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The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India
"The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India" unflinchingly recounts the harrowing saga of Muslim invasions and their barbaric acts on the people of India. From the destruction of Hindu temples to forced conversions, this narrative exposes the dark underbelly of Islamic imperialism in the Indian subcontinent. Through tales of religious intolerance and oppression, this book confronts the stark reality of the atrocities committed by Muslim rulers, leaving a lasting scar on the fabric of Indian society.
138 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Sita Ram Goel
50 books208 followersSita Ram Goel (16 October 1921 – 3 December 2003) was an Indian religious and political activist, writer and publisher in the late twentieth century. He had Marxist leanings during the 1940s, but later became an outspoken anti-communist and also wrote extensively on the damage to Indian culture and heritage wrought by expansionist Islam and missionary activities of Christianity. In his later career he emerged as a commentator on Indian politics, and adhered to Hindu nationalism.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 30, 2018
Another great book by Sita Ram Goel. One of the author whose books are not distorted. This book is true to its history. Whatever we read in school and college were full of distorted one. Such a shame. Who purposely distorted the history of our India and why? Who were licking the boots of Islamic invaders? Why a community is praised for slaughtering Hindus? Why a section of Hindus are happy when Hindus are butchered? The author did lot of research while writing this book. The book gives the real idea how our ancestor went through. It shows how our own people distorted history and glorified islamic invasion and colonization of india.
“The magnitude of crimes credited to Muslim monarchs by the medieval Muslim historians, was beyond measure. With a few exceptions, Muslim kings and commanders were monsters who stopped at no crime when it came to their Hindu subjects. But what strikes as more significant is the broad pattern of those crimes. The pattern is that of a jihãd in which the ghãzîs of Islam 1) invade infidel lands; 2) massacre as many infidel men, women, and children, particularly Brahmins, as they like after winning a victory; 3) capture the survivors to be sold as slaves; 4) plunder every place and person; 5) demolish idolatrous places of worship and build mosques in their places; and 6) defile idols which are flung into public squares or made into steps leading to mosques.
Still more significant is the fact that this is exactly the pattern 1) revealed by Allah in the Quran; 2) practised, perfected and prescribed by the Prophet in his own life-time; 3) followed by the pious Khalifas of Islam in the first 35 years of Islamic imperialism; 4) elaborated in the Hadis and hundreds of commentaries with meticulous attention to detail; 5) certified by the Ulama and the Sufis of Islam in all ages including our own; and 6) followed by all Muslim monarchs and chieftains who aspired for name and fame in this life, and houris and beardless boys hereafter.”
We can see the amount of our books are distorted. Its heavily censored and Leftist written school textbooks or popular books from authors like Shashi Tharoor. This book is a must read for every Indian.
“The magnitude of crimes credited to Muslim monarchs by the medieval Muslim historians, was beyond measure. With a few exceptions, Muslim kings and commanders were monsters who stopped at no crime when it came to their Hindu subjects. But what strikes as more significant is the broad pattern of those crimes. The pattern is that of a jihãd in which the ghãzîs of Islam 1) invade infidel lands; 2) massacre as many infidel men, women, and children, particularly Brahmins, as they like after winning a victory; 3) capture the survivors to be sold as slaves; 4) plunder every place and person; 5) demolish idolatrous places of worship and build mosques in their places; and 6) defile idols which are flung into public squares or made into steps leading to mosques.
Still more significant is the fact that this is exactly the pattern 1) revealed by Allah in the Quran; 2) practised, perfected and prescribed by the Prophet in his own life-time; 3) followed by the pious Khalifas of Islam in the first 35 years of Islamic imperialism; 4) elaborated in the Hadis and hundreds of commentaries with meticulous attention to detail; 5) certified by the Ulama and the Sufis of Islam in all ages including our own; and 6) followed by all Muslim monarchs and chieftains who aspired for name and fame in this life, and houris and beardless boys hereafter.”
We can see the amount of our books are distorted. Its heavily censored and Leftist written school textbooks or popular books from authors like Shashi Tharoor. This book is a must read for every Indian.
October 10, 2020
Simply brilliant book. Almost every page is simply gold.
Must read for all Hindus & Muslims to know they have been brainwashed all these years.
Amazing quotes from the direct works of medieval Muslim chroniclers.
Must read for all Hindus & Muslims to know they have been brainwashed all these years.
Amazing quotes from the direct works of medieval Muslim chroniclers.
May 26, 2022
Book: The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India
Author: Sita Ram Goel
Publisher: Voice of India (1 August 2011)
Language: English
Format: Paperback, 138 pages
Item Weight: 200 g
Dimensions: 13.97 x 1.27 x 21.59 cm
Price: 120/-
“The pre-Islamic Arabs were truthful in their dealings with other people, and mannerly towards their enemies. They practised a code of honour in all give and take.
The women in pre-Islamic Arabia had a very high status. They presided over business and commerce. They took part in public debates and poetic contests. They rode liberally by themselves for visiting friends and lovers. They accompanied and stood by their men on the field of battle. They never wore the veil which Islam forced on them…….”
It was this easy, uncomplicated, and fundamentally humanitarian society which Islam divided by reciprocated abhorrence sown by a monopolist of 'divine revelations'.
Brother was turned against brother, sons and daughters against parents, wives against husbands, and neighbour against neighbour.
A brutal gang of wholetime thugs was let loose on this society by a preacher of 'perfect virtue'.
This gang led many surprise expeditions against unsuspecting tribal settlements without any provocation whatsoever, looted caravans which were not expecting to be waylaid, massacred many guiltless men and women and children in the most malicious manner, enslaved many more who had always been free citizens, forced many helpless women into slavery and concubinage, and deprived whole communities of their inherited as well as hard-earned properties, movable and immovable….”
It is said that while victors write history books that rejoice their bravery and the myths of their heroes, the losers write books of poetry, wistfulness, and malice, which mark their victimhood and reflect their self-righteousness in the face of defeat.
The latter, who belong to the category of the second-handers in Ayn Rand’s categorization, and waste much of their time hating and stereotyping the “creators” who humiliated them by routing them or by providing a counter example of success to their own impotence, must invent, propagate, instill, and absorb a whole range of compensating devices to fill the gap that separates them from their rivals, from outright hoaxes and common lies, to conspiracy theories in which they end up believing themselves.
In this fashion, not only their own cultural and scientific development is stifled, as their youth are indoctrinated at best, incited at worse, with few critical exceptions, to accept the fabrications as fact, but the adopted culture of stereotypes and the digested patterns of hatred, hostility, and violence also end up forging new generations.
Hindus were never very good political historians or biographers.
Their historical interest was always centred on the life-stories of especially outstanding heroes and saints, where also they enlarged the purely terrestrial in the image of the transcendent.
One searches without success the entire corpus of Itihasa-Purana for such historical data as the Greeks, the Romans the Chinese, and the Muslims have datelined about their kings and other luminaries.
The three RãjatarañgiNis written by KalhaNa, Jonaraja, and Srivara are the solitary exceptions.
What passes as Hindu political history before the advent of the Islamic invaders is mostly a patchwork pieced together by modern scholars out of epigraphic evidence, accounts of foreign travellers, and some indigenous literature.
There is hardly anything in this history of India which needs alteration except the perspective which has suffered considerable perversions, wittingly or unwittingly, during the days of the white man's supremacy.
It is only when we come to Islamic invaders of India that we have capacious historical materials collected and compiled by hundreds of Muslim chroniclers.
These materials have been cautiously collated, compared, edited, annotated, and translated by a band of Western and Indian scholars.
No one who is familiar with the results of this scholarship and wants to be fair can fail to vouchsafe that the scholars concerned have been, by and large, scrupulous and painstaking.
India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly a region of peace. There was plethora of wars fought by Hindu princes. But in all their wars, the Hindus had observed eight time-honoured conventions sanctioned by the Sãstras:
*The Brahmins and the Bhikshus were never molested.
*The cows were never killed.
*The temples were never touched.
*The chastity of women was never violated.
*The non-combatants were never killed or captured.
*A human habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort.
*The civil population was never plundered.
*War booty was an unknown item in the calculations of conquerors.
The martial classes, who clashed, mostly in open spaces, had a code of honour. Sacrifice of honour for victory or material gain was deemed as worse than death.
Islamic imperialism came with a different code - the Sunnah of the Prophet.
It required its warriors to fall upon the powerless civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. It required them to sack and burn down villages and towns after the defenders had died fighting or had fled.
The cows, the Brahmins, and the Bhikshus invited their special attention in mass murders of non-combatants. The temples and monasteries were their special targets in an orgy of pillage and arson.
Those whom they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves. The magnitude of the booty looted even from the bodies of the dead, was a measure of the success of a military mission. And they did all this as mujãhids (holy warriors) and ghãzîs (kãfir-killers) in the service of Allah and his Last Prophet.
Hindus found it very hard to identify with the psychology of this new invader.
For the first time in their history, Hindus were witnessing a scene which was described by KãnhaDade Prabandha (1456 AD) in the following words:
'……..The conquering army burnt villages, devastated the land, plundered people's wealth, took Brahmins and children and women of all classes captive, flogged with thongs of raw hide, carried a moving prison with it, and converted the prisoners into obsequious Turks.'
That was written in remembrance of Alauddin Khalji's invasion of Gujarat in the year 1298 AD. But the gruesome game had started three centuries earlier when Mahmud Ghaznavi had vowed to invade India every year in order to destroy idolatry, kill the kãfirs, capture prisoners of war, and plunder vast wealth for which India was well-known.
It will be difficult to find significant instances of distortion and misrepresentation in this great endeavour, except when we come to the Stalinist 'historians' like Mohammad Habib and Romila Thapar, to name only two from a fraternity which has multiplied fast under Nehruvian Secularism.
And to all those spokespersons of synthesis, assimilation, and composite culture, we would better quote Dr. R.C. Majumdar, one of the best and certainly the most versatile historian which modern India has known.
He writes: 'There was no reapprochement in respect of popular or national traditions, and those social and religious ideas and beliefs and practices and institutions which touch the deeper chord of life, and give it a distinctive form, tone and vigour. In short, the reciprocal influences were too superficial in character to affect materially the fundamental differences between the two communities in respect of almost everything that is deep-seated in human nature and makes life worth living.
So the two great communities, although they lived side by side, moved each in its own orbit and there was yet no sign that the twain shall ever meet.'
Again: 'Nor did the Muslims ever moderate their zeal to destroy ruthlessly the Hindu temples and images of gods, and their attitude in this respect remained unchanged from the day when Muhammad bin Qasim set foot on the soil of India till the 18th century A.D. when they lost all political power.'
I’d like to conclude with a particularly interesting incident conderning Akbar – the apple of every secularist’s eye. Dig this --
The year was 1568. Akbar ordered a general massacre at Chittor after the fort had fallen.
Abul Fazl records in his Akbar-Nãma as follows. 'There were 8,000 fighting Rajputs collected in the fortress, but there were more than 40,000 peasants who took part in watching and serving. From early dawn till midday the bodies of those ill-starred men were consumed by the majesty of the great warrior. Nearly 30,000 men were killed'
When Sultan Alauddin (Khalji) took the fort after six months and seven days, the peasantry were not put to death as they had not engaged in fighting. But on this occasion they had shown great zeal and activity. Their excuses after the emergence of victory were of no avail, and orders were given for a general massacre.'
Akbar thus improved on the record of Alauddin Khalji.
Watching the war and serving the warriors were re-interpreted as acts of war!
To top it all, Akbar travelled post-haste to Ajmer where he offered profuse thanks to Allah and the Prophet, and his (Akbar's) patron saint, Muinuddin Chishti, and issued a Fathnãma in which many suitable verses of the Quran were cited in order to corroborate that he had followed faithfully in the footsteps of the Prophet.
Read this book. Make copies of it and spread it among people. Translate it and distribute portions of it in the thoroughfare, you infidels.
Author: Sita Ram Goel
Publisher: Voice of India (1 August 2011)
Language: English
Format: Paperback, 138 pages
Item Weight: 200 g
Dimensions: 13.97 x 1.27 x 21.59 cm
Price: 120/-
“The pre-Islamic Arabs were truthful in their dealings with other people, and mannerly towards their enemies. They practised a code of honour in all give and take.
The women in pre-Islamic Arabia had a very high status. They presided over business and commerce. They took part in public debates and poetic contests. They rode liberally by themselves for visiting friends and lovers. They accompanied and stood by their men on the field of battle. They never wore the veil which Islam forced on them…….”
It was this easy, uncomplicated, and fundamentally humanitarian society which Islam divided by reciprocated abhorrence sown by a monopolist of 'divine revelations'.
Brother was turned against brother, sons and daughters against parents, wives against husbands, and neighbour against neighbour.
A brutal gang of wholetime thugs was let loose on this society by a preacher of 'perfect virtue'.
This gang led many surprise expeditions against unsuspecting tribal settlements without any provocation whatsoever, looted caravans which were not expecting to be waylaid, massacred many guiltless men and women and children in the most malicious manner, enslaved many more who had always been free citizens, forced many helpless women into slavery and concubinage, and deprived whole communities of their inherited as well as hard-earned properties, movable and immovable….”
It is said that while victors write history books that rejoice their bravery and the myths of their heroes, the losers write books of poetry, wistfulness, and malice, which mark their victimhood and reflect their self-righteousness in the face of defeat.
The latter, who belong to the category of the second-handers in Ayn Rand’s categorization, and waste much of their time hating and stereotyping the “creators” who humiliated them by routing them or by providing a counter example of success to their own impotence, must invent, propagate, instill, and absorb a whole range of compensating devices to fill the gap that separates them from their rivals, from outright hoaxes and common lies, to conspiracy theories in which they end up believing themselves.
In this fashion, not only their own cultural and scientific development is stifled, as their youth are indoctrinated at best, incited at worse, with few critical exceptions, to accept the fabrications as fact, but the adopted culture of stereotypes and the digested patterns of hatred, hostility, and violence also end up forging new generations.
Hindus were never very good political historians or biographers.
Their historical interest was always centred on the life-stories of especially outstanding heroes and saints, where also they enlarged the purely terrestrial in the image of the transcendent.
One searches without success the entire corpus of Itihasa-Purana for such historical data as the Greeks, the Romans the Chinese, and the Muslims have datelined about their kings and other luminaries.
The three RãjatarañgiNis written by KalhaNa, Jonaraja, and Srivara are the solitary exceptions.
What passes as Hindu political history before the advent of the Islamic invaders is mostly a patchwork pieced together by modern scholars out of epigraphic evidence, accounts of foreign travellers, and some indigenous literature.
There is hardly anything in this history of India which needs alteration except the perspective which has suffered considerable perversions, wittingly or unwittingly, during the days of the white man's supremacy.
It is only when we come to Islamic invaders of India that we have capacious historical materials collected and compiled by hundreds of Muslim chroniclers.
These materials have been cautiously collated, compared, edited, annotated, and translated by a band of Western and Indian scholars.
No one who is familiar with the results of this scholarship and wants to be fair can fail to vouchsafe that the scholars concerned have been, by and large, scrupulous and painstaking.
India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly a region of peace. There was plethora of wars fought by Hindu princes. But in all their wars, the Hindus had observed eight time-honoured conventions sanctioned by the Sãstras:
*The Brahmins and the Bhikshus were never molested.
*The cows were never killed.
*The temples were never touched.
*The chastity of women was never violated.
*The non-combatants were never killed or captured.
*A human habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort.
*The civil population was never plundered.
*War booty was an unknown item in the calculations of conquerors.
The martial classes, who clashed, mostly in open spaces, had a code of honour. Sacrifice of honour for victory or material gain was deemed as worse than death.
Islamic imperialism came with a different code - the Sunnah of the Prophet.
It required its warriors to fall upon the powerless civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. It required them to sack and burn down villages and towns after the defenders had died fighting or had fled.
The cows, the Brahmins, and the Bhikshus invited their special attention in mass murders of non-combatants. The temples and monasteries were their special targets in an orgy of pillage and arson.
Those whom they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves. The magnitude of the booty looted even from the bodies of the dead, was a measure of the success of a military mission. And they did all this as mujãhids (holy warriors) and ghãzîs (kãfir-killers) in the service of Allah and his Last Prophet.
Hindus found it very hard to identify with the psychology of this new invader.
For the first time in their history, Hindus were witnessing a scene which was described by KãnhaDade Prabandha (1456 AD) in the following words:
'……..The conquering army burnt villages, devastated the land, plundered people's wealth, took Brahmins and children and women of all classes captive, flogged with thongs of raw hide, carried a moving prison with it, and converted the prisoners into obsequious Turks.'
That was written in remembrance of Alauddin Khalji's invasion of Gujarat in the year 1298 AD. But the gruesome game had started three centuries earlier when Mahmud Ghaznavi had vowed to invade India every year in order to destroy idolatry, kill the kãfirs, capture prisoners of war, and plunder vast wealth for which India was well-known.
It will be difficult to find significant instances of distortion and misrepresentation in this great endeavour, except when we come to the Stalinist 'historians' like Mohammad Habib and Romila Thapar, to name only two from a fraternity which has multiplied fast under Nehruvian Secularism.
And to all those spokespersons of synthesis, assimilation, and composite culture, we would better quote Dr. R.C. Majumdar, one of the best and certainly the most versatile historian which modern India has known.
He writes: 'There was no reapprochement in respect of popular or national traditions, and those social and religious ideas and beliefs and practices and institutions which touch the deeper chord of life, and give it a distinctive form, tone and vigour. In short, the reciprocal influences were too superficial in character to affect materially the fundamental differences between the two communities in respect of almost everything that is deep-seated in human nature and makes life worth living.
So the two great communities, although they lived side by side, moved each in its own orbit and there was yet no sign that the twain shall ever meet.'
Again: 'Nor did the Muslims ever moderate their zeal to destroy ruthlessly the Hindu temples and images of gods, and their attitude in this respect remained unchanged from the day when Muhammad bin Qasim set foot on the soil of India till the 18th century A.D. when they lost all political power.'
I’d like to conclude with a particularly interesting incident conderning Akbar – the apple of every secularist’s eye. Dig this --
The year was 1568. Akbar ordered a general massacre at Chittor after the fort had fallen.
Abul Fazl records in his Akbar-Nãma as follows. 'There were 8,000 fighting Rajputs collected in the fortress, but there were more than 40,000 peasants who took part in watching and serving. From early dawn till midday the bodies of those ill-starred men were consumed by the majesty of the great warrior. Nearly 30,000 men were killed'
When Sultan Alauddin (Khalji) took the fort after six months and seven days, the peasantry were not put to death as they had not engaged in fighting. But on this occasion they had shown great zeal and activity. Their excuses after the emergence of victory were of no avail, and orders were given for a general massacre.'
Akbar thus improved on the record of Alauddin Khalji.
Watching the war and serving the warriors were re-interpreted as acts of war!
To top it all, Akbar travelled post-haste to Ajmer where he offered profuse thanks to Allah and the Prophet, and his (Akbar's) patron saint, Muinuddin Chishti, and issued a Fathnãma in which many suitable verses of the Quran were cited in order to corroborate that he had followed faithfully in the footsteps of the Prophet.
Read this book. Make copies of it and spread it among people. Translate it and distribute portions of it in the thoroughfare, you infidels.
May 20, 2020
Satya pareshan ho sakta hai, parajit nahi. Thank you for giving voice to the suppressed. This book is a gem about all the Religious Fanaticism that has been done in the name of God & in the name of Religion.
July 21, 2018
A must read..
July 28, 2020
Another amazing Sita Ram Goel book.
January 24, 2021
Sita Ram Goel , is one of the most honest, well researched author, at-least in the Indian history domain that I have read in resent times. He does not mince his words and has unapologetically stated facts as per the medieval court historians, which no one as per my understanding has had courage to refute till date.
He clearly brings out the leftist + islamist nexus in Indian school curriculum authority NCERT.
One needs to read this book first before reading any other book on Indian history to set his / her perspective right.
I plan to read all the works by Sita Ram Goel and another Indian historian Goel has suggested i.e. RC Majumdar.
He clearly brings out the leftist + islamist nexus in Indian school curriculum authority NCERT.
One needs to read this book first before reading any other book on Indian history to set his / her perspective right.
I plan to read all the works by Sita Ram Goel and another Indian historian Goel has suggested i.e. RC Majumdar.
April 22, 2021
This is marvelous work by Sita Ram Goel. He destroyed the leftist and distorian propaganda on Islamic invasion on Hind(Afghanistan, Pak, India, Nepal & Bangladesh). How these have worked hard, so that Indian specially Hindu could not know truth of religious motivated Islamic barbarism on the innocent people of Hind .This genocide was many times bigger than holocaust done by Nazi but no body even talk about it. History books has no mention of religiously motivated these atrocities by Islam. Many Indian & foreign historian have try hard to justify these through different propaganda. One can understand the intensity of Propaganda that very few people know the true historian & their works like Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swaroop, J. Sarkar, K S lal and so on.
Although this book is mostly about the Hind but equally true about the other part of world where there is trace of Islam.
This book is now also available in Hindi.
Although this book is mostly about the Hind but equally true about the other part of world where there is trace of Islam.
This book is now also available in Hindi.
December 5, 2024
Hello friends, I am back with a historical one again. I have ordered 10 books written by Mr. Sita Ram Goel and I guess this is my third one that I have completed recently. Before I start with my experience regarding this one, I think it would be wise to share my motivation behind this expedition of excavating history of my nation which is Bharatvarsha. Actually, I often come across people who try to derive authority, in a general setting, by quoting something said by someone famous in last 77 odd years of our independence of our country. It definitely accrues them a lot of goodwill, intellectual veneration and authority but I often get flummoxed regarding its basis because many a times, all of this is secured, in one or way or another, at the cost of demeaning one's own lineage/cultural forefathers. As you must've seen that I recently completed J Sai Deepak's India & Pakistan the sandwiched civilization, it taught me something which my history books had left out and that is Indian civilization has not just been subjugated by European Christian imperialism but Islamic Middle Eastern imperialism as well. These two Abrahamic entities have combinedly ravished the Indian subcontinent for a millennium.
Now, coming back to this book. Its theme is pretty simple. It talks about medieval history of India i.e. the period primarily stretching from 600 AD till 1800s. Author has tried to contextualize the medieval history, by quoting medieval historians, in the aftermath of the instructions given to the Ministry of Human Resource Development of our nation by the National Integration Council, chaired by the Prime Minister of India (the last meeting of this body was conducted in 2013). We will try to understand the situation at hand by highlighting the instructions given by the NIC in order to understand its motive, applicability and whether or not it manages to pass the test of basic common sense or not
The first statement goes like this, "The ancient period of India cannot be described as Hindu period and medieval period as Muslim period". It is important to note here that the instruction didn't go ahead to declare that the modern period should not be referred to as the British period! Jokes apart, but if I can understand it in a simple manner, it feels as if that the body doesn't want historical periods to be drowned in the currents of religious narratives. Definitely a noble attempt on their part. However, they go on to say, "There must not be over-reliance on myths as history". Thereafter, they say that, "Over-glorification of the country's past is forbidden" citing an example, "The Gupta age can no longer be referred to as the golden period of Hinduism". Could you find any logic behind this? Look at the Chinese, they glorify their Ming dynasty, Persians do it for their age of Cyrus, Greeks cite the age of Pericles, Romans cite the age of Augustus, English cite the age of Elizabeth, German cite the age of Bismarck, doesn't it feel that the Hindus were being singled out by their own government? Well I felt so and I couldn't abide. A period of greatness in which people can take pride provides a point of self identification. Is it wrong for Hindus of our nation to identify themselves as Hindus by referring to a period of greatness? Was the government trying to imply that being conscious and vocal about one's Hindu identity makes us any less Indians? I don't think so
"Muslim rulers cannot be identified as foreign invaders except for early invaders who didn't settle here". In order to understand the ambiguity and hypocrisy of this statement, there are 2 things that we will have to understand, one is the chronology of the incidents and another is analogous examples to understand the concept. First and foremost we need to understand is that prior to advent of Islam in Bharatvarsha, our geographical landmass extended till Sindh in the west (which shares its borders with Iran), till Afghanistan in North, till Sri lanka in South and probably till Myanmar in East. So, when Islam entered India, it entered through Sindh which was completely populated with non-Muslim population. The chronology goes as follows:
1) The first Muslim invader who came was Mir Qasim in 712 AD through Sindh
2) Muhammad Ghaznavi in 963 AD through Afghanistan who conquered the surrounding areas of Punjab as well as north-west frontier Pakistan
3) Mahmud Ghori who replaced the Ghaznavids in 1186 AD. He captured Haryana, Ajmer, Aligarh and parts of UP by 1194 AD
Now all of these rulers can be de-classified as foreign invaders on the basis of what NIC recommended, however, it doesn't make any sense to do so because of 2 reasons, first, it seems that geographical landmass of India that is being considered is only what has remained in the aftermath of partition and second just because they came and settled in India doesn't mean that they became Indians because they went on to despise everything Indian and appreciate everything Turkish and Arabic
"No exaggeration of the role of religion in political conflicts is permitted". It is strange and borderline sinister to suggest that there was no religious angle to the wars being waged by the Islamic invaders. Their religion has a concept of Kalimah, also called as Shahada which says that Allah is the only God and Prophet is the only messenger. On the basis of this statement alone, there is a classification done between mumins (believers) & kafirs (non-believers) and the instructions regarding resolution of this dichotomy is pretty clear, either convert to Islam or we shall carry out jihad (holy war) against the kafirs. I want to enlist the number of books that has been written by various muslim authors in the medieval period who have owned that the objective of wanton destruction of Hindu temples, other places of worships and enslavement of women and children of the vanquished forces was a service that the rulers were committing in the name of Islam:
1) CHACHNAMA is the first which captures the history of Arab conquest of Sindh
2) TARIKH-I-DAUDI written by Abdulla captures the reign of Jahangir. In it, it has been mentioned in great detail how Jahangir proved his zealousness towards Islam by hacking Hindus to death and destroying as many temples as it took. Similar stories have been mentioned in MUNTAKHAB-UT-TAWARIKH by Badauni
3) TARIKH-I-YAMINI written by Utbi captures the reign of Mahmud Ghaznavi and the tale of his conquest over Raja Jaipal of Shahiya dynasty of Kabul. The book says that when the battle was finished, the streams were so discolored by the blood of infidels that the natives were unable to drink it. Mahmud's deeds regarding Somnath temple is too well known to be retold but at the risk of being redundant, I want to highlight that story because the shivalinga was uprooted, desecrated and crushed into smithereens and the broken pieces were sent to Mecca, Medina, Baghdad and Jama Masjid in Delhi to be used to construct stairs of the mosque. The same story has been corroborated by TARIKH-I-WASSAF
4) TAJ-UL-MA-SIR written by Hasan Nizami captures the reign of Muhammad Ghori and the author has lionized the ruler's achievement of destroying 1000 temples of Benares and building mosques on the foundations of each and every one of them. The carnage of Hindus in Benares was spectacular according to their own records as the same achievement has been corroborated in KAMIL-UT-TAWARIKH written by Ibn Asir. Hasan Nizami has also written about Muhammad Ghori's lieutenant Qutubuddin Aibak who is responsible for razing the Sanskrit college of Visaladeva in Ajmer and laying the foundation of mosque which came to be known as Adhai Din ka Jhompada
5) SIRAT-I-FIROZ-SAHI was written by Firoz shah Tughluq himself goes on to describe how he destroyed the temple at Jagannath Puri and any other temple which came in the way. He ordered the images of Jagannath to be perforated and disgraced by casting it down on the ground
6) TUZK-I-TIMURI captures the reign of Timur in 1399 AD and in the book, Timur has himself invoked Koran when he says that "My great objective in invading Hindustan had been to religious war against the infidel Hindus so that the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of Hindus". When he stormed the fort of Bhatnir, a place defended by Rajputs, he captured 10,000 people which included women, children and soldiers who had surrendered and Timur had pardoned them. However, objections were raised by Ulema against this decision as pardoning infidels goes against the teachings of Islam. Timur saw reason in this argument and hacked all 10000 of them within an hour. What more does one require to accept that the Islamic invasion of India since 712 AD has been not been about anything but a religious war waged on anyone and everyone who didn't subscribe to Islamic faith?
7) TUZUK-I-BABURI, as the name suggests, captures the reign of Babur. It is said that it was absolutely clear to every Muslim invader who came to India that they need to become a Ghazi (i.e. the slayer of infidels)
8) ZUBDAT-UL-TAWARIKH by Shaykh Nurul Haq talks about the reign of Sher Shah Sur whose name is associated with Grand Trunk Road. Around 1543 AD, fort of Raisen (present in Madhya Pradesh) was ruled by Puranmal. Sher Shah waged a war against him and defeated him. 4000 prisoners of war were captured however, Puranmal managed to enter into a deal with Sher Shah and secured pardon for all of them. However, objections were raised against the deal because no deal is superior to the Koranic diktat of slaying the infidels hence, the crowd of 4000 people was slain as they were leaving the fort. Do we still believe that none of these actions were motivated by religion?
9) AKBARNAMA written by Abu Fazl compares the record of Akbar with that of Sultan Alauddin Khalji when he conquered the fort of Chittor in 1568 AD. When Aladuddin Khalji had conquered the same, he had killed all the warriors and pardoned the peasants. However, when Akbar conquered the same, there were 8000 warriors who were hacked to death and 40000 peasants who were killed solely for the reason that they helped their warriors and by extension, would be covered under the definition of active combatants.
10) TUZUK-I-JAHANGIRI by Jahangir himself talks about the story how in the very first year of his reign, he tortured and killed Guru Arjun Dev (Sikh Guru). He asked the Guru to either convert to Islam include certain teachings of Islam in his Adi Grantha but Guru Arjun Dev refused. So, he was captured, tortured and then eventually killed
11) BADSHAHNAMA written by Abdul Hamid Lahori talks about the era of Shah Jahan in 1633 AD in which he describes Benares as the stronghold of infidelism. He goes on to talk about the temples which were destroyed which were being rebuilt at a tremendous pace. Shah Jahan immediately ordered to raze all these buildings and any temple that the army shall encounter on its way. They destroyed 76 temples in Allahabad alone
12) MAASIR-I-ALAMGIRI authored by Saqi Mustaid Khan covers the reign of Aurangzeb. It elaborately captures how he started his career as a king by being the biggest iconoclast that India had ever seen. His achievements, when it comes to furthering the cause of Islam, are manifold. He was the one who destroyed Mirat-I-Ahmadi (a temple) at Chintaman situated close to Sarashpur, Gujarat created by Sitaldas Jeweler and converted it into a mosque named Quwwat-ul-Islam. He himself wielded a battle axe to break the image of Narayana. He was the one who destroyed temple Dehra Keshav Rai in Mathura and took away the jewels taken from the temple and were placed beneath the steps of Nawab Begum Sahib's Jahanara mosque in Agra. Mathura's official name in all official documents during Aurangzeb's era has been referred to as Islamabad.
13) KALIMAT-I-AURANGZEB written by Inayatullah Khan Kashmiri has quoted Aurangzeb explaining his troops that demolition of a temple is possible at any time as it cannot walk away from its place, however, in order to stop these infidels(Hindus) form rebuilding them back, slaughter a cow at that place. It desecrates the location and they desist from rebuilding it again. The same advise has been captured in MIRAT-I-AHMADI & MUNTAKHAB-UL-LUBAB
I believe this is ample evidence to reasonably conclude that atleast the Muslims were clear about the religious nature and element of war that they were waging. All the above mentioned medieval Muslim historians have made it very difficult for the contemporary historians who want to create a perception that the nature of Islamic invasion in India was merely political or materialistic. You cannot blame the medieval historians for being pompous about their declarations because they never foresaw a future where Islam wouldn't be the political master of Indian subcontinent, hence, they never felt the need to be politically correct about their deeds or assertions
One very common and important myth which has been busted in this book is that Muslim empire exercised its control throughout the Indian subcontinent and Indian society was inherently so weak and meek that we just allowed them to trample all over us and they had no difficulty and establishing their rule. Well, the first testament to the contrary is the fact that we are still a Muslim minority nation and they couldn't manage to retain their hold over us. Second is the fact that the Islamic invaders began their attempts to capture Sindh since 634 AD but they only managed to enter it by 712 AD. For 78 years, they couldn't manage to enter the territory. Furthermore, every single ruler be it Mahmud of Ghaznavids, Muhammad Ghori etc, they saw their empires facing continuous resistance from the natives which eventually led to their ouster and centuries of peace in between. It is pretty evident in the gap of 150 years between Mahmud's death and Muhammad Ghori's arrival. By the time Muhammad Ghori was assassinated by the Gakkhars in 1206 AD, Qutubuddin Aibak assumed power over the former's domain in India, Kalinjar had been reconquered by the Chandellas, Ranthambhor had renounced its vassalage to Delhi, Gwalior had been reoccupied by the Pratihars, the Doab was up in arms under the Gahadvad Prince Harishchandra, and the Katehar Rajputs had reasserted their independence beyond the Ganges. The Yadavbhatti Rajputs around Alwar had cut off the imperial road to Ajmer. Aibak was not able to reconquer any of these areas before he died in 1210 AD.
In my concluding remarks, I want to comment on Islam as a religion on the basis of what I read in this book. First of all, Islamic invaders were not the first invaders who entered India. India was invaded by the Iranians, Scythians, Greeks, Parthians, Kushanas and Hunas, however, we never had any cultural or minority problem with any of the descendants of these invaders. Parsis came to India at the same time as Muslims, however, no demand has ever been made by anyone which puts an additional burden on the majority community (Hindus) to try and assimilate them in the population or synthesize their culture with that of Hindu culture. Jewish minority in India has managed to keep its cultural and racial identity intact. The Syrian Christians of the south have never had any problem since last 2000 years, nor did the Tibetan Buddhists who have been living in India since last 60 years. All of this invariably points out to one conclusion only. Muslims are a problem everywhere. Greece had the same problem till it expelled its Muslim population, Yugoslavia and Cyprus are suffering with the same problem. Spain has no Muslim minority because they ensured that no Muslims must be allowed to stay back once their rule was over. Russia and China have solved their problem through massive terror and suppression
Author Ram Swarup has beautifully explained Islam in his book. He says that in the spiritual realm, there are 2 categories: God and your neighbor and correspondingly, there are 2 ways of looking at them: You can look at your God through your neighbor or you can look at your neighbor through your God. In the first approach, you will think that if your neighbor has the same needs as you and constitutes same impulses as you then his God, in whatever way he is worshipped and in whatever name he is called, must mean the same to him as your God means to you. However, if you look at your neighbor through your God then you would expect that if your God is good enough for you then it should be good enough for your neighbor too. And if your neighbor is not worshipping your God in the same way that you do then he must be worshipping devil and qualifies for conversion or liquidation. We choose our Gods in our own image. Our God is what we are. Most men want a god who humors them gratifies them, who vindicates and justifies their way of life, who sanctifies them in their own eyes and in those of their friends, they want their kingdoms to extend, they want their enemies to be slain and humbled etc. Ego based gods come fully into their own when our desires take on moral and theological disguises. When the ego uses a higher principle for lower satisfaction, the truth itself gets perverted and ego-gods are born and this is the true import of Kalimah/Shahada (There is no god but allah and Muhammad is the prophet). The prophet had no use of an independent God, he just needed a proxy disguised as god who would echo the personal proclivities of the prophet in every situation, domestic as well as public
I highly recommend this book as it is a great attempt at setting the record straight
Now, coming back to this book. Its theme is pretty simple. It talks about medieval history of India i.e. the period primarily stretching from 600 AD till 1800s. Author has tried to contextualize the medieval history, by quoting medieval historians, in the aftermath of the instructions given to the Ministry of Human Resource Development of our nation by the National Integration Council, chaired by the Prime Minister of India (the last meeting of this body was conducted in 2013). We will try to understand the situation at hand by highlighting the instructions given by the NIC in order to understand its motive, applicability and whether or not it manages to pass the test of basic common sense or not
The first statement goes like this, "The ancient period of India cannot be described as Hindu period and medieval period as Muslim period". It is important to note here that the instruction didn't go ahead to declare that the modern period should not be referred to as the British period! Jokes apart, but if I can understand it in a simple manner, it feels as if that the body doesn't want historical periods to be drowned in the currents of religious narratives. Definitely a noble attempt on their part. However, they go on to say, "There must not be over-reliance on myths as history". Thereafter, they say that, "Over-glorification of the country's past is forbidden" citing an example, "The Gupta age can no longer be referred to as the golden period of Hinduism". Could you find any logic behind this? Look at the Chinese, they glorify their Ming dynasty, Persians do it for their age of Cyrus, Greeks cite the age of Pericles, Romans cite the age of Augustus, English cite the age of Elizabeth, German cite the age of Bismarck, doesn't it feel that the Hindus were being singled out by their own government? Well I felt so and I couldn't abide. A period of greatness in which people can take pride provides a point of self identification. Is it wrong for Hindus of our nation to identify themselves as Hindus by referring to a period of greatness? Was the government trying to imply that being conscious and vocal about one's Hindu identity makes us any less Indians? I don't think so
"Muslim rulers cannot be identified as foreign invaders except for early invaders who didn't settle here". In order to understand the ambiguity and hypocrisy of this statement, there are 2 things that we will have to understand, one is the chronology of the incidents and another is analogous examples to understand the concept. First and foremost we need to understand is that prior to advent of Islam in Bharatvarsha, our geographical landmass extended till Sindh in the west (which shares its borders with Iran), till Afghanistan in North, till Sri lanka in South and probably till Myanmar in East. So, when Islam entered India, it entered through Sindh which was completely populated with non-Muslim population. The chronology goes as follows:
1) The first Muslim invader who came was Mir Qasim in 712 AD through Sindh
2) Muhammad Ghaznavi in 963 AD through Afghanistan who conquered the surrounding areas of Punjab as well as north-west frontier Pakistan
3) Mahmud Ghori who replaced the Ghaznavids in 1186 AD. He captured Haryana, Ajmer, Aligarh and parts of UP by 1194 AD
Now all of these rulers can be de-classified as foreign invaders on the basis of what NIC recommended, however, it doesn't make any sense to do so because of 2 reasons, first, it seems that geographical landmass of India that is being considered is only what has remained in the aftermath of partition and second just because they came and settled in India doesn't mean that they became Indians because they went on to despise everything Indian and appreciate everything Turkish and Arabic
"No exaggeration of the role of religion in political conflicts is permitted". It is strange and borderline sinister to suggest that there was no religious angle to the wars being waged by the Islamic invaders. Their religion has a concept of Kalimah, also called as Shahada which says that Allah is the only God and Prophet is the only messenger. On the basis of this statement alone, there is a classification done between mumins (believers) & kafirs (non-believers) and the instructions regarding resolution of this dichotomy is pretty clear, either convert to Islam or we shall carry out jihad (holy war) against the kafirs. I want to enlist the number of books that has been written by various muslim authors in the medieval period who have owned that the objective of wanton destruction of Hindu temples, other places of worships and enslavement of women and children of the vanquished forces was a service that the rulers were committing in the name of Islam:
1) CHACHNAMA is the first which captures the history of Arab conquest of Sindh
2) TARIKH-I-DAUDI written by Abdulla captures the reign of Jahangir. In it, it has been mentioned in great detail how Jahangir proved his zealousness towards Islam by hacking Hindus to death and destroying as many temples as it took. Similar stories have been mentioned in MUNTAKHAB-UT-TAWARIKH by Badauni
3) TARIKH-I-YAMINI written by Utbi captures the reign of Mahmud Ghaznavi and the tale of his conquest over Raja Jaipal of Shahiya dynasty of Kabul. The book says that when the battle was finished, the streams were so discolored by the blood of infidels that the natives were unable to drink it. Mahmud's deeds regarding Somnath temple is too well known to be retold but at the risk of being redundant, I want to highlight that story because the shivalinga was uprooted, desecrated and crushed into smithereens and the broken pieces were sent to Mecca, Medina, Baghdad and Jama Masjid in Delhi to be used to construct stairs of the mosque. The same story has been corroborated by TARIKH-I-WASSAF
4) TAJ-UL-MA-SIR written by Hasan Nizami captures the reign of Muhammad Ghori and the author has lionized the ruler's achievement of destroying 1000 temples of Benares and building mosques on the foundations of each and every one of them. The carnage of Hindus in Benares was spectacular according to their own records as the same achievement has been corroborated in KAMIL-UT-TAWARIKH written by Ibn Asir. Hasan Nizami has also written about Muhammad Ghori's lieutenant Qutubuddin Aibak who is responsible for razing the Sanskrit college of Visaladeva in Ajmer and laying the foundation of mosque which came to be known as Adhai Din ka Jhompada
5) SIRAT-I-FIROZ-SAHI was written by Firoz shah Tughluq himself goes on to describe how he destroyed the temple at Jagannath Puri and any other temple which came in the way. He ordered the images of Jagannath to be perforated and disgraced by casting it down on the ground
6) TUZK-I-TIMURI captures the reign of Timur in 1399 AD and in the book, Timur has himself invoked Koran when he says that "My great objective in invading Hindustan had been to religious war against the infidel Hindus so that the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of Hindus". When he stormed the fort of Bhatnir, a place defended by Rajputs, he captured 10,000 people which included women, children and soldiers who had surrendered and Timur had pardoned them. However, objections were raised by Ulema against this decision as pardoning infidels goes against the teachings of Islam. Timur saw reason in this argument and hacked all 10000 of them within an hour. What more does one require to accept that the Islamic invasion of India since 712 AD has been not been about anything but a religious war waged on anyone and everyone who didn't subscribe to Islamic faith?
7) TUZUK-I-BABURI, as the name suggests, captures the reign of Babur. It is said that it was absolutely clear to every Muslim invader who came to India that they need to become a Ghazi (i.e. the slayer of infidels)
8) ZUBDAT-UL-TAWARIKH by Shaykh Nurul Haq talks about the reign of Sher Shah Sur whose name is associated with Grand Trunk Road. Around 1543 AD, fort of Raisen (present in Madhya Pradesh) was ruled by Puranmal. Sher Shah waged a war against him and defeated him. 4000 prisoners of war were captured however, Puranmal managed to enter into a deal with Sher Shah and secured pardon for all of them. However, objections were raised against the deal because no deal is superior to the Koranic diktat of slaying the infidels hence, the crowd of 4000 people was slain as they were leaving the fort. Do we still believe that none of these actions were motivated by religion?
9) AKBARNAMA written by Abu Fazl compares the record of Akbar with that of Sultan Alauddin Khalji when he conquered the fort of Chittor in 1568 AD. When Aladuddin Khalji had conquered the same, he had killed all the warriors and pardoned the peasants. However, when Akbar conquered the same, there were 8000 warriors who were hacked to death and 40000 peasants who were killed solely for the reason that they helped their warriors and by extension, would be covered under the definition of active combatants.
10) TUZUK-I-JAHANGIRI by Jahangir himself talks about the story how in the very first year of his reign, he tortured and killed Guru Arjun Dev (Sikh Guru). He asked the Guru to either convert to Islam include certain teachings of Islam in his Adi Grantha but Guru Arjun Dev refused. So, he was captured, tortured and then eventually killed
11) BADSHAHNAMA written by Abdul Hamid Lahori talks about the era of Shah Jahan in 1633 AD in which he describes Benares as the stronghold of infidelism. He goes on to talk about the temples which were destroyed which were being rebuilt at a tremendous pace. Shah Jahan immediately ordered to raze all these buildings and any temple that the army shall encounter on its way. They destroyed 76 temples in Allahabad alone
12) MAASIR-I-ALAMGIRI authored by Saqi Mustaid Khan covers the reign of Aurangzeb. It elaborately captures how he started his career as a king by being the biggest iconoclast that India had ever seen. His achievements, when it comes to furthering the cause of Islam, are manifold. He was the one who destroyed Mirat-I-Ahmadi (a temple) at Chintaman situated close to Sarashpur, Gujarat created by Sitaldas Jeweler and converted it into a mosque named Quwwat-ul-Islam. He himself wielded a battle axe to break the image of Narayana. He was the one who destroyed temple Dehra Keshav Rai in Mathura and took away the jewels taken from the temple and were placed beneath the steps of Nawab Begum Sahib's Jahanara mosque in Agra. Mathura's official name in all official documents during Aurangzeb's era has been referred to as Islamabad.
13) KALIMAT-I-AURANGZEB written by Inayatullah Khan Kashmiri has quoted Aurangzeb explaining his troops that demolition of a temple is possible at any time as it cannot walk away from its place, however, in order to stop these infidels(Hindus) form rebuilding them back, slaughter a cow at that place. It desecrates the location and they desist from rebuilding it again. The same advise has been captured in MIRAT-I-AHMADI & MUNTAKHAB-UL-LUBAB
I believe this is ample evidence to reasonably conclude that atleast the Muslims were clear about the religious nature and element of war that they were waging. All the above mentioned medieval Muslim historians have made it very difficult for the contemporary historians who want to create a perception that the nature of Islamic invasion in India was merely political or materialistic. You cannot blame the medieval historians for being pompous about their declarations because they never foresaw a future where Islam wouldn't be the political master of Indian subcontinent, hence, they never felt the need to be politically correct about their deeds or assertions
One very common and important myth which has been busted in this book is that Muslim empire exercised its control throughout the Indian subcontinent and Indian society was inherently so weak and meek that we just allowed them to trample all over us and they had no difficulty and establishing their rule. Well, the first testament to the contrary is the fact that we are still a Muslim minority nation and they couldn't manage to retain their hold over us. Second is the fact that the Islamic invaders began their attempts to capture Sindh since 634 AD but they only managed to enter it by 712 AD. For 78 years, they couldn't manage to enter the territory. Furthermore, every single ruler be it Mahmud of Ghaznavids, Muhammad Ghori etc, they saw their empires facing continuous resistance from the natives which eventually led to their ouster and centuries of peace in between. It is pretty evident in the gap of 150 years between Mahmud's death and Muhammad Ghori's arrival. By the time Muhammad Ghori was assassinated by the Gakkhars in 1206 AD, Qutubuddin Aibak assumed power over the former's domain in India, Kalinjar had been reconquered by the Chandellas, Ranthambhor had renounced its vassalage to Delhi, Gwalior had been reoccupied by the Pratihars, the Doab was up in arms under the Gahadvad Prince Harishchandra, and the Katehar Rajputs had reasserted their independence beyond the Ganges. The Yadavbhatti Rajputs around Alwar had cut off the imperial road to Ajmer. Aibak was not able to reconquer any of these areas before he died in 1210 AD.
In my concluding remarks, I want to comment on Islam as a religion on the basis of what I read in this book. First of all, Islamic invaders were not the first invaders who entered India. India was invaded by the Iranians, Scythians, Greeks, Parthians, Kushanas and Hunas, however, we never had any cultural or minority problem with any of the descendants of these invaders. Parsis came to India at the same time as Muslims, however, no demand has ever been made by anyone which puts an additional burden on the majority community (Hindus) to try and assimilate them in the population or synthesize their culture with that of Hindu culture. Jewish minority in India has managed to keep its cultural and racial identity intact. The Syrian Christians of the south have never had any problem since last 2000 years, nor did the Tibetan Buddhists who have been living in India since last 60 years. All of this invariably points out to one conclusion only. Muslims are a problem everywhere. Greece had the same problem till it expelled its Muslim population, Yugoslavia and Cyprus are suffering with the same problem. Spain has no Muslim minority because they ensured that no Muslims must be allowed to stay back once their rule was over. Russia and China have solved their problem through massive terror and suppression
Author Ram Swarup has beautifully explained Islam in his book. He says that in the spiritual realm, there are 2 categories: God and your neighbor and correspondingly, there are 2 ways of looking at them: You can look at your God through your neighbor or you can look at your neighbor through your God. In the first approach, you will think that if your neighbor has the same needs as you and constitutes same impulses as you then his God, in whatever way he is worshipped and in whatever name he is called, must mean the same to him as your God means to you. However, if you look at your neighbor through your God then you would expect that if your God is good enough for you then it should be good enough for your neighbor too. And if your neighbor is not worshipping your God in the same way that you do then he must be worshipping devil and qualifies for conversion or liquidation. We choose our Gods in our own image. Our God is what we are. Most men want a god who humors them gratifies them, who vindicates and justifies their way of life, who sanctifies them in their own eyes and in those of their friends, they want their kingdoms to extend, they want their enemies to be slain and humbled etc. Ego based gods come fully into their own when our desires take on moral and theological disguises. When the ego uses a higher principle for lower satisfaction, the truth itself gets perverted and ego-gods are born and this is the true import of Kalimah/Shahada (There is no god but allah and Muhammad is the prophet). The prophet had no use of an independent God, he just needed a proxy disguised as god who would echo the personal proclivities of the prophet in every situation, domestic as well as public
I highly recommend this book as it is a great attempt at setting the record straight
February 17, 2021
A very objective, fact-based and factual account of the devastation caused by Islamic imperialism in India. The book exposes the deliberate selectivity employed by two schools of historians - Aligarh Muslim University and Marxist-Communist.
June 1, 2019
Voice of India is an organization that, according to its website, “aims at providing an ideological defence of Hindu society and culture.” Sita Ram Goel, a historian, is one of its founders.
In The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (first published in 1982), Goel takes up issue with National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on the issue of providing guidelines as to how the history of India is to be taught to our school children.
Goel argues that history-teaching in this country has been heavily influenced by the Marxist historians and later “Nehruvian secularists.” Over the last few years battle lines have been sharply drawn between Romila Thapars of the Jahawarlal Nehru University school of history-teaching and the “nationalist” historians. Unfortunately, the animosity between the Students’ Federation of India, the students’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student front of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has spilled out onto the street.
In this time and age it is difficult to make an objective assessment of the claims and counter-claims of the warring groups. Because, either way, you will be accused of political bias and historical inaccuracy.
Goel has put forth his case forcefully – in a language that is academic but authoritative. In a number of places he approvingly quotes Dr R C Majumdar, one of our most venerable historians. “As a matter of fact, the Muslim authority in Northern India, throughout the 13th century, was tantamount to a military occupation of a large number of important centers without any effective occupation, far less a systematic administration of the country at large.” In other words, Muslims came to India as invaders and they never got assimilated to the native population.
Debates on the subject will continue with both sides vociferously arguing their points. Whether the recent emphatic win of the BJP in the General Elections is indicative of a “Hindu resurgence” or an endorsement or Narendra Modi’s “development agenda” is a point that people more qualified than me will discuss. One of the most tragic events – if not the most tragic – of the twentieth century India was the Partition of the country. And it’s a tragedy that played out along religious lines. The dark shadow of Partition continues to cast an ominous shadow over the sub continent.
In the political and cultural milieu of today’s India, book like Goel’s will find appreciative readership. It, however, needs to be noted that the “secular” historians have not covered themselves with glory, either.
Acknowledgment of the sources and a bibliography would have enhanced the authenticity of the book.
Even if one does not agree with Goel’s argument, it is worth a read. If for nothing else, at least for the contrarian point of view it provides.
In The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (first published in 1982), Goel takes up issue with National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on the issue of providing guidelines as to how the history of India is to be taught to our school children.
Goel argues that history-teaching in this country has been heavily influenced by the Marxist historians and later “Nehruvian secularists.” Over the last few years battle lines have been sharply drawn between Romila Thapars of the Jahawarlal Nehru University school of history-teaching and the “nationalist” historians. Unfortunately, the animosity between the Students’ Federation of India, the students’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student front of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has spilled out onto the street.
In this time and age it is difficult to make an objective assessment of the claims and counter-claims of the warring groups. Because, either way, you will be accused of political bias and historical inaccuracy.
Goel has put forth his case forcefully – in a language that is academic but authoritative. In a number of places he approvingly quotes Dr R C Majumdar, one of our most venerable historians. “As a matter of fact, the Muslim authority in Northern India, throughout the 13th century, was tantamount to a military occupation of a large number of important centers without any effective occupation, far less a systematic administration of the country at large.” In other words, Muslims came to India as invaders and they never got assimilated to the native population.
Debates on the subject will continue with both sides vociferously arguing their points. Whether the recent emphatic win of the BJP in the General Elections is indicative of a “Hindu resurgence” or an endorsement or Narendra Modi’s “development agenda” is a point that people more qualified than me will discuss. One of the most tragic events – if not the most tragic – of the twentieth century India was the Partition of the country. And it’s a tragedy that played out along religious lines. The dark shadow of Partition continues to cast an ominous shadow over the sub continent.
In the political and cultural milieu of today’s India, book like Goel’s will find appreciative readership. It, however, needs to be noted that the “secular” historians have not covered themselves with glory, either.
Acknowledgment of the sources and a bibliography would have enhanced the authenticity of the book.
Even if one does not agree with Goel’s argument, it is worth a read. If for nothing else, at least for the contrarian point of view it provides.
June 28, 2024
The truth of Ismalic invasion of Bharat written with precise details and evidence. A must read for all Hindus. Sita Ram ji details how Hindus held back invaders, fought back and succumbed to Islamic invasion. Importantly, the invasions came as waves over centuries. Sita Ram ji reveals the faultlines that exposed Hindu society to the invaders. The truth of cruelty, barbaric slaughter and attack on temples is dispassionately chronicled with evidence. Shame on Historians, Politicians and seculars who wiped the truth from text books to wipe it from our collective memory.
September 23, 2021
Sita Ram Goel does not mince words. The story of Islamic Imperialism in India is a brutal one and has no happy ending. But it must be read to ensure we don't make the same mistakes that our ancestors did. It must be read to understand the mind of a Stalinist "historian", the mind of an Islamic apologist, and the mind of a hawker of Nehruvian Secularism.
September 21, 2024
A must read for all Indians
It presents the TRUE picture than the one sided narrative that dominated the public discourse and understanding. The truth of Nehruvian secularism version of history must be tested under the lens of truth. Must read.
It presents the TRUE picture than the one sided narrative that dominated the public discourse and understanding. The truth of Nehruvian secularism version of history must be tested under the lens of truth. Must read.
December 4, 2024
Brilliant.
Just page after page of facts and information.
Narrates the attacks and brutality of some rulers perfectly and sheds light on the fact that the infestation of India was not as dominant as we were told.
Just page after page of facts and information.
Narrates the attacks and brutality of some rulers perfectly and sheds light on the fact that the infestation of India was not as dominant as we were told.
December 1, 2024
Quite a good read. The atrocities by Islamic rulers Turks, Arabs, Mughals... Very well documented in a small book.
August 21, 2025
Brilliant and detailed book. In horrid and excruciating episodes, the harrowing effects of the age of barbaric wrath is decoded and analysed.
Read
May 3, 2021Must read
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews