History re-written!

‘Six glorious epochs of Indian History’ (Originally written in Marathi as ‘Saha soneri Pane’ by Veer Savarkar) – A commentary and not exactly a history…on some important & significant chosen events from our history…to tell the wonderful story of the survival & growth of the Hindu race….amidst the invasion after invasion of foreign powers for centuries together!

Amazing work by Veer Savarkar. History is so full of dry events, dates, chronology, deaths, births and cold numbers….but he wrote in such a way that those very events started playing like a movie in front of eyes.

Throughout the book, his deepest faith in the ever-existence of a ‘Hindu Nation’ can be seen prominently.

He has tried to showcase based on the historical events and on his ‘circumstantial’ evidence & logic, that Hindus were not just a race of people fighting with each other without any sense of being a cohesive community or a united nation as has been portrayed by most of the foreign & even by Indian historians….but they always were a nation and their history is not a history of only defeats…. But it is full of valor, sacrifices and wins!

Infact whatever little I remember of the school text-books on history, those books never talked about India as a home of Hindus…infact India has not even been recognized as a country, rather they preferred to call it ‘Indian subcontinent’! Hindu religion as well….has been portrayed as weak and divided into many sects fighting with each other...! Chapters after chapters have only talked about the invasions and the dominance of various foreign powers over Hindus….as if Hindus have always lived like slaves throughout centuries…!

But Savarkar brought those pages out in light from the history, which other historians have neglected either intentionally or due to sheer ignorance. The details about Chandragupta, Chanakya or Vikramaditya, are known at-least to some extent to people, but I doubt if anybody from the young generation is aware of other greats like Pushyamitra, Yashodharma, Harihar & Bukka, Hemu, Guru Teg Bahadur, Raghunathrao Peshwa, and their heroics and their importance in our Indian history?

Savarkar brought to light some important historical facts to showcase the Hindu military strength of those times and the valor and indomitable fighting spirit of the Hindu race:

How may of us know that Alexander ‘the great’, who is considered as a conqueror of the world…and the greatest military genius of all time…could not even cross over the river Vyas (or Beas in the northern Part of India) and had to retreat back to Greece…as his army totally refused to march further…they were tired of fighting continuously with Indians and moreover had a fear of other massive Indian armies of Magadha empire! After managing to win over some of the frontier territories of India after many exhaustive battles, he & his army had to leave India for good and they say he was a conqueror of the world!!

And not to talk about, what happened after he left Indian shores….Did the Greeks rule forever in those parts? Not at all….within 3 years of his departure from India…all lost territories were won back by Indian kingdoms and no trace of his rule was left anywhere in India!  And guess…who were the leaders of this great political conspiracy….none other than Acharya Chanakya & his young & brave disciple Chandragupta (The future ‘Samraat’)!

Does anybody know this fact, that Saka-Kushan & Hun – those barbarous central Asian tribes, that had terrorized, plundered and demolished even the great Chinese empire to many European nations, were totally crushed by the Indian military might and whosoever of these tribes remained alive, accepted Hinduism…and got dissolved in the vast ocean of Hindu dharma….?

Does anybody know this fact, that after crushing the Huns successfully in around 530-550 AD, India practically enjoyed the immunity from any foreign invasion for almost 4-5 centuries?

Does anybody know this fact, that after the first Muslim invasion by Mohammad Bin Kasim, of Sindh in around 720 AD, India did not allow Muslims to attack and move further into India, for almost 300 years? During these same 300 years, Muslims had simply destroyed the powerful European nations of Spain & Portugal and they had run over the north African coast up to Gibraltar!  Why no history book talks about these 300 years…? Why these books give us the feel as if Muslims simply came and ran over whole of India and established the Delhi sultanate within a couple of years?

How many of us know about the once grand empire of Vijaynagar in southern India that was founded by the Hindu warriors Harihar & Bukka in around 1336 AD, when almost the whole of India had come under Muslim rule? This great independent Hindu Kingdom of Vijaynagar prospered almost for 200 years in south, fighting and defeating all the southern Muslim sultanates (The 5 ‘shahis’ created from splitting of the Bahamani kingdom)!

Even the Maratha history, which can be called recent and probably with much more recorded/written evidence….in comparison with the events mentioned above, has not been taught to Indian students with the due attention it deserves and definitely not from the national point of view.

Marathas emerged as a national force in India…which gave the final deadly blow to all the muslim powers and Marathas were the de-facto ruling force in practically through out the India. Not sure why can’t I remember of reading about Raghunathrao Peshwa’s successful wins allover the country starting from Pune upto the river Sindhu in the north! Why there was no mention of complete Maratha rule practically over whole of the India, in any of my school text-books on History? The books talk at great length about Akbar ‘the great’ and even other small Mughal, Turk, Pathan kings but hardly few pages are given to the great Hindu warriors & kings such as Rana Pratap, Rana Sanga, Great Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh, Veer Banda Bairagi and Peshwas?

This work of Savarkar, revealed to me that there was much more to the Indian history than just the Mughal dynasty & dominance of the western powers (English, Portuguese, Dutch, French) and splitting of Hindu religion into different sects due to the various perverse religious concepts of Hindus ex. Caste system etc. That’s all..what has been there in our history books!

Though I am not very sure to what extent the claim can be justified or verified…that all the above mentioned kings and warriors of Hindus were always fighting for the national cause and not just for the selfish reason of safeguarding the regions under their rule….and yes I felt Savarkar’s writings a little biased at some places in the book….but as explained above…most of other historians’ views….be foreign or Indian….have been one-sided, neglecting conveniently some very significant periods & events of our history from the Hindu point of view, that  Savarkar was left with no option but to be biased for Hindus! But even his ‘biased’ view has been backed by evidence. For every event or the fact, there is a sound reference mentioned in the appendix of the book! So he has not made simply some air castles based on some hearsay….but all his writings are backed by evidence…ofcourse the interpretation of the events & facts….has been his own…like any other historian.