Desecration of Brindavana at Hampi: Outrage over Tejasvi Surya's remark shows how Leftist cabal cherry-picks facts to hide uncomfortable truths

Editor’s Note: This article is a counter to Praveen Swami’s article, titled, Tejasvi Surya’s rage on Hampi shows how much Indians have come to love the slime of victimhood, where the author slams the BJP MP for linking the desecration of Sri Vyasaraja’s Brindavana with Bahmani Sultans. The original piece may be read here .

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The Leftist cabal’s methodology regarding Indian history has been as follows — hide uncomfortable historical truths, cherry-pick facts, make false equivalences, create false narratives to paint ’enemies’ badly and outrage whenever someone brings to light the uncomfortable truths. The latest outpouring of outrage by Praveen Swami about Tejasvi Surya’s statement in Lok Sabha as well as his tweets regarding desecration of Sri Vyasaraja’s Brindavana in Hampi is a combination of all the above. In the very beginning, Swami wants us to not visit ancient monuments. After all, such visits might bring to light the uncomfortable truths which need to remain hidden as per comrades. [caption id=“attachment_6340281” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Tejasvi Surya. Twitter@Tejasvi_Surya[/caption] The very title of the article reflects the disgust the author seems to feel about Hindus raising any concerns relating to their matters of concern. After all, Tejasvi is an MP from Karnataka where a large number of Hindus consider Sri Vyasaraja as one of the most important Hindu saints — his Brindavana is visited by devotees from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamil Nadu. But to Swami, the outpouring of anguish by the young MP wherein he compared the desecration to the destruction of Vijayanagar by Bahmani Sultans is akin to “drowning in a great tide of tears, unleashed by a congealed mass of resentments more appropriate to an infant just spanked by its mother than a grown-up democracy”. Swami avers that none of the arrested are sons of any Sultan nor any Jihadis and thus, the reference to Bahmani destruction is uncalled for. For Swami, the destruction of Vijayanagara by Bahmani hordes is an uncomfortable truth. His anger against the expression of this uncomfortable truth is bursting throughout his article — with false equivalences through cherry-picked facts being used to ‘set the record straight’. The desecration of the Brindavana would indeed remind any devout Hindu of the destruction of Vijayanagara. Such thorough destruction of a place of worship in that region last occurred in 1565 when the Bahmani hordes resided in the capital for six months carrying out thorough destruction of the places of worship and palaces — expressing their zeal for iconoclasm mandated by Islamic extremism along with a mad search for wealth in what was perhaps the wealthiest city of India at that time. The desecration of Brindavana was so complete enough that Tejasvi simply gave vent to what devout Hindus feel about the incident — that such destruction belongs to the era of barbarian invaders from five centuries ago, not in Independent India of 21st Century. But for Swami, this reference to Bahmanis is unpalatable as we mentioned earlier. It is entirely clear why Swami wants to highlight the religion of those arrested by Karnataka Police —  the culprits were Hindus — there is nothing un-Hindu about such desecrations and thus, Hindus should not outrage about it. A wonderful example for logical fallacy. That the culprits caused huge damage to a religious place of worship which also portrays our cultural heritage showcases a case of blind greed or callousness (as in the case of another recent case of vandalism) which indeed reminds us of the late medieval barbarians — whether or not impelled by religious extremism. That these barbarian acts of vandalism have nothing to do with anyone’s religion or ideology — less alone Hinduism — is something which seems to escape the mind of this cabal. Whereas there are cases where iconoclasm was pretty much a result of religion or ideology — eg, Bamiyan Buddhas being destroyed by Taliban and the West Asian heritage structures being destroyed by Islamic State militants. Whatever may be the reason behind these acts of vandalism — fact remains that a place of spiritual/cultural heritage for Hindus in a UNESCO world heritage complex was desecrated and destroyed by criminals with impunity. That there have been several cases of such vandalism in the vicinity in recent years shows that the government has failed to provide proper security to these monuments that they deserve. But Swami wants the Hindus to silently turn a blind eye to these acts and not express any outrage — as it appears infantile to him. Such callousness and insensitive comment show the devout Hindus where they stand in the eyes of this cabal. Swami is unable to bear with the idea that Hindus may hold the Vijayanagar empire in high regard. So, he seems to cherry-pick facts and even lies where required — to show it as ’equally bad’ as Bahmanis. He happily quotes the inscription from South Arcot in 1446-47 CE which records that ministers forcefully collected ‘presents’ from the ryots driving them to despair and even leading to depopulation of the region. To him, it shows the dark side of the empire. What he fails to mention is that the inscription continues further — it says that Emperor Deva Raya II put an end to this injustice and restored order. As an example of lie, we can look at this sentence “The rebellion of the Nayaks of Tanjavur, Senji, and Madurai against Vijayanagara overlordship in 1645—soon before the empire’s final collapse — saw brutal reprisals against the populations of Tanjavur, leading to a boom in the Dutch-run  slave markets of Coromandel”. The slave trade was not a result of any reprisal by Vijayanagar Emperor, Sriranga III, who was in no position to carry out such acts. Rather, it was due to Bijapuri army which devastated Tanjore countryside during the final collapse of the empire — the research paper that he quotes has this say “..more than 150,000 people were taken by the invading Deccani Muslim armies to Bijapur and Golconda”. But Swami puts the blame squarely on reprisals by the Vijayanagar emperor. Such lies are not atypical of Leftist scholarship in India. As an example of false equivalence, while Swami has to agree that the Vijayanagar emperors treated people of all religions equally — something which the Indian Union should learn from (no denial of rights to one community), he wishes to show both Bahmanis and Vijayanagar as equally bad. So, he refers to certain acts of Vijayanagar armies destroying mosques and rebuilding temples by quoting Firishtah: “…made a general massacre of the Mussalman, (and) erected a platform with their heads on the fields of battle”. The Hindus, he goes on, then began “putting their horses in mosques, and performing their abominable idolatrous worship in the holy places”. He then compares them to another quote from Firishtah: Ahmad Shah Bahmani, in 1422 CE, “put to death men, women and children without mercy. Wherever the number of the slain amounted to twenty thousand, he halted three days and made a festival in celebration of the bloody event. He broke down also the idolatrous temples, and destroyed the colleges of the Brahmins”. This is typical Leftist propaganda — Hindus were also equally bad. And he concludes: “Hampi was sacked by Muslim warlords in 1565; its king’s head was impaled on a stake, and women and craftsmen sold into slavery. The sad truth, though, is that for most, life went on as usual for the 100-odd years that the kingdom limped on. From the point of view of a peasant being kicked in the head, after all, it probably mattered very little if the boot was worn by a Hindu, Muslim or Christian.” There, he has achieved his target. He is unable to digest the reference to the Vijayanagar empire and the historical fact that it was destroyed by Bahmani Sultans. So, to cut the image of Vijayanagar to size, he has cherry-picked facts, lied outright and made false equivalences. He hides the fact that widespread iconoclasm in peninsular India was introduced by Islamic extremists. Temples were torn down and many were replaced with mosques in Bahmani kingdom. Vijayanagar armies simply tried to right the wrongs as they saw it. Swami will happily hide these facts and happily makes false equivalences. Unfortunately for him, people do not consider words of the Leftist cabal as Gospel anymore. Moreover, due to desperation, their machinations are becoming less subtle and more blatant. More such outrages by the likes of Swami will simply show their true colours to the Indian public — which will enable more and more Tejasvis to openly defy their stranglehold and give voice to the average Indian.