DNA Exclusive: Do we need course correction in Indian history to re-establish forgotten heroes?

New Delhi: After independence, the history of India that we were taught in schools and colleges was written by the British. It was taught by English speakers to those who understood English. In this history, there was a place for ‘Akbar the Great’ but not for ‘Ashoka the Great'. In this history, Sir Syed Ali Khan was portrayed as a social reformer but the stories of patriots like Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh were left out.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Tuesday (September 14) discussed how many of India’s heroes were forgotten and missing from the history books and stressed on the need to re-establish them.

Today, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh, it created a buzz around the historic figure. People all over the country started discussing who Raja Mahendra Singh was.

Well, Raja Mahendra Singh was a freedom fighter who not only fought the British all his life but he was the first Indian to form a government of India in the year 1915 in Kabul, which was named Hukumat-e-Mukhtar-e-Hind which translates to Government of Free India.

Whereas leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru had first demanded complete independence only in the year 1929, fourteen years later.

PM Modi today said that it is the misfortune of the country that after independence such national heroes were forgotten.

Today, very few people will know about Mahendra Pratap Singh. Very few people knew that Singh had donated his personal land to set up the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

Just like Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh who fought against the British, Maharani Velu Nachiyar of Sivaganga Empire who fought against the East India Company, King Suheldev defeated Mahmud Ghaznavi's nephew Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud and many of the Maratha warriors defeated the Mughals on many occasions.

However, the history books make no mention of these heroes, while rulers like Babur, Humayun, Akbar Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb are glorified.

The ninth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was assassinated by Aurangzeb only because he was opposing the forced conversion of Kashmiri Hindus. The place where Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded on the orders of Aurangzeb is where Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib is located today. Regrettably, after independence, only 10 km away from Sis Ganj Gurudwara, a road was built in the name of Aurangzeb. It was renamed after former President APJ Abdul Kalam in the year 2015.

The British and leftist historians even tried to prove that the Sanskrit language and Vedic culture were brought to India by foreigners who were called Aryans. However, it has been proved in many studies that the story of the arrival of Aryans in India is concocted and there is no solid evidence for it.

These historians even denied the history of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. And the biggest lie that was told was that the Mughals were the ones who united India. Whereas the truth is that the empires of Gupta, Maurya, and Maratha kings extended even beyond present-day India and these kings had truly united India on the basis of its culture.

At present, there are more than 700 such districts, towns and villages in India, whose names are after the Mughal rulers, while the role of many of the patriots, freedom fighters and rulers have been undermined. There is indeed a need for course correction in Indian history to re-establish the forgotten heroes.