A lesson from the Jews

Mahmud of Ghazni, for instance, who patronised art and literature, wouldrecite a verse of the Koran every night after having razed temples and killed his quota of unbelievers. Firuz Shah Tughlak personally confirms that the destruction of pagan temples was done out of piety and writes: “On the day of a Hindu festival, I went there myself, ordered the execution of all the leaders and practitioners… I destroyed their idols, temples and built mosques in their place.”

Aurangzeb did not just build an isolated mosque on a razed temple, as Romila Thapar would like us to believe, he ordered all temples destroyed, among them the Kashi Vishvanath, one of the most sacred places of Hinduism, and had mosques built on a number of cleared temple sites. All other Hindu sacred places within his reach equally suffered destruction, with mosques built on them. The number of temples destroyed by Aurangzeb is counted in four, if not five, figures. This is a small excerpt of his own official court chronicles: “Aurangzeb ordered all provincial governors to destroy all schools and temples of the pagans and to make a complete end to all pagan teachings and practices.“ Or: "Hasan Ali Khan came and said that 172 temples in the area had been destroyed… His majesty went to Chittor and 63 temples were destroyed. Abu Tarab, appointed to destroy the idol-temples of Amber, reported that 66 temples had been razed to the ground.”

Aurangzeb did not stop at destroying temples, their users were also wiped out; even his own brother, Dara Shikoh, was executed for taking an interest in the Hindu religion and the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded because he objected to Aurangzeb’s forced conversions. As we can see, Thapar and Percival Spear’s statement of a benevolent Aurangzeb is a flagrant attempt at negationism (the negation of historical crimes). Even the Encyclopedia Britannica, in its entry on India, does not mention in its chapter on the Sultanate period any persecutions of Hindus by Muslims, except that “Firuz Shah Tughlaq made largely unsuccessful attempts at converting his Hindu subjects and sometimes persecuted them”.

Indian school books seem to have taken a cue from this, as there is hardly any mention of this dark aspect of India’s past. Why does India negate its history? We know that Nehru and Gandhi wanted to keep Pakistan within India and wished to avoid the splintering away of Muslim groups. But was it a good enough reason to suppress information about Muslim atrocities during 10 centuries of bloody invasions and the massive destruction of Hindu temples?

On the contrary, this has only created more terrorism. Denying and suppressing history cannot keep the harmony. In its place, truth and reconciliation are necessary. Hiding the truth denies sympathy to the victim, civilisation and culture. Unless it is ready to face its own history — the good and the bad, the courageous and the cowardly — a nation can never bloom into its full plenitude. Hidden aspects of its own history sooner or later will surface and bring with them guilt, anger, regret, which are the necessary ingredients to wipe off that particular black karma.

In Germany, for instance, Germans have been reminded again and again about the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II, and that has brought a sense of guilt which has acted as a deterrent to future atrocities. The Jews have constantly tried, since the Nazi genocide, to keep alive the remembrance of their six million martyrs. This has got nothing to do with vengeance. Do the Jews of today want to retaliate against contemporary Germany? No. It is only a matter of making sure that history does not repeat its mistakes, as alas it is doing today in India.