Amit Shah, inaugurating a two-day international seminar on ‘Guptvanshak-Veer: Skandgupta Vikramaditya’ at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), appealed to Indian academics to stop blaming British historians and Leftists for writing the ‘wrong history of India’.
“How long you will keep criticising the British and the Leftists for injustice to Indian history? Who stopped you from writing history based on truth,” Shah said, adding that there was a need to write India’s glorious history, which had suffered injustice, based on facts and truth.
He asked ‘those historians’ to write the history of 25 such kingdoms and 200 such personalities who were overlooked by ‘other historians’.
“Forget who wrote what. Don’t get into controversy. Write history from the Indian point of view,” Shah said.
Shah’s statement finds significance as the BJP in Maharashtra, has pledged to seek Bharat Ratna for Savarkar, in its manifesto.
“It was Savarkar who gave the name First War of Independence to the 1857 ‘kranti’. Otherwise, our children would have known it as a revolt,” Shah had said.
Congress district unit chief Prajanath Sharma said that the BJP was trying to tear the pages of history. “Everyone knows about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. They are trying to saffronize the whole of Indian history,” he was quoted saying in a Hindustan Times report.
At the academic seminar, he pushed historians to write more about great rulers like Skandagupta and Chandragupta, who had been not been given “enough due in the existing documented history”, adding that the Indian boundary extended up to Afghanistan during the reign of Skandagupta “which was also India’s golden era in terms of art.”
While dwelling at length on the role and relevance of the Gupta ruler, he spoke on the political future of the nation and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making India “regain” its respect in the world.
“Respect for the country has increased under him. The world pays attention to our point of view and listens when he speaks on international developments,” Shah said.
In his address, the chief minister referred to the revocation of provisions of Article 370 and termed it a historic step. “It was invoked following the stubbornness of Nehru while Sardar Patel was unhappy with it,” he claimed.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey were present on occasion. A large number of historians, scholars and political thinkers from India and abroad attended the seminar as well.
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