as cool kids we’ve all faced many
challenges the two toughest of
challenges I faced as a school kid was
number one to complete my math homework
I know the brainy ones won’t agree but
number two was to keep my eyes open in a
history class I see everyone agrees but
teacher would go on and on about how
different Mughal rulers came and ruled
India ladies and gentlemen I’m here to
do the exact same thing
talk about Indian history but not the
ones we were taught but the ones which
should have been taught I’m not a
trained historian so whatever I’m
sharing with you is what I’ve learned
over yours when knowing history became
my passion let me start off with the
question how many of you are amused by
this concept of time traveling and have
a show of hands
I think story and I trapped time travel
every day let us imagine that the space
is currently inside a time-traveling
machine on my command this machine is
going to be take us back 277 years to
witness a major historic event over
there
can you see a sizable number of soldiers
marching they’ve been dispatched by the
Dutch East India Company’s governor from
Ceylon and mind that Dutch are currently
the strongest out of all European powers
controlling territories of Indonesia
Southern Africa and Sri Lanka if it
landed at this small port of collection
which is just a few miles away from
Kanyakumari and they’re marching towards
the Travancore royal palace in Patna
Baburam you can see that they bought
with them guns and fires between cannons
to overthrow the Travancore King Martin
Dharma and his army who’s posting a
grave threat to the Dutch monopoly on
pepper tree don’t take it as a silly
thing that they’re fighting or pepper
pepper was considered as
Gold in European markets let let us go a
bit forward in time but mind that we are
still very much inside a battlefield the
battle seems to be taking its full shape
and the Dutch are finding it very
difficult to hold against native army
several Dutch Marines are being grounded
and a fighting for their last breath
finally the victory hone has been blown
and the Travancore flag remains on its
mast yes the nya Army has defeated the
strongest out of all European powers the
celebrations has begun let’s go back to
the present a scenario baton of
coalition is not just an important event
in Indian history but there’s a world
history
the reason being this was the first time
that an Asian power has decisively
defeated a European power when it told
the story to my friend he asked me are
you sure I think it was the logon
cricket match no it wasn’t it was the
Battle of collateral I won’t be
surprised to know that many of you might
be hearing this story for the first time
because I myself heard the story five
years back which put a lot of questions
into my head why isn’t the Battle of
College Hill mentioned in the history
textbooks why out of a history textbook
just about a litany of battles which you
have lost to various invading powers
starting from the Turks to the Mughals
to the Colonials one of the historical
fact that all of us know and are very
proud about is that India was declared
independent in 1947 but the dominant
history and its narrative structures has
remained Western and never been
completely decolonized even after
seventy years of independence the
biggest byproduct of this wresting
narrative is the Aryan invasion theory
Oh sounds like a cool name
this is theory which tells that around
3500 years back a group of white skinned
blue-eyed people kay
from Central Asia riding on their hoses
crossing the Hindukush mountain range
and reaching India okay
let them come so what the plot thickens
when they credit these invading white
skinned Aryans to a composed the Vedas
and established the Vedic civilization
in the country it also went on creating
two sects of people on the basis of skin
color the audience and the Dravidians
Dravidian is obviously being the
dark-skinned ones okay but how did they
find it out or what was the motivating
factor for them to do this hardened
invasion theory was first reported when
linguistic similarities between Sanskrit
and the major European languages were
identified in an atmosphere of raging
eurocent racism as you know the scholars
were particularly perplexed by this
apparent link between Sanskrit the
languages of the conquerors and the
conquered okay why would they spread
such a theory during the initial phases
of British rule in India they proceeded
without much moral dilemmas but as the
rule of the East India Company expanded
and the battles became hard-fought and
the resistance to British presence in
India blew the ideology of a European
racial superiority became almost
essential in justifying the British
presence in India all the greatness of
the ancient Indian civilization was
ascribed to the invading audience
implying that if India were to achieve
greatness again an re-enroll was
imperative there is a British ruling in
India again something very similar to
how cache of Dollars confirmational bias
a shocking thing is that the story of
invading audience continued to survive
even today despite lack of any textual
or archaeological support and a plethora
of genetics and other evidences against
it when our invasion theory it’s a story
which is being wrongly told another
important story about India remains
completely untold the maritime history
as you know that the geography of a
subcontinent is so special that it’s
surrounded by water on all three sides
but yet no oceanic history in our
textbooks the oceanic history goes like
this in our textbooks there’s no
activity in the Indian Ocean complete
peace just the sound of the waves that’s
it
ban the Portuguese landed in the 15th
century the started ocean trade in India
but do you think that a country with
7,000 kilometers of coastline wouldn’t
have explored oceanic world yes we have
and we have been exploring the oceans
millenniums before the Portuguese landed
at the copper beach
I’m very proud to stand here at this
place which is just a few miles away
through Iran the most busiest of the
ancient ports of India Missouri’s or
muchly Putnam it’s known and likely
around this place called Putnam which is
close to putting a variety of amphora
dating from a period of 400 BC 2480 had
been unearthed including the coin from
the Roman era and artifacts from China
and Mesopotamia missouri’s was an
busiest port in the western Indian Ocean
trading actively with Arabs Mughals
Romans Persians Jews and Chinese now I
tell you an interesting fact
Mozilla’s was not just a trading hub it
was a gateway for various cultures to
have entered India
you don’t seems to be convinced ok this
is the oldest mosque petheram and jama
masjid mosque which is the oldest mosque
in india and the second oldest mosque in
the world the Mar Thoma Church which is
the oldest Catholic Church in India the
paradesi synagogue which is the oldest
operational Jewish synagogue in India
decoding the loo temple one of the
oldest Hindu temples were millions of
people flock every year to submit their
prayers if we are Google just find out
the location of these places all of them
were located just a few miles away from
the ancient missouri’s
convinced this is a testimony to two
very important facts one Islam and
Christianity came to India much before
the Turks or the Mughals or the
Colonials ii irrespective of which
religion they followed all of them
coexisted in the same ecosystem no
intolerance at all when the western
Indian Ocean had stories of how cultures
entered India the eastern Indian Ocean
had stories of how Indian culture was
taken up abroad this can be seen in the
story of the mighty pallava dynasty who
found its successor in a – a year-old
young boy who was bought all the way
from Cambodia to India to rule India to
rule the mighty pallava dynasty this can
be seen in the story of the largest
Muslim population country Indonesia
naming their national airlines as Garuda
Airlines which is a famous character
from the Hindu mythology this can be
seen or this can be the reason why the
largest Hindu temple in the world is not
in India but in Cambodia Angkor Wat
temple and all of the claims they make
in the trade space is that one of the
most leading closed cigar brand
Indonesia is named as Ramayana which is
an epic of the Hindu mythology ocean was
not just a space where cultures
traversed but it was the backbone of the
economic system of the ancient and
medieval India and as medicine a British
economist in his research shows that
India contributed to one-third of the
world’s GDP in 1st century AD which went
on to remain at a high of 26 percent
just before the Colonials landed and as
you can see during the colonial era how
the GDP of the Indian economy went down
and the European economies went up it is
very similar to one of the Aswan or
English official stool John Sullivan as
the Englishmen flourished acting like a
sponge sucking out all the riches from
the banks of the Ganges and pushing it
down to the banks of Thames
even though all this pre oceanic history
is known it is just treated as a
background material for the European
oceanic history
as if the people of Indian origin were
lazily sitting around growing their
spices unless the Europeans turned and
turned things exciting
why has the textbook speak so
selectively silent about an India which
was rich in art culture science
technology and heritage the English
education system thomas babington
macaulay considered as a father of
English education in India argued that
Western learning was superior and could
only be taught through the medium of
English the idea was to create I quote a
class of persons ended in blood and
color but English in opinions and morals
in taste and intellect quote unquote
he also went on telling that a single
shelf of a good european library was
worth the entire literature of ancient
india if mr. McCawley was alive i would
have made him sit here and the rights in
the friend seat one of the most advanced
fields of ancient India was astronomy a
text named shut up of the brahmana dated
some three thousand eight hundred years
back measures the relative distance
between Earth and the Sun at 108 times
the diameter the modern figure stands at
one hundred and seven point six times
another important book Surya Siddhanta
which talks about planetary positions
measures the average length of a
tropical year which is just one point
four seconds less than the modern figure
it had also mentioned about planetary
diameters it mentions mercury at three
thousand eight miles but is the more
than figure stands at three thousand
thirty-two miles Saturn at seventy three
thousand eight eighty miles but the
modern figure stands at seventy four
thousand five eighty miles an error of
just less than one person considered
even as highest as per the statistical
standards just not astronomy then
another important advance field of
ancient India was mathematics India
contributed several concept to the world
the concept of zero originated from the
Indian concept of shoonya so in the
future somebody tells that India is not
contributed anything to the world of
computers tell them that we discovered
the zero without which you couldn’t have
written any binary code I Roberta
Bhaskar Acharya all of them study
algebra in deep and Bhaskar Acharya was
the first to conceive the concept of
differential calculus Mohammed aria from
Kerala school of mathematics studied the
infinite series the convergence decimal
systems India was in the uneducated
country now the second question comes
that I’m not heard about any of these
things how did the students in those
period learn about these things as you
can see a thousand years back
India was dotted with universities
across its length and breadth where
foreign students came to gain
credentials in advanced education the
oldest excavated so far is in
Takshashila which is currently in
Afghanistan but you can see many others
in Alondra the ordon tapori the
cantaloup shala the shara depite etc
from writings of travellers like who and
Zhuang and far he and who we ever heard
of there are so many details writings
about these universities a myriad of
foreign students came to study in this
reverse ities from countries like Japan
Korea Indonesia West Asia and China
there are writings of students who had
made difficult journeys by foot and on
board of the ships just to reach India
and imbibed the knowledge from the
Indian officers it is not just easy
taking a flight from India and going to
Boston and studying in Harvard trust to
gain education from an ancient Indian
diversities was very similar to today’s
rush to gain an education from an Ivy
Lee college in u.s. or an own University
in Europe the most detailed writings we
have is of the Nalanda universities
whose remained is currently in the state
of Bihar from the writings of WHO and
Zhang we have many interesting facts
about Nalanda which might amuse you guys
Nalanda apparently had a very tough
entrance examination only about 20% of
the people who applied had got through
it yet the university hackett staggering
number of 8,500 students and thousand
five hundred refers it becomes
interesting to know that there were even
a chain of institutions which actually
helped students get into
sounds uncannily similar to today’s
coaching centers or high tees into the
competitive examinations so if you think
that you’re the first one to go through
the process of entrance grinding
examinations no you came much later in
the race all these universities all
these ancient texts have been burned
down by the invading powers there had
been many civilizations in the world the
Greek the Mesopotamian the Babylonian
the Anatolian etc all of the one thing
in common
all of them collapsed but India even
after centuries of conquers plunder and
loot still remains as the longest
continuing civilization in the world
the reason being the strong rooted
culture which is imprinted in every
Indians heart it is possible for a
student in Britain to finish his or her
schooling without even studying a single
line of the colonial history of
oppression in the same way the hard
truth remains that an Indian student
finished his or her schooling without
even studying a major chunk of the great
Indian history one of my favorite
personality dr. Shashi the root and
argued that Britain owes reparations to
India but that is something Britain
needs to take a call on but we as
Indians need to take a call as we owe
this country its present and future
generations a real fact-based history
about India the textbooks needs to be
decolonized and defocused from how
various rulers ruled Delhi to talk about
stories of ancient stargazers and
storytellers to talk about the mighty
kingdoms like the pandyas the taller the
sathanas the home dynasty the legend
division of Empire to talk about the
civilization which is considered as the
best in the world can anyone identify
where is this culture and what does it
this is a sculpture of Lord Narasimha
who is the half-man half-lion god from
the Hindu mythology and this is in some
which is the capital of the ancient
Vijayanagar Empire if you observe
closely you can see that the hands of
the lion has been chopped off this is
very metaphoric to how handicapped we
have remained to rewrite our histories
when we talk about lions a famous
African saying comes to my head it goes
like this until the lion has his
storytellers the story of the hunt will
always glorify the hunters enough of
listening to the hunter story let us all
rearm the Lions hands to rewrite the
lion story the real fact-based history
of India thank you [Applause]
challenges the two toughest of
challenges I faced as a school kid was
number one to complete my math homework
I know the brainy ones won’t agree but
number two was to keep my eyes open in a
history class I see everyone agrees but
teacher would go on and on about how
different Mughal rulers came and ruled
India ladies and gentlemen I’m here to
do the exact same thing
talk about Indian history but not the
ones we were taught but the ones which
should have been taught I’m not a
trained historian so whatever I’m
sharing with you is what I’ve learned
over yours when knowing history became
my passion let me start off with the
question how many of you are amused by
this concept of time traveling and have
a show of hands
I think story and I trapped time travel
every day let us imagine that the space
is currently inside a time-traveling
machine on my command this machine is
going to be take us back 277 years to
witness a major historic event over
there
can you see a sizable number of soldiers
marching they’ve been dispatched by the
Dutch East India Company’s governor from
Ceylon and mind that Dutch are currently
the strongest out of all European powers
controlling territories of Indonesia
Southern Africa and Sri Lanka if it
landed at this small port of collection
which is just a few miles away from
Kanyakumari and they’re marching towards
the Travancore royal palace in Patna
Baburam you can see that they bought
with them guns and fires between cannons
to overthrow the Travancore King Martin
Dharma and his army who’s posting a
grave threat to the Dutch monopoly on
pepper tree don’t take it as a silly
thing that they’re fighting or pepper
pepper was considered as
Gold in European markets let let us go a
bit forward in time but mind that we are
still very much inside a battlefield the
battle seems to be taking its full shape
and the Dutch are finding it very
difficult to hold against native army
several Dutch Marines are being grounded
and a fighting for their last breath
finally the victory hone has been blown
and the Travancore flag remains on its
mast yes the nya Army has defeated the
strongest out of all European powers the
celebrations has begun let’s go back to
the present a scenario baton of
coalition is not just an important event
in Indian history but there’s a world
history
the reason being this was the first time
that an Asian power has decisively
defeated a European power when it told
the story to my friend he asked me are
you sure I think it was the logon
cricket match no it wasn’t it was the
Battle of collateral I won’t be
surprised to know that many of you might
be hearing this story for the first time
because I myself heard the story five
years back which put a lot of questions
into my head why isn’t the Battle of
College Hill mentioned in the history
textbooks why out of a history textbook
just about a litany of battles which you
have lost to various invading powers
starting from the Turks to the Mughals
to the Colonials one of the historical
fact that all of us know and are very
proud about is that India was declared
independent in 1947 but the dominant
history and its narrative structures has
remained Western and never been
completely decolonized even after
seventy years of independence the
biggest byproduct of this wresting
narrative is the Aryan invasion theory
Oh sounds like a cool name
this is theory which tells that around
3500 years back a group of white skinned
blue-eyed people kay
from Central Asia riding on their hoses
crossing the Hindukush mountain range
and reaching India okay
let them come so what the plot thickens
when they credit these invading white
skinned Aryans to a composed the Vedas
and established the Vedic civilization
in the country it also went on creating
two sects of people on the basis of skin
color the audience and the Dravidians
Dravidian is obviously being the
dark-skinned ones okay but how did they
find it out or what was the motivating
factor for them to do this hardened
invasion theory was first reported when
linguistic similarities between Sanskrit
and the major European languages were
identified in an atmosphere of raging
eurocent racism as you know the scholars
were particularly perplexed by this
apparent link between Sanskrit the
languages of the conquerors and the
conquered okay why would they spread
such a theory during the initial phases
of British rule in India they proceeded
without much moral dilemmas but as the
rule of the East India Company expanded
and the battles became hard-fought and
the resistance to British presence in
India blew the ideology of a European
racial superiority became almost
essential in justifying the British
presence in India all the greatness of
the ancient Indian civilization was
ascribed to the invading audience
implying that if India were to achieve
greatness again an re-enroll was
imperative there is a British ruling in
India again something very similar to
how cache of Dollars confirmational bias
a shocking thing is that the story of
invading audience continued to survive
even today despite lack of any textual
or archaeological support and a plethora
of genetics and other evidences against
it when our invasion theory it’s a story
which is being wrongly told another
important story about India remains
completely untold the maritime history
as you know that the geography of a
subcontinent is so special that it’s
surrounded by water on all three sides
but yet no oceanic history in our
textbooks the oceanic history goes like
this in our textbooks there’s no
activity in the Indian Ocean complete
peace just the sound of the waves that’s
it
ban the Portuguese landed in the 15th
century the started ocean trade in India
but do you think that a country with
7,000 kilometers of coastline wouldn’t
have explored oceanic world yes we have
and we have been exploring the oceans
millenniums before the Portuguese landed
at the copper beach
I’m very proud to stand here at this
place which is just a few miles away
through Iran the most busiest of the
ancient ports of India Missouri’s or
muchly Putnam it’s known and likely
around this place called Putnam which is
close to putting a variety of amphora
dating from a period of 400 BC 2480 had
been unearthed including the coin from
the Roman era and artifacts from China
and Mesopotamia missouri’s was an
busiest port in the western Indian Ocean
trading actively with Arabs Mughals
Romans Persians Jews and Chinese now I
tell you an interesting fact
Mozilla’s was not just a trading hub it
was a gateway for various cultures to
have entered India
you don’t seems to be convinced ok this
is the oldest mosque petheram and jama
masjid mosque which is the oldest mosque
in india and the second oldest mosque in
the world the Mar Thoma Church which is
the oldest Catholic Church in India the
paradesi synagogue which is the oldest
operational Jewish synagogue in India
decoding the loo temple one of the
oldest Hindu temples were millions of
people flock every year to submit their
prayers if we are Google just find out
the location of these places all of them
were located just a few miles away from
the ancient missouri’s
convinced this is a testimony to two
very important facts one Islam and
Christianity came to India much before
the Turks or the Mughals or the
Colonials ii irrespective of which
religion they followed all of them
coexisted in the same ecosystem no
intolerance at all when the western
Indian Ocean had stories of how cultures
entered India the eastern Indian Ocean
had stories of how Indian culture was
taken up abroad this can be seen in the
story of the mighty pallava dynasty who
found its successor in a – a year-old
young boy who was bought all the way
from Cambodia to India to rule India to
rule the mighty pallava dynasty this can
be seen in the story of the largest
Muslim population country Indonesia
naming their national airlines as Garuda
Airlines which is a famous character
from the Hindu mythology this can be
seen or this can be the reason why the
largest Hindu temple in the world is not
in India but in Cambodia Angkor Wat
temple and all of the claims they make
in the trade space is that one of the
most leading closed cigar brand
Indonesia is named as Ramayana which is
an epic of the Hindu mythology ocean was
not just a space where cultures
traversed but it was the backbone of the
economic system of the ancient and
medieval India and as medicine a British
economist in his research shows that
India contributed to one-third of the
world’s GDP in 1st century AD which went
on to remain at a high of 26 percent
just before the Colonials landed and as
you can see during the colonial era how
the GDP of the Indian economy went down
and the European economies went up it is
very similar to one of the Aswan or
English official stool John Sullivan as
the Englishmen flourished acting like a
sponge sucking out all the riches from
the banks of the Ganges and pushing it
down to the banks of Thames
even though all this pre oceanic history
is known it is just treated as a
background material for the European
oceanic history
as if the people of Indian origin were
lazily sitting around growing their
spices unless the Europeans turned and
turned things exciting
why has the textbook speak so
selectively silent about an India which
was rich in art culture science
technology and heritage the English
education system thomas babington
macaulay considered as a father of
English education in India argued that
Western learning was superior and could
only be taught through the medium of
English the idea was to create I quote a
class of persons ended in blood and
color but English in opinions and morals
in taste and intellect quote unquote
he also went on telling that a single
shelf of a good european library was
worth the entire literature of ancient
india if mr. McCawley was alive i would
have made him sit here and the rights in
the friend seat one of the most advanced
fields of ancient India was astronomy a
text named shut up of the brahmana dated
some three thousand eight hundred years
back measures the relative distance
between Earth and the Sun at 108 times
the diameter the modern figure stands at
one hundred and seven point six times
another important book Surya Siddhanta
which talks about planetary positions
measures the average length of a
tropical year which is just one point
four seconds less than the modern figure
it had also mentioned about planetary
diameters it mentions mercury at three
thousand eight miles but is the more
than figure stands at three thousand
thirty-two miles Saturn at seventy three
thousand eight eighty miles but the
modern figure stands at seventy four
thousand five eighty miles an error of
just less than one person considered
even as highest as per the statistical
standards just not astronomy then
another important advance field of
ancient India was mathematics India
contributed several concept to the world
the concept of zero originated from the
Indian concept of shoonya so in the
future somebody tells that India is not
contributed anything to the world of
computers tell them that we discovered
the zero without which you couldn’t have
written any binary code I Roberta
Bhaskar Acharya all of them study
algebra in deep and Bhaskar Acharya was
the first to conceive the concept of
differential calculus Mohammed aria from
Kerala school of mathematics studied the
infinite series the convergence decimal
systems India was in the uneducated
country now the second question comes
that I’m not heard about any of these
things how did the students in those
period learn about these things as you
can see a thousand years back
India was dotted with universities
across its length and breadth where
foreign students came to gain
credentials in advanced education the
oldest excavated so far is in
Takshashila which is currently in
Afghanistan but you can see many others
in Alondra the ordon tapori the
cantaloup shala the shara depite etc
from writings of travellers like who and
Zhuang and far he and who we ever heard
of there are so many details writings
about these universities a myriad of
foreign students came to study in this
reverse ities from countries like Japan
Korea Indonesia West Asia and China
there are writings of students who had
made difficult journeys by foot and on
board of the ships just to reach India
and imbibed the knowledge from the
Indian officers it is not just easy
taking a flight from India and going to
Boston and studying in Harvard trust to
gain education from an ancient Indian
diversities was very similar to today’s
rush to gain an education from an Ivy
Lee college in u.s. or an own University
in Europe the most detailed writings we
have is of the Nalanda universities
whose remained is currently in the state
of Bihar from the writings of WHO and
Zhang we have many interesting facts
about Nalanda which might amuse you guys
Nalanda apparently had a very tough
entrance examination only about 20% of
the people who applied had got through
it yet the university hackett staggering
number of 8,500 students and thousand
five hundred refers it becomes
interesting to know that there were even
a chain of institutions which actually
helped students get into
sounds uncannily similar to today’s
coaching centers or high tees into the
competitive examinations so if you think
that you’re the first one to go through
the process of entrance grinding
examinations no you came much later in
the race all these universities all
these ancient texts have been burned
down by the invading powers there had
been many civilizations in the world the
Greek the Mesopotamian the Babylonian
the Anatolian etc all of the one thing
in common
all of them collapsed but India even
after centuries of conquers plunder and
loot still remains as the longest
continuing civilization in the world
the reason being the strong rooted
culture which is imprinted in every
Indians heart it is possible for a
student in Britain to finish his or her
schooling without even studying a single
line of the colonial history of
oppression in the same way the hard
truth remains that an Indian student
finished his or her schooling without
even studying a major chunk of the great
Indian history one of my favorite
personality dr. Shashi the root and
argued that Britain owes reparations to
India but that is something Britain
needs to take a call on but we as
Indians need to take a call as we owe
this country its present and future
generations a real fact-based history
about India the textbooks needs to be
decolonized and defocused from how
various rulers ruled Delhi to talk about
stories of ancient stargazers and
storytellers to talk about the mighty
kingdoms like the pandyas the taller the
sathanas the home dynasty the legend
division of Empire to talk about the
civilization which is considered as the
best in the world can anyone identify
where is this culture and what does it
this is a sculpture of Lord Narasimha
who is the half-man half-lion god from
the Hindu mythology and this is in some
which is the capital of the ancient
Vijayanagar Empire if you observe
closely you can see that the hands of
the lion has been chopped off this is
very metaphoric to how handicapped we
have remained to rewrite our histories
when we talk about lions a famous
African saying comes to my head it goes
like this until the lion has his
storytellers the story of the hunt will
always glorify the hunters enough of
listening to the hunter story let us all
rearm the Lions hands to rewrite the
lion story the real fact-based history
of India thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: