rajeev srinivasan has always vested interests while writing an article thats why his good articles are also wasted in his biased approach.perhaps he doesnot know that when motives are not good than whatever good one does it has to be condemned by large number of people.few can deny from the achievments if they happened in any country and india/indians are not exception.there is nothing like this that indians are less in to self praising or praising traditions.why knowledge lost which is said to be invented in india? rajeev has any answer?when jyotish knowledge could remain with people why technology to create pushpak vimaan lost?why technology to make rust free iron is lost?when ayurveda is still alive why then surgery knowledge lost?when panini could formulated formulas and sanskrit has given status of best lingo for computers then why india did not develop computers first in world?beating drum abt past wont work for present days indians.rajeev gets good ruppees to publish his article but people have to understand that whatever present status indians are cherishing, realisation abt that will help us because then we can start our journey towards development.
Dude where's my post
by Raj on Aug 17, 2004 11:23 PM
I posted something along the sames lines but Rediff seems to have conveniently misplaced it. What Indian inferiority complex are people talking about? Growing up, I always had a superiority complex about Indian past. I always believed that the rest of the ancient world was a bunch of morons who somehow stole all knowledge from us.
This was until I walked into a museum with a *real* international collection. For the first time I realized "so this is why Egypt is such a big deal!". There was architecture and sculpture from ~3000 BC which would hold its own against anything anywhere in the world dated thousands of years later.
I am proud of Indian history, but I refuse to take it as some sort of an olympic where we should have won the gold. We learned some and we taught some. Time to look forward and move on!
RE:indian history!
by babu on Aug 18, 2004 07:01 PM
That's exactly what the new age historians are trying to ask!!! History is also like a scince. There should be a debate and counter views of either side. But unfortunately in India, anything that gives few merrit points to Hindu culture is being discuraged and considered communal. Why don't we teach these historical points in our school text books. Why can't we expose the children of India that there are also thories that Aryan Migration is a myth?
RE:indian history!
by Ashraf on Aug 18, 2004 01:54 PM
excellent answer dear,
perhaps your short answer is more praiseworthy than the biased article mr. rajeev has published. mr. rajeev, please don't exaggerate history in your own way. we all know we require awareness abt glorious indian history, so lets do it in a more acceptable way.
History
by Ramesh on Aug 18, 2004 02:55 AM
You are not sure about what you are talking it seems. We have lost numerous treasures of our own creation to the flood of time. You are have neither read the history of India nor willing to accept the achievements even the whites accpet now. Please stay away from the debate, if you don't know or willing to accept.
Height of absurdity : "when panini could formulated formulas and sanskrit has given status of best lingo for computers then why india did not develop computers first in world".
Sanskrit is the best language to develop software and it has been accepted by many in the world during the Forbes mangazine's survey itself. It follows the OOps concept and it is the best to produce the unambigous grammer for the computer languages. FYI, this has got nothing to do with the developing mechanical computers. Infact, Indians were infact better comptuers.
RE:indian history!
by bond on Aug 18, 2004 05:11 AM
You are the best eg of how one can be worse off now even though they had a very great history. Your education had made you to talk nonsense like this. Then think what 1000 years of foreign (mugal + british) rule can cause. Man please don't talk nonsense.
RE:indian history!
by Chandra on Aug 18, 2004 06:06 PM
Hey Hanif,
Very true, Let History remain History. nobody can change it. But it can be modified or moulded so that the future can grasp them wrong. Thats what initialy the so called historians did. Thats all is the author emphasizing on. And also the missing important items in our text books which the next generation is going to digest within.
first let me thank you for your information on indian history.i have lot of apetite for Indian history. reading this kind of info makes me proud .i'm a recent graduate into works.i want to know more about Indian history.i read your story days after my fried argued that only because of english we are here.all that's here are given by british.i would definetely use your info to counter argue with him.i'll also suggest to read this.
What you have written apears great, I have no doubt that our forefathers were intelligent and had many firsts to their credit. However I feel the benifits of all the develoments did not tricle down to the common people.
For the benifits to reach to the common people creation of large infrastructure, system of education and training, means of communication & broadcasting, are must but we do not find adequate proof in archieological excavations or written texts about it.
You have mentioned that "research done by Dharampal based on first-hand colonial reports in the British Museum (see his book The Beautiful Tree) there was a school in every village, and children of every caste were taught therein, before the British invasion." However I am not clear about the subjects that were taught in these schools, most of the subjects that are being taught have recent origin. Moreover as there were no means of large scale printing, most of the books were handwritten generally copied from another copy. Even price of raw paper was high.
I think benifits of most of these developments were limited to some kings and their cronies.
For it is fake history that has been manufactured by people with vested interests with the intention of keeping Indians enslaved - Enslaved by whom ?
How's it that we, with our History & culture and its full awareness, were subjugated by the Brits' much before they could manipulate Indian History ? Could be due to Mughal mismanagement ? Then in that case how could the Mughals do it, i.e. subjugate Indians ? & what of countries who did not have a history like ours to talk of, say like Israel (forgetting the biblical stuff)? How do we justify their success ?(probably their lack of history, I suppose).
You are giving too much credit to the marxists !! They ain't all that clever - TO preplan & control our future, or they wouldn't be in this state of affairs. They should have won every election they fought, hands down, had they been all that clever.
RE:Battlefield of Indian History
by SB on Aug 18, 2004 03:46 PM
there is nothing wrong in knowing our past. that will make us proud of being an indian as there are so many indians irrespective of there religion believes that we (inlcuding our brilliant forefathers) are/were fools and western people are the only intelligent community. we can at least think that our forefathers were not as bad as like us.
i have some counter questions. germany & US or specially western contries are the one doing research on vedas and related books. if those things are so bad then why they should waste time on that? why did thay stole all those things if they are totla waste. they could have taken only the gold & silver right? Do you know world's first aurvedic university(in 20th century) is in dublin, germany? so what is the problem in knowing that we also contributed to the world?
Are you sure?
by Ramesh on Aug 18, 2004 03:04 AM
Are you sure what you are talking about? Subjucation is not alone by manipulating the history. We have seen numerous exmaples in world history where great civilizations have been wrecked by crude barbarians. The finesse developed within the people of the civilization could not stand the brute power of the invaders and they have collapsed.
Thats what happened with India. The invasion of Mughals was the apt exmaple. They had destroyed numerous temples in North India, which were the seats of learnings. From there started the gradual decline of the traditional knowledge systems. Only south shielded the most of the knowledge systems of India, especially Kerala, and it still has the best of them.
Lastly, the making of Israel was the desperate need of the Jews, which was the longing for them for centuries. That longing provided them enought thrust to move forward and achieve. That could not be compared with a great country like India.
May the lord be with us to establish dharma ("Dharma shamsthabanaarthaya") in this world again.
RE:Battlefield of Indian History
by Varun Shekhar on Aug 17, 2004 09:16 PM
That's a typical defeatist attitude you are taking i.e because India was conquered in the past, then it couldn't possibly have created anything of worth, since if it did, it wouldn't have been cconquered! Lovely reasoning!
Mr Rajeev Srinivasan has done a great job in bringing out the facts of our ancient culture.I myself came to know almost all things today.I think we need a revolution in India which will bring about changes in all aspects of life.Some people who are sitting in the chairs have ruined the lives of all the fellowmen in all these years.Somewhere down below in our hearts we have these fire and the urge burning to set all things right as was once in our good olden days.And the people like Srinivasan can do this.like it is always said you keep walking and the caravan will go on increasing.
Its was quiet awe-inspiring to read this article. A great article that I came accross in recent 'history'. Kudos to Rajeev and rediff. Will really appreciate to read such articles in future.
I agree with Mr Senthil of false glorification of history. But I feel that our ancient civilization, our advanced knowledge, our history our past has not got its fair share of appreciation by our own people. leave alone the outsiders. our present and future generations must have knowledge of what we are. And it is only upto us whether we choose to denigrade ourselves or be proud of what we are with our past behind us.
Well done! Rajeev for making an effort to educate us about the proud historical facts of our great nation: Bharat! Hope powers that be help shed light on these little known facts amongst our citizenery..its a tragedy of Hellenic proprtions that we dont teach such fine facts of history in our history classes across India..
I am very happy to know that now scientifically we are proving that we the the best and oldest of all civilisation. Till now we were not able to prove it and britishers calculated everything wrong for their own benefits. Its time for us my deareast indian brothers and sisters that we should come out and bring back our glory past to the present world, instead of living in policies made by coloniosed world make a world better place to live. love to all humanity and people dev
