Thread by @virendrarathore

I recently came across a random tweet (below).
Nothing fishy on the face, went through the video given in it. It barely had anything to relate with this tweet. So, will leave the tweet here & take you through what a so called scholar (Manoshi Sinha) has said in the video. 1/n

It’s a speech on ‘Victories of Indian Warriors against Islamic Invasion: From 8th to 18th Century’ by Manoshi Sinha. Numerous things were said in the speech. We’ll go through most of them one by one in paraphrased manner.

Manoshi: Most of the Kings and Fighters lost interest in fighting after non-violence gained momentum. The Kings gave little importance to maintaining robust army & upgrading military infrastructure.
Response: Which period? No mention. A generalized & vague statement.

Non-violence proliferated in Indian thought after Buddhism. It got contained after Shankaracharya in the 8th century AD. So, which non-violence driven drop in martiality is she talking about? No references, no specifics given.

Considering her timeline of 8th to 18th century, if Manoshi Sinha has any doubts on the martiality of Indians in the medieval centuries. She may please read ‘The Hindu Superiority’ by Harbilas Sarda. It goes at length to show with citations how the various Islamic powers were...

...wary of sharpness of the Hindu sword. So, this argument holds no water that there was any considerable drop in martiality of Indians in the 8th to 18th century. When did the fighting ever stop anyway? What should be conceded instead, is that gradually over the centuries,...

...the human cost of generations and clans getting wiped out, had started to bear heavily on the Hindu society. It reduced the base of battle-fit men.
The lack of innovation in military technology is a better reason any day.

M: Indian fighters avoided engaging an enemy already engaged with another fighter. Avoided hitting below the navel. Our Kings never pillaged enemy lands and standing structures. They considered farmers, women, prisoners of war as sacred.

Response: All that she says here applies only to ancient India which doesn’t fall in her timeline of 8th to 18th century. 12th century PrithvirajVijaya [Sarga 11, verse 12] for example tells us that after Ghurids were beaten to pulp in Kasahrada 1178 AD,...

the fleeing mlechhas died of injuries at their back.
Another one is from Partha-Parakrama-Vyayoga as cited by Shri Dasharath Sharma (a real historian). It tells us that Prithviraj Chauhan led a night attack on the Chandravati (Abu) based Paramaras. Not below the navel you say?🙂

Lets have more then...
Time - 8th century AD
Place – Kashmir of Lalitadiya Muktapida. The King ordered to shave the heads of invading Turks that his army had captured after the victory.

Time - Cusp of 13th and 14th centuries AD
Place - HammirDev Chauhan’s Ranthambhore Kingdom. The muslim women captured after the defeat of Khiljis were made to sell sour butter milk (chaach in native languages) in the villages.

Time– Again, cusp of 13th and 14th centuries AD
Place– Sakrana (Sankarana) in Jalor Kingdom of KanhadaDev Chauhan. Khilji army of Alauddin under Ulugh/Ulghu Khan was utterly routed in a night attack with feigned retreats. KanhadDePrabandha gives a detailed account of the same.

Time – Mid 15th century AD.
Place – Nagaur Sultanate in central Rajasthan. Mewar’s MahaRana Kumbha destroyed local mosques after mauling the tiny Sultanate’s army to punish them for killing cows.

Time – 1658 AD
Place – Correspondence between Aurangzeb and ShahJahan after the battle of Dharmat, as cited by Sir Jadunath Sarkar. Lets talk of those sacred standing structures from her claim shall we? Aurangzeb tells ShahJahan – ...

...“My first battle was with wicked infidels, who had destroyed mosques, and erected on their sites temples to their idols." That mosque-destroying wicked infidel was Jodhpur's Maharaja Jaswant Singh whom Aurangzeb faced in the 1st battle of succession i.e. Dharmat 1658 AD.

Time– 1660-70s AD
Place– modern Goa. If the English Factory records on Shivaji for this timeframe are considered, he defiled mosques & killed Padres who were troubling Hindus in the Portugal influenced areas. This he did after the Padres refused his offer to convert to Hinduism.

Time – Late 17th and early 18th century AD.
Place – Jodhpur/Marwar. Rulers like Ajit Singh and Bakht Singh banned Namaz in the Kingdom.
Now, what I gave here are just examples and there will be many more such instances.

Lets move on.
M: Internal conflicts among warriors for supremacy and expansion. Conflicts within a Kingdom for the throne.
Response: This is a beating-the-dead-horse exercise. Infighting, whether it is between Kingdoms or within Kingdoms was prevalent everywhere...

...including the Islamic Kingdoms. Do we need to remind this scholar that the nomadic Turko afghan tribes of Khurasan would kill time by plundering and slaughtering each other when they were not invading elsewhere?

Do we need to repeat how the Mughals were so infested with fratricide throughout generations that father would kill son, son would kill father, brother would kill brothers and cousins? There is just no end to how low they could stoop.

So, infighting was a by-product of the very era that she is talking about like a discovery. There is nothing spectacular or uniquely fatal about Indian infighting. If we want to really find out why invaders could sweep in and not only plunder but also rule over India,...

...infighting is barely a small and actually over-abused point in the list of reasons that I have covered elsewhere comprehensively.

M: Jograj Singh Gurjar and Rampyari Gurjar fought against Taimur and defeated him multiple times, killing 1,40,000 of his 1,45,000 soldiers. She also mentions elsewhere in the speech that this is why Timur had no slaves with him on his return from India...

Response: This takes the cake because I am yet to see any evidence whatsoever to prove this. All we get are circular references where none touches even close to being mediaeval history. What’s worse is that some of the citations stink of a scam. See here-

https://twitter.com/therajaputra/status/1333343686449455104

The level of comfort that Timur had in India can be gauged by the fact that he first had his Military officers and most of the army leave for Samarkand and then in the end he left India installing Khizr Khan in Delhi as the Governor of the region up to Multan.

Soon after returning from India, Timur departed on a campaign against the Turkish Emperor Beyzid. If he was down to 5,000 men where did he get the troops from for his Turkish campaign? More importantly, how did he survive India with just 5,000 men,...

...specially when before leaving India he also attacked the Kumaun region. All this is mentioned in his biography the Zafarnama.

To claim that Timur was defeated multiple times in India, that too in the open plains of the north and then to think that this would skip mention in all histories of India except hearsay of village-men and tourist guides (by her own admission) .

We are really demolishing the standard of academic due diligence with these flights of fantasy.

As far as slaves are concerned, that he didn’t have slaves with him in return from India. First, Timur didn’t carry slaves back from every territory that he invaded– be it Persia, Georgia, Russia, Caucasus. He was keener on killing and he carried slaves on only a few occasions.

Forget about Timur for a moment, dragging slaves depends on many factors for an invader: like do you have any further campaign on your schedule in that region, does your plan need expendable men in it, what's your route back home, what kind of political & geographical terrain...

... you’ll encounter next, is there a possibility of slaves becoming a liability or threat. Mere absence of slaves doesn’t lend credence to idle speculations that Timur was defeated and chased out.

Secondly, even before the battle for Delhi he ordered the slaughter of least one lakh slaves whom his army was dragging along. This was ordered only because of the possibility that they might turn on them in case of a battle.

So, I doubt the man was very keen on dragging slaves with him every time. Besides, a good number of slaves may have been sent with the numerous officers that went to Samarkand before Timur.

When we study history, the wisdom followed by all serious historians is that inscriptions are the backbone of history and then literature forms its muscle. Folktales are the blood.

Now, stay with me on this. What would you say if someone tries to convince you that there is a man standing in front of you. Although you don’t see one. But they point toward some blood droplets on the ground and insist that no there is a person standing here &...

...nobody (except the wizard talking to you) has so far been able to see them and that their existence should hence be acknowledged. In this case our speaker is trying to pull exactly the same stunt.

M: 1672 battle of Salher near Nasik. First time the Mughals were defeated in open battle of 20000 Marathas vs 40000 Mughals.
Response: I would take that figure of 20000 Marathas vs 40000 Mughals with a pinch of salt because...

...to my knowledge there is only one primary source that gives such figures, which is Sabhasad Bakhar. Yes, the battle took place.
But what exactly is the definition of 'open' here. My definition is that the two armies ought to be face to face in plain, a field where...

...neither side has any geographic/terrain advantage. So, was Salher really an open battle? I advise you to just go and check Salher’s terrain on Google and you’ll know how much of an open battle can take place in Salher. Even if we consider Salher an open battle.

Pay attention toward the blatantly false statement. Contrary to her claim, Salher is not the first open battle defeat of Mughals as claimed. She really needs to learn to give proper context to her statements. It was the first open battle victory of Marathas against the Mughals.

The Mughals first open battle defeat in India by the way was at the start of 1527 AD in Bayana & its vicinities where the defeated Mughal troops under Muhammed Sultan Mirza not only ran away but also sang praises of the bravery of Mewar army, recorded in Babur’s memoir...

...Tuzuk i Babri or Baburnama.
That is what demoralized Mughals despite their gunpowder advantage and it took a lot of leadership from Babur to recharge his men. You are free to check the terrain of Bayana and see what lies to the north and east of the fort.

Next was the battle of Dewair 1582 AD where Maharana Pratap crushed a huge Mughal army under Akbar’s uncle Sultan khan, forced many to surrender and also recovered considerable territory of his Kingdom from the Mughals.

The much smaller Mewari army’s victory over Mughals in open battle - also recorded in contemporary compositions such as Bahlol Vadh of Gordhan Bogsa - had compelled historians like Tod to call it a repeat of the famous battle of Marathon between Athens and Persia.

M: Who knows about this battle (Salher)?
Response: Actually, more than she might have thought. The battle is not only covered in well-known primary source called Sabhasad Bakhar. But also finds mention in the works of later historians like Shri G. S. Sardesai’s Maratha History.

M: Mughals’ first proposal of peace treaty was to Chenamma of Keladi
Response: Not the first time Mughals proposed peace treaty with any native power. How can one forget the number of times Akbar tried to convince Maharana Pratap of Mewar?

If this is the kind of content & delivery we're supposed to receive in the name of authentic academics. Then I’m really sorry for those who consumed this, as you guys have been pawned. I’m also disappointed at the bodies which propagate it. You can see who they are in the video.

The speech was about medieval Indian history and Kings. So, I was wondering when we’ll get rid of this half-breed Anglo-Indian type pronunciation while speaking of our own history and Kings. Like मुक्तापिदा instead of मुक्तापीड़, मुलाराजा instead of मूलराज, गनेशा instead of गणेश-

--, देवा instead of देव, मोरापंत instead of मोरोपंत, तबकत instead of तबक़ात, त्रिलोचनपाला instead of त्रिलोचनपाल and so on. It is really annoying to bump into so many of these in just on speech.

I mean how would like if you’re a student in the mathematics class and your teacher would pronounce angle as angel. Now, to some this would feel like petty squabbles on inane nuances. But let come to my basis for sharing all this.

Have you thought of why someone speaks like this and that too a supposedly academic person. Its when they haven’t read the original texts. Because if anybody makes the effort for example to read the un-translated Rajatarangini of Kalhana,...

they would easily pick the Sanskrit name from there that it is not मुक्तापिदा but मुक्तापीड़. When someone doesn't even read the original texts of their subject matter or make the effort to even pronounce the terms properly, what does it tell about their expertise & credentials?

I am going to let you make your own conclusions on that. No point shoving my conclusions down your throat. One might say that this was just a short speech and her book must be better. Well, another heart break.

https://twitter.com/Engr_Who/status/1333340998919888900

Before I wind up. Let me just put a disclaimer here. I have nothing personal against anyone. I don’t know the lady and who knows she might have good intentions despite the glaring flaws and bias. Nobody is perfect, right.

But when you enter academics, when you speak in functions as an expert; there is a huge responsibility. It’s a bit like politics. So, if you are leading. You ought to lead by example.

That’s the toughest part of the job. If you fail there, you’re not a leader, you’re either an imposter or have failed in becoming who you’re acting as.

A question that I want to leave you in the end with, is that in trying to denounce the leftist, pro-invader narratives of history which we must … are we creating and absorbing more false narratives? Can two wrongs make a right? I'll try to make this a blogpost, dhanyavaad!🙏n/n