‘History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors

And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,

Guides us by vanities.’

                                                                                                                     ~~~‘Gerontion’ by T.S. Eliot

The importance of history in enabling us to understand our past and then our present is the major underlining idea informing T.S. Eliot’s much-acclaimed poem “Gerontion”. Similarly, the source of many problems inflicting present-day Indian society can be traced to its past – a past that has been a witness to bloody invasions, forced religious conversions, loots, massacres, social evils, abject poverty, etc. Nevertheless, India as a nation with all its diversity has survived. It is the country of the Buddha as much as it is the country of Shri Ram, which believes in the philosophy of Janani Janma-bhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi, meaning, mother and motherland are dearer than heaven itself.

After the success of ‘The Shiva Trilogy’ and ‘The Ram Chandra Series’, Amish Tripathi and The Immortal Writers’ Center’s ‘Legend of Suheldev: The King Who Saved India’ comes right on time. It is because the growing popularity and importance of social media has nowadays resulted in greater transparency, be it politics or journalism or exposing corruption scandals, etc. Similarly, the ideological underpinnings of the historical and intellectual discourse of post-Independent India have also come to be questioned by those voices which had, for long, been either suppressed or completely crushed by a narrow but influential elite.

Nehru made use of history as a tool of political statecraft. Blatant, anti-Hinduism flourished under the garb of the grand Nehruvian secularism project. It was based on the political intolerance of an idea that is rooted in Hindu traditions, its history and civilisational ethos and symbols. As a result, history in Independent India was selectively filtered to the masses. Truth was buried somewhere deep down, while a misplaced version of Western (European) secularism came to define “intellectual history writing” in India.

Set in the backdrop of the looming threat of foreign invasions upon India from the Ghaznavid Empire in the 10^th-11^th centuries A.D., the author has beautifully narrated the story of Suheldev – brave son of Ma Bharati and a warrior who fought for Dharma, but so far ignored by the lobby of “eminent historians” in India. Through minute detailing of the major characters, the writer makes an honest effort to unravel the distinction between Dharma and religion, and religion as a means to understand life as it is versus religion as a tool of political and cultural dominance. By doing so, he also brings to light India’s own internal weaknesses, manifested in the form of caste divisions, and as well as its centuries-old tendency to fragment, with the urgency to unite only after the enemy has reached our doorsteps.

The eternity of Sanatana Dharma has endowed in the people of Bharatvarsha a definite sense of who ‘we’ are, ensuring a deep psychological and emotional connect among ourselves, and hence a firm recognition of the fact that our nation and our faith are worth defending at all costs. One of the famous Sanskrit shlokas – Shathe Shathyam Samacharet – indirectly emphasises that unlike Buddhism, Sanatana Dharma has never rejected violence in-toto, if violence is used to stop another greater violence or evil. Ashvaghosh, the Buddhist monk, aptly realised this when he says – “Moksha can wait. Evil must be stopped first.” But, the brave and unapologetically proud of his faith, Suheldev, was a personification of not only Ahimsa Paramo Dharma but also Dharma Hinsa Tatthaiva Cha at its optimum best. Whereas Sanatana Dharma survived even at the hands of barbaric Islamic invaders, Buddhism declined because of its undue emphasis on pacifism.

The story begins with the extreme violence and brutality unleashed by the iconoclastic and monotheistic theology of Islam along with its expansionist policy, both territorial and religious. It threatened to wipe away the age-old Vedic civilisation, the native culture of Bharatvarsha along with its associated beliefs, practices and rituals, especially idol worship. This led to the massive destruction of temples and the idols housed inside their garbhagrihas throughout the country. The non-believers of Islam, i.e. non-Muslims, were labelled as kafirs who were to be either converted or killed.

Without in any way glorifying violence, the author makes use of descriptive visual imagery as a tool for depicting the trail of death and destruction left behind in the Indian subcontinent and beyond by Islamic fanatics. The destruction of the Shiva Linga housed inside the Somnath temple in Gujarat by Mahmud of Ghazni ‘broke the soul of India’, as described by the author. It was because of the fact that temples have always served as the nerve-centre of the Hindu society in terms of socio-economic upliftment of the poor, and as well as its invaluable contributions in the fields of education, culture, art and architecture, and strengthening of the community bonds. A philanthropic institution, the temple was always and is still associated with the collective conscience of the followers of Sanatana Dharma and their traditional beliefs and practices.

The barbaric Turks understood this quite well; hence, destroying the temple and desecrating its idols was meant to both emotionally and morally paralyse the Hindu psyche of resistance. This was the basic tactic of the enemy, i.e. destruction of one’s faith, that Suheldev made use of against the enemy itself. Even if it meant not abiding by the standard norms of Kshatriya warriorhood, but this was one of the most strategic ways that Suheldev resorted to, and one which was eventually successful in bringing the Turks down to their knees. In fact, the truth of his words – “If they think that we can be as monstrous as them, that we will burn their dead bodies, then they may pause to consider” – becomes explicitly visible to the reader towards the end, manifested in the plight meted out to the Turks by the Indians.

Suheldev comes across as a charismatic and handsome young man with a very sharp sense of instinct regarding the enemy’s behavioural patterns and ways to outsmart them every time that leaves the reader in a state of complete awe. But, caste-differences based on birth and occupation that became the prevailing norm of our society during the later Vedic period prevented the forging of a rainbow alliance among the native Indian rulers to fight the common enemy. Many of them chose petty personal benefits over long-term political gains. In utter disgust, at a certain point in the narration, Suheldev questions his father Mangaldhwaj – “You think this country will remember the sacrifice of people like us? Of our subaltern caste?”

In this context, the author, without any qualms, honestly criticises certain inherent drawbacks of the Hindu society too, which had been very much responsible for initially inviting the marauding hordes of invaders to this land. The latter took advantage of our internal divisions, our selfish narrow-mindedness that has most often chosen caste over nation and regional political loyalties over the good of the country. Precisely, these same problems are very much afflicting the Hindu society even till this day, the benefits of which have been reaped in most cases either by the Christian missionaries’ so-called “charitable activities” in Hindu-majority neighbourhoods or a silent demographic invasion by a foreign force in a largely Hindu-dominated area.  

While avenging his elder brother Malladev’s death in Somnath at the hands of Mahmud, Suheldev, the crown-prince of Shravasti who roamed around as a bandit in the dense forests of Central India, united everyone under his fold. A woman of utter grit and determination, but whose immense love for her country would not have found space in the ‘empowerment’ discourse of today’s “liberating feminists”, to a proud Kshatriya soldier who was waiting for an opportune moment to fight the Turks, Suheldev united them all. It was because the zeal to never give up and voluntarily choosing death over surrender, was still alive among a people who, although divided by caste, were united by their patriotism in the name of Mother India – Jai Maa Bharati.

The leader in Suheldev harnessed this to the maximum advantage of the Indians. This eventually made them look beyond their parochial differences of caste, region, religion and skin colour, and seek the blessings of both Mahadev and Allah in unison to fight back the Turks. Perhaps this has best been exemplified through the character of Abdul, a deeply-rooted Indian Muslim and one of the most loyal soldiers in Suheldev’s camp. Abdul represents the epitome of an ideal human being, deeply attached to his faith but at the same time fiercely protective about Bharat – his motherland and karmbhoomi – which comes above anything and everything else. During a conversation with Ashvaghosh, Abdul makes it clear – “If I have to choose between my religion and India, I will choose India. Every. Single. Time.” Much to the ire of the Turks, he stubbornly refuses to get carried away by their radical Islamic preaching, while at the same time lamenting at Buddhism’s over-glorification of non-violence.

A strong and powerful resistant force of 21 Indian kings and princes was put up as a common defence mechanism against the invading Turks led by the homosexual Salar Maqsud, the nephew of Mahmud of Ghazni. A ruthless, inhuman ruler, Maqsud’s heart melts immediately at the sight and touch of his slave-boy and lover, Kerim. The latter is stuck at the thresholds of love and duty, but is compelled to choose duty over love, for the sake of love itself. The anger and frustration of Maqsud in the battlefield upon confronting his identical twin-brother Salar Masud, disguised as Aslan, gives the reader a glimpse of the mind of a power-hungry ruler and religious fanatic with a burning desire to conquer, Islamise, and rule the richest land of the world, i.e. India.

Aslan himself dons several hats at one and the same time, from a Sufi mystic to a soldier leading the Indian side from the front in the Battle of Bahraich. His character is infused with an element of surprise that keeps the reader guessing till almost the end. While Maqsud is the perfect embodiment of whatever that is wrong with Islam today, Masud stands for hope, humanity, and goodness in the face of terror and bestial savagery. A non-Indic, Abrahamic religion, Islam imposed itself on India primarily through military conquest and political domination. But, at times of a grave crisis like war, hope is a higher human need that makes us believe in people, irrespective of their religious faiths, which is very well projected through Masud by the author.

The book ends with the death and surrender of the Turks, and the dry, dusty plains of North India happily intermingling with the tropical South India and vice-versa. It restores hope, confidence and inspiration in our rich past that boasts of a cultural legacy of brave warriors like Suheldev who fought with all their might till the enemy was completely vanquished. It is brought out dispassionately by the author himself – “Come to India as devotees, and our motherland will open her heart for you. Dare to come as invaders, and we will burn every single one of you.”

If we Hindus have our own internal weaknesses as a society, which was undeniably one of the chief causes behind foreign invaders wreaking havoc on our culture and faith, at the same time, we also have the sheer power to come along together and unite for the cause of that same faith. This is the eternal and intrinsic beauty of Sanatana Dharma which has survived despite all odds and adversities, and something which the Left has always failed to comprehend and accept!

But, this was a war that went beyond all territorial and geographical divides separating the North from the South. It was as much about the protection and safeguarding of Dharma as it was about defeating the foreign invaders. In this collective endeavour of a do-or-die kind of a situation, the North and the South of Bharatvarsha becomes one. Indeed, it is a powerful metaphor conveying the information that it is high time we question and challenge the artificially manufactured Aryan-Dravidian divide by colonial Indologists, and which has been fed with the much-needed ideological fodder by an elite intelligentsia in the post-Independent period. If Suheldev and his soldiers from North India were Arya (in Sanskrit, it refers to a cultural trait, meaning, noble or pure; ‘Arya’ does not signify a race), Emperor Rajendra Chola and his deputies and soldiers too, were equally Arya.  

Through the eyes of Suheldev, the author presents a picture of the Indian society governed by the principle of karma during the time of emperors like Bindusara, Chandragupta Maurya, Samudragupta, and Vikramaditya who were not born Kshatriyas, but Indians were indefatigable and unconquerable during their rule. It sends a message for all Hindus to unite and question past injustices inflicted upon them by not only religious fanatics but also the policies of successive governments at the Centre since Independence. By their alignment with a morally corrupt academia, the Indian education system has been hijacked with Hinduphobic ideas and a fake version of secularism, so much so that the psyche of today’s youth has been filled with fear, hatred and guilt for practising their own traditions and customs. The powerful words uttered by Suheldev find resonance today more than ever before – “A motherland dies when her own children stop loving it! A nation is not built by those who hate it, it is built on the shoulders of those who love it!” 

At one of the junctures, the author says – “Darkness does not win because it is strong. It wins because the lamps stop fighting”. Similarly, as caste-based ascriptive identities took over varna (which was not based on birth), fractures became more and more visible among Hindus. British colonialists later exploited and manipulated these fault-lines to divide us further. The same tradition has been kept alive by the Leftist-secular cabal in this country that has used ancient Indian texts such as the Manusmriti as a mere polemic to fuel Brahmin hate in the name of caste oppression, thereby foiling any attempts at Hindu unity. Their one-sided view of secularism has meant heaping false praises on foreign invaders who actually destroyed our religious places of worship, raped our women and made them sex-slaves, and converted into Islam the ancestors of the Indian Muslims of today by the sheer power of the sword!

As a result, real facts have been erased off the chapters of history. In this context, Tripathi’s work comes as a real eye-opener in the war of narratives that India is already beginning to witness after the historic Ram-Janmbhoomi reclamation by Hindus! True to that, Suheldev’s words keep ringing in one’s ears long after finishing the book – “If Hinduism dies, the world loses the last major connection with the ancient way, religions based on wisdom and the spirit of questioning.”

Image Credits: Deals Magnet