Shivaji used what is called Guerilla tactics (not sure of spelling) against a massive Mughal army and defeated it. During his capture of forts, he did not rape and plunder Muslim women like Muslim commanders did with non-muslims.
There is one story where his army commander tells Shivaji with pride that the wife of the muslim commander has been captured. Shivaji scolds the commander and asks the wife be returned with all respect. This is how we Hindus are taught role models. But it takes maturity in human evolution to understand such acts. Decendants of Barbaric Wife-stealing Arabs or Indians converted by sword who think they are Arabs will not understand this. All Indian muslims have Indian features. Not Arabic features. So dont behave like one. Do Amir/SRK look Arabic ? We Hindus encourage Musllims as Movie starts and sports stars. I am yet to see a Hindu movie star/sports star from Pakistan/Bangladesh. Dont you get any inferiority complex from us ? We gave you Pakistan and Bangladesh. See what you did with it ! Muslims killing Muslims!
RE:Shivaji was genuinely secular. Not pseudo-secular
by Milind on Mar 13, 2008 02:01 AM Permalink
We need to re-write our history text books so that all Indian heroes from all parts of India are given their due respect. We Indians should learn more about Shivaji, Rajputs like Rana Pratap, Sikhs like Guru Nanak & Tej Bahadur, Vijayanagar, chola, chera.
Indian version of Discovery channel should focus on ancient Indian history instead of giving us an overdose of Alexander and King Tut of Egypt.
RE:Shivaji was genuinely secular. Not pseudo-secular
by shaheed sant on Mar 13, 2008 02:21 AM Permalink
Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh
well said puttar. Sikhs fought against the moghuls all the time to protect the Hindus. Satguru Maharaj Guru Gobind Singh ji showed it to the world with his mighty Khalsa. but in the present age Sikhs were cheated, looted, raped, killed by the same people who got the protection from us. what a shame. we demand justice for 1984 and hand over tytler sharma bhagat and others who are responsible in massacaring more than 4000 Sikhs. this is not democracy and law
RE:Shivaji was genuinely secular. Not pseudo-secular
by Milind on Mar 13, 2008 02:33 AM Permalink
It is unfortunate that even a Sikh PM cannot provide justice to Sikhs and the murderers are still in Congress. My impression of our PM has changed significantly.
RE:Shivaji was genuinely secular. Not pseudo-secular
by Dare on Mar 13, 2008 03:48 AM Permalink
Pls add Xtians to list of marauders whuse history does not teach them respect other religions as well.. Fr them to paly the caste card on the lower caste Dalits is hypocricy.. Good points Milind
The PM saying "people of a particular community have first right to country's resources" is most unfortunate. The supreme court should ask him to withdraw it or disown it publicly. It can even encourage people from other communitiies to convert to the preferred community for first-right benefits.
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by Mind Clear on Mar 13, 2008 01:28 AM Permalink
In the 21st century, there is no point fooling people by uttering words like secular, communal, fascist, fundamentalist so on and so forth. Each of us have to find our own freedom and be responsible to excel in talent, skills, knowledge, action, expansion and thus find our own inner fulfillment, strength and growth, pursuing real happiness, truth by excelling in work, life, sports communications and various other professions to constantly develop our body and mind, emotions and intellect. There is no point being jingoistic and romantic and deriving any kind of false egoistic value by associating oneself with this person or that religion. Neither archaic religion, nor pseudo modernity can take us anywhere. One can learn various lessons of what works and what doesn't from history. But dynamics of life keep changing. Hair-splitting arguments are a waste of energy. Every developed country in the world is secular have one-law, uniform civil code & gender equality.
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by spindoc on Mar 13, 2008 01:34 AM Permalink
Clear my Mind now..Is it wrong to feel proud of the individual who has shaped this 21st century you are harping about..If not for him and countless ones we would have barbaric too..look at our neighbours (bangla,Pak) bombing the sh*t out of each other....You are able to write about freedom becuase of those very own individual whom people are associating and feeling jingoistic and romatic about..
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by Mind Clear on Mar 13, 2008 01:48 AM Permalink
The romance does not last unless it is maintained, strengthened and made better generation after generation. Agreed, India is secular and democratic because 80% are Hindus. Secularism & democracy are the foundations of Hinduism. Caste saved India from dark days by providing some basic purpose in life. Religion is One and should be limited to Human Character and Human Values with One Common Law encouraging people to develop their Body and Mind, Emotions and Intellect, Creativity and Consciousness. The caste is a scientific concept but has been abused and distorted by confused people. It basically means that to live life intelligently we need to effectively balance the 4-forces within - Thinker, Protector, Economist, Worker - and also while governing society. This is all based on natural human intelligence. The roots of the ancient Indian philosophy which goes by the name Hinduism is actually secular, logical and universal. The idols symbolize objectives in life: Shiva (freedom), Durga (Strength), Saraswati (Knowledge), Lakshmi (Wealth), Ganesh (Wisdom). Life is God. These Goddesses are not really goddesses per se but symbolize the objectives of the pursuit of human life. All civilized societies in the world practice this in principle as it is the natural & true meaning of 'secularism' & 'humanism' followed by all. Check out the book, A Religion Called 'Human', for more details. Things are simple, we complicate. When are we going to clean our distortions and be aggressively uni
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by Mind Clear on Mar 13, 2008 01:51 AM Permalink
BJP/RSS on the other hand should not waste time in useless fights and arguments, temples and yatras, but rather transform themselves into aggressive humanism focussing on clarity, unity, one-law, gender equality, uniform civil code, mind-body development, self-discipline and taking the focus of society more into performance and productivity to transform people into thinking and progressing highly functional aggressive human beings, which can make the lazy Indian commies wakeup in life!!!
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 02:20 AM Permalink
When the armies of Islam reign and murder rape pillage destruction was upon us. There was no caste then. We have even got a memorial to our fathers genocide - Hindu Kush - just to remind us for eternity what happen to us when we were once weak.
RE:RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by Tom on Mar 13, 2008 02:50 AM Permalink
It's necessary to be powerful and humanitarian at the same time, and not just humanitarian.
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by spindoc on Mar 13, 2008 02:08 AM Permalink
Its all esy for you say Religion is one Human Values this and that.. Casteism was based on 4 tenants of what man should do based on his capabilites.. I agree with you ..but the reality is it does not work like that. In the dog eat dog world a man is always trying to one up over the other and at evry opputunity he uses all possible ways to be fittest otherwise called as Survival of the fittest.. Evn used by the politicians..This is what is happening to the 21st century India..Instead of being philosophical ..if you have a soln on how to overcome this..you can continue further else bottle up all your emaotions and go to sleep as nothing is going to change..When the people who have been entrusted to do the change dont want to do it who are we..If you are so much interested to see a better India devoid of BJP/RSS why dont you try to be part of the power..sorry ..go sleep..
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by Mind Clear on Mar 13, 2008 02:15 AM Permalink
This is the problem with you, you are always in a reactionary mode, with no rational thought ... How did you assume I am against BJP/RSS ... I am asking them to become a more potent force
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 01:48 AM Permalink
I agree with you- but you seem to forget people, unseen for the matter of fact and even unrewarded are doing a great job defending - the right you assume now for granted. Our ancestors assume the same thing before the muslim onslaught and following hindu genocide. In an ideal world you are correct- in this world the weak according to the Theory of evolution just dies out.
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by rajendra K on Mar 13, 2008 02:46 AM Permalink
In US this is called racism. This is nothing but excluding the other communities from the development.
RE:The PM's statement can encourage conversion to islam.
by spindoc on Mar 13, 2008 01:27 AM Permalink
Its all political gimmick...Wait till the election is over...It will not be a surprise if the politicians put our country for lease to reach power..
Rediff understands all of us very well that We spend our time fighting here. So they come out with articles like this. have they written anything constructive so far... I bet any one for this. They do cheap journalism.
What have the muslim terrorists done everywhere in world? rape, loot, kill and plunder. Bring abt death and destruction. History is proof that NO MUSLIM ARMY, FORCE, COUNTRY HAS EVER WON A STRUCTURED WAR IN THE PAST 200 YEARS. All the Islamists have managed is to kill innocent, harmless and defenseless children, women and men folk. Thanks to modern day "jaichands" that exist in the form of "secularists" that these terrorists get away with murder. What America to did to Afganistan & subsequently Iraq is the only language terrorists understand. The way a tiny chit of a country- Israel is screwing the "mighty- oil-rich" arabs is testimony of the terrorists' prowess. What happened in Gujurat is the backlash to 55 years of one-sided violence by anti-national elements unleashed on the docile-mind-your-own-business-Gujarati-community. But one thing is sure, after that there wont be any riots for the next 100 years in Gujurat.
HOw many of you know aobut Vijayanagar, chola, chera, etc. No great Indian (regional) empire is given due in our history books. I am from Gujarat and learnt most of the above from my south indian friends. i didnt know that Chola controled most of South East Asia and that they conquered and had a federal system where the conquered king will still rule but pay homage to Chola for a common army, etc. Chola wasn't cruel to the conquered lands either, (unlike western civilization that pillaged and raped africa, india, etc).
If Mode wants to fight for MH history to be given due, he should rather fight for Indian history to be given due.
RE:HOw many of you know aobut Vijayanagar, chola, chera, etc
by Tom on Mar 13, 2008 01:54 AM Permalink
It seems you have skipped your primary school or you didn't show an interest in history when you were in school. Or possibly you had as worst an history teacher as mine. But still I had interest in history and so read the books.
RE:HOw many of you know aobut Vijayanagar, chola, chera, etc
by rak jag on Mar 13, 2008 03:17 AM Permalink
In Maharshtra we had history from 1 to 10 th standard for all students. It goes from local history to world history in progressive way. I remember that in 5 th to 7 th standard we have history of India which covers from Mhanjodaro to 1947. I think you are not studied that well during those years. By the way NCERT is national institution which set up all curriculams in India & all have to follow there rules about curriculums in India. If we have Indian history then you should have with technical differences like number of chapters & pages.
RE:HOw many of you know aobut Vijayanagar, chola, chera, etc
by spindoc on Mar 13, 2008 01:24 AM Permalink
One of the resons why there are lot of great Temples in Soth India..
RE:HOw many of you know aobut Vijayanagar, chola, chera, etc
by asdfg on Mar 13, 2008 01:22 AM Permalink
if u r from gujarat, you should have learnt in the Gujarat board history books about the cholas, pallavas etc. If you didn't heed to the books, I must say it is your drawback. There was no good mention about Shivaji in particular, but had a lot to do with all the 4 maratha kingdoms in Gujarati History books as well. Scindias (shinde), Gaekwads, Peshwas and holkars all were mentioned. Also I would like to point that there was a long list for the Mughal Dynasty rule at the same time very little mention about the Rajasthani Rajput History. I wonder why the congress govt never thot of including that.
Shivaji is one of the most inspiring personalities in our history.
We know lot of stories how a group of friends have got-together and have built a sucessfull rock bands....but getting together with a handful of guys and building an empire which dethrowned the mughals and checked the europeans and british!!
Even some europeans then had some good things to say about his valour and strategies...
Wikipedia has some good accounts on him.
But then I wonder why there has not been a single film/ TV serial on him as yet? I guess this may have something to do with the commerical aspect, perhaps such stuff wont sell elsewhere....
RE:RE:...
by rahul on Mar 13, 2008 02:55 AM Permalink
You are really making a mockery of a great personality with your statements. Please don't spread bad comments about the King Shivaji
RE:...
by rak jag on Mar 13, 2008 03:21 AM Permalink
If you don't know about history then don't write here. Shivaji created nval force under Angres & build sea forts along Konkan coast to stop Europian powers from taking part into local politics. It is only after Placi's famous fight in Bengal which give encouragement to British to take part in Indian politics. That was after 100 yrs of Shivaji's death
RE:...
by VancouverPunekar on Mar 13, 2008 01:10 AM Permalink
'hand in hand with british against indian kings' - who tells you these stories?
For your information.. wikipedia can be edited by anyone, but it is verfied within a week and if some facts look distorted..they are removed eventually. I myself have edited tons of articles there..., dont tell me about it. Do you understand this? If not 'by heart' this.
RE:...
by VancouverPunekar on Mar 13, 2008 02:10 AM Permalink
i resisted my best not to reply...but it will help if you go and read about wiki pages how they operate..how some editions with citations get removed etc...
Anyways point is though wiki operates in public domain...it has a mechanism in place which ens sures the articles remain authentic... despite people like you arnd who would be putting tainted figures/facts in it. Right?
chill out...dude... no one is perfect in life...may be there are some negatives associated with shivaji,...like any other idol ...what matters is the bottomline...i am sure the postives of shivaji will out weigh the negatives(in case those exist) ..by a fair margin.
Take some time out of work..climb come mountain..how about grouse? No ..actually whistler is the real deal.
RE:...
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 01:04 AM Permalink
Amazing - If you fight to save your country - they called you dacoit. When foreigners invades, converts, destroyed and plunder - we make praise nad films.
RE:king !!!
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 12:48 AM Permalink
You must be a joker. :) But we did make a film about Tipu Sultan whose people destroyed the Vijaynagar empire.
RE:king !!!
by Ajay on Mar 13, 2008 01:03 AM Permalink
Shivaji was a dacoit? yes but he looted the looting army of Aurangazeb only and protected innocent people. Well Tipu Sultan lived some 200 years after shivaji so I don't understand what is the connection. And for your kind information It was Tatya Tope one of the peshvas who lead the war against the British in 1857.
RE:king !!!
by rak jag on Mar 13, 2008 03:26 AM Permalink
When Shivaji looted Surat at that time it was part of Mugal empire with muslim commander to defend it. At the time of looting he only kiiled who resisted. Stav looks like writing from pakistan.
The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji. I have read this letter, it is quite easy to make out from the context and the place he is referring to that the letter writer is a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Maharastrian. I think this is a clear case of stealing credit from that King and giving it to Shivaji.
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by Kumar on Mar 13, 2008 12:41 AM Permalink
How about also thanking in the Rajputs, the Vijaynagarams, the Jats, the Gurkhas and the Sikhs. Shivaji just fought in Maharashtra. The Sikhs protected Punjab, the Rajputs Rajasthan, UP and Bihar. The Jats Western UP and Haryana, the Vijainagaram the Hindu culture, the Nepalese Gurkhas Nepal and Terai, the Tibetians Tibet and Ladakh. Why are Maharastrain stealing credit when they were just another people who protected themselves?
RE:RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by kenny kruise on Mar 13, 2008 12:50 AM Permalink
Mr.Kumar, In those times there was no Indian union, therefore at that time local people considered their local land as their country.Now thats some Historical General knowledge update for you eh?
RE:RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 12:51 AM Permalink
Ok -accepted. But who actually challenged and weakened the Mughuls to breaking point. Apart from the Sikhs- did any of the people mentioned had armies who actually won battles againts muslim armies- I am not talking about skirmishes here. How many protected other people in other states apart from their won?
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by kenny kruise on Mar 13, 2008 01:01 AM Permalink
You still did not understand, there was no indian union at that time.why would any punjabi fight against the mughals to save rajputs or vice versa?
RE:RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 01:07 AM Permalink
Why did Shivaji - lost his soldiers to defend the South and more men at the battle of panipat defending the North against Afghan? This is why he is differen - the English gave us a map, but the English did not make us Indian Shivaji knew he was Indian, before a map existed.
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by Ajay on Mar 13, 2008 01:08 AM Permalink
For your Kind information, Marathas or Peshvas as you may call them ruled most of the India that is present today during Bajirao Peshva-II's regime
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by Kumar on Mar 13, 2008 01:39 AM Permalink
Not true, Ashoka, Chandragupta Maurya, Gupta empire Harshavardhan, Cholas, Vizainagaram Empire and Rajputs ruled even bigger area. And so did the invaders like Mughals, Afghans, British and the Indian politicians!
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by snpost on Mar 13, 2008 01:43 AM Permalink
So did the mughals and afghan made us Indian - or did they made the converts hate everything associated with India.
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by rajendra K on Mar 13, 2008 02:55 AM Permalink
It is Vizayanagram. Vizaynagarm was small kingdom Orissa and Andhra border. This is Vijayanagar. In fact Shivaji went to the site where Vijaynagar lost the last battle at Talikota. He got inspired to create Hindu empire. You can see the Maratha Kings/Sardars From Tangore in Tamilnadu to Jhansi in UP.
RE:The letter was written by a Rajput Hindu king from Rajasthan and not Shivaji
by Kumar on Mar 13, 2008 01:56 AM Permalink
Obviously you are part of the insensitivity problem plaguing India. You hate the injustice, corruption, castism, neopotism, criminalization; you don't ignore this simply because you want to be a patriotic Indian. Show your loyalty to values, ethics, compassion, morality and justice; the country is secondary to the values. If the value exists it doesn't matter what is your national bountry and if the values don't happen than damn that country/society.
