Removing Islamic history from India

[Guest Singh]

I had a discussion with a hindu brother who identifies himself as an "indian nationalist". He was talking about the Islamic invaders and how India should continue to change names of cities and things like that.

So then I asked him if he supports demolishing the Taj Mahal? He was offended that I ask this. But I think my point has merit. Why do Indians prop-up a building that was built by a foreign invader for one of his seventeen billion wives at the hands of slaves? 

[puzzled]

I never understood the glorification of architecture built by invaders in india. Why would a nation glorify buildings built by the very people who made you into slaves for 900 years. 

India has this strange love and hate relationship with the mughals. They love to romanticize them in their movies and art but then they hate them.

The biggest example being the qutub minar.  The qutub minar is made up of demolished hindu and jain mandirs, yet the qutub minar is Delhi's most iconic building.  

They are beautiful buildings, no need to demolish them, art is to be appreciated,  but no need to romanticize them. 

Shah jahan love story is fake because he married more women after mamtaz died, if he loved her so much why he marry more women!

The mughal monuments were built to keep the emperors immortal, so that they could live on forever. The grandness of the buildings was to make their memory grand and powerful for the future generations, the size of the tombs was to reflect the might and power of the emperors. Shahjahan had even planned a black Taj for himself on the other side of the yamuna river. 

[jkvlondon]

3 hours ago, puzzled said:

I never understood the glorification of architecture built by invaders in india. Why would a nation glorify buildings built by the very people who made you into slaves for 900 years. 

India has this strange love and hate relationship with the mughals. They love to romanticize them in their movies and art but then they hate them.

The biggest example being the qutub minar.  The qutub minar is made up of demolished hindu and jain mandirs, yet the qutub minar is Delhi's most iconic building.  

They are beautiful buildings, no need to demolish them, art is to be appreciated,  but no need to romanticize them. 

Shah jahan love story is fake because he married more women after mamtaz died, if he loved her so much why he marry more women!

The mughal monuments were built to keep the emperors immortal, so that they could live on forever. The grandness of the buildings was to make their memory grand and powerful for the future generations, the size of the tombs was to reflect the might and power of the emperors. Shahjahan had even planned a black Taj for himself on the other side of the yamuna river. 

didn't the brahmins enslave the mulnivasis too and use their labour to build their temples too? this is the way of the world . The architecture was  not particular to the turks but actually adopted by them from the nation of Persia so what you see in Punjab's reaction  is just an appreciation of the artwork and skill of the kaligars  but shared history of trade . 

Shah Jahan married Mumtaz's sister , Mumtaz died in childbirth 14th I think  she  was his second wife anyhow.

[MisterrSingh]

7 hours ago, puzzled said:

I never understood the glorification of architecture built by invaders in india. Why would a nation glorify buildings built by the very people who made you into slaves for 900 years. 

India has this strange love and hate relationship with the mughals. They love to romanticize them in their movies and art but then they hate them.

The biggest example being the qutub minar.  The qutub minar is made up of demolished hindu and jain mandirs, yet the qutub minar is Delhi's most iconic building.  

They are beautiful buildings, no need to demolish them, art is to be appreciated,  but no need to romanticize them. 

The love-hate dynamic perhaps stems from different sides. The middle-class, liberal-leaning Indian who has a cosmopolitan outlook on history views the Mughal era as a natural and unavoidable part of history where countries are conquered, and the conquerors leave imprints of their own culture on the natives, and therefore it's not something that is particularly objectionable. But then you have the nationalist or religiously inclined who view the Mughal conquest as a personal affront; a matter of a foreign force imposing its culture and religion on a population through compulsion and barbarism in part. Someone in the middle would appreciate the cultural value of what Mughals contributed to India while still acknowledging their destructive practices in how they managed to imprint their presence on a people and its culture through conquest.

[Ranjeet01]

2 hours ago, MisterrSingh said:

The love-hate dynamic perhaps stems from different sides. The middle-class, liberal-leaning Indian who has a cosmopolitan outlook on history views the Mughal era as a natural and unavoidable part of history where countries are conquered, and the conquerors leave imprints of their own culture on the natives, and therefore it's not something that is particularly objectionable. But then you have the nationalist or religiously inclined who view the Mughal conquest as a personal affront; a matter of a foreign force imposing its culture and religion on a population through compulsion and barbarism in part. Someone in the middle would appreciate the cultural value of what Mughals contributed to India while still acknowledging their destructive practices in how they managed to imprint their presence on a people and its culture through conquest.

I used to lurk on some indian nationalist websites and they have some interesting insights. 

The middle class liberal leaning Indian in their view is an anglofile McCaulyite. McCauley was a British educator that introduced a lot of the British education system to India in the 1800's. A lot of conditioning was done during this time. 

What these nationalists say is that the people that latched onto the British education system who were anglicised were previously dhimmified in the previous mughal administration. 

Dhimmi of course in Islamic circles means that you were a 2nd class citizen but they sucked up to the muslim elites. 

When the power transitioned between Mughals and Brits, they just switched allegiance. 

That is why perhaps the looked at the Mughals favourably. 

[MisterrSingh]

1 hour ago, Ranjeet01 said:

I used to lurk on some indian nationalist websites and they have some interesting insights. 

The middle class liberal leaning Indian in their view is an anglofile McCaulyite. McCauley was a British educator that introduced a lot of the British education system to India in the 1800's. A lot of conditioning was done during this time. 

What these nationalists say is that the people that latched onto the British education system who were anglicised were previously dhimmified in the previous mughal administration. 

Dhimmi of course in Islamic circles means that you were a 2nd class citizen but they sucked up to the muslim elites. 

When the power transitioned between Mughals and Brits, they just switched allegiance. 

That is why perhaps the looked at the Mughals favourably. 

Weird how it's the "firangi" conquest that comes in for the most hostile criticism despite them doling out infrastructure and administrative benefits (albeit for vested interests) alongside the undeniable oppression, whereas the earlier Mughal one is almost romanticised by certain quarters to a certain extent. 

[Ranjeet01]

41 minutes ago, MisterrSingh said:

Weird how it's the "firangi" conquest that comes in for the most hostile criticism despite them doling out infrastructure and administrative benefits (albeit for vested interests) alongside the undeniable oppression, whereas the earlier Mughal one is almost romanticised by certain quarters to a certain extent. 

It's the more recent oppressor so the one before that gets a pass.

When India gets taken over by the aliens from Alpha Centauri I am sure the Brits will be looked at more fondly. 

[Not2Cool2Argue]

On 2/17/2020 at 11:12 PM, MisterrSingh said:

Someone in the middle would appreciate the cultural value of what Mughals contributed to India while still acknowledging their destructive practices in how they managed to imprint their presence on a people and its culture through conquest.

That should be us Sikhs. Because our culture is heavily influenced by both. Infact, Sikh panth grew in that clash. Thats why some hindus think we r just warriorfied hindus to protect Hinduism.

What we did was get the best from the invadors while kicking out the invadors. We kept persian as state language, used their killeh and probably govt system as well. Same with cannon and army. Maharaja ranjit hired the firangis to reshape his whole army and had the best European cannons too. I bet if he had stayed on, he wouldve brought in the railroad system, maybe not the steam engines ships( as we were mostly land locked). 

Even in history, we can see that Guruji said to get knowledge from everyone. Like sending sikhs to kaashi, writing jaap sahib using both sanskrit and persian words. And in the subegh singh shabaaz singh movie, the brahmins says that persian is a malesch bhasa snd shouldn't be learnt. But singhs  disagreed. Knowledge and art should be boundry less. And ppl who sneer and ban something because it is other, are usually suffering from sour grape syndrome. (Ofc sikhs r also the only ones keeping panjabi too. Pakistaan was replacing with urdu until recently when panjabis protested)

[Not2Cool2Argue]

On 4/25/2019 at 11:32 AM, Guest Singh said:

So then I asked him if he supports demolishing the Taj Maha

They have a solution for that. The right wing is claiming that the Taj mahal used to be a shivji temple and was overtaken by the mughals.