Shakti-Putra Shivaji: In Which Sita Ram Goel Shreds Nawab Nehru’s “History”

Editor’s Note

IT IS SOME CONSOLATION that over the last decade or so, Sri Sita Ram Goel’s body of work and his blazing legacy are slowly occupying the centrestage. Yet, he has not been studied with the same rigour and sense of purpose that he had embodied within himself. In particular, his corpus of Hindi writing has been severely neglected, which is representative of the cut-and-paste method of “right wing warriors” and “proud Hindus”  parroting his name albeit with respect.  

Of these, his 1961 Hindi work titled Shaktiputra Shivaji is an enduring classic and an exquisite literary monument to Chhatrapati Shivaji. Sita Ram Goel published a revised edition in 1997. The 25-page-long introduction to the book is an independent treatise of history and historiography by itself. It makes for compelling reading and deserves a wider audience. In particular, Sri Goel’s acidic expose of Nawab Nehru’s pretensions as a historian merits repeated readings. 

Beginning with this episode, The Dharma Dispatch will carry a loose English translation of the introduction. Some formatting changes have been made. 

Happy reading! 

 Introduction to Shaktiputra Shivaji

THE PRESENT BOOK is written based on the delightful work, The Grand Rebel, by the English historian Dennis Kincaid. However, this is not an exact translation of that original book. The reason is that several parts of the original book have not been included in this.

Mr. Kincaid wrote his book solely for Western readers. Therefore, he describes in detail many such incidents from the history of this country and its customs and traditions with which the ordinary reader of India is generally well acquainted.

The purpose of the original book was to dispel the misconception from the Western mind that, prior to the British conquest of India, this country was under Muslim domination. Mr. Kincaid writes in his preface: "Most English people have heard the name of the Mughals. They have believed that the Mughal Empire was the predecessor to British rule in India. Therefore, they are surprised to learn that in the initial phase of British conquest, the English conquerors did not engage in conflict with any Mughal, whereas their struggle with the Marathas continued incessantly. Many people must be curious about who these Marathas were, who really destroyed the Mughal Empire, who fought with the English and the French to gain control over India, who once again revolted in 1857 and clashed arms with the British rule, and among whom emerged revolutionary leaders as politically astute as Nana Sahib and as brave as the Rani of Jhansi."

But this type of misconception was not only prevalent among Kincaid’s contemporary Englishmen. It is also found everywhere among the 'highly educated Hindus' of the present 'independent' India. The 'highly educated Hindu' believes this, and all the history books taught in all universities declare in one voice that the Marathas, Rajputs, Jats, and Sikhs who destroyed the Mughal Empire were actually mere 'rebels' who caused 'uprisings' against the Mughal Empire, their 'rebellion' did not succeed, and the rule of a foreign power became firmly established over India.

According to the misconception, the various Muslim empires that ruled India for about five hundred years were not actually foreign tyrannical regimes, but rather indigenous self-governments. 

The former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is today foremost among those propagating this misconception. By shamelessly copying from the books of English historians, and coating that copy with a paint of Marxism, he has written a fanciful story of India's history in the book titled Glimpses of World History. Many editions of this granny’s tale have been printed, and the clever sycophants of the Nehru family have established him on the pedestal of a 'serious historian' and have designated this utterly ridiculous nonsense as a reference book in the universities of this country.

But when indigenizing the Muslim tyrannical system, Nehru presents only one piece of evidence – Muslim emperors married Hindu women! While discussing the indigenization of the Afghans, he writes: “We see that India has gradually softened these cruel warriors and civilized them. They begin to feel that they are Indians, not foreign invaders. They marry women of this country, and so on.” Thus, according to this spurious narrative, the distinction between the conquered and the conqueror gradually begins to disappear.

While discussing the indigenization of Alauddin Khalji, Nehru repeats the same tune: “Alauddin was intolerant like other Muslims, but it appears that a change was beginning to take place in the perspective of these rulers from Central Asia. They had started considering India as their own homeland. They were no longer foreigners in this country. Alauddin had married a Hindu woman, and his son did so as well.”

Then, in the context of Firoz Shah Tughlaq, he takes recourse to the same sleight of hand: “Firoz Shah’s mother was a Rajput woman named Bibi Naila. Thus, Rajput blood flowed in Firoz Shah’s veins. The number of these marital alliances between Muslim rulers and Rajput women continued to increase. As a result, it must have helped foster a sense of mutual nationalism between Hindus and Muslims.”

Nehru ultimately concludes that, as a result of continuously marrying Hindu women, by the time the fifteenth century arrived, Muslim rulers had completely become Indian rulers. He writes: “Islam in India is no longer a foreign or new element. It has firmly taken root. The Muslim emperors are now as Hindustani as their Hindu subjects. Muslim emperors often marry Hindu women. Between the two, the feeling of conqueror and conquered, or ruler and ruled, has completely disappeared.”

By this logic, it should be assumed that the indigenization of the British was not possible because they refused to marry Indian women. If the British had not made this mistake, the British Empire would not have been called a foreign empire either. 

In which case, why did Nehru make the mistake of calling himself a “Hindu by accident of birth?”  Ultimately, the blood of Hindu parents from both his father and mother’s sides flows in his veins. Why has the principle that is true regarding Muslim rulers become untrue in Nehru's case? The answer to this question can only be that Nehru actually has no attachment to this principle. He is merely seeking, in whatever way possible, a resolution to his betrayal of his own religion and his own community that has been festering in his heart year after year.

And this search for a resolution makes him eager to absolve the tyrannical Muslim regimes throughout history. As far as possible, he does not wish to mention the unprecedented atrocities of the Muslim rulers in what he calls his "grandmother's tales." His distorted mindset tells him: What purpose would be served by poisoning one's mind in the present by reflecting on stories from the past? But he makes the mistake of calling his grandmother's tales a history book. Consequently, he too is compelled to admit that the Muslim rulers were indeed cruel and brutal. And then, immediately, he rushes to excuse that cruelty and brutality.

While excusing a great sinner like Mahmud Ghaznavi, he writes: “He is regarded as a great leader of Islam who came to India to spread Islam. Most Muslims worship him. Most Hindus hate him. But in reality, he was not a religious man at all. It is true that he was a Muslim. But this fact held no importance in his life. He was a warrior, an indomitable warrior. He came to India only to conquer and to plunder. Unfortunately, it is true that warriors do engage in plunder. Whatever the religion of a warrior may be, he plunders anyway. Therefore, we should not make the mistake, like ordinary people, of assuming that Mahmud was anything more than a successful warrior.”

One could ask Nehru: Has any indomitable warrior of the Hindu race ever destroyed or desecrated the religious places of another race? Has he ever enslaved countless women and men of another defeated race and sold them in slave markets here and abroad? Has he ever, intoxicated with power in a conquered province, performed the massacre of innocent subjects, from children to the elderly?

But Nehru probably does not even accept that there has ever been any indomitable warrior in the Hindu race, even in the distant past. Therefore, our question would likely remain entirely irrelevant as far as warriors are concerned. Moreover, he could not satisfy himself merely by excusing the Muslim “warriors.” He is determined to absolve Muslims in general.

While whitewashing the brutality of Muhammad Ghori and his followers, he writes: “In the beginning, these Muslim people were cruel and brutal. They came from a country where tenderness had no special regard. And then they were residing in a country which they had just conquered, where they were surrounded on all sides by enemy forces, and where rebellion against them could occur at any time. The fear of rebellion must have always been before them. And fear often guides toward cruelty and brutality. Therefore, with the aim of suppressing the subjects, they carried out massacres. But for this reason, one should not mistakenly assume that the Muslims were killing Hindus solely motivated by religious enmity. It was a foreign conqueror destroying the life-force of his conquered subjects. When analyzing these episodes of cruelty, some people always drag religion into the matter. But this is not proper. It is true that the pretense of religion was also enacted many times. But the root cause of this brutality was social or political. The inhabitants of Central Asia were cruel and brutal in their own country as well, long before accepting Islam. Upon conquering a new country, these people knew only one way to maintain their dominance over it — creating terror.”

Therefore, Alauddin's terror was in reality not terror at all. It merely indicated Alauddin's compulsion. After mentioning the killing of thousands of people by Alauddin, Nehru writes: “I regret that I have to repeatedly mention these massacres. This matter does not please the mind. And when viewed from a broader perspective, this matter loses all importance. It only proves that at that time, the condition of northern India was neither peaceful nor civilized. In a way, anarchy had erupted. Islam came to India carrying a message of progress. And the Muslim Afghan people brought with them a barbaric tendency. Most people mistake these two as one. But a distinction should be made between the two.”

One could ask Nehru: why does he become so agitated against the British solely because of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre? The British too were foreign conquerors. The British too were surrounded on all sides by enemy forces. And the British too feared rebellion against them. But this question would also seem irrelevant to Nehru. The reason is that the British were neither Muslims nor Marxists. They were capitalists from England. In Nehru's view, every massacre committed by Muslims or Marxists is justifiable and worthy of absolution. But even hearing the story of strategic deception employed by anyone else for self-defense makes Nehru furious. Upon hearing of the 'deceit' used against Afzal Khan, he could not forgive Shivaji. So be it.

To be continued