describin g the 19'h Centu ry renaissance in India is totally distorted and one-sided. Major social reformers from Maharashtra and South Jndla are also ignored, among them Jotiba Phule. Syed Ahmed Khan and Dadabhai Naoroji (in his role as Parsi social reformer) arc al so

102 Index of Errors

not treated as representatives of the Ren:Hssancc. Obviously. th e ' New Spi rit ' is secn as purely Hindu, and that al so o f the mo~ ! conservative kind .

Page 22

"S imilarl y, Swami Dayananda's slogan ' Back to the Ved as' h:ld insti ll ed a pride in the ideas o f Swadeshi and ancien t cu ltural herit age .. ,

It is characteri stic that a purely religious projec t o f shaping Hindui sm accord ing to the original Vedi c princi ples is he re seen as a slogan for swadeshi, which Daynand never put forwa rd. Fo r thai mailer he neve r opposed or c riti cised Briti sh ru le. unlike Ih e much mal igned Moderates.

Page 22

"Thi s year Swami Vivekananda .. " al Chicago (USA) ... es t:lbli shcd the superiority of Indian though t and culture over the western mi nd", Last four words removed in the reprint edi tio n.

Vivekananda's speech in C hicago no doubt made many reel proud of the Hindu tradi tion, but to say thaI it "estllb li shed" (to whom?) the superionty of Indian thoug ht and culture over the wes tern mind , or over any other religio n or tradition is cx tr..:rnel y tendenti ous.

Page 23

"Aurobindo Ohose wrote a senes of arti cles under the title 'New Lamps fo r the o ld ', di scardin g (sic!) the Cong ress policy as mt!ndicancy' .. '

The reference to Aurobindo alleged ly" dil'card in g(!) the Congress (note. not Moderate) poli cy as me ndica ncy" is n(1t innocent. The Congress is he re equated with Moderates and since the lauer are said to resort to mend icancy, the former is ;1!s0

assumed to do so, The position that e merged within the Congress led by Tilak , S .C.Pal . Lajpat Rai. etc" whi ch at that time used to be ca ll ed the "Extremist" position. is tre ated by Hari On1 as so me! hing outside the Congress, and is treated as virtua ll y a nti · Congres s,

Page 22·23 The author makes 8 feu ish of 1893 as "a major landmark in the evo lution o f ideology of our freedom s trugg le", the first even t o r th at yea r in th is rega rd being Vivekananda 's exposi ti on 0 1

Contemporary II/dia (Class IX) 103

Hindu ism - at Chicago, USA! The. last event li sted is Gandhi's departure for South Africa, with no reference to his subsequent ' strugg les for Indian ri ghts there. In (act Gandhi's immensely impo rtant work in organ ising and leadi ng strugg les for the defence of Indi an civ il rights in South Africa is not touched upon anywhere except for a casual reference on page 34.

Page 23

" Both of them [Tilak and Aurobindo C hosel believed in and advocated cu ltural nationa lism ... They also held the view lhul

Moderates we re only pl ayi ng with "bubbles" (sic!) li ke th e legislative councils and not taking up t.he issues capable (sic ~ ) or protecti ng and promoting the (sid) Indi an cu lture."

The ' Extremist' position take n by T iJ ak, Aurobindo, etc , is thus by a sleight of hand described as "cultural national ism" , a concept associated with the name of V D , Savarka r in hi s Hindu com mun al phase! Whil e thi s stratagem seeks to give the Hind u communali sts a fal se linkage with Indian nati onali sm, it does grave inj usti ce to TIlak and other leaders whose nat iona li sm was deeply rooted in the po liti ca l and econom ic critique of coloniOJli sm and had nothing to do with the Hindu communa l st ream. The vitriul poured o n 'moderate s' is to be attributed mainly to a de~ire to condemn a ll elements in the National Movement that stood ror modern and secular values. It is a calumny on Moderates like Gokh ale to say that they merel y stood ro r ':bubbles" (Hari Om's Eng li sh for 'baubles') like Legislati veCounc il s, and nothing e lse.

Page 23

..... S.N. Paranj ape's Marathi weekly Kal con tril:luted a \Ot in arous ing natio nali sm and ant i-Britis h sentimen ts_ The immediate fall -out was the murder of Rand .. ,"

Paranjpe's week ly began appearing in March 1898. Rand was shot on 22 June 1897. "The immediate fall-out" thu s actually lo ng preceded the cause!

P..age 23

"Tilak de fended the Chapekar brothers stoutly in KI.!.Wlri nod invil~d

the charge of sedition against him se lf." Had Om here open ly glorifies individual vio len t res istance

to the British as against non- violent mass resistance. In the prO\.c~s. he presen ts a g rossly misleading account. First. Ti lak was ,)0 1

prosecuted for sed iti o n because he "defended" the C hard ir

104 Index of Errors

brothers.' He was prosecuted for writing articles before the murder of Rand, for which the Chapekar brothers wcre'arreslcd, S::cond, while appreciating the nationalist spirit of the Chapekar bJblhcrs. Tilak strongly crit icized their aclion as the "ho rribl e" action of a fanatic. Tilak was criti ca l of the path fo llowed by the 'pnny of the bomb' or indivi-dual vio lent resistance . In fact many other nationalist leaders often defended against B.ritish repress ion an ll +

Briti sh po litical elemeniS wi th whose meth ods of stru ggle they totally disagreed (e.g. c.R. Das's defence of Aurobindo Ghose).

Pages 23-24

"Simi larly, in Bengal. the return of Swami Vivekananda und founda ti o n of the Ramakrishna Mission electrified the who le political situat ion ."

The author thus tries to link Hindui sm. especially Vivekananda. to this strand of violent resi stance or the cull of assassinations, which he calls "the new spirit", He then adds that after Vivekananda's death the carrying forward (I f hi .~ mi ssion by sisler Ni vedita (described as "an Irish by birth hut (one who] adopted Hinduism as her faith"), wh o wrote books like \. Kali Ihc mother", "contributed considerably to the growth of (the} new spi rit.·' These statements overlook the fact that the Ramakrishna Mission was and has been a totally non-politi cal o rgan isati on.

Page 24

" He [Curzon] took this divisive step [P:lrtilion of Bcn~alJ as lhc I was alarmed by the Impacl of cultural nationa lism on the Indians .....

Not nationalism, not the National Movement, but the so. ca lled "Cultura l Nationalism" on ly, is thought 10 have troubled Curzon!

Si nce the author takes "cu ltural nationalism" practically as "Hindu Cuhural Nationalism", it Is very strange that Curzon shou ld have had to try to create, a Hindu-Muslim divide in Bengal. as presumably H indu Cohural Nationalism mu st have already done so on its own , Cunon's plan of Partition made !>eo!>c for Imperialism only if if was aimed al breaking up an emergin!! /If/ilt'd '

Indian nationalism, Page 24

.. Aurobindo Ghosc ... s tarted with Sepin (sic) Chandra Pulu pal"'" Ballde Marra", . ..

Contemporary /tulia (C/rus IX) 105

Aurobindojoined, but did not co-establish, Blpi" Chandra Pal's paper Bunde Mlitralll. He himself staned the Yug£lll(lIr.

Page 24

·'Ouring the Swadeshi movement, Aurobindo Ghose emerged a~ the chief architect of the philosophy of our freedom struggle. Deriving inspiration from Dayananda, Bankim Chandra and Tilak, he gave a cultural orientation to the freedo m struggle."

This statemenl is wrong and mi sleading on sevei'll I count~. There is no ev idence of Aurobindo being influenced by Dayannnd Sarasvati: Ihi s is juSt a piece of nourish by Had Om. On a more general plane, il is absurd to make out Aurobindo In his phase of Hindu Nationalism as " the chief architect of the phi Josophy of ou r freedom strugg le." The period of rhe SwadedH movement witnessed extremely rich and diverse political trends - moderates. extremists. revolutionary believers in violence. incipient socla lh ts. those that argued fol' boycott and passive resistance and so on. Aurbindo represented -On ly one trend in thI S movement and could certain ly not be called its "chief architect." (Naturnlly' his later total abandonment of freedom struggle is not mentioned by Hari Om).

Also, what is meant by "cultural orientatIOn to freedom struggle" is not made clear 31 all. The author again by innuendo seeks to link lndian nationalism to v. hal he calls "cullural nationalism" which he identifies with Hindu "nationalism" In thi!; effort he repeatedly tries to distort and overe mphaSize the role of people like Bankimchandra and Aurobindo, who are prOjected as Hindu Ideologues and leaders.

Page 24

"Almost simultaneously Gandhiji was penning down (sic!) hilo great classic Hind Swam) wherein he rejected the western machine civiliza tion and western institutions such as parliamentary democracy."

Gandhiji penned Himl Swara) In 1909 - nOt simultaneously witli, but well after the Partiti on of Beng.a l. Whilt:: Hind Swaraj condemned a number of evils in Western Civilizat ion. it projected a secular image of the Indian nation, a vIew totally at variance with that of Hari Om. Religion, Gandhiji said in Hind Swara), had nothing to do with the idea of nation, and so Hindus. Muslims. Parsis and Christians "will have 10 live in unit y" .

106 J"dex of Error.f

Gandhiji neve r condemned democracy, whef her parliamentary o r any other fo rm of it. Lt is extremely objectionable that the NCERT te,xtbook should be used 10 deni grate the concep-l of parl iamentary democracy~ by putting the denigration in the mouth o f the Father of the Nation,

Pages 24-25

Bipin Chandra Pal throughout has hi s name mi sspe ll as Bepio Chandra Pal.

Page 2S

"Il fthe Swadc.sf\i Movemenl} even shook th e fa ith of such great Moderate leaders as Gopal Krishna Gokhale and malic them ·waver in (hei r lo ng-cherished faith and belief in the clemency and justice of tht':; British'."

Not the Swades hi Movement . bUI the Briti sh su ppression . of iI , surely I ~d the Moderates momentarily 10 lose their alleged faith in "the clemency and justice of the Briti sh". The shoddiness of express ion apart, these assertions arc i n line with Hart Om's consistent denigration of the Moderates ,

Page 26

" Dadabhoy Naoroj i, thl! grand old man of [ndian poli ti cs ... " Naoroj i was affecti onately called the Grand Old Man o f

Indian nationali sm, not poli tics. Thi's was because he was correctly held to be [ndia's first nationa li st spokesman, a stri ngent cri tic of Briti sh rule since 187 1, Even in such small matters Hari am wishes to belittle the role of early Congress leaders, usually ofa ~ecu l ar

slamp. There is no pic ture of Dadabhoy Naoroji in the book.

Page 26

"Afte r the Sural split ... Sardar Ajit Singh and Lala Lajput Rai were de ported."

Factually incorrect: Both Ajit S ingh and Lala Lajpal Rai were deported in April 1907 much before the Sural Congress. When Lajpat Rai went abroad after the Sural Congress, it was a vo luntary act on hi s pan . Page 26

.... . the Mus li ms had part icipated in the- 1857 Upris ing in a big way. They had taken part in the anti-Britis h struggle in order to

Colltemporary India (Class IX) 107

regain the lost ground and restore the Mughal empire to its pristine glory."

. Indeed! So, while the Hindu sepoy died for the freedom of the country, the Mu slim sepoy lighting the Briti sh along with hi m, died on ly fo r the sake of tne Mughal Empire! Muslims, it is thus insinuated, could not have loved thi s country or fought for it s freedom . What deadly venom is here sought to be transmItted to the. young readers of the book!

Pages 26·27

"B ut the failure of the 1857 uphep.val ended whatever existed in the name of Muslim rule in fndia and established the supremacy of Ihe Briti sh:'

The statement is wrong as 10 faclS. No Mu slim slale of any s ize was an nexed as a result of the Mutiny. As ror rfle depositio·n of the Mughal 'emperor '. he did not , even .as titular 'emperor ', control Delhi , which was governed by the British British supremacy e:tuted already before 1857.

Page 27

"The other [Muslim trendl was in the form of the continu ation of the Wahabi movement which mobilised funds and vo lunteers for the an ti ·British struggle in the North·Western Fronti er areas ."

When the Wahabis were thus engag ing in urmed action against the Bri ti sh and (what Hari Om Qm its to mention ) suffered heavil y in terms of lives lost and puni shments awarded. it is strange that their struggle should be passed over so casually and not treated as part of the "New Spirit" or of rhe revolutionary phase of the Fre~dom Struggle. However, given the author's communal bias , the hurried way in whi ch the Wahabis are denll wilh is qui Ie understandable.

Page 27

·'The third trend was represented by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. , ... By puuing the [\\,;count of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan unde r

"Emergence of the Muslim League", Hari Om clearly wishes 10 link him with the Muslim League, although he died SOme eight yearll before it was founded . and he had nothing (0 do with I'"

rorm.llJ on _ Syed Ahmad Khan 's cOnlribulfons to the spread or SI:Ii.!nlifi ed ucation arId hi s essentIally modern Ihougtll a.re totally Ignored III Hari Om s accoutlt, despite the fact thlt t Ih(')1 wer.: ~o

108 Index of Errors

closely anuned to the spirit of the Indian Renaissance.

Page 27

"He [Syed Ahmad Khan] reali ~ed that {he British rule hau corne to slay and its hostility to the Musl ims will (sic~) only help and strengthen the rising Hindu elite."

[n other words, Syed Ahmad Kh an set our IU educate Muslims oul of only spite for the Hindu s!

Page 27

"The Briti sh welcomed these mlliallves comi ng trom Sir S)'cd Ahmad Khan. They invited him to England . ,"

Sycd Ahmad Khan visited Eng land in 1869-70 al hi:. ow n expense and nol at anyone's invitation, least of all (hat of the Briw.!1 Government.

Page 1.7

"This college lM.A.O. ColIge) became the nodal point of the Aligarh Movement started in 1875."

The sentence is misleading. The Aligarh M ovement I1td not start in 1875: if a date is to be provided for It!' beginning It

should be 1864, when the Trans lation Sol'iety. lat er called. Scientific Society, was established. II was the M A.a . College which was eSlablished at Aligarh in 1875.

Pag~ 27 "One of the aims of the Aligarh Movement was to ' milke Ihe Mussalmans of India worthy and use ful subject s o f the British Crown' ."

Hari am does not say where the quotation is taken from Sinee the Aligarh Movement was not a formal asslKJatiun there was no question of any such declaration on its behalf. What IS to be remembered is that such statements were made ,by most educational and social organisations at the time. and by fairly fiery 'tationalist leaders as well . The essential feature of the Aligurh Movement was the spread of modern and scientific education, fur which reason its detractors called it ntcharl. i.e .• preaching 11 belief in Nature. In politic!:, it contained both Io.yali st and nall on"li SI elements.

COl/temporary India (Clem IX) 109

Pnge 27

" His ISyed Ahmad Khnn 's] Meerut anq Li.H.:;know speec hes lof 18881 present hi s thinking very c learly."

Whatlhese speeches present is cert3inly an eliti st critique. of the Congress: but these spee~hes called for both Muslim and Hindu gentry to unite. against the Congr~ss . Indeed, Syed Ahmad Khan subsequently formed an "Indian Patriotic Association", including both Hindus and Muslim::i , Hari am makes short .worK of these nuances in his aim of presenting Syed Ahmad Khan as simply a loya lis l and communakst. He has naturally no word about the contemporary Hindu movenaon( around the cause of Hindi! Nagari propagalion . including the Hindu Samaj (establiShed , 1880) of Madan Mohan Malavi ya. where profess ions of loyalty to the British were quite as profuse ly made as his denigrations of Urdu .

Page 27

" Developments in Muslim Politics Arter 1898" Again, a communal category is used here. The use of the

words "Muslim poli ti cs" suggests that all ~usli ms had the same politics or al least that all Muslims had..polilics separate from that of the Hindus or other religious groups who presumably fo llowed politics of their own religious denominations . SIgnificantl y. though. there is no'section in the book called 'Hindu Politics'.

Puges 27-28 The aUlhor gives an unusually long description or the

formation of tbe Muslim League and j'ls loyalty to the Briti sh, its efforts to mobilize Muslims separate ly from the Congress, etc. The book however does not discuss the formation of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha which took place with much fanfare at Lahore in 1906. Apparently, the students are to be prevented from suspecting even remote ly that there was a Hi"hdu commu!1alism as well. along with.its counterpart. Muslim communali sm.

Page 29 Pulln Das, the leader of the Anushilan Samitl. has been

wrongly called Pulin Behan Bannerji ; and ~imilar ly the name of the well-known revolutionary Sat yen Bose is wrongl > ~pelt Satyan Bose,

G.D, and V.D. Savarkar were connl!..-:.Ied With the society called Abhinav Bharal, nOI Abhinav Bharli .

110 Index of Errors

P.g~ 29

"Those who played a crucia l tole in thi s regard ("revolutionary movement abroad" ] were Shyamji Kri shna Varma , V.D. Savnrkar. Madanl~1 Ohingta. Madame Bhikaiji Cam a, Sard!lr Si ngh Rana. Tarakanath Das, Lala Har Dayal. Virendranat h Chauopadhyay and Sohan Singh Bhaha, Subramania Bhatti and Champaka Raman PillaL."

Thi s li st is both tendentious and inaccu rate as almost everything in the book. As (or inaccuracie s: Subramania Bharali had nothing to do with the revolutionary movement abroad , unless Pondicherry is thought to be outside Indi a. The tendcnt ious nes!; is apparent in a remarkable exclusion: BarkalUlIah Khan (died. 192K) was an I.mrelenling revo lutionary nationalist and propagandi st in US. Japan, Afghanis tan. Soviet Russia and Ge rmany, cOnlinuously hounded by the Briti sh. He is not mentioned here, nor in the section on the Ghadar Party (page 30). One need not wonder, why.

Page 30

" Kamagata·Maru renamed Guru Na"uk Jahal. ... " The famous ship Komagata·Maru is wrongly spe ll ' Kama·

gata·Maru'. Similarly the ship Toshamaru is here called '·Tasu Maru" .

Page 30

"Rash Behari Bose, who earlier had escaped to Japan under a fake name, .. ..

'Rash Behari Bose escaped to Japan after the failure of the plan of the mutiny in the armed forces and not ·earlier· as stated here.

Hari Om makes no reference to the GhaJar·inspired mutiny at Singapore which took place almost s imultaneously In February 191.5. Forty·seven of the mutineers were sentenced 10

death by firing and 175 o thers received long term s of imprisonment. The leaders w~re Subedar Dunda Khan and Jamadar Chishti Khan. who "marched erect and steadi ly 10 the execution pOSlS/' Mosl of the rebelling sepoys were' Sikhs. ls sueh inter­communal nature of the Mutiny a reason for Hari Om's sile nce and relegation of such a large number of martyrs to ohlivion·'

Conumporary India (Class IX) III

Page 33

" Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 13epin (Bipin ) Chandra Pa l and Aurobindo Ghose critjcised as futile and impossible the aim of the Congress to convince the British and obtain for the Indians self~government."

Again the author here equates the Congress with the Moderates. The impression is created that the Extremist leaders (called "Radicals" in Ihis book) were not Congressmen, whereas the fact is that leaders such as Tilak and B. C. Pal while being · critica l of the Moderate strand were themse lves eminent leaders of the Congress.

Page 33

"It (the Lucknow Pact of 1916) unwillingly began the constitutional process lea~ing to the partition of India." .

If the reference is to 'communal electorates' beginning. the process leading to. partition then this process began with the Mo rley -Minto reforms and not the Lucknow Pact . which accepted separate electorates in a situation of restricted electorales (the right to vote being restricted to property-owners, tax~payers of status and graduates) and as a measure with the immediate objective of achieving Hindu-Muslim unity. Later on, everyone practically was agreed that separate electorate would not be necessary once adult franchise was establiShed, for that would aUlOmatically result in communities being represented among voters according to the size of the ir populations . But throughout British rule , the electorates remained extremely restricted .

AlsQ., it is absurd to say that the Pact led to the })artition. The Pact, on the other hand. was a major step forward in achieving Hindu-Muslim unity. It brought the Muslim League to accept the goa l of Self~Ru le and join the nationalist platform along w~ the Congress.

Page 34

"Dut between 1915 and 1918, he [Mahatma Gandhi} did nOI play any active role in Indian political )ife under the advice of hi s political guru, Gopal Krishna Q.o.k1lale."

This is factually-wrong. 'Ookhale asked Gandhi to Sl~ the situation for one year. which he did by travelling all ovedhe country. To say that Gandhi did not play any active political between 1915 - 1918 is ridiculous as he led three major struggles ~uring the course of 19P and early 1918, invoiving the peasants

112 Index of Errors

of Champaran district in Bihar. those of Kheda chslriCI In GUJl.trill

and the induslri al workers of Ahmedabad.

Page 34

"The title of' Mahatma was given Ito Gandhijll hy Rahindlunalh 1'113lo:.ur. "

"Rabindranath Tagore" was hOw Tagon: ~pcl l his Ill1llH' III English and he is thus known allover the Wllrld Till" spel lin g should be followed.

Page 34

"Wedded to the ideology of Pan-Islamism. the (.I'it') Muslim upln ion in India felt very much concerned about the- fute ur the defeated Thrkey .... They were also up!>et because or the wl!akening of the control of the Sultan of Turkey as he carried the dc~ignalllH1 ul' Khalifa also."

Once again Muslims are wrongly treated as being alt {(lr in majority) wedded to Pan · [slamlsrn. Also. the auth9" tot ally ig nores the fact that the British ove r a IOrlg period cn~'ourageLl

Indian Muslims to look upon the Sultan o f Turkey a~ the Khllhfa of Mus lims. Thi s was when the British had an alliam:e with Turkey and they wanted to project this among Ind ian Muslims a!o It pro­Mu slim act. Later, in 1919, when the Briti~h betrayed Tur~cy in the terms of the peace settlement following the end o f the First World War, the resultant anti-British sentim en t was prujel:tcd by the British as Muslim pan -Islam ism, a view that Han am "CI;Cp ' ~

and enlarges upon .

Page 3S

"Gandhiji simultaneously fused the national urge for S~araj wilh the Muslim concern for the Khilafat. He in a pact with the Khilafat Committee clubbed the two issues of the protection of Khilafat and the protection of cow."

The author here has counterpoised ' the national concern for Swaraj' to 'Lhe Mus lim concern for Khilafat ·. The Muslimli accordi ng to him were not concerned with the n at i ona~ urge for swaraj ! They were on ly concerned with religious issues, that too those which are located outside the national boundaries. confirm ing their being "~edded to ... Pan- Islamism". This is both malicious and a-historical.

The author in tile second sentence .goes one s tep further and Jinks the national concern to ' the protection of the l:Ow', whilc

COlltempomry India (Ciaj'!) IX) ILl

the Muslims. who apparently do not share Ihis concern . are linked to ' protection of Khilarat' .

Page 35

"Gandhiji's support to the Kh il afal was not acceptat'llc 1O;:a scctlOn of the o ld Congress leaders such 3S Tilak. Annie Bc!'ant, Sriniv:t!>a ShastrL ... "

The opposition to Gandhi that emergcti frnm su me Congress leaders was not on the issue of Khilafat hut un the programme of the Non Cooperation Movcmel1l. especia lly tin the question o f boycott of e lections. tn lhe 1920 manife sto of the Congress Democrati c Party that Tilak drafted. ~u ppurt fur the Khilafat was clearly and unambiguou sly stated.

Page 36

"Gandhiji ' s emphasis on Swodeshi did not find fa vour With linnah from the very beginning ." .

This is incorrect. linnah 's difference~ with GandhI In the early Siages were related to the laller's attempt 10 convert the national movement into a mass movement , and (0 re .~on to Nvn­cooperation .

Page 36

"Thiru Vi Ka supponed four-month long strike al the Buckingham and Carnalic textiles mi ll s."

The full name Thiru V. Kalyansu ndarar Muualiar shou ld be given . and not just the initials .

Page 36

"The British gesture of revising the Treaty ofSevres (May 192U) in favour of Tu rkey considerably mollified the Indian Muslims. But the subsequent abolition of the institution of Khilafm by Ihe Thrki~h revolutionaries under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha weakened the whole Khilafal Movement. The Muslim fervour for agitation died and they withdrew from the Non­Cooperation Movement. '·

The whole parag raph is based on demonstrably false statements. The Non-cooperation Movement was withdrawn on 12 February 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident by Gandhiji. and thi s had nothing to do with any supposed withdrawal of Muslims from the Non-Cooperation Movement. The Treaty of

114 Index oj Erron,'

Laussane by w hich the Treaty of Sevrcs was re vised - an act which is supposed to have "mollified" Mus lims - came on ly in J 92J. more than a year after the wi thd rawa l of Non-Cooperalion and only after spec-lacular mi l itary successes of-the Turks in Augu st­September 1922. The K hil afat was abolished by Republican Turkey' in 1924. How could a ll these later events ha ve impl!lled Musl ims (0 wi thdraw from the Non-Cooperalion Movement? Actually. there is OQt a sh red of ev idence of such withdrawa l.

Onccan onl y explain such invenlions. runnin g againSt the si mple force of chronology, as based on a simple in sat iable bias . Th i"s a lso leads Har' Om to overlook the role of major KhiJafu\ leaders such as Mohammad Al i, Shaukat A li and Hakim Ajmal K han . The young readers are not even told that HlIs rat Mohani moved a resolution at the 1921 session of the Congress that Swa raj be defined as Complete Independence, a position which anticipated the posit ion the Congress was forma lly to adopt nine yeurs later.

Page 36

"However, the participation of the Mu s lim s firecLby' a religious fervour gave the Movement [ N~n-cooperation Movement\a new

_vigour and aggressiveness. At the same time, the outburst of this religious zeal in Malabar, in the form of Mop/all riots on (sic!) ag rarian/tenancy problems . .. resulted into a (sic!) large scale conversions and murder of Hindu s."

The author he re tries to link the Moplah (Mappila) riOts and the "m!lrder of Hindus" with the Muslim support to Khilafat. the a lleged 'religious fervour ' generated by the lauer taking Ihe for m of r iots in Moplah territqry. Thi s is far-fetched and tendentious. If religious fervour among M uslims was to inevitably lead to riots it is strange that the author never finds any li nk between Hindu rel igious fervour and riots! The Khilafat and the Mappi la rebellion were indeed linked though not on religiou s grounds bul as a result o r the Khilafal movement closely iden tifying with the cause o f the Mappila tenants against landlord oppress ion. Often Khilafat meeti ngs and the tenants' meetin gs merged . Hari Om also has no word a l a ll for the brutal way in which the uprising wa~ s uppressed, w ith su mmary executi ons: 2,337 Mappila s we re ofricially reported k,ill ed; unofricial estimates look Ihe numbe r 10 10.000.

Page 36 "This phase also witnessed a spate of Hindu-Muslim rims all over the country from Kohal to Ca lcutta ,"

Contemporary I"dia (Class IX) 115

This is factually wrong.IJ"This phase" refers 10 the Non­cooperati on days (1920-22) and the Moplah riots (192 I). the coun try was by and large remarkably free of riots in this peri od. The phase of riots was after the Non-cooperation Movement was c:OUed off, i. e" from 1923 to 1926-27, and this, therefore. l'(lu ld have had no role to play in the alleged detaching. of "Mus lin1 :> from the Non-Cooperation Movement", stated to be the aim of "British diplomacy" in the preceding sentence: Incident.'ll ly, tha t sentence is both id iom atically and gramnlatical1y defective ("work in g in (sic) deepening th e dissentiolls and detach the Muslims", e tc.)

II is significant th ai while all observers. incl uding British offic ial s. were impressed by Ihe s igh t of Hin.du-Muslim unity displayed in the Non-cooperation Movement. Hari Om.nar.ps ;ln ly un the "aggressiveness" that Muslim participation lent 10· the Movement, and o n the riots that actually belonged 10 .the post­Non-Cooperation period.

Page 38

Chapter 5 "Struggle for Swaraj and British Techniques"

The tttle is thoughtlessly framed. ;'8rit ish Tec hniques" seems an. awkward way of say ing " British Tactics", which to\) woul'd be hardly suitable here .

Page 38

"But the debate continued between the ' changers' led by IC.R. ,) Das and ' no-changers' led by C. Rajagopalachari ."

The Swarajists led by C.R. Das we re actually ca lled " Pro­changers". The word "Changers" for them has been co ined apparently by Hari Om himse lf.

Page 38·39 The names of Ramprasad Bismil and Rajcndranath Lahi1't

are repeatedly misspell as Ramprasad 8ismal and Rajendranath Lahri. The revoluti onary Roshan Singh tS referred to as Roshan Lal .

Page 38

"The result was the estab li shment of the Hindusllln Republican Associa tion at Kanpur in October 1924 under the inspiration of Chandrashekhar Azad .'·

116 lruiex of Errors

This is incorrect. The Hindustan Republican Assoc ialion (HRA) was no t estab li shed in 1924 unde r lhe inspiration of C hand rashekhar Azad but was eSlablished under the leadership of older revoluti onaries like Ramprasad 8 ismi!. Jogesh Chatterjee an d Sac hindranath Sanyn l.

It was the Hl nd uSlan Socialist Republic:.n p,.. rmy (HSRA). which was formed in Sepiemberl92R under the leader~hip of C hand rashek har Azad, Bhagal Singh and others. The author with his clear hostility towards the vcry concepl of socialism has In facL not even mentioned this major event of the HRA being lranst:ormed into the HSRA , whereby the revolu \lQnarie~ now adoptcd socia lism as their officia l goa l. SOme of the Inlles! among the n:voJutionaries like Bhagal SlIIgh and B.K , Sinha had openly proclaimed their transifion from the cult of the bomb and individual heroic acts to the creed of socialism :lnd anli-l 'npena)lsl ma )s sCli on.

Page 38

"On Augusl 6,1925, for instance, these revolutlonanes under Ihe leadersh ip of Rampras:ad Bismlll (.lifo) successfully der:a lled a Inlln near Kakori railway Siall on ... TillS incident was ~nown as the " Kakori Conspiracy Case' ,"

Bi5mi l and his colleagues did not de rail the tmin bUI pulled the chain to stop it. They cared for the lives of passengers .. Kakori Conspiracy Case' referred to their subsequent tn al. not the incideOl itself.

Page 39

"The Congress under the Presidenlship of Dr. M.A. Ansan demanded complele indc;>e-ndence in 1927"

Had Om fails to menlio n that the ;" independence" resolution in 1927 was the work of lawaharlal Nehru . "Complete ' independence" (puma swam) was finally adopted as it's goal by the Congress al Lahore in December 1929.

Page 39

" Ho\,Ycver the attitude of the Punjab Unio~i sts led by S ik andar Hayoe Khan , .. was somewhat different"

It is strange that only some Muslims are mentioned as cooperating with the Simon Commission. The Hindu Mahasabha (Jed by Bhai Parmanand) and 8 .R_ Am bedkar. who also did so,

Contemporary India (Cla,u IX) 117

arc overluoked. This is lende ntiou sne!,s with II vengeance .

Page 40

"The British repression and the death of Lala LaJPal Rai on 11 November 1928 did not demoralize the. [ndian~. On the t:ontr:aI"Y. they decided to give a new orientation to the freedom struggle . Re.volutionaries like Sardar Bhagal Singh anQ R:.jguru even went to the extent of avenging the. death of Lain Lajpat Rai an ll ki lieu a British officer, John Saunders."

The "new onenlation to the freedom struggle" referred to by the authors was not born out o f the need for avenging of the death of Lajpat Rai . Such acts of violence had been happening ever s ince the Chapek:u brothers killed Rand in U~97. The nc.w o rientation lay in the revolutionaries now adopting SQ\: i3li sm and the strategy of mass mobilisation against imperiali sm a~ their goa l .. nd in their st rong critique or communali sm.

Pages 40~41

"The Parting of Ways"

··However. Mohammad Ali Jinn(lh .... rejected the I Motilal Nehru I report ... Thereafter, hejoined the Mohammad Shafi group, which s tood for two--nation theory. The Congress, the Hindu Mahasahlm and other members or the AII·Party Conrerence regarded all the demands of Jinnah (as] communa l, divisive and harmful for (he cou ntry. Some of the demands of Jinnah included one· , h,rd representation to the Muslim s in the Centra l Assembly. representation to the Muslims in proportion to their population In Punjab and Bengal , and creation of three new Muslim-majority provinces (Si nd, Baluchistan and North-West ~rontier Province )."

The Shafi·led Muslim League stood as much for the Two Nation Theory as the Hindu Mahasabha (with its slogu'1 "Hindu­Hlndi · Hindustan") and the RSS ("Hindu Raj "). Much for the reason of rejection of Jinnah's proposals lay in the intransigence of the Hindu Mahasabha, which rejected Muslim representation proportionate to population in Bengal and the Punjab as well as the creation of the three new Provinces, wh.ich had fuJI linguistic justification and whose creation was accepted by the Congress at Karachi In 1931. Tej Bahadur Sapru . the Liberal leader, argued against the rejection or Jinnah's proposals. The heading "Parting of Ways" (Ji nnah 's depiction of the break) is especiallY ironic. s ince the Hindu Mahasabha !OO deserted the Congress at the same

Index. of Errors

lime and refused to join it eithe r in the ' Civil Disobedience Movement o r in the boycott of the First Round Table Conference. Indeed, allhe lattef Conference in 1930 its leaders happil y rubhed shoulde rs with those of the Mu slim League . These fi~t: I S are. of course, conveniently overlooked by Hari Om,

Page 41

"Aga Khan and Ali Brothers gave their full support to Jinnah and promoted the pOlitics of separatism."

It is characteristic thatlhe "Ali Brothers" (docs Hari Om expec ts. a ll boys and girls 10 know beforehand that by these words he means Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali?) are brought in on ly when they are to be censured. A veil is drawn over Ih«ir earlier contribut ions to the Freedom Movement that are 110t simply mentioned, Nor docs the author care to mention the oppositIon 10 the Muslim League from the large group that came to be known as NationaliS I Mu slims .

Page 42

"llie Civil Disobedience Movement started by the Congres.~ under the leadership of Gandhiji to achieve Puma Swaraj was differem from the Non~cooperation Movemenl. It s goal and methods to ach ieve it were different. Th e goa l this time was compl e te independence. It was to be achieved by breaking the law."

This is too simplistic. The differences were neifher in goals or methods but in the wider reach of the movement and in the more effective use of certain methods and better implcmcnllition of programmes. Purna Swaraj had been adopted in J 929 as the goa l of the Congress. It was nOI in actual fact the immediate goa l of the C ivi l disobedience Movement. Gandhiji had put forward , hi s famous II demands before launchlng the move ment in 1930. and Puma Swaraj was not one of them.

Besides, breaking o r the law or Civi l disobedience was used as a weapon or stru ggle in the Non-cooperation Movement as well. Banned literature was sold in derianceof law, local taxes as well as land revenue were not paid in some-areas such as Andhra. The sca le or civ il disobedience was much bigger in the 1930-32 movement but it was by no means new.

Page 43

"The Palhan Muslims of North-West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan) under Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan . a disciple ofGandhiji.

Contemporary Illdia (Cum .IX) 119

made the (sic) things very difficult for the Briti sh." There is unnecessary and excessive concern here with

re li g ious iden tificati on: so not s impl y "Palhans" but "Pathan Muslims"; and one similarly reads below in the same page o f "Hindu so ldiers of the Garhwal Rifles." Moreover, 10 desc ribe Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan as "a disc iple of Gandhiji " is not very accurate, He 'had deve loped the Khudai Khidmargar organisation on hi s own and then establ ished links with the Congress in 1929 and 1930. Hi s position as a close associate of Ga ndhiji and I awaharlal Nehru developed thereafter, Had Om overlooks entire ly th e remarkab le nature of the Khudai Khidmatgar move me n I.

PageA.4

"Communalisation th['ough Constitutional Process"

The paragraph with the above heading has nothing about thi s theme at all.

Page 44

.• . , ' Lord Irwin, Governor - General of India, made serious errOl'lS in early 1931 to ensure the Congress part icipa ti on in the Second Round Table Conference. It was a strategic move to trup Gandhiji and snatch from his hands the who le po litical initiative. As a resul\ the Gandhi- Irwin Pact was signed."

Much controversy and debate centres on the Gandhi -Irwin Pact. But to see the Pact as a trap laid by the BritI sh to lUke the politica l initiative out of Gandhi 's hands (a trap an un.suspctting Gand hi supposed ly walked into) is an over-simp le exrlanat io n. The Pact which for the first time put the Congress on an equal footing with the Government was seen by the British as a major concess ion wrenched by Gandhi and the Indian national_move ment. The Indian people too gene rally saw it as a viccory ove r the British government , though some of the younger leaders o f the Congress were disappointed at the temporary pause in the ma:.s movemenL.

Page 44

"Gandhiji tried hi s best to persuade these [mino rit yl groups n(lt to make a demand for separ3.tc e lectorate but failed. Hence GHnd hij i returned to India, and revived the Civil Di sobedience Movcmenl. ··

The main reason ror Ga ndhij i·s di sappointment was ove r the British Governm ent's failure to promise any subslamial gran I of self-government to India at the Second Round Table Conference.

120 Index of Errors

and not just over the issue of scp:lTatc electorates. If Gandhiji wis hed all Indians (Including Hindu communal leaders) tu speak wi th one voice. thi s was owing to his desire nOI to' al low the Brili ~ h Government to exploit their differences in order to rejet.:1 the principal nationalist demand for se lf· rule .

Page .as "The period after 1930 also witnessed the growth of trade union ~

and peasant activities •. .. " The author gives a most cursory treatment 10 trade union

and peasant movements in th is paragraph. Also. he does not even mention imporlatll deve lopments in Ihis sphere before 1930 ~ut'h as the Kisan Sabha Movement in UP during the peri od 1918-22, the Bardoli peasants ' struggle (J 928). the establishment of (he Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association by Gandhiji in 191~. the launchmg of the All India Trade Union Congress in 1920 umler the Icadership of Tilak, Lajpat Rai etc" and the emergence ot' a powerfullrade union movement in the lale 1920s culminating in the siJl month long general strike by lCJl lile workers In Bombay led by the Cimi Kamgar Union, a development which became a major cause of concern for the British.

It may also be menlioned here that Hari Om totally ignurc.s the early hislo ry of the Communist Part y which was so ..olmeJy bound up wilh the rise of the peasant and work.ng-clus'l movements . The Bri tish persecu ti on of the Communists (t he Peshawar. Kanpur. and Mecrut Consp iracy cases cuming. In

succession in the 1920s) is a lso passed over in si lence .

Pages 44-45 A very serious omission in Had Om's treatment or the

events of 193 I is a total absence of reference to the Karachi sessio n o r the Congress where the Gandhi- Irwin Pact was ratified . A ITItljur product of th at session was the Resolution on Fundamental Rights (later known as the Karachi Resolution) which hccame an embryonic Constitution and Programnte of the fuLUre Free India. Its democratic and secular chsract<!r needs 10 b¢ und erlined. Su..:.h 3. document, it would seem. has nil place in the NCERT ' ~ new saffron ised History.

Page 46 "Some of the popular leaders and publ ic spirited persons who had played an important ro le in princely Siaies were Sewa Singh

Contemporary India (C/au IX) 121

(Punjab ), Sarangadhar Dns (O rissa). Balwant Ral Mehta and Jam nalal Bajaj (Gujarat) and Manikya Lal Yenna and Vijay Singh Path ak Isic! P atik] (Rajasthan) a nd Ramananda TH th a tHyde rabadl."

One mi sses here the nam e of the most promincnt o f the state people's leaders , Shaikh Abd ull ah. founder and leader oflhe Jammu and Kashmir National Conference. This i~ all the more object ionable, since Hari am on the same page slngles Out for praIse, the regime of Han Singh, the ruler of Jammu and Kashm ir, which knew o f no de mocratic ri ghts and supp ressed oppos ition with draconian measures.

Page 48

"Jinnah called the Mu slim Leag ue sessIOn in 1937 at Lucknow. where he dubbed the Congress rule tiS th e HiruJu rul .... llnd

deno un ced the Congress as a fasc ist party. He aho d·ubhct.l Mahatma Gandhi as a Hindu revivalist:'

Once again. Hari Om has given a long dcscripllon (It

Jinnah and the Muslim League's attack on the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi but characteristically railed to mCnli on thul the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha and th eir leadcrs Golwalkur and Savarkar a lso attack.ed the Congress and Gandhiji in Ihe same manner except that they accused them of being pro·M uslim nnd anli·Hl ndo_

Page SO

"This war [World War III was conduc ted on Imperialisl lines and was meant to consolidate im peri al ism in India and elsewherc"

Does Hari Om mean 10 say th at Britain wenl 10 war with Germany to consolidate ils ow n control over India? Hi s is, indeed, a strange explanation o f the Second World War, which docs not even mention the struggle against fascism . The author 'S dis like for socia li sm is matched only by his sympathetic altitude loward:­rasclsm.

l'age SO

" It (the Muslim League Sessio n or 1940) was presided over hy linnah . Addressing his rollowers_ Jinnah said that that Ihe Hi ndu ~

and the Muslims were 'two distinct nations' and thUllheir -inlercsb were not common'."

122 Index of Errors

In keeping with the author's practice of repeatedly holding the Muslim League as so lely re s pon sib l.e for sp reading com munalism in Indi a llnd not even mentioning the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS, here again he fail~ to mention that Savarlar, the Hindu Mahasabha leader, had propagated the two-nation theory in 1937 much ~fore Jin nah, and thai in 1943 he sa id, "1 have no quarre l with Mr. Jinnah's two nation theory. We Hindus are a nat ion by ourse lves and it is a hi storical fact that Hindus and Muslims arc two nations."

Pages 50-51

'; Howeve r, what'was most distu rbing was the Pakistan reso luti on . .. adopted on 23 Marc h 1940. This resolution demanded a sove rei gn and independent Pakistan for the Muslims. According to it, all the Muslims-majority areas in the North-WeSler~ and Nort h-Eastern regions of India would form Pak istan . These areas were North-West Frontier Province, Sind. Baluchistan. Punjab and Bengal. "

Har' Om see ms not to have read the Lahore resol uti on. If' he does so, he would find that it talked onl y of the Muslim majorit)" areas forming "independent states" (in the plural). Also, speCific arcas such as North-West Frontier Province, Si nd, Baluchistan , e tc .• arc not mentioned in it, nor is the name " Paki stan" found in it.

Page 51

"The immediate result of the Pakistan Resolution was It ch:.tnge III the attitude of the Congress to the Dritish as well as Ihe Indian co ntri butio n to the war."

There was no ch:mge in the Cong ress alti tud e to the war. immedi ate or otherwise, as a result of thc Lahore Resolution or March 1940. Rig ht through Apri l 8nJ May of 1940 s:ltyagraha co mmittees co ntinu ed to be formed. It was on ly the reve rses surrered by the Allies. such as the coll apse-or Fr:IhC\.' ill June. 1940. the possible defeat of Britain and the panic generated about th e securi ty of [ndia, which led a sectIOn or the Congress lendersill p to argue in July 1940 that conditional cooperation should bc offered by the Congrcss to the war effort.

Page 51

··August Offer (1940)

" You have already rcad that lndia had rcfu~ed It) heIr th\7.

Contemporary India (Class IX) 123

Briti sh in the war" What about the Hindu Mahasabha and the Mu slim Leagu e

both of which supported the British War EtTon and coope rated with British Government1 Were the communal parties. Hindu and Muslim , who fully cooperated. not a part o f Indi;l ? It wo uld be corTect to s ay. ' the Congress haa refused to help in the war'.

Page 52

"'vinoba Shave was the first 'Satyagrahi' [in the Individual Sataygraha movement]. who came to a public place and opposed (he war. He was arrested. Thereafter the government arrested and jailed about 30,000 Satyagrahis ror s imilar reaso ns. These al so included some important Congress leaders like Saojini Naidu . Aruna Asar Ali. C. Rajagopalachari and Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din ."

The author's c lear bias against Jawaharlal Nehru is evident here. Nehru who was the second Satyagrahi after Vinoba Bha'Ve does not get a mention either among the "i mponant Congress leaders" or even among the 30.000 oth er Satyagrahi s arrested and jailed!

Page 52

"The e ntry of lapan into the war and the successes it achieved again st England in the early stages of (he war cha nged the 'whole s ituation . Encouraged, the Indians decided to use this opportuni ty to do away with the Briti sh rule and achieve freedom ,"

This is incorrect. Worry was expressed in lndia' after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, in ei!rly 1942 (note. not in ' the early stages of the war ') that thi s coul d be her fate as well and that the Japanese might replace the British as still worse co loni al masters. Presenting Japanese success as an "encouragement ' to the Ind ians is to first as sume that Indian nationali s ts were nOl c ritic.al of the Japanese fascist and imperial ist designs. Second, it is an indirect way of saying that Subhash Bose 's pos iti on with regard to cooporation wit h the Japanese was shared by other sections of the nationalist leadership, which was not at all the case,

Page 53

';The failure of the of the vario us reform schemes. the utmos t e mphasis of the British Government on communali sm and the bitter campaign of the MU'slim League agai nst the Cong ress and the Hindus provoked the Congress to adopt more radical methods to achieve swaraj. [i.e .• launch the Quit India movement}"

124 Ind~x of Errors

The factors here mentioned for the Quit-India Resolution are ridiculous jn lhe extreme. The Muslim League's campaign against "the Congress and the Hindus" had nothing to do with il. It was not also "the failure of the various reform schemes", but the refusal oflhe Briti sh to transfer power 10 the Indian people - a far more substanti ve issue as is made amp ly clear by the ALeC's resolution itself. There was a threallo India from Ihe Axis Powers (Germany Italy and Japan), and it was thiS which lent urgency to the demand that a free India should confront the~.

Pale 54

"The Indian Communists and followers of Jinnah were perhaps the only -political elements who did nOI support such a strong and widespread movement (the Quit India movement] . The Mu slim League eveD went to the extent of offering cooperation to the government on the conditions lhat the Briti sh authorities wou ld divide India on communal lines and finally quit. As for Ihe Indi an Communists . they gave their full support to the League's views and British war efforts. They blindly supported Russia. ignori ng the interests of the Indians and their fight against Briti sh ·colonialism ...

The paragraph is largely factually wrong and illu strati ve of the author's partisanship. I) While accusing the Comm"llnisls and the Muslim Leagueofnot supporting the Quit-India movement Hari Om makes no mention of the fact thai the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha as well as B.R. Ambedkar and his followers also stayed away from the movement. 2) In the second sentence the Muslim League is accused o f offering cooperation to the British government bui no mention is made of the faci that the Hindu Mahasabha did the same. In faci the Hindu Mahasabha even cooperated with the League in forming provincial governments in that period . Savarkar while Offering cooperation to the Briti sh government expressed satisfaction at the British suppression o f the Congress. which was seen as the main enemy. Ambedkar accepted a position on the Viceregal Council. 3) The Communists did not give "their full support to the League's views". The conditional support of the Communists fc~ the war effort during the Quit·India movement was for reasons completely different from those of the League or the Mahasabha, being explicitly designed to strengthen the fight against fascism, an objective whh:h was shared by the Indian nationalists including Gandhi and Nehru. Their support did not arise out of the inevitable loyali sm' of the

COlltemporalY India (C/o.Sl· IX) 125

comm un al parties, which saw the secular Congress and the 'Other ' communi ty as their chief enemies . 4) While here accusing the Communists of ignoring the anti-colonial struggle. Hari Om. as previously noted, has nowhere referred to Communists' active participation in the Freedom struggle ri ght from the 1920s. They acti vely participated in the Satyag raha of 1940, and, u~lik:e lhe leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha an~ other commun al pari ies, most of lheir leaders were sti ll in jail in 194 1-42 .

Page 55

.. According to an e minent hi storian S.N. Sen .• II was V.D. Savarkar who on 22 June 1940 advised Bose to leave India, organise the Indian froces and invade British India as soon as possible ."

This claim on behalf of Savark ar hus no basis. Bose had met both .Jinnah and Savarkar at this time, and was dissati sfied with the responses of both of them with regard to India's struggle in the contex t of the war (Subhas Bose. Indian Struggle. 1920-42, pp.343-4. cited by Leonard A. Gordon. Brothers Against th e Raj. New York. 1990, p,4 10). The advice would in any case ha ve appeared hypocritical comi ng from the lips of fa man who was proclaiming all the time his support of the Briti sh and their War Effort.

Page 55

"He [Subhas Bose) travel Jed secret ly through Peshawar and Russia in disguise and reached Berlin (Germany) on 28 March 1942".

Since Germany attacked the Sov iet Union in June 19~ I I Subhas Bose could not possibly have crossed from Russia into Germ any in 1942! He in fact arrived in Berli n by plane from Moscow early in April 1941.

Page 5S

"The Indian Nation and the At.ad Hind Fou l. suffered a great setback in August 1945 (when Bose was reponedly killed in a cras h) ."

"A2.ad Hind Fauj" is the correct spelling - FQlI" is sheer illiteracy.

Page S5

"Thei r (INA prisoners' ] sentences, however, were..remine'd. The­British aulhorilies had to do so in view of the mass ive harw/sj

126 Index of ErnUl'

.strikes and protests organised by the agitated Indians, purtlcuJarly the students, against the trial."

The author's bias again comes through. No mention is here made of Congres's support to the defence of the INA accused or o'f . Nehru who in a dramatic gesture once again put on ~arri s ter' s

robes to argue in favour of the accused. The Muslim League also demanded the freeing of the INA accused .

Page SS·S6

"This upri s ing [RIN mutiny] fesulled in clashes between the naval ratings and the British troops and the death of no les!'> than 300 people il} Bombay"

The British troops actually clashed with the people of Bombay who went on a general strike on 22 February 1946 ill

support of the ratings. Over 250 people were killed.

Page 56

"Lord Wavell and Congress leaders did try to persuade the Muslim Leagti'e...to see reason, but failed. Consequently, Wave!! announced that the ~imla Conference had failed."

Wavell could have bypassed the League and gone ahead with the Congress rather than declaring the COnference a failure. The author repeatedly highlights Muslim League intrans igence but fails to mention the British role in bolstering the position of the League by giving it a virtual veto in any constitutional or political settlement.

Page 57

"The announcement of the Mountbatten Plan led to more riots . The bitterness created by the Muslim League produced dangerous results. The common people were subjected to senseless brutalities. Nearly five lakh people died and millions lost their home s and hearths. Gandhiji and other leaders, who had fought for the Hindu­Muslim unity, were the most disillusioned persons, They did try their best 10 control the situation, but with lillie success,"

Here again the ro le of the Muslim League in creati ng bit~erness leading to senseless killings of lakhs of people is highlighted. but no mention is made of the identical role played by Hindu communal oraganisations like the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha in promoting killings of an equal number of !"fuslims,

Gandhi and tbe other leaders who fought for Hindu-

COllumporary India (Class IX) 127

Muslim unity were not "d isi llusioned" with the nOlion of Hindu ­Muslim unit y but, as Gandhiji in parliclilar st res sed , th e disi llusionment was with bOlh Hindu and Muslim communalist s who created such mutual bitterness. Also. despite th e disillusionment Gandhi was still optimislic that (I hurhal1e and secu lar society of his dreams could be built.

It is wrong to say that Gandhi and other secular leader~ who fought for Hindu-Muslim unity tried "their best {O control the situation, but with little success." Despite the hatred ge nerated by the Hindu and Muslim communal forces :mass "il lings and the large mass migrations caused by religious hostility. Gandhiji went on with his campaign against violence: in NoakhalL ill Calcutla and then, finally, in Delhi, where his hunger strike in Janu ary 1948 had dramatic consequences. Both Neh ru and Sardar Palel used strong government action to maintain law and order. Hari am characteristically gives no desc ri ption of Gandhij i ' 5 epic effort in this phase..

Page 57

.. Gandhijj's efforts to bring peace and harmo ny in society came to a sudden and tragic end due to hi s assassination by Nathuram Godse on January 30 1948, in Del hi wh ile Gandhiji W.ll S on hi s way to attend a prayer meeting."

In its first ed ition this textbook did nul even men lion the fact that Gandhiji was assassinated. The author. in the reprint edi tion, has added the above bare. sentence. No mention is still made of who Godse was, and of Ins strong. lin ks with the Hindu co mmun al forces . with the Hindu Mahasab ha and it s leade. Savarkar. Sardar Patel, the then home minister, wrote to Nehru on 27 February 1948, .. It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that (hatched] the conspiracy and saw it through" .

Page 59

"As far as Jammu and Kashmir State was concerned, it was represented by her Prime Minislr, She ikh Abdu ll ah and, Ids nominees. This was done at the behest of Jawaharla l Nehru .. . Several melJlbers of thi Constituent Assembly opposed him {Nehru?]."

This singling out of Jammu and Kashmir out of all the princely states is again in line with the communal bias of the book. When the state had held no-elections, who wa'S to represent it '?

128 Indv: of Errors

Only nomi nees of Maharaja Hari Singh, and nol popular leader:. like Shaikh Abdullah? There was thus no occasion for "several members of the Consti tuent Assembly" 10 oppose nominations from the State Government. headed by Shaikh Abdullah

Page 59

"Their [Constitution - makers '] foremost job was to ensure the integrity of country taking imo aceD/UII the prese"c~ of Paki.HlIn within India herself." .

The italicised portion of the sente nce (prudent ly deleted in the. reprint edition) opens yet another window to tile mind of those entrusted by NCERT to write Hi story books for our schools. The obnoxious statement on ly makes expl icit what IS implicit throug ho ut Hari Om's text : Muslims do not love Ihis cou ntry. and thu s have been and are di s loyal.

Pnge 59

"The sources of the Conuitution are based on the At:l of 1935 " Is the Consti tutiOn or aTC its sources based on the Act u t

1935, elc.?

Pages 59-60

..... leaders and thin k-tanks like Sardar VaJlabhbhai Palel and v.P. Menon."

One has not heard of ~i ng l e perSons as ·'think-tanks." BUI

one li ves and leams.

Page 60

'·Pro-I ndia movements were already going on in the stBtes like Hyderabad. Junagarh, Nilgiri and Taleher."

Strange ly. the most powerful of the Slat e peop le·oS moveme nts, that of Shaikh Abdullah's NatIonal Conference in Jammu and Kashmir (with its Quit-Kashmir agitation AgI.llnst Dogra rule ( 1946-47), is excluded from this li st of "Pro- Indi a" movements, though it was strongly supported by the Congress leadership. and opposed by the Muslim League. A blatant communal bias is again shown here by the author.

l~age 60

"The Pakistan agg ression an Jammu and Kashmir resu lted In her accession to India o n 26 October 1947."

Conlt'mporary India (Class IX) 129

Had Om does not let his readers know why hi s favourite ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Had Singh, d id nor sign the Instrument of Accession on 15 August 1947. And he keep.s en tirely silent over the role of the National Conference in facilitating the accession and defending Kashmir from the Pakistani raiders.

Page 60

" Hyderabad -and Junagarh were the only states which poseu some problems. These were the (sic) Hindu majority states with Muslim rulers."

The statement invokes a principle which is no different from that raised on behalf of Pakistan in the case of Jammu and Kashnlir: a majority Muslim state with a Hindu ruler. How closely do [he two communal points of view coincide with each other!

Page 60

"The integration of these states [Hyderabad and JunagarhJ with the country could be acnieved with Sardar Patel's skillful strategy."

The author seems unnecessarily embarrassed about mentioning the 'Po lice Action' against Hyderabad here, which. ' of course. necessitated the use not only of Patel's '·strategy". but also Jawaharlal Nehru's decision to use force .

Page 61

"Integration of Goa

" . . , The most notable achievements were the capture· of Dadro on 22 July [1954) and Nagar Haveli shortly thereafter by the volunteers of 'Free Goa' movement backed by the lana Sangh and the Goa People's Party ."

The two small Portuguese enclaves being surrounded on all sides by Indian territory. their occupation hardly constituted "most notable" achievements. and 8re mentioned probably simply to let Hari Om single out the Jan Sangh for receiving credit for it. On the other hand. there is not a word about the movement led by D.r Tristao Braganza Cunha (1891-58), who in 1928 founded the Goa Congress and suffered constant persecution and imprisonment. Another instance of anti-Christian bias?

Page 62

"Foreign Relations" Under this section of the chapter " Democratic Republic" , the

130 Index of Errors

author manages 10 omit any mention of the fonnation of (he famous policy of Non-Alignment and the Five Principles (P(mc/rshul) formulated by Jawaharlal Nehru or of the liberation of Bangladesh achieved in t 971 under Indira Gandhi. The partisan motive behind such omissions is obvious.

I'age 163

"This event (II September 200 1 incident in New York] has changed the whole world and has virtually prompted the United States [0 join hands with [ndia in her fight against terrori sm."

In the first edition the cred it for changi ng the whole world was given 10 "OSama Bin Laden and similar other persons"! The change in the world itself apparently conSIsts of US and India coming IOgether in the war agai nst terrorism. It is another mailer th at the US hardl y saw India as a key ally in its invasion of Afghanistan, and the Indian Parliament alleaSI fortnally cril i(.;i sed Ihe US invasion of Iraq. the second major US ent erprIse in the name of fighting "Islamic terror."

I Contd. from back coyer I

FAVOURITE OF MANY EMPEROKS WIVES?

"Thc new quecn INur Jahan I bccamc Ihe 1'," Olll'ile QLthc Empcors' \\'ivcs" (ibid" p. 1(2). . " "

INDIAN PEOPLE OR "FREE LOOTERS"

"Soon Indi;1 became a land of frec looters" . (Hari Om. Textbook for .. Clas~ lX. lsI. cd" p. 1 ~ 1

, ''I h', , ,.' LOGIC "These led to the passing of the Religiolls Disabililies Act (1851). Ihc Widow Relllarringe Act (1856) and largc scale unemplo),mcnl

of Indians" (ibid ., p.15).

CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE!

" Lord (?urzon cllcn went to tJ~ cxtcnl of ~"yillg Ihal Ihe people of India were ' the peasants whose lire ,,,IS nol olle of polilical aspiration' . This IllId a tremendous impact on Ihe Indian freedom slrugglc" (ibid. , p.22).

, .... .., .1

J '

STARTLING "TRUTHS" FROM THE NEW NCERT HISTORY

TEXTBOOKS

"CIVILIZATION" IN THE STONE AGE

..... Indian Civilization which has an unbroken history of about 8000 years, i.e. from neolithic times" (Makkhan Lal, Textbook for Class VI, p.S8)

WHEEL IN THE HANDLOOM

"The discovery of the wheel made a significant difference. It was also used to spin cotton and wool and weave cloth" (ibid., pp.S4-SS)

SHAKING HANDS WITH RAVANA

"From the days of Ramayana India had close links with Sri Lanka" (ibid., p.130)

THE INDIANIHINDU RACE

"Thus the descendants of Bharala came to be known as Indians or Hindus" (Makkhan Lal, Textbook for Class XI, p.32).

THE GOOD SECTARIANS

"Sectarianism is thus an aid to nationalism in Hindu culture" (ibid., p.34).

WE ONCE KNEW EVERYTHING (AND THEN FORGOT EVERYTHING?)

"The Zero was known in Rigvedic times itself (sic!) ... Also the positional value of each number with its absolute value was known ... they also knew that the earth moved on its axis and around the sun" (ibid., p.l 00).

REGRETTABLE LOSS OF MEMORY

"The new Islamic identity became so pervasive that all traces of pre-Islamic forms were erased from public memory ... the Egyptian converts, who even forgot their Pharaohs" (Meenakshi Jain, Textbook for Class XI, p.121).

[Conld. on inside cover]