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I personally find the history textbooks of India edited to fit an agenda . They protray the indigenous culture as a mass of unconnected , unorganised , and ununified primitivism , and they protray invaders as more progressive . They consistently make assertions without proof , and the historians who write these books come down to personal attacks when cornered , such as on a TV programme . They portray all conflict in terms of economics and politics , completely ignoring the religious motivations of rulers , going so far as to extol the virtues of Aurangzeb ! Whenever some fault about an invader is mentioned , they feel it necessary to "balance" it with some flaw in the local system , irrespective of whether or not that flaw ( for which there is usually no evidence given ) is pertinent to the discussion .
While teaching non-Indian history , the history books are overtly pro-Communist ( and this is not my opinion - it is the opinion of the history-book authors themselves ) , anti-Capitalist , and anti-West . Irrespective of its actual record , Islam is held up to be the saviour of the people of Arabia , and of any other place Arab armies managed to conquer . Monotheism is held to be superior to pantheism or monism .
These , however , are sins of commission , and do not matter that much . What I find more disturbing is that the atrocities committed by invaders are completely blanked out - there is no mention , for instance , of the widespread destruction of Hindu temples ( and subsequent construction of Mosques on their sites ) during the Sultanate , or the Mughal period . And if ever it is mentioned , it is explained away on the basis of economics or politics , with no mention of religion , though the court records of the same rulers show a very different picture , and even though these records are available on the Internet ! Nor is the widespread oppression the indigenous culture was exposed to ever mentioned . Even when eyewitness accounts exist of this oppression , they are discounted - even when they come from as authentic a source as one of the Sikh Gurus ! Not only that , but the achievements of the local people are also not mentioned . If they are mentioned , it is necessarily mentioned that these achievements were restricted to the higher classes ( irrespective of mountains of evidence to the contrary ) !
Is it any wonder , then , that the local culture of India languishes as the elite abondon it ? Sanskrit is dead , people who have no understanding of indigenous culture think themselves competent to criticise it ( "I know not much about any religion , but I still think I am qualified to criticise any one" ) , and what is worse , this decay has decayed the academic institutions of the country from inside out .
[/rant]
I just needed to vent . Any other people who come from a country where political correctness and revisionism have so firmly taken hold that history education is perverted ?
While teaching non-Indian history , the history books are overtly pro-Communist ( and this is not my opinion - it is the opinion of the history-book authors themselves ) , anti-Capitalist , and anti-West . Irrespective of its actual record , Islam is held up to be the saviour of the people of Arabia , and of any other place Arab armies managed to conquer . Monotheism is held to be superior to pantheism or monism .
These , however , are sins of commission , and do not matter that much . What I find more disturbing is that the atrocities committed by invaders are completely blanked out - there is no mention , for instance , of the widespread destruction of Hindu temples ( and subsequent construction of Mosques on their sites ) during the Sultanate , or the Mughal period . And if ever it is mentioned , it is explained away on the basis of economics or politics , with no mention of religion , though the court records of the same rulers show a very different picture , and even though these records are available on the Internet ! Nor is the widespread oppression the indigenous culture was exposed to ever mentioned . Even when eyewitness accounts exist of this oppression , they are discounted - even when they come from as authentic a source as one of the Sikh Gurus ! Not only that , but the achievements of the local people are also not mentioned . If they are mentioned , it is necessarily mentioned that these achievements were restricted to the higher classes ( irrespective of mountains of evidence to the contrary ) !
Is it any wonder , then , that the local culture of India languishes as the elite abondon it ? Sanskrit is dead , people who have no understanding of indigenous culture think themselves competent to criticise it ( "I know not much about any religion , but I still think I am qualified to criticise any one" ) , and what is worse , this decay has decayed the academic institutions of the country from inside out .
[/rant]
I just needed to vent . Any other people who come from a country where political correctness and revisionism have so firmly taken hold that history education is perverted ?
Not to mention that in your simplistic argument, the whole community of Indian historians is painted being a monolithic block you can accuse. Even worse, they're traitors because they do nothing but thinking hard how to make polytheist history appear bad.
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