Is history actually written by victors ?

[Himanshu Pandey]

Some historians are of the opinion that the pandavas were Tibetan invaders , based on the fact that they indulged in polyandry in draupadi's case . Polyandry is a Tibetan custom . Also pandu sent his wives to get impregnated by others, that too in the mountains near Tibet. No self respecting aryan would indulge in polyandry and allow his wife to get impregnated by others.

Those who have studied the Mahabharata say that the ways and manners of kauravas are sophisticated and those of pandavas are rude and uncivilized. Maybe the pandavas were Tibetan invaders who defeated the Aryan kauravas and wrote history in their own favour after killing them .

That is totally a made up story by those historians.
1 brother family from meruth and another from tibbat...even kumbh can't put brothers so far away.

Polyandry was not common but neither alien custom in India.. Afew tribes in Madhya Pradesh and uttarakhand still practice it.

All those self-respecting aryans had been sure of thier being man.. Nor they calculated anyone 's manhood by children.. Niyoga( if you consider the very word is Sanskrit has been used several times much before Mahabharata too.) was an accepted practice at that time same as social worker vikky donar is helping self-respecting people.

I had read Mahabharata and nowhere i had found that pandavs had been barberians.

I am of the group who consider SUYODHAN a hero but no pandavs were not barberians from mountains..they were the cousins of kouravs...

Do these historians considered that draupdi was princess of panchal.. Not of china.. And she along with here family and other kings and queens had accepted it.


Mahabharata is much more then group sex and barberians... I hope those historians would have understood it.

 

[VCheng]

I would term it slightly different. History is written by individual perspectives with the sole idea of self glorification.

Please allow me to add that the perspectives that matter are far more on the reader's side than the writer's. We only seek to reinforce what is already in our minds. It takes a disciplined mind to rise above such biases.

 

[VCheng]

Now let us look at the history of US occupation of China. The control of Opium trade by the Western powers in China, the exploitation of the Chinese poor and the funnelling of the opium money from trade to US laid foundations of the very educational institutes that are termed the highest citadels of learning in US. And need I even elaborate on the military might and use there of by US as part of the Monroe Doctrine?

Perchance, might you be confusing USA for the role of UK in the opium trade, Sir? Even at its peak, USA only accounted for 10% of the trade and that was more in competition with the British than anything else.

 

[Seiko]

Why look far, when the so called “First War of Independence” is the biggest lie being perpetuated as history by India. Who formulated it as such and which established right winger has perpetuated it?

Finally someone said it in open!!

 

[VCheng]

Not at all.

UK is not a power today ....

See how easy it is to fall into the trap of judging practices of years past by the standards of today?

 

[Seiko]

I have excellent records of War Diaries of some of the finest units of Indian Army officially recording it as mutiny.

In fact, 5 th Battallion the Rajputana Rifles is credited with killing Rani Laxmibai and her standards were kept at Regimental Centre.

The term, of course, was coined by Karl Marx in New York Times and mainstreamed by Veer Savarkar in 1909. A conrast .... a left and a right ... and championed by the center .. congress

Terming the revolt as a first war of Independence was a sham.. The soldiers revolted not because they were under British rule but their religious feelings were hurt.. They were very much comfortable under East India company.

 

[BlackOpsIndia]

Who took India to the precipice? Do elaborate.

Nehruvian principles, no monitoring, nepotism in banking and regulating bodies, political controlling of banks and interest rates, fixed rupee exchange rate, the factors are lot but the root cause is putting greater emphasis on socialist (more like communist) on controlling the market and economy, and who is responsible? The people who didnt act or act in direction to appease a person then to take the nation forward.

East Asian countries started liberalising their economies early 60's and they found the right balance between the control of state and market but we kept on enforcing the ideas of visionaries and the end result was BoP crisis. I have used terms instead of full explanation as it will be a very very long reply to explain the timeline, how we kept contributing to crisis instead of averting it and proof of those principles being wrong is that after discarding them we are in much better situation (and we did not discard them or even tried to challenge them by choice but when we had no choice).

Mind you, you just may be writing your own version of history now

No sir this is not my history, these are more of a fact and I have read from various places(I dont know if there are right wing history books, never read them) about them, this is not casual talk.

 

[Seiko]

Exactly.

Laxmibai fought for her Vansh. Tantiya Tope to become ruler at his place. Mangal Pandey was a recorded trouble maker (just like the Maulvi Who created a problem on being asked to follow regimental ram ram or Jai mata di, and called it against his religion, and was kicked out. He just might become a hero in future) I can go on ...

This forum is going to be a fun for people like me!!

 

[BlackOpsIndia]

Explain in depth. This is a shallow and broad generalisation that has no substance without references.

I am all eyes, ears and brains

Will do for sure sir, with references, instances, sources, definitions everything, a new thread but it will be long one so I need some free time.

 

[Himanshu Pandey]

What about the right wing? And the Centrists?

I think that your labelling a particular ideological leaning is misplaced. It is more of a narrative to push forward the fundamental agenda of the narrator.

Let me take the example of two systems. If you take a look at the recent China bogey being raised by US, you will oft come across unequal market access etc etc as a refrain to justify a tirade against China. The rising military power is another refrain.

Now let us look at the history of US occupation of China. The control of Opium trade by the Western powers in China, the exploitation of the Chinese poor and the funnelling of the opium money from trade to US laid foundations of the very educational institutes that are termed the highest citadels of learning in US. And need I even elaborate on the military might and use there of by US as part of the Monroe Doctrine?

Why look far, when the so called “First War of Independence” is the biggest lie being perpetuated as history by India. Who formulated it as such and which established right winger has perpetuated it?

Those who said so.. Took solace form a pirate who threw tea bags form ship due to financial reasons and the event got recorded as "tea party" and same pirate has been hailed as hero.

My opinion is history is not what is written but what has been passed down and considered original enough by people to believe it.

 

[VCheng]

@VCheng

Old gold

The Opium War's Secret History

How Profits From Opium Shaped 19th-Century Boston

Yes, but just like with slavery, USA has only a minor role in the opium trade compared to the main players.

 

[BlackOpsIndia]

Any day sir.

Start a thread, tag @bonobashi, @VCheng @Himanshu Pandey and me for sure.

We will challenge each other to put up a descriptive analysis together.

Sir found an article saying similar things

How WB,IMF got India to adopt reforms in 1991

please read it and see for yourself who took us there, how we went there and who took us out from there. Also attaching the World Bank report now declassified telling our great goof ups (Sorry its too large, says forum, 22 MB) but attaching other report containing data (again too big 8.5 MB).
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/pt/595181468739238386/pdf/multi-page.pdf
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/962181468033534646/pdf/multi0page.pdf

Going back in time: India Reports I.M.F. Loan

Will still try to write a thread as it will mention everything from beginning.

 

[bonobashi]

It's often said that history is written by the victors. My taking on this whole subject is it might be partially true but not entirely. History written by scholars are written way after the events of victory and defeat , who revisit the era incorporating all sides and aftermath of the effects in consideration.

Like the victors the losers have equal motive to paint the picture with their using their own brush and canvas. The bigger difference between written history and studied history needs to be taken into consideration when we evaluate an historical event. All the version of history written by the victors need not be untrue by default.

Gentleman what do you say when you read an historical piece in the modern era , do you consider the timeline the immediate past or future or go along with the writer's notion.

Delighted to read someone writing about 'an historical piece'.

 

[bonobashi]

I would say history that mango men read is written and managed by paid propagandists. Each one with own vested interests. How can a common man differentiate which version of history is correct. I would say Victor's manipulate history.

Before writing about this with such cavalier disdain, it would be useful for the member concerned to read up and understand about historiography.

 

[bonobashi]

When you find historians, specially Indian historians, those who write, those who got promoted as "Intellectuals" all have a particular ideology. One of them very renowned one said that Modi becoming PM is darkest moment in Indian history after 1947 partition!

This is the objective approach by historian! literally discarding millions of Indians opinion just because he was promoted by 60 years rule. They are pampered in a certain environment, paid well, nurtured, cared for, no wonder power got to their heads. How can you expect them to write history objectively?

It is incredible that we have to read as a criticism that an historian held a professional opinion in spite of millions of Indians thinking otherwise; in other words, history is supposed to represent, to this individual, the majority view, not the historically accurate view.

That does not mean that the historian was right or wrong; it means that the member making the criticism is used only to considering that prejudice and bias permeates social science through and through.

EDIT:

Another Example:

1991 reforms are hailed as greatest reforms of India, Manmohan singh was made hero out of it but nobody asked who put India into that situation?

First you take a nation to the verge of bankruptcy and then hail yourself (falsely) as reformer! Not a single person will ask why we reached that state? Who was responsible? Why no action was taken? Why they kept sleeping.

The reason I used the word "falsely" above is cuz those intellectuals who did the reforms were under IMF pressure. When a country reach the bankruptcy status the only institution that can bail them out is IMF, and IMF then take control of policy of country so as not to lose the money loaned. They dictate the terms, they tell what to do and you have to do it, the most recent example in neighbourhood was Pakistan, when they reached IMF and if people missed that within few months they will again goto IMF for bailout and you will see their remarks and Pakistan's conduct after that. They shove the reforms down the throat.

This is one of the biggest fraud done with common man, they are feed that those were economic reforms done by Manmohan but actually they were compulsions, literally dictated in writing, point by point, the only option you had was to say "yes sir".

Of course, IMF pressure is a Good Thing. More example of total bias.

 

[bonobashi]

Yet another example of the whole question. so is it always the victors , maybe not. But as I mentioned with time history takes different shapes and the final product may not be what we read today. Election of Modi is too early for scholarly understand6ing , the aftermath's would determine the real historical version.

No need to be so emollient. Judging history in terms of the millions who thought one way (incidentally ignoring the greater number of millions who thought the other way; the popular vote was 31% to 69%) is not particularly intelligent. I shall refrain from calling the person concerned a dolt as that may get me banned. To so refrain does take enormous will-power and self-discipline, however.

 

[bonobashi]

You've aptly summed it up in a line. NCERT/DU Books describes Bhagat Singh as Terrorists and Mughals as Hero's.

I, personally, am a huge fan of Bhagat Singh, not least because of his unabashed irreligious attitude. But if one who commits an act of terror is not a terrorist, why did we hang Afzal Guru? The Mughal reference sounds singularly dubious; they are described as 'heroes'? Really?

 

[bonobashi]

...... but only by those who do not wish to learn from the lessons of said history, to put it succinctly, since they regard said lessons to illuminate their own personal beliefs and biases in an uncomfortable analytical light.

A breath of fresh air, after reading three incredible opinions. And with this kind of education, our country is supposed to be a dominating country in world affairs? God help the world.

 

[bonobashi]

You will never find the barbarism done to Sikh gurus by Aurangzeb, one of them was of them was burned alive, another sawn into two, the third one was boiled alive as they said no to converting to Islam. All three were companions of Guru Teg Bahdur ji.

These facts are always expunged, you also wont find 1962 war in text books as it will put Nehru in bad light. There is no history but an ideology promoted systematically.

So the work of all historians is judged by the rubbish brought out by a bunch of paid hacks? Further, would you teach a child that these vicious things happened (to the three followers of the Guru, not to the Gurus themselves, as falsely described), and leave it to the immediate teachers to explain that in that time and age, the Inquisition was burning dozens of people alive for disagreement on arcane points of theology?

Fortunately, as I was not taught history through NCERT textbooks, I did not have to read about the 1962 war not taking place; it is another thing that I lived through that, and saw, and read, everything. The criticism about its omission is valid, but it is not clear to me why that war should occur in an history text. Where did those text books end?