The United Nations Joins Battle Against Islamophobia

[RiazHaq]

The United Nations Joins Battle Against Islamophobia

The United Nations has declared March 15 the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia". Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the...

www.southasiainvestor.com

The United Nations has declared March 15 the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia". Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the first world leader who highlighted the global rise in Islamophobia in a speech in September, 2021 at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Khan's speech was followed by the adoption of a Pakistani resolution at the UNGA co-sponsored with the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) on March 15, 2022 to observe "International Day to Combat Islamophobia" on March 15 every year.

Ex Prime Minister Imran Khan Speaking at the United Nations.

In his September 2021 speech at UNGA, Imran khan said that “the worst and most pervasive form” of Islamophobia “now rules India”. The “Hindutva ideology” being promoted by the Narendra Modi Government has unleashed “a reign of fear and violence” against India’s 200-million Muslims.

India is the Largest Contributor to Islamophobia on Social Media. Source: TRT World

India has just 5.75% of global Twitter users but the country accounts for 55% of all anti-Muslim tweets, according to a recent report entitled "Islamophobia in the Digital Age" published by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV). It also found that the US, the UK, and India contributed a staggering 86% of anti-Muslim content on Twitter during a three-year period. It should be noted that both the US and the UK have a sizable Indian diaspora infected by hateful Hindutva ideology.

The growing hate that Muslims face is not an isolated development, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told attendees at a a high-level March 10 event at the UN Headquarters in New York. “It is an inexorable part of the resurgence of ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazi white supremacist ideologies, and violence targeting vulnerable populations including Muslims, Jews, some minority Christian communities and others,” he said.

The UN HQ event was co-convened by Pakistan, whose Foreign Minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, underscored that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and pluralism. Although Islamophobia is not new, he said it is “a sad reality of our times” that is only increasing and spreading.

“Since the tragedy of 9/11, animosity and institutional suspicion of Muslims and Islam across the world have only escalated to epidemic proportions. A narrative has been developed and peddled which associates Muslim communities and their religion with violence and danger,” said Mr. Zardari, who is also Chair of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers. “This Islamophobic narrative is not just confined to extremist, marginal propaganda, but regrettably has found acceptance by sections of mainstream media, academia, policymakers and state machinery,” he added.

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The United Nations Joins Battle Against Islamophobia

The United Nations has declared March 15 the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia". Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the...

www.southasiainvestor.com

 

[SoulSpokesman]

@RiazHaq

Brofessor sb,

And the ungrateful Citadel of Islam responded by voting the protagonist out.

Imported government namanzoor! Namanzoor! Namanzoor!

Regards

 

[RiazHaq]

#Modi is the World’s Most Popular Leader. It's an emerging personality cult and an authoritarian streak that is dragging #India backward. Some argue it is a Jim Crow #Hindu nationalism that marginalizes #Muslims. #Hindutva #Islamophobia #BJP #bigotry

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/opinion/modi-india.html?smid=tw-share


All over the Indian capital these days loom posters of Narendra Modi, presenting him as the great modernizing prime minister pulling India forward. But those posters also hint at the opposite: an emerging personality cult and an authoritarian streak that is dragging India backward.

In immediate political terms, the personality cult perhaps succeeds. With approval ratings at home of about 78 percent, Modi is far and away the most popular major leader in the world today, according to Morning Consult.

With the opposition in disarray, Modi is expected to win a third term as prime minister in next year’s elections.

While Modi polls extremely well, many worldly Indians are aghast that he has made India less secular and tolerant, creating what some argue is a Jim Crow Hindu nationalism that marginalizes religious minorities, particularly Muslims. And it’s not just marginalization: Muslims are periodically accused of slaughtering cows, which are sacred to Hindus, and lynched. In a typical case this month, a mob in Bihar state accused a Muslim of carrying beef and beat him to death.

Modi has presided over a crackdown on news organizations, and Indians have been repeatedly arrested for their tweets. Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, in a new report, listed India not as a democracy but as an “electoral autocracy” ranking 108th among 179 countries in its electoral democracy index.

“It’s very scary what’s happening,” said Bunker Roy, founder of Barefoot College, one of India’s most celebrated rural development initiatives. “I think we’re going into authoritarianism.”

-------

Pakistan was founded by a not particularly observant Muslim, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who drank alcohol and appointed a member of the (now persecuted) Ahmadi religious minority to be the country’s first foreign minister. But then in 1977, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq seized power and engineered a wave of conservative Muslim nationalism that still tears Pakistan apart.

That would be my nightmare for India, because the fires of religious extremism and grievance are easier to ignite than extinguish. But I honestly don’t think India will tumble that far. I agree with Urmi Basu, a civil society leader from Kolkata, that Indian democracy will get through this, just as it survived a retreat from democracy under Indira Gandhi. India still has a federal system that gives power to the states, and that constrains Modi.

-----------

Modi is now to all of India what he was for many years as the boss of the state of Gujarat. There he was a pro-business leader who oversaw strong economic growth, but his record was badly damaged by a pogrom against Muslims on his watch in 2002 — there is disagreement about his degree of complicity, but he certainly mismanaged it. He also undermined pillars of civil society like the Self-Employed Women’s Association.

Looking ahead, what I fear is that the authoritarian, Hindu nationalist Modi is eclipsing the economy-boosting, toilet-building Modi. To imagine a worst case, just look next door at the sad shambles of today’s Pakistan.

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

The United Nations Joins Battle Against Islamophobia

The United Nations has declared March 15 the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia". Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the...

www.southasiainvestor.com

The United Nations has declared March 15 the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia". Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the first world leader who highlighted the global rise in Islamophobia in a speech in September, 2021 at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Khan's speech was followed by the adoption of a Pakistani resolution at the UNGA co-sponsored with the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) on March 15, 2022 to observe "International Day to Combat Islamophobia" on March 15 every year.

​

Ex Prime Minister Imran Khan Speaking at the United Nations.

In his September 2021 speech at UNGA, Imran khan said that “the worst and most pervasive form” of Islamophobia “now rules India”. The “Hindutva ideology” being promoted by the Narendra Modi Government has unleashed “a reign of fear and violence” against India’s 200-million Muslims.

​

India is the Largest Contributor to Islamophobia on Social Media. Source: TRT World

India has just 5.75% of global Twitter users but the country accounts for 55% of all anti-Muslim tweets, according to a recent report entitled "Islamophobia in the Digital Age" published by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV). It also found that the US, the UK, and India contributed a staggering 86% of anti-Muslim content on Twitter during a three-year period. It should be noted that both the US and the UK have a sizable Indian diaspora infected by hateful Hindutva ideology.

The growing hate that Muslims face is not an isolated development, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told attendees at a a high-level March 10 event at the UN Headquarters in New York. “It is an inexorable part of the resurgence of ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazi white supremacist ideologies, and violence targeting vulnerable populations including Muslims, Jews, some minority Christian communities and others,” he said.

The UN HQ event was co-convened by Pakistan, whose Foreign Minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, underscored that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and pluralism. Although Islamophobia is not new, he said it is “a sad reality of our times” that is only increasing and spreading.

“Since the tragedy of 9/11, animosity and institutional suspicion of Muslims and Islam across the world have only escalated to epidemic proportions. A narrative has been developed and peddled which associates Muslim communities and their religion with violence and danger,” said Mr. Zardari, who is also Chair of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers. “This Islamophobic narrative is not just confined to extremist, marginal propaganda, but regrettably has found acceptance by sections of mainstream media, academia, policymakers and state machinery,” he added.

Related Links:
Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

"Howdy Modi" Rally in Houston

Social Media Expose Ugly Face of Violent Hindu Extremism

Silicon Valley's Indian-American Congressman Rejects Hindutva

Silicon Valley Hindu Americans Rally in Support of Yogi, Modi

Rape of 8-year-old Asifa Bano in Kashmir

Vast Majority of Hindu Americans Support Modi

Modi's Extended Lockdown in Indian Occupied Kashmir

Hinduization of India

Brievik's Hindutva Rhetoric

Indian Textbooks

India's RAW's Successes in Pakistan

Riaz Haq Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

The United Nations Joins Battle Against Islamophobia

The United Nations has declared March 15 the "International Day to Combat Islamophobia". Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the...

www.southasiainvestor.com

The vast majority of Islamaphobic posts coming from the UK and america are from the indians living there.

 

[RiazHaq]

The "grooming gangs" charge against British Pakistani men has been refuted by the UK government's own report.

A new Home Office report admits grooming gangs are not a ‘Muslim problem' | Child protection | The Guardian

The study finds no credible evidence for a far-right stereotype that has spread widely in the media, say crime academics Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail

amp.theguardian.com

For many in Britain today the term “grooming gang” immediately suggests Pakistani-heritage Muslim men abusing white girls, but the Home Office researchers now tell us that “research has found that group-based offenders are most commonly White”.


A powerful modern racial myth has been exploded. What started as a far-right trope had migrated into the mainstream, meeting little resistance along the way. In 2011, the Times and its chief investigative reporter, Andrew Norfolk, claimed to have uncovered a new ethnic crime threat, shrouded until then in a supposed “conspiracy of silence”.

The racial stereotype gained credence when the Quilliam Foundation, a controversial “counter-extremism” group, claimed that 84% of “grooming gang offenders” were Asian.

The “grooming gangs” narrative fed into the agenda of the far right, but it was not only there that the issue was racialised: the Labour MP Sarah Champion, for one, wrote a now notorious article in the Sun in 2017, for which she resigned as shadow equalities minister.

The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes, and, citing our research, it confirmed the unreliability of the Quilliam claim.



The horrific and widely reported crimes committed in places such as Rochdale, Oxford and Telford were real: but racist stereotyping and demonisation deflected from that.


The claims that “grooming gangs” were not properly investigated due to “political correctness” and a fear of being accused of racism are heavily undermined by decades of research highlighting the consistent over-policing of minority communities. What’s more, the whole history of the UK’s responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse is littered with failings – as shown by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, Operation Yewtree and numerous other investigations and inquiries. There were also regrettable consequences for child protection, since victims and offenders who don’t fit the stereotype can be overlooked.




This misdirected focus can be found in the Home Office report itself. Its title and executive summary both imply it covers “group-based child sexual exploitation” in the whole. But it fails to include a whole range of problems that might reasonably fit into that category, such as abuse that occurs online, and in schools, care homes and other institutions. Instead, it follows the crowd by dwelling on child sexual exploitation “in the community”. This construct is vaguely defined and poorly justified, although certainly more acceptable sounding than “grooming gangs” – the broadly equivalent term that has no legal meaning but plenty of racial and political baggage.



It might be tempting to think that, if nothing else, a decade of outrage had stimulated wider concern about child sexual exploitation. In truth, it has diverted resources and effort into wasteful paths while opportunities to address systemic barriers to prevention and improve victim support have been missed.



The claims that “grooming gangs” were not properly investigated due to “political correctness” and a fear of being accused of racism are heavily undermined by decades of research highlighting the consistent over-policing of minority communities. What’s more, the whole history of the UK’s responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse is littered with failings – as shown by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, Operation Yewtree and numerous other investigations and inquiries. There were also regrettable consequences for child protection, since victims and offenders who don’t fit the stereotype can be overlooked.

 

[RiazHaq]

Politics of ruin: Why #Modi wants to demolish #India’s #mosques. The necro-economy of #Hindu nationalism relies on making history its most important site. #Muslim shrines must suffer. #Islamophobia #Hindutva #BJP https://aje.io/37g9an via @AJEnglish


A historic 16th-century mosque, Shahi Masjid, in Prayagraj city in India’s Uttar Pradesh state was demolished by bulldozers on January 9 under a road-widening project.

The demolition took place even though, according to the mosque’s imam, a local court was supposed to hear a petition seeking a stay on the city administration’s plans on January 16, a week later.

This incident should have caused public outrage, but the matter hardly made any headlines. The destruction of structures using bulldozers in India has become a banal occurrence and has already lost its shock value.

Shahi Masjid is also not the first ancient mosque to have been sacrificed for a road widening project. Last November, a 300-year-old mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district that stood in the way of a highway was razed.

Another mosque, one of the largest and oldest in India, Shamsi Jama Masjid, an 800-year-old national heritage site in Budaun, Uttar Pradesh, became a matter of dispute last year when a court case was filed on behalf of a local Hindu farmer — backed by the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) — alleging that the mosque is an “illegal structure” built on a demolished 10th-century temple of Lord Shiva. Their petition states that Hindus have rightful ownership of the land and should be able to pray there.

The claim of illegality rests on a far-right narrative according to which most of the Indian mosques were actually temples at one point in time and were forcefully converted into mosques by Muslim rulers. Even though most historians today deny these claims because there is little material evidence to support them, they have enormous popular support.

The rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasingly marked by a destructive urgency. The party’s attempts to culturally homogenise India began with the renaming of places in an overtly Hindu vocabulary and progressed to new strategies such as bulldozing Muslim monuments and archaeological excavations to find Hindu roots at Muslim religious sites.

In the past few years, there have been a number of controversies surrounding Mughal monuments. Even the Taj Mahal, a monument of global importance, has not been spared. Far-right Hindu groups claim, again without any evidence, that it was a Hindu temple.

The fate of Indian Muslims has reached a watershed moment. Scores of petitions have been filed by right-wing Hindu groups against mosques across the country.

The past several years have also seen the activation of an informal apparatus of religious volunteers who use religious processions to establish dominance over Muslim places of worship, including mosques and Muslim shrines. During several Hindu festival celebrations in 2022, including Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti, armed Hindu mobs, led at times by BJP members, entered Muslim neighbourhoods and chanted obscene slogans while planting saffron flags on mosques.

 

[RiazHaq]

Braverman words on British Pakistani men discriminatory: Pakistan
Pakistani official says UK home secretary’s remarks signal ‘intent to target and treat British Pakistanis differently’.

Braverman words on British Pakistani men discriminatory: Pakistan

Pakistani official says UK home secretary’s remarks signal ‘intent to target and treat British Pakistanis differently’.

www.aljazeera.com

Pakistan’s foreign office has criticised British Home Secretary Suella Braverman for “discriminatory and xenophobic” comments after she said that British Pakistani men “hold cultural values at odds with British values”.

In an interview with Sky News on Monday, Braverman also alleged British Pakistani men worked in child abuse rings or networks that targeted “vulnerable white English girls”.


Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson Mehnaz Baloch on Wednesday condemned Braverman’s remarks which, he said, painted a “highly misleading picture signalling the intent to target and treat British Pakistanis differently”.

Baloch said Braverman had “erroneously branded criminal behaviour of some individuals as a representation of the entire community”.

“She fails to take note of the systemic racism and ghettoisation of communities and omits to recognise the tremendous cultural, economic and political contributions that British Pakistanis continue to make in British society,” Baloch said in her weekly briefing in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

A British Home Office report on group-based child sexual abuse published in 2020 pointed out that research on offender ethnicity is limited, and tends to rely on poor-quality data.

However, it did highlight studies that show white men as being the majority of offenders, in comparison with Asian or Black men.

The report’s findings were pointed out to Braverman during the interview, but she went on to say that British Pakistani men “see women in a demeaned and illegitimate way and who pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave”.

Braverman’s comments have received a backlash on social media, with users saying the remarks will mislead the public and “incite violence against those with particular racial characteristics”.

 

[RiazHaq]

New Indian textbooks purged of nation’s Muslim history

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/06/india-textbooks-muslim-history-changes/

By Anumita Kaur


The Taj Mahal is one of India’s most iconic sites. But this year, millions of students across India won’t delve into the Mughal Empire that constructed it.

Instead, Indian students have new textbooks that have been purged of details on the nation’s Muslim history, its caste discrimination and more, in what critics say warps the country’s rich history in an attempt to further Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda.

The cuts, first reported by the Indian Express, are wide-ranging. Chapters on the country’s historic Islamic rulers are either slimmed down or gone; an entire chapter in the 12th-grade history textbook, “Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts" was deleted. The textbooks omit references to the 2002 riots in the Indian state of Gujarat, where hundreds of Indian-Muslims were killed while Modi was the state’s leader. Details on India’s caste system, caste discrimination and minority communities are missing.

Passages that connected Hindu extremism to independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi’s assassination were pruned as well, such as the 12th grade political science textbook line: Gandhi’s “steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate [him].”

The new curriculum, developed by India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training, has been in the works since last year and will serve thousands of classrooms in at least 20 states across the country. It follows long-standing efforts by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to craft a Hindu nationalist narrative for the country — a platform that Modi ran on in 2014 and secured reelection with in 2019.

“The minds of children are now under direct onslaught in this kind of intense way, where textbooks must not ever reflect South Asia’s dynamic, complex history,” said Utathya Chattopadhyaya, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “So you basically create a body of students who come out knowing very little about the history of social justice, the history of democracy, the history of diversity, and so on.”


India has been home to Hindu, Muslim and many other religious communities for centuries. British rule stoked tensions among communities, leading to violence in 1947 after the country was partitioned into Pakistan and modern India.

Hindu nationalism has intensified under Modi. It has led to violent clashes, bulldozing of Indian-Muslim communities and deepening polarization throughout India and its global diaspora.

The curriculum change is another step in the trend, Chattopadhyaya argued. BJP-led state governments have launched textbook revisions for years. But now it’s stretched to the national level.

“This is actually an intensification of something that’s been happening. It is a way of ‘Hindu-izing’ South Asian history and ignoring all other kinds of diverse plural histories that have existed,” he said.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Lets start with what happened in Aqsa Mosque recently in Occupied Palestine /Israel

 

[RiazHaq]

Hindu Mahasabha workers slaughtered cows to cause communal violence, says UP Police - India Today

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/sto...ommunal-violence-up-police-2357323-2023-04-08

By Siraj Qureshi: Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday revealed that some members of the Bharat Hindu Mahasabha slaughtered cows themselves to incite communal violence in Agra during the Ram Navami procession.

Agra Police had arrested four youths accused of cow slaughter on the occasion of Ram Navami. The youths were arrested during Ram Navami celebrations in Gautam Nagar of Etmaduddaula area in Agra during a raid.

Regional police told India Today that the names of several office-bearers of the Bharat Hindu Mahasabha have also surfaced in the cow slaughter plot.


According to the information, the name of the Hindu Mahasabha’s national spokesperson, Sanjay Jat, has emerged as the main conspirator. Many workers are also said to be involved in the conspiracy. Jitendra Kushwaha had lodged an FIR about cow slaughter at Etmaduddaula police station.

DCP Suraj Rai said that many facts had come to the fore during the police investigation. Two, named Imran alias Thakur and Shanu named in the FIR were arrested by the police.

Shanu told the police that he reached Mehtab Bagh at 8 pm on March 29 and found Imran, Salman, and Sairo there. They then decided to kill a cow roaming there. That's when Shanu and Imran went and informed Jitendra Kushwaha about this.


Some Hindu Mahasabha workers complained against Jitendra Kushwaha and Sanjay Jat and said they themselves were getting the cow slaughtered to spoil the communal harmony of Agra on Ram Navami.

On the other hand, Sanjay Jat has told India Today that he has been deliberately trapped by the office bearers of the Hindu Mahasabha and the entire episode should be investigated by CBCID. He said that he will complain about these officials to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

 

[RiazHaq]

Sanskrit poetry and literature flourished under Mughal Rule in India​

Last chance to read Mughal-era Sanskrit literature, before it is all deleted | Deccan Herald


https://www.deccanherald.com/opinio...erature-before-it-is-all-deleted-1207917.html

by Anusha Rao

The recent removal of chapters on Mughals from the NCERT syllabus presents us with an opportunity to look at the colorful history of Sanskrit during that period. The most vibrant personality of this era was perhaps the celebrity poet Jagannatha Panditaraja, who managed to sell the same praise-poem to three kings (Shah Jahan, Jagatsimha and Prananarayana), after swapping out their names. Panditaraja, i.e., the ‘king of scholars’, was a title that the Mughal king Shah Jahan bestowed on Jagannatha. Our poet clearly liked being wined and dined well. He writes: “Only two people can give me all that I want—God, or the emperor of Delhi. As for what the other kings give, well, I use that for my weekly groceries!"

Legend goes that Jagannatha fell head-over-heels in love with a Muslim woman called Lavangi and married her. This would explain the Muslim woman (“yavani”) who is the subject of so many of his verses, where he meditates on her skin smooth as butter and wants neither horses nor elephants nor money as long as he can be with her.

Aurangzeb’s uncle Shaista Khan had even learnt Sanskrit himself, and six poems written by him are preserved in the Rasakalpadruma. Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Shah Jahan had learnt Sanskrit, too, and his project was to understand Islam and through each other. Another celebrity poet of this age was Kavindracharya, the head of the Banaras scholar community during Shah Jahan’s rule. He pleaded the case for abolishing the Hindu pilgrim tax so eloquently in front of the king that the indeed came to be abolished. Poems in praise of Kavindracharya poured in from all across the country, and they are preserved today in the form of a book, the Kavindra Chandrodaya.

South India had its fair share of Sanskrit poets who enjoyed the patronage of multiple kings of different faiths. Bhanukara, a 16th century Sanskrit poet, wrote verses that we find in many well-known verse anthologies. These anthologies attribute to Bhanukara verses in praise of various kings—hinting that among his patrons were Krishnadevaraya, Nizam Shah and Sher Shah, all ruling in the Deccan! And Bhanukara clearly enjoyed a good relationship with the Nizam, given his hyperbolic verses in praise of the king’s generosity, skill in military conquest, and even his physical appearance. Another well-known Sanskrit poet of the 16th century was Govinda Bhatta, who composed the Ramachandra-yashah-prashasti in praise of King Vaghela Ramachandra of Rewa. But Ramachandra was not Govinda Bhatta’s only patron. In fact, Govinda Bhatta called himself Akbariya Kalidasa, as a tribute to the most illustrious of his patrons, Akbar. In one his laudatory verses, he praises Akbar as being the crest jewel of Humayun’s lineage.

Not all Sanskrit poetry about the Mughals is about kings though— the 17th century poet Nilakantha Shukla, a disciple of the famous grammarian Bhattoji Dikshita, wrote an epic poem on the romance between a Brahmin tutor and a Muslim noblewoman in Mughal Banaras.


As Sanskrit poets wrote in and of Islamic rule, a large number of Sanskrit classics were translated into Persian as well—including the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and even tales such as the Shuka Saptati. The Razmnamah, a Persian translation of the Mahabharata, commissioned by Akbar in the late 16th century, manages to strike a balance between the monotheistic god of Islam and the plethora of gods in the Sanskrit epic, retaining numerous divinities while weaving in Koranic phrases, and modifying prayers to address them to Allah. But how do we know all of this? Well, nobody struck these out from the manuscripts and inscriptions...

 

[RiazHaq]

The Mughals | Empire-builders of medieval India - The Hindu



https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/profile-on-the-mughals/article66714869.ece

Within hours of the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT) decision to remove a chapter on the Mughals from the history textbooks for Class XII students, noted historians of the country issued a statement, denouncing the deletions. “The selective dropping of chapters which do not fit into the ideological orientation of the present dispensation exposes the partisan agenda of the regime,” a statement signed by Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Aditya Mukherjee, Barbara Metcalf, Dilip Simeon and Mridula Mukherjee, among others, read. “Driven by such an agenda, the chapter titled ‘Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts’ has been deleted... In medieval times, the Mughal empire and the Vijayanagara Empire were two of the most important empires... In the revised version, while the chapter on the Mughals has been deleted, the chapter on the Vijayanagara Empire has been retained.”

It’s hard to understand the history of modern India without the contribution of the Mughals, who, including Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, were all born in undivided India; and were buried here. None of them ever left the country, not even to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.“Is there anything in India today which does not owe to the Mughals?” asks Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, secretary, Indian History Congress. “From legal system to legal jargon, we owe to the Mughal and Turkish Sultanate before them. Words like vakalatnama, kacheri, durbar, we owe them all to the Mughals. Today, when a large number of Indians consider Lord Ram as a major deity, we have to thank Tulsidas who wrote his version of Ramayana during the Mughal period. Also, Vrindavan, associated with Lord Krishna, developed thanks to Chaitanya saints who were given grants by Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan, and helped Vrindavan and Mathura emerge as a key centre of Krishna Bhakti.”

The richness was owed substantially to the Rajputs, who were sharers of power from the time of Akbar, who defeated Rana Pratap in the Battle of Haldighati, and co-opted them in his empire through matrimonial alliances. Most Mughal rulers after Jahangir were born to Rajput women. As a result, within the family, Hindavi was often the language of communication. Aurangzeb, incidentally, conversed in Hindi and composed in Braj bhasha.