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Did Babar love India?
Vinod Kumar

Please click here for Part I

Part II

And what did Babur think of  India and its people?

He did not like the heat of India, he found its  towns and country "greatly wanting in charm",  "its people have no good looks, no manners, no genius, in work no symmetry or quality, no good  horses, no good dogs, no grapes, no musk melons or no first rate fruits, no  good bread".  Two things Babur liked very much: Hindustan as stated by him  has "masses of gold and silver" and yields immense revenue.

He called them "abject and mean" , "wretched" .  He ordered repeatedly pillars of pagan heads to be built. He abolished all taxes on Muslims throughout all the territories -- though its yield was more than the dreams of avarice. Why? It was, he believed "a practice outside the edicts of the prince of Apostles (Muhammad)".  And what did he wish for the Hindus? "God willing! Soon will be dashed the gods of the idolaters"  It goes without saying that he did not abolish the tax on Hindus.

At Chandiri, Khwafi Khan records a massacre by Babur, saying that after the fort was surrendered as was done on the condition of security for the garrison from 3,000 - 4,000 pagans were put to death by Babur's troops.

"It was a cruel age when criminals and spies were routinely ordered by the rulers to be buried or skinned alive or impaled or trampled to death by elephants" Ganguli wrote. "These were barbaric times". No, the times were not barbaric -- the invaders/rulers were barbaric. The massacres of the likes of 100,000 Hindu captives in one day by Timurlang have never been witnessed before or after in the history of the World.

Long before the advent of Islam, a foreign traveler had noted of India "another feature of the ancient warfare was that the non-combatants were left unmolested."  Exception to this rule were rare.

On the question of balancing act of history, Ganguli asks Naipaul: "what advice will he give to the Jews to balance the six million deaths of their relatives and friends in the Holocaust? . The Holocaust was a medieval act of barbarism committed in the 20th century."

The Holocaust of the Jews was by all accounts an act of barbarity. Ghastly and horrendous as it was, the sustained massacres, barbarities and cruelties committed on the Hindus that lasted off and on for almost a millennium were of an even larger magnitude.

Neither Naipaul, nor anyone else, has to give any advice. The Germans don't claim the Holocaust to be the "glory" of the Germans. They don't identify themselves with Hitler, the perpetrator of the crimes or his ideology. Nor do they seek their "heritage" in him or his ideology. All Germans today unanimously, in no uncertain terms, condemn the barbarities of those days. Denial of Holocaust is a crime in Germany. They have set up Holocaust memorials. In Germany today one would not find a single institution or even a street named after Hitler. They have apologized to the Jews for the crimes committed against them.

And that is exactly what Naipaul and the Sangh parivar whom Ganguli maligns so badly would like the Muslims to do: Condemn those acts of barbarities and completely dissociate themselves from them instead of seeking those barbarities and cruelties as their heritage.

Please click here for Part I

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