When (Mughal) History Is Defined And Discussed By Those Who're Not Qualified Historians

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 12 April 2023 Nowadays, a sane person doesn't watch debates on news channels, but if accidentally one gets to watch, the uncouth behaviour of the participants and panellists will surely put you off. What annoys the most is the participation of 'scholars' and ' pundits ' who call themselves historians and justify this government's decision to expunge all that ever belonged to Muslims and Islam. First of all, they're not trained historians. Secondly, most of the 'experts' invited to opine on Mughal history have no knowledge of Persian, the language of the Mughals. When you've not studied the papers and documents of that era in original Persian- and also in early Turkish/Ottoman Turkish or Uzbeki dialect-how can you condemn an entire dynasty and justify its omission from the text books? I ask the BJP spokesmen Dr Sudhanshu Trivedi (a qualified Mechanical Engineer) and Dr Sambit Patra (a medico), have they studied the Farmans ( edicts) of Mughal emperors written in Persian? Have they ever read even their translations? Before spitting venom, did they study Mughal history beginning from 1526 to 1857? Do these so-called Mahram-E-Tawareekh (scholars of history) know that Babar knew very little Persian? Babar's language was dialectical Turkish or Uzbeki and he wrote his memoirs Tuzuk-e-Babri in early Turkish. Have these pseudos’ ever bothered to pore over Akbar and Aurangzeb's 27 Farmans/decrees in Persian, condemning the custom of Sati and warning the Hindus (esp. Brahmins) of severe punishment if they continued with their reprehensible custom of burning Hindu widows along with their already departed husbands? This benevolent aspect of the Mughals will not be taught because these 'experts' are simply ignorant and the govt is also hell-bent upon not eulogising any positive facet of the Mughals. Maratha historian Govind Sakharam Sardesai wrote of the legendary Sir Jadunath Sarkar that to know Shivaji and his times during the Mughals in the sub-continent, Sarkar learnt Persian from Muslim and English scholars in Patna, Tehran and Oxford. He came to Poona to learn how to read and write Modi script as all old documents of Marathas were written in Modi. Only after learning Modi script and Persian, did he start writing his erudite volumes. This is what we call writing history in a holistic manner. Sir Jadunath also learnt Quranic Arabic in Cairo to comprehend Quran and Aurangzeb's Fatwa-e-Alamgir. English historian Sir Arnold Toynbee learnt Latin and Greek to understand the Roman and Hellenic civilizations. British Poet laureate Sir Ted Hughes became a scholar of ancient Greek language to translate Odes of Pindar and 'Fragments' of Greek poetess Sappho. And what do these prejudiced 'pundits' of the current political dispensation do? They can't even write their names in Urdu. But they cast opprobrium on Mughals. Agreed, most of the Mughals were worth-criticizing, but in their long history in the sub-continent, didn't they perform even one small noble deed? Govt. is deleting and distorting history and appointing all substandard and sickly biased 'scholars' to justify its silly actions. Alas, generations to come will have skewed and truncated perceptions of India's past. ------ A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/mughal-history-defined-discussed-historians/d/129545 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism