Dinesh Sharma, the Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh ruffled a few ‘liberal’ feathers during a Safaigiri awards organised by Aaj Tak in Lucknow. According to reports, while answering a question about Mughals, he described India’s erstwhile rulers as “plunderers” who played no role in India apart from looting its wealth.
This is what he reportedly stated:
Mughals were not our ancestors, they were actually plunderers. They looted the country. This is not our history
Mughal rulers are generally glorified in the history written from a left-leaning perspective and their actions are supposed to have contributed to ‘composite culture’ of India. In fact, even a religious bigot like Aurangzeb is ‘secularized‘ by left-leaning historians and their apologists. So this statement by the Dy CM of UP surely won’t go down well with Mughal admirers.
He also asserted that all religions would be given equal respect in the state but the Pakistani-Talibani culture won’t be tolerated. He also reportedly claimed that the UP government was planning on introducing a new syllabus in schools which would be based on Modern History.
Dinesh Sharma who in the past was twice elected as a Lucknow Mayor had also claimed that there was a huge flaw in former Vice President Hamid Ansari’s thought process after the latter had made his “fear, unease among Muslims” comment.
Incidentally not long back even Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had made a similar comment on the Mughals. Yogi in May had reportedly stated that Akbar, Aurangzeb and Babar were invaders and that the problems of the country would disappear after the truth is accepted. He had in the same event also called Maharana Pratap, Guru Gobind Singh and Chhatrapati Shivaji role models.
This isn’t the only time BJP governments have tried to divert from the Mughal narrative which has been a common feature in the Indian literature since long. It was reported in August that the Maharashtra state board had removed a chapter on the Mughals from its class VII history books. This move was opposed by opposition parties like the Congress, NCP and the SP. The revised history books of the VII and IXth grade were to have a more detailed focus on the Marathas and Shivaji.
