Treachery of Congress-men and Mani Shankar Iyer : Fabrication of Favourable Mughal History

Saaho

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Dec 27, 2019
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As the honuorable court has given the orders that the site of "Benaras" Vishwanath Temple be surveyed by ASI, the usual suspects are crying their eyes out of contempt for Hindus. Among that there is a famous story being retold time and again about how the "Benaras" Vishwanath Temple came to be destroyed in a moment of righteous fury of venerable emperor "Alam Geer" Auranzeb. This "history" was first posted in 2001 by none other than the learned congress-man Mani Shankar Iyer in an article in esteemed news paper : The Telegraph. Here is an archive of that (THE LIMITS OF THE HINDU RASHTRA).

Says the erudite congress-man:
Nepal, the only Hindu rashtra in the world, has turned its pent-up fury on that high priest of the Hindu rashtra, K.R. Malkani. It's like the Catholics throwing eggs at the Pope for being an apostate. Or red-blood communists desecrating Karl Marx's grave at Highgate cemetery in London. The short-term lesson is that we must put in order our relations with Nepal. The long-term lesson is that religion has nothing to do with nationhood.

And regales us with this fantastic tale from mughal history :
The tone for Indo-Nepal relations was set three centuries ago when Aurangzeb ransacked and smashed the Kashi Viswanath mandir at Varanasi. He had been entrusted with the care of a Nepalese princess, whom he thoughtfully lodged at the Vishwanath mandir when passing through the city. He believed no place to be more suitable for a Hindu princess of royal blood than a Hindu temple of the highest renown. That night, within the sacred precincts of the temple, Hindu priests molested their distinguished Hindu guest and other ladies of her entourage. Aurangzeb - furious that his honour had been stained at his having failed to save the honour of a Hindu of high honour - unleashed on the temple the full fury of the Emperor of Hindustan. The Gyan Vapi masjid was later built on a part of the site that was demolished. The sanctum sanctorum, the garba griha, was, however, untouched and has never ceased to be a holy place of Hindu worship.


Finally, he establishes his bonafides of his story from another congress-man, a virtuoso in erudition no less, a lifelong Gandhian and a Doctor in history to boot, Dr. B.N. Pande.
The source for my story is the remarkable revisiting of the alleged communalism of Aurangzeb in an Eighties' lecture delivered in Patna by the great Gandhian historian, Bishambar Nath Pande. I had read about the incident and wrote to him. He graciously sent me the printed text of his lecture.

At this juncture it is very important to note few facts about this fine tale of documented history.

1. Aurangzeb was a protector of honor of Hindu women and such was his fame that a certain "Nepalese Princess" was ENTRUSTED in his protection. (note the nepalese princess).
2. He TRUSTED a hindu temple to be the fitting adobe for such a damsel.
3. The fine lady and her entourage was MOLESTED by vile Hindu priests. (note the multiple ladies).
4. The source of this story is a written transcript of a lecture, so there is no chance of our wise sage to rely on unreliable human memory.

Now, the usual suspects take the story further and embellish "molestation" by "rape". You can read their version in a certain Pakistan forum that shall not be named.

But in this brouhaha a certain curiosity dwells within the low Hindu minds of likes of me. What is the varacity of this sweet little story? After all it does not show up in official life history of Aurangzeb, then how did the learned Dr BN Pande unearthed this sordid tale of pagan misdeeds?

Well before we go there, lets see what the learned historian of a certain ideology has actually written in his works. Milligazette, a "leading" muslim source for news ( AURANGZEB: facts belie concocted history) quotes his work as following :
“While Aurangzeb was passing near Varanasi on his way to Bengal, the Hindu rajas in his retinue requested that if a halt was made for a day, their ranis may go to Varanasi, have a dip in the Ganges and pay homage to Lord Vishwanath. Aurangzeb readily agreed. Army pickets were posted on the five-mile route to Varanasi. The ranis made journey in palkis. They took their dip in the Ganges and went to the Vishwanath temple to pay their homage. After offering puja all the ranis returned except one, the Maharani of Kutch. A thorough search was made of the temple precincts, but she was to be found nowhere: “When Aurangzeb came to know about this, he was very much enraged. He sent his senior officers to search for the rani. Ultimately they found that a statue of Ganesh (the elephant-headed god), which was fixed in the wall was a moveable one. When the statue was moved, they saw a flight of stairs that led to the basement. To their horror they found the missing rani dishonored and crying, deprived of all her ornaments. The basement was just beneath Lord Vishwanath’s seat.”

The Raja demanded exemplary action and “Aurangzeb ordered that as the sacred precincts had been despoiled, Lord Vishwanath may be moved to some other place, the temple be razed to the ground and the mahant (head priest) be arrested and punished.”

All of sudden you see, there are discrepancies in the story. It was not a "Nepalese Princess" entrusted to great protector BUT a "Maharani of Kutch". So what? It was still a story of a woman being dishonored!

Remember, it was reported as a story of many ladies "molested" in the beginning and a betrayal of trust. This version also adds few more twists like a moveable Ganesha statue. Straight out of a 70s movie you see!

"Alright!" I hear. "So what? The essence of the story is same!" "Why are you so adamant on petty details?".

Well, details matter in scholarship but this one keeps on getting better. As it happen, Dr. B.N. Pande, when he was alive, he cited a certain other book as his source of his research. A rather antiquated and obscure book written by another ancient congress man. “Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in his famous book The Feathers and the Stones, has narrated this fact" says the beloved Dr. in his works.

Thanks to the modern technology, we can also refer to this text. A copy has been preserved in University of Michigan and it has been scanned and uploaded on the internet. https://ia801601.us.archive.org/13/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.276459/2015.276459.Feathers-And.pdf

Page 177-178 tells us the origin of this rather odd tale.

A story is told in extenuation of the first event. In the height of his glory, Aurangazeb like any foreign king in a country, had in his entourage a number of Hindu nobles. They all set out one day to sec the sacred temple of Benares. Amongst them was a Ranee of Cutch. When the party returned after visiting the Temple, the Ranee of Cutch was missing. They searched for her in and out, East, North, West and South but no trace of‘ her was noticeable.

At last, a more diligent search revealed a Tah Izhana or an underground storey of the temple which to all appearances had only two storeys. . When the passage to it was found barred, they broke open the doors and found inside the pale shadow of the Ranee bereft of her jewellery. It turned out that the Mahants were in the habit of picking out wealthy and be- jewelled pilgrims and in guiding them to see the temple, decoying them to the underground cellar and robbing them of their jewellery. What exactly would have happened to their life one did not know. Anyhow in this case, there was no time ioi- miseiiio;!;. as the search was diligent and prompt.

Few interesting points stand out : The original story was that of decoying and not that of molestation. The damsel was rescued before any harm. Now the real fun part :

The ancient congress man further writes something really interesting :
This story of the Benares Masjid was given in a rare manuscript in Lucknow which was in the possession of a respected Mulla who had read it in the Ms. and who though he promised to look it up and give the Ms, to a friend, to whom he had narrated the story, died without fulfilling his promise. The story is little known and the prejudice, we are told, against Aurangazeb persists.

This my dear friends is the documentary evidence of "Historical fact". An un-named manuscript in possession of an anonymous (but respected!) mullah who failed to publish it. Yes folks, this has been paddled as "FACTUAL HISTORY" to us for so many years and this is what has been amplified and retold for decades by highly influential congress folks. I shudder to think what else will come out of all the nice-nice stories they tell us if we do a through fact check.
 
As the honuorable court has given the orders that the site of "Benaras" Vishwanath Temple be surveyed by ASI, the usual suspects are crying their eyes out of contempt for Hindus. Among that there is a famous story being retold time and again about how the "Benaras" Vishwanath Temple came to be destroyed in a moment of righteous fury of venerable emperor "Alam Geer" Auranzeb. This "history" was first posted in 2001 by none other than the learned congress-man Mani Shankar Iyer in an article in esteemed news paper : The Telegraph. Here is an archive of that (THE LIMITS OF THE HINDU RASHTRA).

Says the erudite congress-man:


And regales us with this fantastic tale from mughal history :



Finally, he establishes his bonafides of his story from another congress-man, a virtuoso in erudition no less, a lifelong Gandhian and a Doctor in history to boot, Dr. B.N. Pande.


At this juncture it is very important to note few facts about this fine tale of documented history.

1. Aurangzeb was a protector of honor of Hindu women and such was his fame that a certain "Nepalese Princess" was ENTRUSTED in his protection. (note the nepalese princess).
2. He TRUSTED a hindu temple to be the fitting adobe for such a damsel.
3. The fine lady and her entourage was MOLESTED by vile Hindu priests. (note the multiple ladies).
4. The source of this story is a written transcript of a lecture, so there is no chance of our wise sage to rely on unreliable human memory.

Now, the usual suspects take the story further and embellish "molestation" by "rape". You can read their version in a certain Pakistan forum that shall not be named.

But in this brouhaha a certain curiosity dwells within the low Hindu minds of likes of me. What is the varacity of this sweet little story? After all it does not show up in official life history of Aurangzeb, then how did the learned Dr BN Pande unearthed this sordid tale of pagan misdeeds?

Well before we go there, lets see what the learned historian of a certain ideology has actually written in his works. Milligazette, a "leading" muslim source for news ( AURANGZEB: facts belie concocted history) quotes his work as following :


All of sudden you see, there are discrepancies in the story. It was not a "Nepalese Princess" entrusted to great protector BUT a "Maharani of Kutch". So what? It was still a story of a woman being dishonored!

Remember, it was reported as a story of many ladies "molested" in the beginning and a betrayal of trust. This version also adds few more twists like a moveable Ganesha statue. Straight out of a 70s movie you see!

"Alright!" I hear. "So what? The essence of the story is same!" "Why are you so adamant on petty details?".

Well, details matter in scholarship but this one keeps on getting better. As it happen, Dr. B.N. Pande, when he was alive, he cited a certain other book as his source of his research. A rather antiquated and obscure book written by another ancient congress man. “Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in his famous book The Feathers and the Stones, has narrated this fact" says the beloved Dr. in his works.

Thanks to the modern technology, we can also refer to this text. A copy has been preserved in University of Michigan and it has been scanned and uploaded on the internet. https://ia801601.us.archive.org/13/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.276459/2015.276459.Feathers-And.pdf

Page 177-178 tells us the origin of this rather odd tale.



Few interesting points stand out : The original story was that of decoying and not that of molestation. The damsel was rescued before any harm. Now the real fun part :

The ancient congress man further writes something really interesting :


This my dear friends is the documentary evidence of "Historical fact". An un-named manuscript in possession of an anonymous (but respected!) mullah who failed to publish it. Yes folks, this has been paddled as "FACTUAL HISTORY" to us for so many years and this is what has been amplified and retold for decades by highly influential congress folks. I shudder to think what else will come out of all the nice-nice stories they tell us if we do a through fact check.
Even if we were to believe this story, what prompted Auranjzeb to demolish other temples? And also by Mughals before him and all the muslim invaders? Mehrauli is another example of this act of Islam.
 
Even if we were to believe this story, what prompted Auranjzeb to demolish other temples? And also by Mughals before him and all the muslim invaders? Mehrauli is another example of this act of Islam.
This story often told by congress and further distorted by Mani Shankar Iyer. Its origins are not in historical events but in hearsay and myth propagated by a mullah.
 
If we want to Reclaim Varanasi and Mathura , first we have to REPEAL
Places of Worship Act and then Bring a Law in Parliament to Hand them over to Hindus for RESTORATION