Even agreeing to whatever written by you here(ridiculous to say the least), I must say that Hinduism(pseudo?)did greater harm to its own people in the name of caste for more than 2000 years.The effects such an innovative(!)system which has no parallel in history of mankind can be felt even now on almost all spheres of life in India.Here, caste is the true Brahma which is omnipotent,omnicient and omnipresent.
Aurangzeb's acts cannot be intrepreted with the hindsight available now.Were there no Hindu rulers who massacared people belonging to other religions? What about the Buddhist monks who were killed and eliminated from the country?Where are those magnificient viharas and great learnig centres? Did n't Shivaji plunder the Hindus like he did the muslims?
It is useless to discuss the bygone era when one must be concerned about Nandigrams,Nithari,Naxlites and the fact that the Indian billionares combined wealth is equivalent io one-fourth of India's GDP.Compare the media hype about the Forbes List,Liz-Arun marriage,crazy cricket fans.
It transpired that Shastri had lifted this story from Colonel Miles%u2019 History of Mysore which Miles claimed he had taken from a Persian manuscript in the personal library of Queen Victoria. When Dr. Pande checked further, he found that no such manuscript existed in Queen Victoria%u2019s library. Yet Dr. Shastri%u2019s book was being used as a high school history text%u2013book in seven Indian states, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. So he sent his entire correspondence about the book to the vice%u2013chancellor of Calcutta University, Sir Ashutosh Chaudhary. Sir Ashutosh promptly ordered Shashtri%u2019s book out of the course. Yet years later, in 1972, Dr. Pande was surprised to discover the same suicide story was still being taught as %u2018history%u2019 in junior high schools in Uttar Pradesh. The lie had found currency as a fact of history.
The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (born 1618, reigned 1658%u20131707) is the most reviled of all Muslim rulers in India. He was supposed to be a great destroyer of temples and oppressor of Hindus, and a %u2018fundamentalist%u2019 too! As chairman of the Allahabad Municipality (1948%u2013%u201953), Dr. Pande had to deal with a land dispute between two temple priests. One of them had filed in evidence some firmans (royal orders) to prove that Aurangzeb had, besides cash, gifted the land in question for the maintenance of his temple. Might they not be fake, Dr. Pande thought, in view of Aurangzeb%u2019s fanatically anti%u2013Hindu image? He showed them to his friend, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, a distinguished lawyer as well a great scholar of Arabic and Persian. He was also a Brahmin. Sapru examined the documents and declared they were genuine firmans issued by Aurangzeb.
Was it true? Dr Pande wrote immediately to the author and asked him for the source on which he had based this episode in his text%u2013book. After several reminders, Dr Shastri replied that he had taken this information from the Mysore Gazetteer. So Dr. Pande requested the Mysore University vice%u2013chancellor, Sir Brijendra Nath Seal, to verify for him Dr Shastri%u2019s statement from the Gazetteer. Sir Brijendra referred his letter to Prof. Srikantia who was then working on a new edition of the Gazetteer.
Srikantia wrote to say that the Gazetteer mentioned no such incident and, as a historian himself, he was certain that nothing like this had taken place. Prof Srikantia added that both the prime minister and the commander%u2013in%u2013chief of Tipu Sultan were themselves Brahmins. He also enclosed a list of 136 Hindu temples which used to receive annual grants from the Sultan%u2019s treasury.
