International Conference On Indian History

[Guest]

Press release issued on the third and last day of ICIH-2009:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>“Distortions in Indian History Occur due to State Backing”
“Nobody in the world gave higher status to women than ancient Indians”</b>

January 11: “Willful distortions in writing Indian history have been occurring solely due to state support and patronage since the British times until today,” charged Subramanian Swamy, former union minister, at the International Conference on Indian History, Civilisation and Geopolitics 2009 (ICIH-2009) that concluded here today. “The British rulers wrote our history to divide and rule us. But what is the excuse of Indian governments after independence to continue with the same policy?” he questioned.

Swamy said that myths spread by biased historians have overtaken Indian history while actual events and places in our history have been declared as myths! “Not long ago, the Saraswati river, the submerged city of Dwarka and Ram Setu were ridiculed as myths. But their reality has been proved by archaeology and satellite imagery,” he added.

Swamy gave a call to reorient the policy of the Indian state to purge from history books false chronology of ancient India and myths such as Aryan invasion and racial divide of north and South Indians. “Indians are being cheated of their true history. The time has come to write an authentic and unbiased history of India free from ideological or colonial biases,” he said.

Earlier, well-known scholar Dr. S. Ram Mohan quoted dozens of slokas from the three major code books of Hindus to prove the exalted and enlightened status women enjoyed in ancient India. “That women had no rights in ancient India is a vicious myth spread by colonial historians,” Dr. Mohan said. “The reality is that all the three ancient code books of Hindus – Manu Smriti, Narad Smriti and Yajnavalkya Smriti – have a common theme of social welfare and an egalitarian society, with a very high status assigned to women and the deprived sections.”

He said that the much-maligned Manu Smriti says the house in which women are not respected shall be soon destroyed. It directs that the daughter-in-law and pregnant women should be fed first and gives protection to personal property of women from the law of adverse possession.

“All three Smritis have recommended lenient penalties for women compared to men and have prescribed death penalty for rape of a woman under police custody,” he added. “Such kind of enlightened status of women was not found anywhere else in the world during the ancient times.”<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->