Kamal’s saffron view of history
THE EDITOR: I AGREE along with Mr Kamal Persad in his latest article "Re-discovering Indian history" (Sunday Express May 14), that, "An Indian perspective of history is vital to challenge the prevailing Caribbeanist and New World view of the past." But a perspective it must be, not revisionist!
Kamal and his ilk also must be aware that what they may consider as African or Black is nothing but Creole. Early in this society before the arrivals of East Indians, there existed a conflict between Africans and Creoles. African parents treated their offspring (Creoles) with mistrust. They said these children were "born under the English flag". So, Afro-Caribbean descendants are equally in need of articulating a viewpoint which is not influenced by the dominant culture. This culture by the way, is not Caribbeanist, it is pure euro-centrism.
Linguistically, Kamal Persad is a creole but with a difference from African creoles. African creoles were processed and "educated" to hate and belittle his/her origin, culture and history. Indian creoles were taught to romanticise theirs. This is evident from the saffron view of history which is fast emerging from the pens, mouths and keyboards of Kumar Mahabir, Kamal Persad and others. Indian history needs re-discovery totally, not selected portions of it. This must also include the anthropological evidence of the so-called negritos presence. Who according to Giuffrida-Ruggeri in his "First Outlines of a systematic Anthropology of Asia," names these negritos as the first Indians. But you may not accept that. Secondly, contrary to what you (Mr Persad) write so often, that there was no Aryan invasion and colonisation of India, politically, socially, economically and religiously.
According to the Rig Veda, the aboriginal native of India (negritos) were called Dasyus. It tells of the fierce struggles between them and the Aryas (Aryan) for the mastery of India. These hymns praise Indra, the white deity for having killed 50,000 blacks. The Rig Veda states, "Indra protected in battle the Aryan worshipper; he subdued the lawless for Manu, he conquered the black skin. He beat the Dasyu." The Dasyu was the foe to be flayed of his black skin." (See Dutt, N.K Aryanisation of India, pp 76-101. 1925). Out of this came the first colour line in history. Varna or the caste system.
Mr Persad in his article (Re-discovering Indian History) considers not only the Aryan invasion as mythical, but also the caste system and the Aryan/Dravidian divide. The Dalit Sahitya Akademy of Bangalore, a group which represents the low caste of India, had this to say on that issue: "The native people of India were not Hindus. They were Animist-Nature Worshippers. Since India’s Dalits were once autonomous tribal groups, each group was known by its own tribal name. The Aryans created "caste" out of these tribal divisions by hierarchically arranging them in ascending degrees of reverence and descending degrees of contempt."
Indian Muslim scholarship must stand up and deal ‘historically’ with the issues raised by the likes of Kemal Persad. Since the bulk of them, despite their Arabic, Persian, Mongol and Moghul names are descendants of those original inhabitants of India, who literally escaped a life of "untouchability". These people designated "Candaala" or dog eaters in the Bhagavad Gita (ch 5 vrs, 18 pg, 293), opted for a life within the fold of Islam. They refused to call themselves Hindus. The Persians called an inhabitant of Hind, Hindu which meant black or was associated with black, in their language.
Islam's presence in India did not begin with any holocaust or so called thousand-year warfare. India was conquered militarily by a 17- year-old Muslim youth; its weakness was its social system. So much so that some despised rulers according to Islamic standards are credited with "spreading Islam", men who with Malik ibn Dinaar arrived on the shores of India.
Kamal Persad's article:
Re-discovering Indian history
Sunday Express May 14
By KAMAL PERSAD
AN INDIAN perspective of history is vital to challenge the prevailing Caribbeanist and New World view of the past.
VS Naipaul’s view is still applicable on this history taught in schools that "we were part of somebody else's overview: we were part of the Spanish story, then the British story". Then he made this significant point that "to discover the wonder of our situation as children of the New World we had to look into ourselves, and to someone from my kind of Hindu background that wasn't easy".
This was so because Naipaul wrote about the "two ideas of history, almost two ideas of time" which he grew up with. One, "there was history with dates". This was the history he studied at school, at Queen's Royal College, which he remembered as "the most awakening part of my formal education". Then there was history which "had no dates".
This was the life that he was actually living, "the life in the Indian community" which was "almost unimaginable. It was time beyond recall, mythical". This situation that Naipaul described is very applicable to most people. The India from which we had come was impossibly remote, almost as imaginary as the land of the Ramayana, our Hindu epic. In another place he wrote that "our own past, like our idea of India, was a dream".
Indian Arrival Day is serving to shatter this darkness, to put dates and data on Indian history, and the initial step in this process must begin with self-knowledge. Thus the Hindu and Indian presence must be linked to Indian civilisation, and it must be seen as part of, and an extension of, that civilisation, only now, in this last century and a half, the drama is now occurring in another space, in another sphere.
To delink ourselves from this historical bond is to become rootless, to drift in time, to take another's view of the past, to lose oneself completely. The role of historical consciousness is as vital to Indian identity as the Ramayana, and Indian culture. We will save ourselves from being part of "someone else's overview".
An often repeated accusation of Indian civilisation is that no art of historical writing developed and there is no record of this, that India has no history. This must be rejected. James Tod questioned this view, "Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilised as the Hindus... were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history..."
Historian DP Singal wrote that "Indians in ancient times did not neglect the important discipline of historiography". KS Lal in his Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992) pointed out that "Indians today exhibit keen interest in history. This interest has not sprung all of a sudden. It has always been there. To the uneducated common man, it has come down in legends, stories, mythologies and anecdotes...."
The historical darkness Naipaul refers to, the imaginary history which exists with us, and has remained so to a large extent, was caused by the attempt to destroy Indian civilisation, and hence its recall of the past. As Lall pointed out: "There is no doubt that whatever Hindu historical literature was extant, was systematically destroyed by Muslim invaders and rulers. It is well known that pre-Islamic literature was destroyed by the Arabs in their homeland..."
The same occurred in India though there was not complete success as in Arabia, and other ancient civilisations in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Americas. And during the one thousand- year warfare in India, Hindus "could not think of historical records" though many Hindus strove to preserve records, especially sacred literature from extinction.
The British imperial control over India began a British writing on India, an Indology dominated by a British school of Indian history. This dominance and the theories on the origins of Indian civilisation is only now being challenged and being discarded.
What is developing is Hindu history being written, consistent with indigenous historical traditions. A broad outline can now be suggested and this is based on historical works published and easily available. Indian civilisation is of indigenous origin, maritime in nature, and developed along the River Sarasvati.
An extension of this was along the Sindhu (Indus) River. It was the largest and first ancient civilisation in the ancient world. As historian Goel suggested, "Indian civilisation was the dominant civilisation of the world for a long time," that this civilisation had "a long spell of unrivalled power and prosperity" and an international spread and presence.
That an outward migration of Indians was responsible for the genesis of other ancient civilisations, and the Indo-European people and languages. And that Hindu civilisational reach extended into the pre-Columbian Americas.
This outline contradicts what is popularly taught as ancient History at present and goes against the Aryan invasion theory (a myth really) on the origins of Indian civilisation and Hinduism, caste system and the Aryan/Dravidian divide.
The continuity of Indian civilisation therefore reflects what the world has lost in the extinct ancient African, Middle Eastern, and pre-Columbian civilisations. Their self-discovery lay with Indian civilisation. This discovery and recovery of India is clearly indicating how the path of the present must be informed; the present poverty and "wounds" were inflicted by invasions and internal weaknesses, which now are being eradicated.
For Indians in the Caribbean and South America, and for the countries where Indian civilisational presence is firmly established, our agenda must also be informed by this past.
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