Medieval History And Hurt Psyche
By Asghar Ali Engineer
30 April, 2003
Two retired IAS officers who are known for their commitment to
secularism and communal harmony recently wrote to me that will it not be in the interest of communal harmony and buying peace if the Muslims in India tendered apology for demolition of temples and rapaciousness, loot and plunder in India during medieval ages as it has caused deep hurt to the Hindu psyche. They feel that majority of Hindus feel hurt by demolition of their temples by the Muslim rulers during medieval ages and any such apology by Muslims today would work as healing touch. This will reduce communal tension and communalism will subside.They also feel that secular interpretation of history does not help
and what is needed is owning up the guilt. One of them also feels
that as the justice and truth commission in South Africa healed the
ruffled emotions and helped restore peace, the apology from Muslims would also help create goodwill among the Hindus.Howsoever sincere these feelings may be and howsoever motivated by desire for peace, I doubt if it can prove efficacious. There are other questions of moral nature as well apart from legal ones. I would like to throw detailed light on these questions and also on methodology of understanding history. First, I would like to throw some light on the methodology of interpreting history.
As for understanding history it is not sufficient to take the events
into account and even for every event several narratives are
available and one has to chose one of these narratives. One often
chooses the narrative in keeping with ones ideological bias. Every narrative is loaded one in as much as the reporter of the narrative himself has his biases or interests, if not biases.The noted British historian E.H.Carr maintains that historians are
like cooks and as cooks add their own recipe to the raw fish they
cook and impart different tests to the same species of fish, the
historians also add their ideological biases and create different
narratives from the same event. And readers too bring to bear their own biases while choosing one of the narratives as true.Also, one has to take holistic view of events and not selective view. Most of us often take selective view in as much as we tend to select those events, which are in keeping with our bias or interests and disregard those which go against our bias or interest. We cannot understand history with such bias. Not only history we cannot understand contemporary events with such bias.
There are major controversies about contemporary events, let alone about those events which have taken place hundreds of years ago. We cannot be sure about truth of many contemporary events as they are often surrounded by major controversies. And even commission of inquiries cannot establish truth of many events. How can we be then sure of controversial events of the past? Also, in understanding history and historical events, one cannot focus on event alone, motive is equally important, if not more. Our reading of history is often limited to description of events, often ignoring the motive behind them. Mere event without understanding likely motive behind it does not enable us to understand the event in proper perspective.
Even if a murder takes place before our eyes, we will not be able to understand the cause of murder without knowing the motive. Similarly, it is not enough to know that a temple was demolished unless we know why was it demolished? The motive makes all the difference. One cannot simply assume that the temple was demolished because idolatry is practiced there. It might have been demolished for other reasons say for plunder of wealth, for humiliating the ruler and give the message to his subjects that the ruler is impotent and cannot protect a temple. Also, it might have been demolished because it happened to be the temple of Isht Devta of the king or it might have been demolished to take revenge.
It is equally important to know the associated events and ignoring
them can result in serious misunderstanding of the event. For example when certain Muslim rulers demolished temples, often Hindu soldiers also took part in it. If the motive was to stop idol worship, in all probability they would not have taken part in such a project. If it was with the motive of plunder of wealth they could participate.Also, it is important to note that those rulers who had demolished
temples had also given jagirs to some other temples. Aurangzeb who is projected in our history textbooks as temple demolisher, has given jagirs to may other temples, in some cases in the same city. He also built a temple in Chitrakoot in M.P. and gave a piece of land with revenue for its maintenance. If he demolished temples only because he hated idol worship how could he give jagirs to other temples, or even construct temple in other place? Thus his demolishing some temples was not for hatred of idol worship but some other motive. This makes
great difference.All this is not mentioned in our history textbooks. Muslim rulers
like Aurangzeb are projected as demolishers of Hindu temples ignoring all other things. Thus we often take selective view of history and not holistic, as pointed out above. To do justice to history we must take into account not only of few selected events but of all related events.It is also important to note that temples were demolished not only by Muslim rulers but also by Hindu and Buddhist rulers. King Harsh of Kashmir (of 11th century) had appointed an officer in charge of demolition of temples (devotpatan nayaka) who used to select temples with lot of wealth. He would remove the idol and drag it on the streets and ask people to line up and witness it. He would then melt the idol (of silver or gold) and deposit the silver or gold in state treasury.
There are other instances of Hindu invaders demolishing temples in the region of the invasion. All this is not mentioned in our history
textbooks. Only where Muslim rulers demolished temple it is highlighted in our history.Now we would take up the question of hurt psyche and tendering
apology by Muslims. Even if we assume that Muslim rulers demolished temples with the sole motive of stopping idol worship (which is not the case) how can Muslims today be held responsible for what their co-religionists did hundreds of years ago? Another important question to be taken into account is can we treat any religious community as homogenous? Can all Muslims be put in the same bracket? Were there not Muslim rulers or nobles who patronised Hindu places of worship?
There were many Muslims who were even devotees of Hindu gods like Lord Krishna.There were many sufi saints who even believed that Hindu gods like Ram and Krishna might have been prophets of Allah since Allah has said in the Qur?an that He has sent His prophets to all the nations. For example Sufi Mazhar Jan-I-Janan of 18th century held such a view and even considered Hindu idol worship as different from idol worship of pre-Islamic Arabs and justified it.
Thus all Muslims cannot be bracketed together and entire community cannot be held responsible for what some members of that community did. It would be morally wrong. How can all Muslims of even medieval ages could be responsible for what some of them did? And Muslims of today can certainly not be held responsible for any such events at all even morally, let alone legally. They are not even progeny of those rulers who demolished those temples. Most of them are converted from low caste Hindus. These converts were looked down upon with contempt by the ruling classes of Muslims who considered themselves as superior (ashraf) to these ajlaf (of low origin)
Most of these converted Muslims were far more integrated with the local low caste Hidus and followed their traditions and customs. They were far closer to the sufis and their belief of sulh-I-kul (i.e. peace with all). In no way they could be held responsible for what some rulers did. And it is also important to note that all Muslim rulers did not demolish temples. Among them were many like Akbar or Adil Shah or Zainul Abidin who contributed richly to local religions, traditions, customs, arts, architecture and music. There are very few rulers who have been accused of temple demolition.
And it is also important to note that who has created this ?hurt
psyche?? It is not found among all Hindus. It is politically
generated hurt, especially by the Sangh Parivar propaganda. The Sangh Parivar propaganda intensified during the last part of decade of eighties when they carried out intense propaganda for Ramjanambhoomi temple obviously for political purpose. It has also been partially generated by the history textbooks taught in or schools. These textbooks were originally written by the British historians of colonial India to divide us so that they can rule. Before British period it will be difficult to find such ?hurt psyche?. It has been generated for political reasons.The common Hindus, especially in rural areas do not have such
feelings even today. It is urban elite who entertains such ideas.
Thus it is mainly political propaganda of communal variety and school text books which are mainly responsible for such feelings. And the remedy does not lie in apology by Muslims of contemporary India but in fighting communal forces who misuse history and in reforming our educational system.