When I was in school, I was taught that Akbar was a
great emperor. ‘Akbar the Great’ was the title of the lesson on him. That was how
the emperor was described in history in those days. Now the grade 8 history
textbook calls that same man Akbar the Brutal.
A lot of efforts are being made to
rewrite India’s history. All Muslims are evil in that new history. In fact,
everyone except Hindus stands the chance of being accused of much evil.
It is sheer coincidence that I
started reading Manu S Pillai’s new book, Gods, Guns and Missionaries,
soon after reading newspaper reports about the alleged brutality of the
Mughals. In the very first chapter, Pillai presents Akbar as a serious
spiritual seeker as well as advocate of religious tolerance. Pillai’s knowledge
of history is vast if the 218 pages of Notes in the book are any indication.
Chapter 1, titled ‘Monsters and
Missionaries’, starts with three Jesuit missionaries led by Rodolfo Acquaviva visiting
Akbar on a personal invitation. Akbar was interested in learning more about
Christianity. He wore a European cloak and hat in deference to the three
Italian monks who were his illustrious guests.
There were other guests as well.
Brahmins, Jains, Zoroastrians, and others. As Akbar’s son Jahangir wrote later in
Jahangirnama, Akbar was convinced that “all religions have a place
within the spacious circle of God’s mercy.” Pillai’s book mentions that it was
the Christian missionaries who had contempt for other religions and when they
spoke crudely about Prophet Muhamad – “a diabolical name,” according to them –
Akbar’s response was to take them out of the Ibadat Khana and
remind them to “mind their language.”
Akbar received the volumes of the
Bible with much reverence from the missionaries. He was particularly interested
in the New Testament on which he showered more reverence. He got it translated
into Persian.
Understanding that Akbar would never
convert to Christianity in spite of his genuine interest in it, the
missionaries left him to what they judged as his confused understanding of divinity, and went away though the emperor requested
them to stay longer and teach him more about Jesus and his message.
Many Muslims were angry with these
three missionaries for their blasphemous views on Islam and its practices such
as polygamy. But the irony is that Acquaviva was eventually killed by a Hindu
mob, and not a Muslim. And his crime was planting a cross on a broken Hindu temple
in Goa.
When news of the brutal killing of
the missionary reached Akbar, his lament was: “Did I not tell you not to go
away? But you would not listen to me.”
Reducing that man, this Akbar, to a fraction of his multidimensional character, and that too in a textbook studied by 13-year-olds is more brutal, isn’t it?
x
Demonising Islam and the Great Moghuls, especially Akbar, the Seeker, among them, that too to children, is not only brutal, but also boorish. As boorish as Aquaviva and his companions, who were blasphemous towards the Nabi. Overtriumphalism of the Christendom, at the dawn of Modernity. Did not know that Aquaviva and his bigotry had a gory end at Goa, at the hands of the Hindus.
ReplyDeleteSome Manu Pillai will be there in 2125 to tell the story of our present Emperor's bigotry, brutality, boorishness, hypocrisy, hollowness, falsehood...
DeletePlease read the Malabar Rites and Chinese Rites Controversy in the history of the Catholic Church and its impact on the later missionary trajectory of the Church.
ReplyDeleteI was not much aware of these controversies until you drew my attention to them. I think the Vatican should stop imposing its preferences on everyone. Why not let people discover God in their own ways? This is where the whole conversion business including Ghar Vapsi becomes objectionable.
DeleteWere the missionaries any better than the Mughals? Or the Brahmins with their caste system and mantras?
Extremely saddened about the manipulated version. Probably, they will hide the episode of Chanda Ashoka and retain only Dhamma Ashoka. Not able to imagine the consequences of children learning new history. My question: What are the teachers going to do now? At least they read the history that we knew!
ReplyDeleteHaving been a teacher throughout my life, my answer to your question...
DeleteEvery teacher has a duty to uphold truth without prejudices and political affiliations. That requires both courage and wisdom.
Tragedy: teachers are not even able to read these days. They're kept busy with clerical jobs like lesson plans and report cards.
Hari Om
ReplyDeleteIt's a tragedy, for sure, this tendency to "review" history... YAM xx
I asked ChatGPT how history would view Modi after a century from now. The answer was it would depend on who is in power at that time. That's it.
DeleteIt's honestly become a burning issue now. When NCERT first announced the changes in portions, people reacted and presented their views. But suddenly now, a few historians have started coming out, expressing their concerns and disagreement. I watched two shorts just yesterday—people are finally starting to speak up.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, history is being twisted and painted in a language that suits certain narratives. What else can we expect when people sitting in positions of power—whether in the government or elsewhere—seem to be either willfully ignorant or heavily biased?
It's not just about textbooks anymore. Hate is being spread systematically, in more subtle and deep-rooted ways. It's reaching young minds, shaping their worldview. They call it rewriting history, but in reality, it feels more like erasing inconvenient truths.
What’s even more disturbing is that this rising hatred, if not checked, will be our undoing as a society. These people don’t appreciate the power and beauty of coexistence—because they know it threatens their entire ideology. Harmony means resistance to their agenda.
And let’s talk about the teachers too. Sadly, many have become clerks—buried in paperwork and admin tasks. Some have lost the fire they once had for teaching. And the rest? Many have turned into blind followers who can’t—or won’t—see the value in presenting multiple perspectives. But that’s exactly what history should do: help us learn from the past, not repeat it.
God bless the coming generations. They're going to need all the clarity, courage, and compassion they can get.
It's more farcical than tragic, I feel. Because there's no profound ideology or any ideal governing this erasure of inconvenient truths, as you call it. It's only a power game being played out by a man who was discontented with his life in a nonexistent railway station's tea shop. A man who sees his boyhood as both victim and hero (remember the crocodile story). Just because of his over-inflated ego, a whole nation has been split into Hindus and Christians and Muslims. What Modi is doing to India feels less like a Greek tragedy and more like a circus run by a ringmaster obsessed with seeing his own face on every poster. It’s not national policy anymore—it’s personal branding with a side of drama.
DeleteYes you are right. I too know Akbar as a great ruler and spirituality. History has always been rewritten by rulers to the detriment of what actually things were. Lamentable.
ReplyDeleteWhat's being done now is a terrible injustice to students, poisoning their minds with hatred.
DeleteSorry spiritualist
ReplyDeleteThe actual times were all so much more complicate than the history books would have us believe.
ReplyDeleteThat's right. It's literature writers who get that complexity better in novels than historians.
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ReplyDelete