History Archive

2021 is the birth centenary year of the noted Gandhian thinker Dharampal⁽¹⁾. Dharampal is well known for having conducted extensive archival research in Britain and India, and for having published several books later on. His extensive efforts led to a revisiting of conventional views of society, polity, science & technology, and culture, especially at the heyday of British colonial rule in India.

Hundred years ago, on 7^th November, 1917, ^[1] a revolution took place in Europe which changed the fate of entire mankind. It was the Russian Revolution. It gave birth to the first Communist State in history, the Soviet Union.

On the occasion of Vijaya Dashmi, the entire country celebrates the victory of Shree Ram over Ravana, the victory of good over evil. We know about this victory in detail through various versions of the Ramayana like Valmiki Ramayana, Ramcharitramanas, Kamba Ramayanam, Sri Ranganatha Ramayanamu, Saptakanda Ramayana,  Krittivasi Ramayan.

I first came across the Sannyasi rebellion not in the books of history (thank you ridiculous education system) but in a scary tome of literature that I would never have voluntarily opened on my own. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 1882 novel, “Anandamath” (Abbey of Bliss) is a 336 page long tribute to these heroes of the Indian independence movement that the rest of the country seems to have forgotten. The novel is otherwise famous for publishing our national song, “Vande Mataram” and sparking the first kindles of nationalism in a heavily subjugated population. Vehemently banned by the British government upon its publication, it only came back in print after 1947, long after the author’s death.

As India’s freedom struggle was approaching its culmination, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi made his intentions clear that Indian National Congress (INC) should be dissolved. He felt the objective of the INC was to liberate India from British rule; once that goal was accomplished, the organization had no existential purpose. Gandhi proposed that all leaders who desired public service via electoral politics should form their own political party and contest elections. This actually would have been democracy in the real sense.

On the 31st of October, 37 years ago, the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by members of her own security. As a Prime Minister of India, her accomplishments and failures are quite well known. However, there are certain aspects of her regime that have not garnered much attention. There are some other startling revelations that were made in Wikileaks cables.

The Bofors scam is one that has intrigued and enraged the nation for almost 3 decades. With multiple leaks and stories, it was perhaps the first inter-continent defence scam that came to the fore in Independent India and Rajiv Gandhi was smack in the middle of it. It was the first scam when broken, made the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty look fallible in the eyes of the general public and if today, their other scams like the National Herald where even Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are allegedly involved, Robert Vadra’s land scam or Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi own dubious land deals are being spoken about freely, it is because of the Bofors scam which enabled that narrative.

Prime Minister Modi yesterday stirred a hornet’s nest when he mentioned how Rajiv Gandhi used Indian Navy Warship INS Virat for his personal use. The warship was used to ferry the Gandhi family to a tiny Lakshwadeep island for a 10-day long vacation.

The Kashmiri Pandit genocide occurred in 1990 but the seed for it was sown the previous year. A shameful incident in history when the Indian State capitulated to Islamic terrorists, it set the tone for what was to come. It began on the fateful day of the 8th of December, 1989 when Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and the sister of Mehbooba Mufti, was kidnapped by terrorists.

Late Sanjay Gandhi was expected to be the political heir of Mrs Indira Gandhi. He was supposed to be the next Congress head and PM candidate after Indira, as Congress had by then already become a family run dynastic enterprise. Such was the influence he wielded over the party, merely on account of being the son of Mrs Indira Gandhi, that surreptitiously sliding into the role of head of Indian Youth Congress, displacing the veteran Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, that nothing would move in the mother organization, without his vetting.