The Systematic Distortion of Indian History

History is half as true as the colour of the historian and is specifically true of history of the Indian subcontinent. While the ancient civilization in the subcontinent produced volumes on philosophy and religion and to some extent popular literature, ranging from great epics, couple of dramas to explicit eroticism in the form of Kamasutra, but when it came to writing a detailed account of day to day life or about its surrounding environment [flora, fauna, socio economic life], they almost drew a blank.

What remains today as accounts of those periods are through intermediaries, mainly through the travelogues and in some passing comments in treatises on other subjects. The visitors came from far away land like Persia, China, mostly for trade purposes or for the sheer adventure of the unknown and once they stepped into this beautiful land with the richness of material and soul, they stayed on for years devouring what ever came across their way and left with bag full of documents and an enriched heart.

The Chinese came to take away the teachings of Buddha, besides selling their silk and earthen ware, but as again there was complete lack of enthusiasm in part of his disciples to share their Masters words of wisdom. The Hunan king invited monks to China and commissioned them to translate the wisdom of Buddhism in their language and as a result the volumes of Buddhist literature in China far exceed that of India.

In the 4th century B.C. there was an attempt by Kautilya through his epic Arthashastra, which although is a treatise on statecraft, politics, economics policy and military policy, gives us certain details about life and times of that period.
The Islamic conquerors maintained, like all military generals do, a daily log and that carried on even to the Mogul dynasty with Babar to Akbar maintaining a personal account [or through their courtesans, Akbar could not read or right] like Akbarnama [Book of Akbar]. Although it served more as a military document for Babar and Humayun, but in hands of Abul Fazl it took a more refined stance, but can in no way be treated as an unbiased account of the rule and life of the subjects at that time.

The history till independence of India has been flooded by the works of European historians whose accounts ranges from mythical to spiritual to upright derogatory.
Like the “History of India” was written by John Mill, who never visited the country and never spoke any local language. This format of history suited the British as their ulterior motive was to rule the country and it would be counterproductive for the British subjects to come over to a land and hit hard against a culture which is far superior in terms of its philosophical content than theirs.
The colonial rule left copious volumes of documents, the India House having more documents than even the Central Archives of India.
Orientalism, a word made famous by Edward Said in the 20th century, influenced a breed of Indian historians and they carried on writing history of the subcontinent immersed in the same sprit of Postmodernism. The writings depended more on the official documents of the British rule, with very little independent research, but was made more accessible to the general public at large.

If history was the life of a king, his conquests, his queens, his wealth then rendition in comics like Amar Chitra Katha would suffice. But history is more than that and modern history tries to delve more into the socio economic life of the subaltern in the rule of the king. But history is no science that it can be verified by experiments, the historians need to depend on what ever account is left from those times aided with some architectural evidence.
Any event in history can have three versions – one by the perpetrator, another by the affected and the third as an outsider perspective. All accounts have their own self bias and hence it becomes a matter of hard choice for the historian to write an unbiased view of the event without being influenced, partially or fully.


Mass in a socio political context is a mere number until or unless it is led to a certain activity, either in a constructive or destructive way and it is then that the mass gathers momentum and makes relevance. Mobilisation of the mass requires a tremendous effort by the leader and the leader can be a part of the mass or an outsider with a cause which appears to appeal to the mass. The stature of the leader is determined by the quantum of the mass moved – Mahatma Gandhi being one of the finest examples in India.
But it can be argued that a physical presence of a leader is not always needed to create a movement, with a clear distinction to be made between mass movement and mob.
In today’s socio political context, the society has been fragmented to suit the various political parties in terms of caste, creed, religion and other attributes. This also is for the purpose of obtaining maximum benefit from this fragmented mass, but it is also easier to derive “stimulus” that would sway this mass. If one thought that individual brilliance within the mass may negate this affect then it is only a presumption, because once you start believing in the “stimulus” your reasoning gets obfuscated by the greater cause.

A practical example is a Fire Alarm system in an office building. When the fire alarm rings, the people inside the building, irrespective of their rank [from the managing director to the bell boy] moves to a place outside the building in the designated “assembly point”. In this case the trigger for the mass movement [exodus] is inanimate, a mere electro-mechanical contraption called a fire alarm, the stimulus being the personal safety of the people inside the office building.
Neither Jawaharlal Nehru nor Indira Gandhi and her generations afterwards were mass leaders but were quite a contrary and the mass leader in Jayprakash Narayan never came even anywhere near to political power. But they had had cultivated the art of creating the stimulus with their strong official machinery.

While the Left parties and BJP has a clear ideology and to that extent also some of the regional parties like BSP [dalit ideology], RJD [social equality], but the oldest party of India, Congress is devoid of any ideology so as to speak.
The relevance of Congress ended with the independence, it was a forum which gave the voice of the Indians to reach the colonial rulers, but subsequent to independence and creation of India as a secular, democratic polity, Jawaharlal Nehru failed to create an ideology which could bind the party to their grass root supporters. The wind of nationalistic policy in terms of nation building based on socialistic principles played for a decade and with the waning of that spirit, there was the period of simmering disquiet, which Nehru could hardly handle and in many cases made blunders.
But behind the great veil of Socialism, he sowed the seeds of that nefarious “stimulus” which unknowingly has spread its tentacles and engulfed our daily lives which will be discussed in details subsequently.

“The Matrix” series by Wachowski Brothers borrowed heavily from the Buddhist or Vedic philosophy. It is a simple tale that tells that the computers have taken control of the humans, controlling their brains and thereby their actions, and how a group of “originals” try to fight out of this imperialistic control.
Movies like the “Enemy of the State” depict how every move in our life is monitored by the government, which is nothing more than a control of our lives. The control becomes easier if the polity believes is a similar ideology and do not contest any opposition to that ideology, the ideology can be religious, philosophical or political – but the central theme is to make the polity believe in that.

During the height of the “Cold War” the leftist states in India were flooded with books from Russian distributors like Mir and Vostok, highly subsidized. The collection varied from textbooks of basic science [some becoming as popular as to attain a textbook status] to writings on socio economic principles of Marxism.
Dmitri Mendeleev was a bigger figure as a true Russian than the proponent of the Periodic Table of Elements and for every scientific discovery of the allied West there exists a counterpart in the Soviet domain.
The state propaganda was drilled hard into the public domain and in fact they started believing what they were fed with as they were practically cut from the rest of the world.
Such was their faith in the leadership that in China, another Marxist block, nearly 30 million people died in Mao’s quest for transforming the traditional agrarian based Chinese economy into a modern communist society through the process of agriculturisation, industrilisation and collectivization.
The mass were in complete agreement with the principles of Mao Zedong, any rebellion being violently suppressed, in its Great Leap Forward which ultimately led to a famine and death of unparalleled proportions.

We may take pride in living in the worlds greatest democracy which adheres to secularity, is guided by jurisprudence and allowed by the constitution of freedom of speech which retains our free thinking and logical reasoning.
It is entirely another perspective, what if the ideas on which our reasoning pattern depends is based on a huge propaganda? What if what we have been taught through our school days is a clearly crafted play?
It has been assumed that not more than 1 to 2 mass leaders are needed per ten thousand people and a complete control over the minds of these leaders makes it easy for domination. Are we moving towards a Matrix like society where instead of computers there will be select few calling the shots?

This is the basis of the distortion of the Indian History, against which people are becoming aware only now, thanks to the efforts by the huge Diaspora who are investing their time, energy and money to uncover the truth and expose the culprits of systematic distortion of History.

Advancement in technology, free market, communication has helped in the spread of ideas which contradict the forty year period of systematic alienation of the people from the truth.