“It is sheer oddity to term any era of history of any country by the religious beliefs of its ruler. Why do the phony “historians” not call the British India the Christian India? They know this is a misleading phraseology which, unlike Hindu, Muslim terminology, is devoid of paying them the dividends they are so desperately aspiring for. They make stronger Hindu,Muslim borders of history to widen deeply the gulf between the two beyond limits; pushing the masses to the barren wilderness of strife and terror.
They, therefore, completely throttle the growth of healthy ambient, harmonious and congenial conditions which are prerequisites for economic development and social change.
Books on Kashmir, generally speaking, lack credibility and suffer from serious trust deficit owing to their being completely drenched in subjectivism and mendacity. Their treatment of the subject matter is so loopy, nasty and deceptive that it plagues the reader’s mind with prejudice and chauvinism, estrangıng him socially from communities not subscribing to his race, faith and ideology. These books are compiled and brought to light by authors with erratic, dubious, sycophantic, opportunistic bent of mind and religious, doctrinaire attitude. They look at history with skewed, opaque glasses to substantiate their preconceived notions simply for gaining unfair advantage. Their ever increasing mundane ambitions, mounting greed for rewards, promotions and economic considerations have made them proficient enough in the art of twisting history and strewing it with heaps of unproven details, falsehoods, concoctions and half-truths. No wonder these coarse, fake and jobbing “historians” can change heaven into hell or convert desiccated, fragmented and desolate terrain into fertile and prolific lands and render God fearing into agnostics through a brutal process of distortion.
Communalizing history is designed to make us believe what is in fact not at all connected with reality. It enlarges the constituency of politicians bent upon accomplishing their goals through ruthless exploitation of religious weaknesses of the masses and proliferation of socio-Communal animosity among the communities. It aims at fulfilling the political ambitions of a particular class of people by ensuring its ascendancy and flowering of its ideology through a subtle, smart misinterpretation of history. Here are some samples;
It is on the land here in Eidgah (Kashmir] that Tibetan refugees were settled and assimilated in the cultural milieu because they were Musims even as we, the indigenous people [Hindus) have been uprooted and cast away, because we are not.”
In addition to many places the name of “Anantnag of innumerable springs has been changed “as Islamabad”. How artificial and unnatural the new names sound to the ear, like naming London as Jeddah and Paris as Medinah”.
The books written with communal bias are too adept to foster and sharpen the cross cutting nature of social cleavages and communal barriers. They are adroit in setting one group of people against the other for vote bank politics and other ulterior motives. They make stronger Hindu, Muslim borders of history; widening deeply the gulf between the two beyond limits to let go the communal genie out of proverbial lamp to disturb the socio-economic equilibrium and spread chaos and anarchy by pushing the masses to the barren wilderness of strife and terror. They completely throttle the growth of healthy ambient, harmonious and congenial conditions which are prerequisites for economic development and social change.
That there is a sharp contrast between how our ancestors lived and how they are now being portrayed by contemporary historians is abundantly borne out by critically evaluating their works and comparing their themes with the contents of legitimate, original sources of information of ancient and medieval Kashmir. Dichotomy between the two the lived reality and the current observations and formulations is avowedly too glaring to be ignored or taken lightly by genuinely serious and objective historians who have access to original sources and by readers with a scientific temperament and critical bent of mind. Both the versions are, thus, completely opposite to and different from each other. Contemporary ones are undoubtedly bound to inculcate feelings of negativity and bitterness among the young, impressionable minds as these are easily available than the original sources. These books weave their narratives with bitter threads of fanaticism and communalism. And fabricate the imaginary phantoms of Hindu, Muslim dissonances to make the younger generations believe that the history is a story of discord and chaos ánd, thereby, embroil them into unending hostilities.
Dr. Abdul Ahad is a well-known historian of Kashmir. He presents a perspective on the Kashmir issue and talks about Kashmir’s history and individuality and personality.
