Indian Reconstruct history.

 Indian Reconstruct history.

The government 2016 appointed a committee of experts to rewrite the history of India to prove that Hindus descended from the country’s first inhabitants thousands of years ago, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Government documents refer to the panel as the committee for the “holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture since 12,000 years before present and its interface with other cultures of the world”.

The group of experts, which comprise a geologist, archaeologists, Sanskrit scholars and two bureaucrats, met in the first week of January 2017 in New Delhi, according to the Reuters report. According to the minutes of the meeting, which the news agency said it accessed, the panel aims to use archaeological data and DNA evidence to prove that Hindus descended from the earliest inhabitants of India and that Hindu scriptures were history, not mythology.

image credit : wiki - Mohenjo Daro (film)-2016 Some have accused the filmmakers of promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda by trying to project Hindu identity on the ancient Mohenjo Daro civilization.

Images credit: Khalil-ur-Rehman Waleed-Harappa is an archaeological location located in Punjab, northeast Pakistan, approximately 20 kilometers west of Sahiwal. The location is named after a modern village near the former Ravi River course, about 5 kilometers southeast of the site. The site comprises the ruins of a Bronze Age fortified city that belonged to the Cemetery H culture and the Indus Valley Civilization, which was centered in Sindh and Punjab. The Indus Valley Civilization (also known as the Harappan culture) has its origins in cultures such as Mehrgarh, which date back to around 6000 BCE. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, the two greatest settlements, arose around 2600 B.C. along the Indus River valley in Punjab and Sindh. The civilization was rediscovered in the 1920s after excavations at Mohenjo-Daro (which means "mound of the dead") in Sindh near Sukkur and Harappa in west Punjab south of Lahore.

image: Balmukund Pandey, the head of the historical research wing of the RSS, said he meets regularly with Culture Minister Sharma. "The time is now," Mr Pandey said, to restore India's past glory by establishing that ancient Hindu texts are fact not myth.

The Culture Minister told Reuters he expects the conclusions of the committee to find their way into school textbooks and academic research. The panel is referred to in government documents as the committee for "holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture since 12,000 years before present and its interface with other cultures of the world."

Mr Sharma said this "Hindu first" version of Indian history will be added to a school curriculum which has long taught that people from central Asia arrived in India much more recently, some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, and transformed the population.

Hindu nationalists and senior figures in PM Modi's party reject the idea that India was forged from a mass migration. They believe that today's Hindu population is directly descended from the land's first inhabitants. Historian Romila Thapar said the question of who first stood on the soil was important to nationalists because "if the Hindus are to have primacy as citizens in a Hindu Rashtra (kingdom), their foundational religion cannot be an imported one." To assert that primacy, nationalists need to claim descent from ancestors and a religion that were indigenous, said Ms Thapar, 86, who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi for decades and has authored books on ancient Indian history.

Shashi Tharoor, a prominent member of the Congress party, said right wing Hindus are "leading a political campaign over Indian history that seeks to reinvent the idea of India itself." "For seven decades after independence, Indianness rested on faith in the country's pluralism," Mr Tharoor said, but the rise of Hindu nationalism had brought with it a "sense of cultural superiority."

The list of the members of the expert committee appointed by India to rewrite the history of India,

1. K.N. Dikshit - Chairman, Indian Archaeological Society, New Delhi, and former Joint Director General, Archaeological Survey of India
2. R.S. Bisht - former Joint Director General of Archaeological Survey of India
3. B.R. Mani - former Director General of National Museum, Delhi
4. Santosh Shukla - Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
5. P.N. Shastry - Vice Chancellor of the Rashtriya Sankskrit Sansthan
6. M.R. Sharma - chairman of Sangmarg World Brahmin Federation
7. Ramesh Kumar Pandey - Vice Chancellor, Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sankskrit Vidyapeeth.

Just See the following facts.

1. India's past is made up of many different cultures, religions, and ways of thinking. The Mohenjo-Daro and Harappan Civilizations, which later changed to the Indus Valley Civilization, left some of the oldest signs of civilization in the area.
2. The word "Hindu" was first used to describe people in the area by Persians(Today Iran, not by the people themselves.
3. India has had many empires rise and fall over its long past. These empires were influenced by Persian, Arab, Buddhist, and Islamic cultures and faith.
4. The last Indian empire has an Islamic representation.
5. Also we know, fortunately for the Indies, for the Hindus, India was conquered by the West. that is the crucial point for Indians to initiate the ideology of Hinduism.
6. India's past was also shaped by people from the West, like the Dutch, the British, and the Portuguese.
7. Before Hinduism (actually the ideology of Brahman) took over, Buddhism was the most widespread faith in India. But when Brahmanism became a greater hit, many Buddhist ideas were taken over by Hinduism and assimilated and finally destroyed.
8. in this case, Brahmans took the support from Mu**lim extremism. so finally with help of Mu*lims they were able to uproot Buddhism from India.
9. in addition, we kano that Indian culture has been influenced by Islam since ancient times when Persian and Arab people moved there and brought their ideas and ways of life with them.
10. So, India does not only belong to Hindus, and it is important to remember that. India has a long and varied past that should be recognized
11. The Indian government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has reportedly appointed a committee to rewrite India's history.
12. This committee intends to eradicate evidence of Buddhist and Islamic claims to Indian ancestry.
13. The objective is to incorporate extra archaeological findings and DNA evidence in support of Hinduism.

This Indian decision has been met with criticism because it is seen as an attempt to shape India's national identity around Hinduism and to challenge the multicultural narrative that has existed since the British colonial period.

History belongs to the people of the world, not just one ethnic group. It is our collective responsibility to preserve the rich and diverse history of every nation, as it provides insight into the past and helps shape our understanding of the present. Deliberately altering history to suit a political agenda is an unethical act that deprives future generations of the opportunity to learn from the past.

Now is the time to engage in critical thinking and reflection regarding how indian historical narratives are created, remembered, and utilized to influence current power dynamics and social structures. This involves recognizing how certain groups have been historically marginalized or excluded from hegemonic narratives and working to bring their perspectives and experiences to the forefront. By doing so, individuals and societies can begin to challenge and dismantle systems of oppression and inequality and create a more just and equitable world in which all voices and experiences are valued and heard.


FURTHER READING:

1. Appleby, J., Hunt, L., & Jacob, M. (1994). Telling the Truth about History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
2. Evans, R. J. (2000). In Defense of History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
3. Hobsbawm, E. (1997). On History. New York: The New Press.
4. Foner, E. (2002). Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World. New York: Hill and Wang.
5. Trouillot, M-R. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press.
6. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
7. Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
8. Loomba, A. (2005). Colonialism/Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge.
   
   The books listed above argue that history should be regarded as a shared heritage of humanity, as opposed to the property of a specific ethnic group or nation. The authors challenge the notion of a single, objective history and emphasize the significance of recognizing multiple perspectives and voices in historical narration. In addition, they call for a critical examination of the ways in which historical narratives have been employed to legitimize political and cultural dominance. These publications provide valuable insights into the complexities of history and its connection to identity, authority, and heritage.