Excerpts from the book INDIA DECODED.
"It is mainly in the biased and one-sided propaganda literature composed in the courts of certain rulers during the period of the tribal ascendancy in India that we can find the constructions of Islamic invasions in India in the past. Any book on history that follows the logical pattern of historical progress cannot prove the kind of invasions propagated by propaganda literature.
The first part of the logical pattern of historical evolution speaks about the process of cyclic evolution to which every society is subjected. Even as a general history reader it is visible to us that the world historical progress consists of the processes of coming into being and going out of existence of a number of societies in succession. Just as the biological world is adapted to the processes of a number of individuals coming into being and going out of existence in succession, the human society as an organism is adapted to the process of cyclic evolution. Every society that takes birth owes itself to a previous society. When the old society cannot sustain itself due to constantly evolving ideas and technologies and emerging new challenges, a new society comes into being as an inevitable consequence. Every society on the earth follows its due course of evolution beginning with the process of birth and following the inevitable stages of growth, division, ageing and dissolution. Only in those historical visions that wanted to perpetuate either imperialism or feudalism that we cannot find out these logical patterns of historical evolution. It is such kind of historical vision that unleashes turmoil all over the world today. Now we should enquire why we cannot apply cult and creed names like Hindu or Islam to understand the evolution of various tribal empires in Central Asia or the evolution of the Turkish and Mongol empires in India. This needs a brief understanding about the evolutionary history of the Arab society in Arabia.
Historical narration is always colored by the vision of those who write history. It means if you color your vision with religion, you will find the birth of an Islamic society in Arabian Peninsula in 7th century CE, but if you care for your logical sense you will find the birth of an Arab society in Arabia in 6th century. No doubt, the idea of Islam fired the evolution of this society. But when the owners of this idea constituted a political state, they breached the irrational realm of their faith and constituted a rational socio-political and economic organization. This rational socio-political and economic organization which had technically broken off from the irrational faith can also be called as the Saracen political state because the consciousness of the time recognized the people living in the Arabian Peninsula as the Saracen people. Moreover, in order to avoid the fallacy of selective interpretation of history we should use the term either Arab or Saracen while dealing with the history of Arabia.
The Arab society made the best use of the existing ideas and techniques of the 7th century Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it became a vigorous society. When the new society broke the barrier of the desert and marched into neighboring territories, its imperial stage began. The Caliphate in Damascus was the manifestation of its imperial stage. When this society suffered decadence, as this idea was unable to facilitate the existence of a society outside the Arabian Peninsula, it underwent a metamorphosis in Persia, and the consequence was the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.
The Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad gradually underwent division, ageing, dissolution and decay. In this manner, the Saracen society completed its life cycle and it fulfilled its historical role. When the Seljuk Turks broke in and established their new society in Persia, West Asia witnessed a new era of social evolution. In order to understand the history of Seljuk Persia, it must be disentangled from the colors attributed to it by propagandists. Still more, if we care for our logical sense, we should not use the term Islamic for the invasions undertaken by the Arab people from the 7th century CE.
Islam is a form of faith and it is the people who invaded the territories. Ideas and techniques cannot invade a territory. They spread from one place to another place. We cannot find a history that mentions democracy invaded Japan or computer invaded India. This kind of historical narration convinces us that history is nothing but a bunch of orchestrated assertions that suit the interests of its creators. An invasion is a political and economic act and when the name of a creed or cult is used to substantiate an invasion, we have already discredited that creed or cult by foraying out of its legitimate domain. On the other hand, if we pursue the propagandist claim that Islam is a socio-political, economic and military force that wants to conquer the world, it ceases to become a form of faith whose legitimate realm is irrational in nature. But as we know Islam has existed as a form of faith without foraying into rational socio-political, economic and military realms in various parts of the world during the onward movement of time, we have no reason to pursue the line of Islamic invasion purported in the supposed cult histories by various propagandists in the past.
If the world history is rewritten by replacing the names of the religions with people those who committed atrocities all over the world in the name of various cult organizations, half of the turmoil in the current world can be overcome. It also follows that orchestrated historical narration is a matter of convenience. It doesn't matter for anyone if history mentions that the Turks and the Mongols invaded the subcontinent, because there are no Turks and Mongols in India today to stake claims on the idea of a past invasion. Moreover, the fact that the Turks and the Mongols invaded India cannot be useful for whipping up the emotions of the people, but not so in the case of an invasion by Islam which can be used for whipping up emotions, as also a matter that cannot be questionable. These kinds of manipulations in history convince us that people who used the names of religions in history are doing so with a purpose of staking claims on territories and populations with a purpose to perpetuate imperialism, the worst kind of imperialism that the world is yet to fight. We should overcome these historical fallacies in order to understand the history of various tribal societies in Central Asia.
Moreover, as we are searching for truth, we cannot hold the faith of Islam responsible for the atrocities committed by the Turks and Mongols in India insofar as we cannot color the history of the Turks and Mongols in the subcontinent with the idea of Islam. There is no doubt that the increasing castigations against the people of West Asia in the Western colonial historical narrative is a well-conceived intellectual strategy to discredit the faith of Islam, which is as good or bad as any other kind of faith, in order to suppress the people who were the owners of arguably one of the most advanced civilizations on the surface of the earth. The Saracen or Arab civilization had dominated the scene of civilization with brilliant achievements during a period falsely claimed by the European historical tradition as the medieval age or the Dark Age. Therefore, in order to save the honor of this civilization, there is a need to reckon it with the name the Saracen or Arab civilization. Conversely, in order to save the honor of the faith of Islam, there is a need to separate its trajectory from the course of violent socio-political, economic and military actions which were undertaken by various societies from time to time.
Further, there is a need to understand the difference between the faith of Islam and the Islamist propaganda while understanding history in its right spirit. In this regard we have other siblings of Islamist propaganda such as the Hindutva propaganda and Christian propaganda etc. When a faith breaches its legitimate realm of the unknown and employs its passions to engage the rational realms of socio-political, economic and military endeavors, it becomes a contesting organization. Such kinds of contesting organizations are referred by the term Islamist groups.
The second part of the logical pattern of historical evolution speaks about the specific nature of each society. Each society should be considered as a social organism which is inalienably related to a territory, a time and a human population component. Its ideas and philosophical systems determine its socio-genetic composition which alone is responsible for its origin and evolution. A society should always be defined by its dynamics. A certain idea always facilitates the birth, growth, division, ageing and dissolution of a society. The idea that acts like the genetic foundation of the society undergoes evolution during the evolution of the society. An unchanging idea cannot ever become the life of a living society. An idea which once gave life to a society in the past cannot give life to another society in the future, because an idea of social existence has inalienable relations with other ideas and techniques of the time. Both ideas and techniques are evolutionary in nature, and because of this reason an idea which once facilitated the evolution of a society cannot undertake the evolution of another society in the future.
We cannot apply the title of Islam to understand the evolution of any society after the 9th century CE because with the dissolution of the Abbasid Caliphate around the 9th century, long before the final assault by the Seljuk Turks, the societies on many segments in Persia underwent evolution around new pivotal ideas. The dissociated segments of Abbasid Persia in the east raised not yet vanished Zoroastrian claims to influence their social dynamics. Ghaznavid Afghanistan, the territory where the first Turkish territorial society was born, saw the rise of a kingdom that turned around the pivotal idea of tribal affiliation. It underwent evolution as well as dissolution on the pivotal idea of tribal patriotism. It came into being and subsequently went out of existence because the idea that facilitated its existence was relevant to 10th century CE. A history that claims the rise of Ghazni as the rise of Islam commits a grievous self-contradiction when it refuses to accept the fall of Ghazni as the fall of Islam. Therefore, we should leave behind the historical constructions that used the names of cults, customs and practices in order to understand the history of Ghazni.
Tribal affiliation and plundering economy together defined the pivotal impulses of the Ghaznavid Empire. On these pivotal impulses the Ghaznavid society grew, by attaching kinfolks to its society and by plundering various neighboring societies. The first process increased its strength and the second process provided it with the necessary resources for its expansion. When another fierce tribe of the Turks, the Ghorids, appeared on the scene, the empire in Ghazni doomed. The new Turkish Empire, called the Ghorid Empire, painfully extirpated the Ghaznavid Empire. The idea of either Islam or Hindu did not stand on the way to define the social evolution processes of these societies.
It was as a contending force against the Ghaznavid Empire that the kingdom of Ghur was born. In fact, the murderous conflicts between Ghazni and Ghur involved the sack and burning of cities and towns and the slaughter of populations. The Ghaznavids raided many Indian grassroot societies and committed grave atrocities on the populations of India. Subsequently, the Ghur Empire became prominent. When the Ghur Empire became prominent, it undertook raids in Ghazni.
In Ghazni, the Ghorid ruler committed all the atrocities that he had to commit in the territories of India later. If a history names the Ghorid raid in India as Islamic invasion, the very history, in order to avoid contradiction in it, is bound to name the Ghorid raid in Ghazni as Islamic invasion. But it is impossible to substantiate that the ruler of Islamic Ghur conducted an Islamic invasion in the territories of Islamic Ghazni. Hence, in order to avoid such grievous contradictions in historical knowledge, we have to wipe out the colors which were applied to the social evolution process in Central Asia.
When we remove the colors of Islamic invasions and Islamic societies from the history of Central Asia, we can have the truth with us. In fact, Ghazni and Ghur pronounced two different social organizations during historical evolution. The growth of one society, therefore, essentially meant the breach and the subsequent dissolution of the other. Hence, we can easily account for the conflict between Ghazni and Ghur, which led to the violent extirpation of the former.
After the division and dissolution of the Turkish state in India, the Timurid Mongol Babur established the empire society of his warrior tribes in India and subsequently carried out an annihilation campaign against the Turks who had been the dominant players of politics in North India previously. It was necessitated, because every society tried to grow at the cost of other societies. If we apply the color of Islamic invasion to understand the conflict between the Mongols and the Turks in India, we end up in contradiction.
So was the case in the courts of Deccan. The dividing Turkish Empire gave birth to the Bahmani kingdom, which during its subsequent division gave birth to Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar and Berar. Various camp follower historians tried to color the dynamics of these societies with the ideas of Islam and Hindu. No doubt, there were occasions when the underlying cult organizations tried to influence the working of the socio-political and economic organization called the government of the territorial state, as happened during the times of Aurangzeb in the past or as happens during our own time under the bandwagon of Hindutva. However, after a strict scrutiny we can state with certainty that tribal affiliations and plundering activities decided the fate of all Central Asian tribal empires and their progenies in India. Not only in India, in every other part of the world, when the nomads established their empire societies over the unconscious grassroot societies, Islam or Christianity or Hindutva stood away from the social dynamics of those empires. Such empires survived on a limited concept of political domination reinforced by just or unjust tax regimes.
It is on the foundations of various historical fallacies and orchestrated assertions that cult claims are raised in different parts of the world today. The societies of the Turks and the Mongols, which underwent evolution on their own pivotal ideas, came to an end long before, and any territorial claim by any people today on behalf of them, is an aberration in the dynamics of civilization. In fact, the people who make claims on the basis of the moribund past are reactionaries.
On the extreme side, we have one more example of historical misrepresentation which involved unreal claims. The Hindutva propagandists of modern India colored the societies of the Sungas, Guptas and Marathas with their newfound Hindu claims. The tendency inherent in the Hindutva history is not very different from that inherent in the Islamist or Christian history. Such a revivalist history laid foundations of various fictitious social claims on the basis of an unreal past and as a consequence, its domain of knowledge consisted of nothing more than a collection of falsehoods.
After having confirmed beyond doubt that the societies of the Turks, Mongols and Timurids owned their own dynamisms, which had to do nothing with the creeds and cults that coexisted with them, we shall leave behind those illogical conceptions, Islamic invasions and Hindu persecutions, to their ultimate rest. It is after enslaving oneself to the morbidity of the past and the illogicality of historical conceptions that he can apply the terms Islamic invasions and Hindu persecutions in the history of India."
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