@Levina , if you have time.., cant speak for facts but will set u thinking
Thanks. Yes, our history didn't began when we started loosing to the foreign invaders.
I'm watching it now.
It's a 2hr long video. Will reply back in some time.
The first 10mins of the video has made me curious already.
PS:
You should have posted the summary of this video as well, not sure many here will have the patience to watch such a long video.
Edit:
Summary of the video:
Sanjeev sanyal talks about how, often, Indian historians mention foreign invaders in their books while ignoring India's jubilant past. What we read in our textbook is nothing but a British interpretation of our history, which goes without saying, is manipulated.
70years after independence we are yet to undo this.
These are the main points he talked about;
1. Battle of Saraighat:
A battle which used gureilla tactics, psychological warfareand military intelligence together to defeat the great Mughals.
This was fought in what is now called ASSAM.
2. BajiRoa's son who ruled an empire bigger than Akbar but may be for a shorter period.
3. Martanda Verma- the ruler who took on the mightiest military of his time, the Dutch. He eventually won the battle against them.
4. Ashoka: The emperor was his main topic of discussion. Ashoka, as is projected in our books, wasnt as kind.
Myths about Ashoka:
a)
Myth- He converted to Buddhism after the battle of Kalinga.
Truth- he did so much before the battle.
b) myth- he took to Buddhism because it was a religion of peace.
Truth- He converted to Buddhism for political reasons. After burning alive the crown prince and massacring his immediate relatives who were Jains or Aajeevika(I hope I got the spelling right), Buddhists were the only ones who might have supported him.
C) Myth- Ashoka stopped massacaring ppl after Kalinga happened.
Truth- He killed 18k ppl after battle of Kalinga.(forgot the name of the place Mr Sanyal mentioned)
5. Ashoka became the hero of socialists in India and they made him Ashoja the great for their own selfish reasons. The socialist he's talking about was Nehru.
IMO, India uses one of the pieces constructed by Ashoka as its national emblem. Then it becomes moral responsibility of the historians to project Ashoka as a good man.
6. Use of Iron- Very recently archeologists, have found that Iron weapons were used in central India much before it was used anywhere else in the world. Sanyal then relates it to how central Indian kings have always been very powerful like the Jalsandhra(pls don't mind my spellings) of Magdha kingdom who was feared by everyone including Krishna. Not that he wanted to bring mythology to the discussion, but what he was alluding to was that (ancient) central Indian kingdoms were most prolly using weaponry made out of metals and ergo were projected as powerful.