Lamenting that many battles fought by Indian kings against invaders have been forgotten, Shah said that those battles, such as the ones waged by Ahom kings in Assam and Chhatrapati Shivaji-led Marathas, ensured that India reached where it has now.
Shah said that now, no one can stop the process of writing about these battles for the next generation. “It’s a fact that some have distorted history. They have written whatever they had to. But who can stop us…nobody can stop us. History is not created by governments but built on true events,” the senior BJP leader said while releasing the book, “Maharanas: A Thousand Year War for Dharma”, authored by Omendra Ratnu, an ENT surgeon from Jaipur.
According to Shah, efforts to bring out facts through new history books should be “bigger and more intense than those that spread lies” so that they “can be effective”.
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The RSS and BJP have always maintained that history books in India were crafted by Left-oriented authors who, according to them, ignored the contributions of Hindu kings and kingdoms.
Shah had earlier urged filmmakers to focus on unsung heroes. In April, he was present at an event to mark the screening of “Vidrohi”, a TV serial based on the life of Odia freedom fighter Buxi Jagabandhu. Last week, he attended a special screening of Samrat Prithviraj, a movie on Prithviraj Chauhan.
On Friday, Shah warned that while books like “Maharanas”, which is about “the resistance of Mewar kings for 1,000 uninterrupted years to Islamic invaders”, will trigger debates through which youngsters will know about India’s “glorious past”, it will take a long time for them to get established.
“If we begin researching and writing history, it will start debates, and the younger generation will start discussions. But it’s a long journey… Many significant events got forgotten as the dust of time has fallen on them. We have to unearth them and bring them before the people to awaken society,” he said.
Shah urged authors to write on dynasties like Pandyas, Ahoms, Chalukyas, Mauryas, Guptas, etc, because those who wrote history “overlooked” and “did not bother” to write about them.
“There are no reference books, either. I want to say, one should give up making comments on it but write on them to bring out the real history before people. This will gradually make the history, which we consider as false, disappear on its own,” he said, adding that a number of authors are working in this direction now.
दिल्ली में ‘महाराणा: सहस्र वर्षों का धर्मयुद्ध’ पुस्तक के विमोचन कार्यक्रम को संबोधित करते हुए। https://t.co/QrEC8a0qDk
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) June 10, 2022
Shah said that although the Government has started initiatives to document “actual history”, the exercise will be successful only when society takes it up as a mission.
“Had Veer Savarkar not been there, I can tell you, the truth about 1857 would not have come out… revolutions, which might have been defeated at that time, have the potential to awaken the society and the people. Padmavati’s sacrifice had given energy to women and men to live their lives, keeping their heads high… Documenting history is important because the outcome of events or revolts is immaterial…it should be weighed on the impact it has on people,” he said.
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“The invaders finished the language, culture and traditions of the regions they attacked, but they had to stop here in India… I can say with pride that whoever had fought for India and sacrificed for India would be resting in peace now because we are making them proud after so many years,” he said.