Should Evil of History Ever be Commemorated?

As the confederate monuments were being brought down in the US, my mind wandered to the fetish of the Indian Secularists with genocidal devils and their attempts to not just honor them but to actively sanitize their characters by re-writing history.

One man – way back in history said this after a bloody war with a Hindu king: in subjugating the localities, habitations, forts and towns which are under the possession of the infidels…may God forsake and annihilate all of them, and thus raising the standard of Islam everywhere and removing the darkness of polytheism and violent sins by the use of sword. We destroy the places of worship of idols in those places and other parts of India.

Shoaib Daniyal – a political affairs writer and a darling of scroll.in writes in one article about the man with Islamic supremacist rant after his battle with the Hindu King:

(he) shines through as an embodiment of the Idea of India: a broad-minded, catholic ruler who united the large parts of the subcontinent under one flag and also happened to be Muslim. It was a Nehruvian jackpot.

This “broad-minded, Nehruvian jackpot” despot was presented as “Akbar the Great” in our history books.

In Germany, the Allied powers and Germans specifically undertook Entnazifizierung or Denazification – where symbols of Nazis – monument, memorial, poster, statue, edifice, street or highway name marker, emblem, tablet, or insignia – were taken out and planning, designing, erection, installation, posting or other display of any of these was declared illegal. Hitler and Nazis were an important part of modern history. The evil of the Western civilization was represented by them. Despite the centrality of Nazis to the history of WWII, their memory was ripped away from the annals of German history – so such a dark history could not inspire or resonate with anyone!

But how does India approach a man whose edict reads like a paragraph straight out of ISIS manifesto and a mirror of how Nazis approached Jews? Here is what Romila Thapar said about Akbar:

Ashoka and Akbar are spoken of as providing a kind of prelude to secularism.

Of course, she was also the architect of the NCERT history books which told us how great, tolerant and compassionate Akbar was.

There are two ends of how historic evil has been approached. One is the German way – of Denazification. And then there is the Indian “Secular” way – of Sanitization of Evil and presenting it as a Virtue of which we should be thankful! HItlers rule led to several scientific advances and inventions. Does that sanitize his evil? Akbar may have had some token Dhimmi Hindu ministers. Does that change his character as HIS OWN communique presents him? Is Akbar the Akbar of Shoaib Daniyal and Romila Thapar or is he the one who speaks clearly and unequivocally via his Fatehanama-i-Chittor. This is what his own edict said –

in conformity with the happy injunction of the Quran (27:40)…[he was busy] in subjugating the localities, habitations, forts and towns which are under the possession of the infidels…may God forsake and annihilate all of them, and thus raising the standard of Islam everywhere and removing the darkness of polytheism and violent sins by the use of sword. We destroy the places of worshipof idols in those places and other parts of India. The praise be to Allah, who hath guided us to this, and we would not have found the way had it not been that Allah had guided us…. in accordance with the imperative Command – and kill the idolaters all together (Quran 9:36), those defiant ones who were still offering resistance having formed themselves into knots of two to three hundred persons, were put to death and their women and children taken prisoners.

and this about what was to be done to the women and children, per his Fatehanama –

According to the promise – Allah promised you many acquisitions which you will take (Quran 48:20), immense booty and spoils in cash and kind were acquired.

Mind you, that when “Akbar-the-Great’s” army entered Chittor, there were between 22,000 to 40,000 women, old and children inside Chittor. This is again per his own historian Abul Fazal in “Ain-e-Akbari”.

We had discussed how in the heart of Delhi – India’s capital – three main roads are named after three Jehadi barbarian killers and why the road names SHOULD be taken out and replaced by names of those who had contributed positively to the Indian civilization. Aurangzeb road, we at Drishtikone had said, should be renamed. Interestingly, a movement was started by Tarek Fatah for the name change and Aurangzeb’s name was taken out. But why is Akbar and Lodhi’s name still kept in there?

How do you lay bare the psychopaths who have been sanitized and presented to the very people who were killed, tortured and raped as symbols of greatness, while monuments to them are present in the heart of the very nation’s capital whose soul was traumatized by such butchers?!

Many people – who were against the move to rename – had argued that Aurangzeb was “part of Indian history” and by changing the name of the road, a denial of history was being attempted by “ideological sections”. If you listen or read this argument, you cannot help but see a striking resemblance with the arguments by Trump while he tried to justify the confederate symbols and their display by calling them as much part of history as Thomas Jefferson was!

When we place the ideology of hate on a pedestal in the name of history and fight the attempts of those who oppose the providing of life to such evil figures in history – we are providing justification for unbridled hate. We are legitimizing genocide. Robert Lee, who fought to enforce slavery under the Confederate flag was no different an evil than Akbar, who fought to enforce the supremacy of Islam and killed, pillaged and raped the weak because it was ordered by Quran.

Let us be very clear – Akbar was NO different than ISIS or Al Qaeda either. The words are the same, the acts are the same, the devil intent is the same… and above all, the citing of the verses is the same.

If Americans have a tough battle on their hands to get to the German standards of Entnazifizierung, now that the American President is giving legitimacy to the Nazis and the Slave owners who fought for right to enslave – then India has an almost impossible task. How do you lay bare the psychopaths who have been sanitized and presented to the very people who were killed, tortured and raped as symbols of greatness, while monuments to them are present in the heart of the very nation’s capital whose soul was traumatized by such butchers?!

How do you come back from a situation say, when Jews are taught that HItler was a great man who loved the Jews and the heart of Israel has monuments to his name – to further the interest of history?! How do you really?!

From the American situation of acknowledgement of history albeit not removing the symbols of human evil to Germany’s way of taking out all symbols and references of evil in history is a very long road. But longer still is the road from the horrible joke of bastardized history created by Indian Secularism to that German gold standard.

Evil cannot be and should NOT be commemorated or acknowledged as representative of any sane history. History is representative of human journey. Psychopathic evil cannot be a milestone of this human memory!