From: editor@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu (digest editor)
Subject: Article: With an imperfect past the future can only be tense
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Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 19:22:17 GMT

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From: Girish <bond@jupiter.Sun.CSD.unb.ca>
Subject: With an imperfect past the future can only be tense
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     Following is an article on the negationism of "secular" historians and
politicians  in  Bharat  by  Shri  Kanchan Gupta, an eminent journalist and
assistant editor of "The Pioneer". The article appeared in  "The  Pioneer",
October  20, 1992.  Many of us are aware of the practice of systematic his-
tory distortion to suit political interests, especially the denial  of  the
destruction  wrought by Islam in its 'jihad' on Hindudom. This is an intel-
lectual crime as it subordinates truth to political compulsions.  For  more
than  four  decades,  Marxist academics and politicians, Islamic apologists
and self-proclaimed secularists have practiced this negationism with utmost
prowess.  Many Hindus, suffering from self-depredatory inferiority complex,
helped in popularizing this  twisted  version  of  history.  Such  academic
cowardice  or  prejudice is the very negation of the spirit of open enquiry
into past happenings. Though Marxist historians and  'secular'  politicians
tried  their  favorite  weapon, i.e. slander campaign, by hurling abuses at
those who dared to speak  against  the  distortion  of  history,  they  are
exposed,  for  the truth can not be suppressed. In this article, the author
has briefly commented on hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of 'secular'
historians and politicians in Bharat.

-- Girish
___________________________________________________________________________



By Shri Kanchan Gupta

     Way back in 1979, the California based Institute for Historical Review
published  an  advertisement,  offering  $50,000 to anybody who could prove
that Jews had been gassed to death in Hitler's concentration camps. On  the
face  of  it,  the  announcement was at once obnoxious and ridiculous. What
gave it a sinister twist was the fine print laying down the  conditions  to
be  fulfilled for winning the prize money: the winner would have to produce
documentary evidence about the existence of concentration camps and  deaths
caused in them apart from having witnessed such killings.

     It did not come as surprise when a year after making the  preposterous
proposition,  the institute announced that since nobody had come forward to
claim the prize money, it meant that the holocaust was nothing but  a  fig-
ment  of  imagination.  There  are  no prizes offered for guessing that the
Institute for Historical Review had undertaken the exercise to negate facts
about Nazi atrocities.

     An equally deceitful negationist exercise has now been  undertaken  by
the  Left-  wing  intelligentsia  of  this  country.  In their eagerness to
suppress unsavoury facts about the period of  Muslim  rule,  intellectuals,
policy makers and journalists of a particular persuasion have began to pose
ridiculous questions, daring Hindus to disprove  their  visible  claims.  A
section  of  the  intelligentsia  is convinced that such tactics alone will
enable it to prove its commitment to what one  commentator  has  eloquently
described  as  "secular politics." This section, however, need not be taken
note of with any degree of seriousness; it at best constitutes the nation's
carping minority.

     What is of concern is the insidious campaign launched by the politico-
intellectual  clique  -  its  members  ranging from self-proclaimed secular
politicians to sarkari historians - to retain its hegemony  over  discover-
ing,  interpreting and writing India's past for the present and future gen-
erations.  Like any other public sector enterprise,  this  state  sponsored
propaganda  machinery  is  battling for survival by justifying its pathetic
existence. The insidious campaign is as much in evidence in the attempt  to
discredit  the  Hindu point of view on the Ayodhya dispute as in the spuri-
ous, "secular" history that has been peddled as mandatory diet  for  school
children  ever  since  Jawaharlal Nehru made minority appeasement a part of
Government policy.

     The negationist exercise, of course, predates Nehru's prime  minister-
ship  -  its  foundation  was laid when the Congress decided to support the
Khilafat movement from 1919 to 1929, giving precedence to communal identity
over  national identity. The exercise began in right earnest after the 1931
communal riot in Kanpur when a Congress report  advised  the  rewriting  of
history textbooks to eliminate the "mutual enemy image."

     Since then the attempt to sanitise excesses  committed  during  Muslim
rule   and  give  legitimacy  to  minority  communalism  has  never  lacked
enthusiasm. The ease with which those academics who have challenged conven-
tional  wisdom  and  refused  to become court historians are berated, bears
testimony to the zealotry of the propagandists.

     Hence we have a situation in which Marxist card-holders masquerade  as
"independent  historians  and  archaeologists"  while  those who believe in
intellectual dissent and  honest  assessment  of  historical  evidence  are
labeled  "communal."  It is only to be expected that "noted historians" who
have spent lifetime tailoring  history to suit the political requirement of
the  Congress  should be fighting the case on behalf of the All-India Babri
Masjid Action Committee. Nor is it surprising that they should question  to
the  bona  fides  of  those who have painstakingly put together documentary
evidence in support of the BJP's claim.

     The purpose of such deceit, of course, is to suppress  the  past  and,
thereby,  deny  the present. Witness the speed with which Union Minister of
State for Home MM Jacob was despatched to  Bihar  to  launch  a  propaganda
offensive  before  the truth could emerge. Not a word has been said by this
keeper of our secular polity about the genesis  of  the  communal  riot  at
Sitamarhi.  Yet,  facts  speak  for  themselves. The riot was sparked by an
unwarranted attack on the Durga Puja procession,  just  like  the  infamous
Bhagalpur  riot  was  kindled  by  the assault on a Ramshila procession. In
other words, the "mutual enemy" image persists despite  all  the  rewriting
that has taken place over past four-and-a-half decades.

     And not without reason. For, despite the  veneer  of  greater  purpose
that has been bestowed upon the intellectual dishonesty of our secular his-
torians, theirs is essentially an  exercise  in  futility.  Their  spurious
discourse has at last been exposed for what it is worth.

     However, they need not lose heart. On the one hand we have  Mr.  Arjun
Singh, the self-proclaimed champion of secular values who has been banished
to political wilderness by the BJP, trying to foist a doctored history syl-
labus  on the nation and thereby, feed half-truths and lies to unsuspecting
children.  On the other, we have lumpen secularists like Mr.  Laloo  Prasad
Yadav  pledging  money  from  an empty state coffer to ensure that his vote
bank does not collapse.

     At the same time, the going is getting increasingly  rough  for  those
who would deny the nation its past. And the credit for this goes as much to
the MP from Gandhinagar, who invigorated  Hindu  political  aspiration  and
removed  the stigma that attached itself to Hindu nationalism, as to the MP
from Kishenganj, who has built his  political  career  on  the  bedrock  of
Islamic fundamentalism and exploited negationism to the hilt.

     The great, open debate is yet to take shape. But the agenda  has  been
set  to enable Indians to come to terms with their past. The idea is not to
score points, but to set record straight.  The  cathartic  effect  of  such
reconciliation  can  not  be  overemphasised.  It  is  for this reason that
"independent historians" should not be allowed to  hijack  the  discussion.
Indeed,  they  need  to  be  told in no uncertain terms that in the Ayodhya
face-off, there is no place for their deceitful discourse.

     The very fact that stray voices can be heard  from  the  secular  camp
acknowledging  the fact that Hindu temples had been desecrated by marauders
from the west, symbolises defeat for the sophists who were  happy  to  play
the  role  of  thought police at the Government's bidding. Whether or not a
Ram temple is finally built at the disputed site is of  little  importance.
The  import  lies  in the growing conviction that the Babri Masjid may have
been built upon a temple brought down by a conquering enemy.

     Let us not underestimate the potential of the  discussions  that  have
begun  between  the  VHP  and  the AIBMAC. Those who scoff at the documents
presented by the former have scoffed at nation's history all  these  years.
The  time  has come to call their bluff, and it is because of this that the
debate over issues which were kept beyond the realm  of  public  discussion
for  many  years should be allowed to run its full course. For, if the past
is imperfect, the future can not but be tense.
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