[puranjay]

Nations are usually built on lies. Most countries would likely fall apart if they were completely truthful about their histories.

In India's case, the whitewashing of Mughal rule was a necessity because there are still a substantial number of Muslims living in India, and painting their ancestors - the Mughals - as barbaric invaders would likely lead to violence (especially when seen in the context of the Partition violence).

At this point, India has to confront a hard question: does it continue believing the old lies, or does it accept the harsher reality? If we go with the latter, can you be confident that the country will survive in its present form?

I'm not sure of the answer. The mature position would be to understand that the violence and religious persecution happened, but since that's in the past, we can't really change anything about it. Punishing the present does not undo the sins of the ancestors.

But I'm not convinced that most people will take the mature position.

[srean]

Your point is very well taken.

Empire making and keeping is inherently violent, but the current trend seems to be trying to make the case that Hindu emperors achieved what they achieved with peace, rainbows and divine fairness (and some old Hindu science of flying machines, plastic surgery between humans and elephant heads. All lost because of outside invasion). Pushing this point of view has been the national agenda in the current political situation.

[puranjay]

If nothing else, it's a gross oversimplification of history - a basic "us vs them" narration. When in reality, alliances were driven more by political necessity than by religion. There were Hindu generals in Mughal armies, just as there were Muslim commanders in the Maratha armies.

If you trace the Mughal family tree, you'll also find that someone like Shah Jahan was 75% Indian by blood (Hindu Rajput grandmom, Hindu Rajput mom). Make of that what you will.

[srean]

Agreed. Even the notion that the British took India from the Mughals is quite a laughable notion. Mughals were a shadow of themselves at that time. India was taken from the Marathas, not the Mughals.

An aside, are you aware of significant artifacts (more than hill top forts) institutions that the Marathas left behind. I would be quite interested in knowing about them. With the subject matter so politically charged it is hard to have levelheaded conversations on it.

[drieddust]

There is various degrees of violence. In Indian context Kings fought each other to grab kingdoms but that did not translate into general massacre of public for their religious beliefs until Islam arrived.Of course this comes from my little knowledge of Indian History so I will be happy to learn more.

> some old Hindu science of flying machines, plastic surgery between humans and elephant heads. All lost because of outside invasion).

I do not subscribe to this nationalistic view. But then a lot of knowledge from India did get appropriated and lost. Take the example of Fibonacci series. Europe didn't adopt decimal numerals until 16th century and yet Fibonacci was able to invent his series?? No, he himself wrote I learned this from Indian and I am merely translating it. Yet it's called Fibonacci series with no attribution to its origin.[1]

Nalanda reportedly had 10k students, 2000 teachers, and 9 million books. When Khilji destroyed it, library burned for 3 months as reported by the historian of the destroyer himself so saying nothing was lost is just not real.[2]

[1] Liber Abaci

[2] Tabaqat-i Nasiri - Minhaj-i-Siraj

[srean]

> Yet it's called Fibonacci series with no attribution to its origin.[1]

I gather that you are not trained as a mathematician.

Much is made by the Hindu right wing about Fibonacci series. Before I explain, a minor correction, your comment makes it seem Fibonacci invented or claimed to have invent it. He did neither, he cited Indian publications describing the series.

Now back to the main point, hardly any mathematical result is named after the mathematician who invented the said concept, let alone first studied it. Consider Dirac delta functions. It was not invented by Dirac and neither is it even a function. Consider Taylor series, Taylor was not the first to come up with that series. Look up Stiglers law that describes the phenomenon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy True to its character, Stigler was not the first to observe this.

Its quite rare to have names correctly attributed in math's. Usually the name goes to the one who popularized the notion, the one who got the notion the maximum number of eyeballs and ears.

But no, that's not what you will be get from the Hindu right. What you will get are stories about "our rightful place was taken away from us by conspiracy".

Everywhere it is known that democracy started in Greece. Vaishali was a democracy much before that. That does not mean there is a conspiracy to do Hindu's under. A lot of it is just lack of knowledge and us not being in the forefront of human and modern civilizational accomplishments.

Tell me about one modern civilization scale accomplishment that came out of India recently that has changed the world. Artificial Satellite in space, not us. Humans in space, Moon -- not us. Computers -- not us. One computer language -- not us. Superconductors -- not us. Internet -- not us. When you lose that spot you lose the attention. No one is going to pay any heed to the fact that yeah democracy came to Vaishali before it came to Athens. They will listen even less because its the same folks who claim that Hindus had nuclear weapons during Mahabharat times, who talk about some truly genuine and notable historical facts.

> > some old Hindu science of flying machines, plastic surgery between humans and elephant heads. All lost because of outside invasion).

> I do not subscribe to this nationalistic view

Our prime minister does.

[drieddust]

Of course I am not a mathematician or a historian and we digressed a lot into Indian history.

I was merely refuting the premise of this Pakistani propaganda article that Akbar was tolerant. By contrasting between Akbar's ordering of beheading of 30k non combatants with Maha Rana Pratap returning his enemy Rahim's family back to him safely I hoped to demonstrate that Akbar wasn't tolerant even for his time. I believe you are from India so you would know both stories especially of Rahim.

On the subject of attributions you do know chain of custody for Dirac's function? Secondly if democracy can be attributed to Athens then why not Vaishali? They both are dead and harmless. Indians are not going to claims royalties from rest of the world for running democracies. Why deny attribution where it is due and makes sense? Anyways we can keep that aside.

What if I tell you this cultural appropriation is going on as we speak. I hope you know that Yoga and Bhratnatyam are actively rebranded as Christian Yoga[1] and Christian Bhratnatyam[2]. This appropriation should be accepted just because India is not as advanced as compared to the first world countries?

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/can-yog...

[2] https://www.hinduhumanrights.info/bharatanatyam-and-the-art-...

[n_t]

I hear what you are saying but don't agree that "let's brush it under carpet" approach would be a mature one. My assessment is that current religious problems in India exist because there was no closure on hindu-muslim issues which started with Mughals and ended with partition. No political or religious leader addressed this issue with genuine concern and acknowledgement of history. Instead, all (including Gandhi to current politicians) took ostrich approach to deny the rift with slogans of unity, while pressurizing Hindus to forget-and-forgive since it appeals more to Hindus. This eventually gave rise to "pseudo-secularism" in India which is essentially anti-Hindu but pro-Islam stance. It is my opinion that due to this, distrust between Hindus and Muslims still lingers on and always will. Better approach would have been a proper closure of all the violence, conversions, atrocities, etc of past and then focus on moving on. And finally, mature approach would have been to figure out what is proper closure?

[ignoramous]

> a substantial number of Muslims living in India, and painting their ancestors - the Mughals - as barbaric invaders.

I'd like a source for Mughal ancestry of Muslims. It looks like you're passing of opinion as facts here.

[mavelikara]

Thanks for your comment.

[drieddust]

> In India's case, the whitewashing of Mughal rule was a necessity because there are still a substantial number of Muslims living in India ....

There are substantial level of German living in Germany, let's not teach them about Nazis? Interpreted other way you are advocating appeasement of people who already have superiority complex due to their religious beliefs.

History should be taught as it is? No lies. If Marathas were the aggressive towards Punjab and Bengal, teach it.

> I'm not sure of the answer .... ancestors.

How will you achieve that if you whitewash. Mature position requires understanding the past and then moving on.

[puranjay]

You have to see things in context. The "whitewashing" happened at the dawn of independence. We'd just come off a massive human rights disaster in the form of the partition. Religious tensions were simmering. The country was broke. "Truthful" (though that's a loaded term in itself) would have ruptured the foundations of the country.

We do indeed need to have this conversation as a nation. But I don't think we're ready yet. We're still too poor and desperate. Poor and desperate people rarely make mature, rational decisions, especially about topics as emotionally charged as religion.

[known]

https://archive.is/mPsqz

[srean]

> History should be taught as it is? No lies.

Not going to happen. History is always written by the victorious and in a way that is more flattering towards the victorious. The way we think of Hitler nowadays, we would be thinking the same of Churchill if WWII went the other way.

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/rethinking-churchill-...

What we can do instead is to tech people to read history well aware of this bias and mentally correct for it.