Shivaji as a Hindu Counterpart of Aurangzeb ─ How Indian History Gets Distorted

 

Shivaji as a Hindu Counterpart of Aurangzeb

How Indian History Gets Distorted

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

The writing of Indian history in the last over a century, and particularly after 1947, has been almost totally a continuous, sustained, committed and perfectly coordinated exercise in what we could call "Painting Black as White and Painting White as Black", where ideology rules and facts and data are irrelevant, completely controlled by the leftist and "secular" "historians", and fully backed by a formidable phalanx of Indian and international anti-Hindu and anti-Indian vested interest groups. 

A reader of my last blog sent me an article on Shivaji, which asks whether Shivaji was a "Hero, Tyrant or just another king", "examines" the evidence, and finds that "Indian history is a big, ugly world. Almost all rulers and social groups served their own whims and fancies. And almost all of them murdered political opponents and pillaged civilian populations for that was the tool of mass punishment then (as it is now). Invasions, looting and burning down of religious places were motivated by the desire for power and political gains and rulers hardly cared for the religious affiliations of the affected. The armies led by many rulers in India- Ashoka, Babur, Aurangazeb, Shivaji, Peshwas, Tipu Sultan, the Mysore Wodeyars etc committed excesses on civilians - both people of their own faith as well as the others": in short, that Shivaji and Aurangzeb (and all other rulers, of course) were birds of the same feather, and that both must be looked at merely as more-or-less  mirror-image versions of each other:

https://historyofmysuru.blogspot.com/2017/12/hero-tyrant-or-just-another-king_26.html?m=1

The writer of this article also has a moral for us: "To fight, die or spread hatred over what happened centuries ago is only going to take any society centuries back. To move forward, nations need to learn from history not to repeat mistakes which historical figures committed". Unfortunately, Here he displays a rather naïve attitude to misrepresent the case:

(a) It is Islam which teaches its followers to "fight, die or spread hatred", and it is this philosophy which led to "what happened centuries ago". Hindus would gladly ignore these things, but unfortunately it is not "what happened centuries ago" which makes them remember these things, but the fact that this philosophy of hatred is still functioning as strong as ever, even though under various constraints and restrictions of modern times, and these things are still happening today.

(b) In these circumstances, his advice to Indians, that "to move forward, nations need to learn from history not to repeat mistakes which historical figures committed", is extremely apt, but it is not helped by the fact that it is articles like his own present article which muddy the waters, so far as learning historical lessons is concerned, and try to obfuscate the facts and the issues, by painting black as white and white as black, or by tying to drag both the sides to a neutral grey.

This whole gigantic exercise, of trying to whitewash the historical crimes of Islam in India, and at the same time to blacken the Hindu side, has been exposed in great detail, with data, statistics, and relevant quotations, by Voice of India books: e.g. "The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India" and "Hindu Temples - What Happened to them (Volumes I and II)" by Sita Ram Goel, and "Negationism in India" by Koenraad Elst, to name just the most brilliant books in this genre.

 

That this article is a part of that same propagandist literature which relies on half-truths and lies to make its case is evident on several counts:

1. The writer claims to be a person who was initially a great admirer of Shivaji, and believed in what his summary (at the beginning of his article) tells us is a "Hindutva nationalist narrative" of Shivaji's historical role ─ a person who found the aura of Shivaji "fascinating" and found himself "thrilled" by the exploits of Shivaji and his men. Until, apparently, on "reading the literature firsthand", he was compelled to change his ideas.

This is obviously fake. The very fact that he is a Muslim (Ameen Ahmed Tumakuru), while obviously it does not automatically make him a suspect as a rabid anti-Hindu, certainly makes it extremely unlikely that he could be such a fervent fan or follower of Shivaji's Hindu exploits as to be cured of his Shivaji-fever only after having his eyes opened by personal research of the "firsthand" material, that research also being inspired solely by his scholarly curiosity which made him "wonder if Shivaji also had another side" to "his much-glorified life". It is clearly a tactical way of putting his points forward.

He also adds: "I am still an admirer of his dare devilry and for the fact that he fought for what he believed, irrespective of the might of the opposing forces", and here he is probably being truthful, since I have found from personal experience that most Muslims, except perhaps the most rabid or outright political ones, have greater respect for Hindus who show respect for Hinduism and Hindu interests than for Hindus who are clearly deracinated, however much they may align with the latter and dislike the former ─ I clearly remember the eagerness with which some of my Muslim friends, during the early Ayodhya days, wanted to hear a cassette of Sadhvi Rithambhara's speeches. And he also adds the following, at the end of the article: "Yes, Shivaji is worthy of being worshipped as a hero by some", which admission, and the fact that he does not write the article under a Hindu pseudonym, are saving graces (even though they may also be tactical moves) in an otherwise clearly agenda-based article.

2. He tells us that what changed his mind was direct research and examination of "contemporary sources, both of Shivaji's and the later Marathas- both European and Indian". However, an examination of his article shows that the only testimony he puts forward is by some European writers, some of whom are clearly extremely biased, and having that contempt or hatred for Indian natives and for their leaders which had led them to classify Shivaji as a "mountain rat". He himself tells us that his sources are "thousands of British India manuscripts from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. These are from a variety of sources - biographies, auto-biographies, soldiers' narratives, shikar or British Raj hunting accounts and notes by Christian missionary"! And these "testimonies" include, for example, opinionated racist invective like the following: "A Maratha is destitute of the generosity and honour which belong to a bold robber. He combines the plausible and gentle manners of a swindler, the dexterity of a pickpocket, and the meanness of a peddler"! And, treating British testimony as final, he tells us: "According to many British Raj sources the rulers of the Maratha Empire, created by Shivaji, tormented common man (irrespective of religious beliefs) across modern day India for over a century."

When he gives the rare quote from some modern Indian writer, it is vague, and actually misleading: to show that Marathas attacked the Hindu kingdom of Mysore, he tells us: "According to historian Hayavadana Rao, Shivaji also attacked Srirangapatna but was defeated by its Mysore King Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar. Shivaji is said to have looted areas around this place". It has been no-one's claim that Hindu kings never fought each other, or that they never tried to expand their kingdoms. Right from the days of Sudās in the Rigveda, through all the chakravartin emperors of Epic-Puranic history, kings fighting with each other and trying to expand their own kingdoms has always been a feature of politics, and about this particular rivalry, the Wikipedia article "Maratha-Mysore War 1682" tells us: "The Maratha-Mysore War (1682) refers to a series of battles fought between the Maratha Empire and the Kingdom of Mysore in Southern India, both of which were attempting to establish supremacy in Southern India. The Maratha forces were led by Sambhaji and the Mysore forces were led by Chikka Devaraja."

For what it is worth, here is what the Wikipedia article has to say further on: "In 1681, the Marathas attacked Srirangapatna, but were defeated, though the Maratha Sardar Harji Raje Mahadik defeated the Mysore general Kumaraiya.^[3] Both forces had tried to subdue each other resulting in a stalemate. Sambhaji also tried to form a Deccan alliance against the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Chikkadevaraya allied himself with Aurangzeb and executed the Maratha generals Dadaji Kakade, Jaitaji Katkar and Santaji Nimbalkar. This enraged Sambhaji and he attacked the Kingdom of Mysore in June 1682".

I personally have never been a fan of expansionist imperialism, and even in the case of Sudās and the Ten Kings in the Rigveda, I have made it clear in my books that I feel the moral ground was with the Ten Kings who were being attacked by an expansionist Sudās in their own territory, and not with the expansionist Sudās. In the case of the medieval internecine wars within India, this sad state of warring and expanding kingdoms was a ubiquitous affair found all over the world in all times and climes. But in the case of the medieval Hindu-Muslim conflicts, we have a totally different case of a united Hindu resistance to the expanding internationalist force of Islam which was motivated by a hate-ideology which saw people belonging to other religions as people only fit to be destroyed and wiped out or treated as slaves and serfs.

The writer of this article presents us with "another summary of the Maratha Empire in the book Indika (1891), 'The history of the great Mogul empire is one uninterrupted chapter of bloodshed. At the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb, in 1707, it reached its final expansion. It had no power to preserve its vitality. It was a loose mass, ready for any strong hand to break it into pieces. Its spoils were fought over by Afghans, Jats, Sikhs, revolting viceroys, rebellious governors, and military adventurers at large. The Marhattas were the strongest force. They poured down from the mountains on the western coast, and carried desolation before them. They spared neither sex nor age, and the terror of their name was felt by every native of the country from Bombay to Calcutta.'". Again, a vague, generalized account with no sources cited.

He also presents us with a "map tracing nearly sixty Hindu towns & temples of Karnataka that suffered from the attacks of Maratha Empire in 17 & 18 centuries CE, including those by Shivaji.":

(a) As Shivaji died in 1680, how a list of "the attacks of Maratha Empire in 17 & 18 centuries CE" is relevant is a mystery. And from a person who would not agree that the founder of Islam was responsible in the case of any "map tracing nearly ten thousands of towns & temples of the world that suffered from the attacks of Islamic invaders in the last 1000 years including those by the founder of Islam and his Four Companions"!

(b) Towns in the path of armies, in the middle of ongoing wars and battles, suffering  what is euphemistically known as "collateral damages", is a regular (even though reprehensible)  historical phenomenon, so we need not bother to even examine the matter: but note what A.L.Basham had to say about how the Indian or Hindu attitude towards warfare, as in most other matters, compared with the attitude of every other culture and people: "No other ancient lawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants…There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity". So unspecified, unelaborated and unsubstantiated references to towns attacked by Marathas can be ignored.

But what is the actual recorded testimony for temples, or mosques, which suffered from the attacks of Marathas? My own native place (although I and even my father have lived all our lives from birth in Mumbai) is Shimoga in Karnataka. On all my visits there in the past, I have been regaled with local traditions of temples destroyed, looted and mutilated by Islamic invaders or kings, but not a single case of temples or even mosques destroyed by the Marathas.

While the writer can only present vague testimonies and anecdotal references, and only from European authors, to show that Marathas destroyed towns and temples in Karnataka, the evidence of the destructive activities of Islamic invaders is so massive and so multi-sourced that it is mind-boggling. Not only numerous British writers, and Hindu local traditions in every part of the country, but even countless contemporary Muslim writers in their documents which are readily available today, and even the actual firmans and the records of the court historians of the various Islamic rulers, have recorded the massacres of Hindus and the desecration and destruction of Hindu temples in ruthless detail. All this is very much so in the matter of Aurangzeb's atrocities against Hindus and destruction of Hindu temples, and, in his case, even Shia writers have recorded his atrocities against Shias!

I do not hold that all the Maratha warriors were saints who could never have done anything wrong. Common sense says that there may have been stray incidents of looting by some Maratha soldiers as by any other soldiers anywhere else in the world during battles and wars. If there were, the documented proof must be produced and noted. But to make vague generalizations the basis for painting everyone in the same colors is outrageous. And treating stray incidents, if any, as representing the total picture is like saying, by citing cases of Jewish overseers in Nazi concentration camps oppressing the other Jewish inmates, that Jews in general and Nazis in general were equally guilty for the concentration camps and gas chambers.

(c) Further, what human beings do as human individuals and what people do as per the dictates of any kind of ideology, are two different things. In the very beginning, I cited the books by Sita Ram Goel and Koenraad Elst ─ and I repeat, these books should be read in full by anyone, before he opens his mouth and puts his foot into it, when trying to draw a parity between Islam (and Christianity) on the one hand and Hinduism on the other in the matter of treatment of other religions. In Hinduism, we can indeed produce evidence of internal injustices and iniquities within Hinduism, and even of "textual" testimony to this ─ in both cases neither to the extent, the intrinsicality, or the nature in which such references are cited by critics ─ but no-one except the very dishonest can claim that Hinduism has even the shadow of a bad record in the matter of attitude to and treatment of people with different religious views or identities. On the other hand, hatred of "non-believers" is an intrinsic matter of faith in both Christian and Islamic theology and religion, and, whenever circumstances were feasible, also a matter of practice.

As Sita Ram Goel and Elst make very clear in their books:

(i) The cases of recorded Islamic massacres of infidels and destruction of non-Muslim religious structures all over the world, and of Hindu temples in India, go literally into lakhs, while the desperate attempts by Leftists and Islamist apologists to produce similar acts by Hindus against non-Hindus has not been able to produce more than a handful of examples; and almost all these examples are based on inferences and mythical tales.

(ii) The lakhs of cases of Islamic massacres and destruction of non-Muslim temples, recorded not only by their enemies but by themselves, have precedents in the detailed instructions and examples given in the canonical religious texts of Islam, while the few cases of religious intolerance that can be drummed up against Hindus, even where there is not even a shadow of any substance in the charges, have no religious sanction in the texts and traditions, and precedents, of Hinduism.

(iii) And the perpetrators of the massacres, and of the desecration and destruction of Hindu temples, are not only fully aware of the fact that their religion not only sanctions all this but even forcibly demands it of them, but they even gleefully cite their own religious texts and record their satisfaction at having proved themselves to be true Muslims.

 

But to come back from generalities to specifics ─ i.e. from Islam and Hinduism in general to Aurangzeb and Shivaji in particular ─ it is an utter falsehood that Shivaji was glorified only by Maratha or Marathi people until modern Hindutva politics raised him to the level of a Hindutva icon. Shivaji lived from 1630-1680 CE, and his role as an ideal king and/or Hindutva icon was acknowledged by one and all from North India to South India from the time of Shivaji himself to the present day:

1. The adulation for Shivaji in North India was most famously recorded by the seventeenth century poet Kavi Bhushan (who lived during Shivaji's lifetime) and was originally the court poet of the Bundeli king Chhatrasal, and was before that a resident of Varanasi and originally a native of Kanpur district in Uttar Pradesh. His famous lines, "kāśī kī kalā jātī , mathurā masjid bantī, agar śivājī na hote, to sunnat hot sabkī" (Kashi would have lost its art and culture, Mathura would have been a mosque, if not for Shivaji, all would have been circumcized) were written not in present-day times under the influence of some new ideology, but in the lifetime of Shivaji himself, testifying to the image of Shivaji in the North.

2. In the South, what better testimony can there be to the high image of Shivaji than that the topmost and most iconic of Tamil actors, Sivaji Ganesan, was named after Shivaji. Even more to the point, he was given the name by EV Ramasami Naicker. the anti-Hindu founder of the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), after he played the role of Shivaji in the Tamil drama "Sivaji Kanda Hindu Rajyam" (The Hindu State as Visualized by Shivaji) written by CN Annadurai, the founder (later) of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and staged in the 1946 conference of the DK. It is clear that, whatever the drama may have had to say about Hinduism, Hindutva, Brahmins and the Indian state, even these most virulently parochial "Southern" political elements had nothing but adulation for Shivaji.

As a corollary, the Srisailam temple in Andhra Pradesh has a tradition that Shivaji received his Bhavani sword from the Goddess of the temple ─ parallel to the more well-known and similar tradition of the Tulja Bhavani temple of Dharashiv district in Marathwada. That his worship at this temple was during his expansionist moves into the area (after receiving this sword, he is supposed to have moved on to conquer the Gandikota fort via Kadappa, as part of his ambition to achieve one unified Hindu state), and yet the Hindu tradition in the area remembers his visit with pride and a spirit of camaraderie, gives the lie to any idea of resentment in the area to his political moves.

3. In the East, the role of Shivaji as a major inspiration to the freedom fighters of Bengal right from 1857, is given in detail in the following article:

https://www.indica.today/long-reads/marathas-bengal-chhatrapati-shivaji-as-a-national-hero/

As detailed in this article, even Rabindranath Tagore wrote a poem eulogizing Shivaji as the ideal king. This would hardly have been the case if there had been any traditional memories in the area recording any unsavory role played by Shivaji with respect to the local people and temples of Bengal and the east in general.

4. In the northwest, while there was little contact with Shivaji during his lifetime, traditional views about him were always positive. Two traditions (whether real or mythical, but nevertheless indicative of Shivaji's positive image in the earliest Punjabi Sikh traditions) of indirect associations between Shivaji and the Sikh Gurus are:

(a) A tradition that Shivaji's Guru, Samarth Ramdas Swami was inspired, after meeting the sixth Sikh Guru Hargobind Singh, to combine sainthood with a warrior outlook, and that it was this role that was taught by him to Shivaji.

(b) Another tradition, apparently recorded in the nineteenth century history of Sikhism, Panth Prakash by Giani Gian Singh, that the tenth Guru Gobind Singh, on hearing details of Shivaji's exploits, expressed a wish that Shivaji had been alive so that he could have met him (Shivaji died 14 years or so before the birth of Guru Gobind Singh).

5. Finally, even the Muslim historians and writers of the time, in whatever they have written about him, and however much they abused and hated him as an infidel ruler and enemy, have never accused him of massacring Muslim commoners, capturing or violating Muslim women, or destroying mosques (let alone Hindu temples). In fact, many of them have recorded his acts which showed exactly the opposite: to the extent that there are attempts by some Muslims today to try to diminish his image as a Hindu icon by denying any anti-Muslim bias in his ideology, based on contemporary Muslim records of the time:

https://tawarikhkhwani.com/shivaji-the-man-and-the-myth/  

Therefore, there can be no doubt that Shivaji and Aurangzeb were at two distant poles of the spectrum in respect of their religious image in every corner of India, and their images were based on their acts and doings. As human beings, it may be perfectly possible to be able to locate some failings or faults in Shivaji or some positive points in Aurangzeb, but these are not enough to make it possible to paint Shivaji as black or Aurangzeb as white, or to paint both in comparative shades of neutral grey.