EP 247: Exploring the life and legacy of Babur - The Timurid emperor! | Aabhas Maldahiyar(Architect, Historian & Author)

[00:00:00] Namaste and welcome to another episode of the Bharatvaarta podcast. I am Roshan Karyapur.

[00:00:04] My guest today is Abbas Maldiar who is an architect by profession and a historian by choice.

[00:00:12] I speak to Abbas about his foreign history writing, his very interesting background as

[00:00:16] a committed Marxist and how that changed and what it will take for us to write history

[00:00:22] from a Bharatiya perspective. I also talked to him about his latest book,

[00:00:27] Babar the Chessboard King. We speak about how Babar was thrust on the throne at 11 years old

[00:00:33] and his conquest following that of Fargana, Kabul and of course his eventual entry into Hindustan

[00:00:40] then about the legacy and impact of Babar. If you think you know your history well

[00:00:46] this episode is going to shatter a lot of myths and perceptions around Babar.

[00:00:50] This was a fascinating conversation and I hope you like it.

[00:00:54] Welcome to the Bharatvaarta podcast. Thank you so much for making the time.

[00:00:57] Thank you and it's my pleasure to be on your show. I am looking forward to interact and chat

[00:01:02] with you on various things which you quizzed me for. I know we've been discussing this and

[00:01:07] so happy that you can finally make time for this. I feel like you have such an interesting

[00:01:12] background. We were just talking about being an architect and so on and so forth.

[00:01:18] Right. How did history writing happen? How did you discover history writing and what

[00:01:25] does that journey been like? So it's a very interesting journey. At least it's interesting

[00:01:30] for me. I don't know how people relate to it but because like any typical Bihari, I would call

[00:01:38] myself Bihari because that time it was not Jharkhand it was Bihar. So the first dream for

[00:01:45] Bihari is generally to be an IIT in. You get into an IIT or you crack the medicals

[00:01:52] or if nothing works out, please get your civil services. So there was no other way out and

[00:01:59] somehow even if your parents don't tell it, it is embedded in your mind looking at how the

[00:02:04] things transpire around you. So it was a case with me too but fortunately I am born to a

[00:02:12] historian as in my father is a historian and so beard that it was a small town where I was born

[00:02:21] Hazari Bagh in Jharkhand. And small towns have very interesting characters which you

[00:02:27] will not find in larger cities. So one such character is that the students do come for the

[00:02:34] extra classes as in because my father was a professor and but many students would not be able to make it

[00:02:43] to the classes because of other commitments which they have to do. Like small towns have very different

[00:02:48] nature as I already said that people have to do many other things apart from studies even at the

[00:02:52] younger age. So in the evenings they would come to my father to get further extra classes

[00:02:58] around history and my father deals with late medieval and early modern history.

[00:03:05] And he would talk about the British era, he would talk about what it meant to be like Mughal empire,

[00:03:13] what it was to the Indians and he would basically talk about the emperors Akbar,

[00:03:18] Babar not much about Babar and Humayun but certainly about Akbar, Jhangir Shah,

[00:03:24] Aurangzeb etc. and about Marathas and at times in passing he will give the references about the

[00:03:30] Guptas. So basically from childhood I had this thing around me, history was walking, history

[00:03:39] walked in and around with me and it so does happen that if you are inducted to some

[00:03:47] those ideas initially they always carry forward, they do happen with you keep happening. Say that

[00:03:55] somebody is having a background of his father or somebody else in the house belonging to fine art

[00:04:01] and it's quite obvious that fine art will become part and partial of his life even if he's not

[00:04:06] practicing he would like to carry collect the fine artworks curate something for his own house

[00:04:13] that connection is always there. So for me it was history and because it's quite an interesting

[00:04:19] background for me I consider myself to be a Marxist back then of course and now I'm an

[00:04:27] ex-Marxist so and you happen to become a Marxist because you feel that perhaps

[00:04:36] you will bring the revolution, you can bring the change. Yeah and it does happen that if you are

[00:04:46] born in a Hindu family the system is bit too open. It's that it just so fluidic at times there is

[00:04:55] I won't say there's a lack of discipline but perhaps this is nature of the system itself

[00:05:01] even if you do this it's fine, if you don't do this then also it's fine. There's not going to be

[00:05:07] somebody elderly in the house who will pester you all the time hey you didn't do this you must do this

[00:05:12] right there's not something called must do this and like other people who were aspiring for IIT

[00:05:21] dream science was my background and rationality automatically walks in in the mind of a Hindu

[00:05:29] because you know you are led to believe that perhaps all the traditions are superstitious.

[00:05:35] They have nothing good to offer in the society and they are the bunch of liars who tell you the

[00:05:41] lies about the idols and murtis etc and there's nothing out there in the religion except for

[00:05:47] ill practices whether it is about the casteism whether it's about the sattiprata and all those

[00:05:51] what the Marxists give you right that this is the problem of society so that was always there

[00:05:56] in the back of my mind and I was becoming a perfect fodder to be fed somewhere who would just

[00:06:04] you know end up becoming the result of that fodder coming out of somewhere would be that he

[00:06:09] would be a Marxist because the the objective of Marxism the prima facie is that you are supposed

[00:06:18] to be hating your culture and civilization to begin with you are supposed to be rationalist

[00:06:26] and to be rationalist you have to hate your civilization some I'm just telling you that

[00:06:30] how the dictate flows that's how it flows though it's though it's not the reality but these are

[00:06:35] the checklist that you keep on checking the box and you are right there on the way

[00:06:40] and I am already off from the tradition and I have joined an architecture school

[00:06:46] and the moment you get into architecture school this is a place where

[00:06:50] you are supposed to look into more and more for freedom of expression because you're supposed

[00:06:56] to create something which doesn't exist you have to imagine and imagination is all about

[00:07:01] freedom of expression and you are inducted into the ideas of the art movement say modernism

[00:07:09] postmodernism you read postmodernism you get to deconstructivism the ideas of derrida

[00:07:14] and all these guys fall into your line and if you have got interest in literature

[00:07:22] you will fall back to Marxism because this all ideas ultimately germinates from or comes from

[00:07:29] the idea of Marxism or the idea of rejecting or rejecting a tradition idea of seeing that

[00:07:35] what was in the past is wrong and we have to a kind of the or to start something new

[00:07:41] and so Marxism began to look like the vogue to me and then it will bring the change and that's when

[00:07:48] and because anybody who is dealing with any political movement say it Marxism or trying to

[00:07:54] be conservative or anything he or she will be connected with history and of course I had this

[00:07:59] pedigree already of of history because I heard the tales of history and I always saw the books

[00:08:07] of history on the bookshelves of my father so it always was there with me but now more and more

[00:08:13] the academic history began to superimpose over all the ideas what I had so it what I mean to say

[00:08:21] is that I am already believing that my tradition is wrong they were superstition they were

[00:08:28] anti women they were anti people who are low down in the hierarchy or something

[00:08:34] society was a very dark one and further on this layer of academic history was being put over

[00:08:41] whatever I was reading along with the Marxist lens so but there was an awakening and that awakening

[00:08:50] it happened somewhere down the line around 2012 or 13 and when that came in I began to look into

[00:08:57] the Indic traditions even more and the time if I can just stop here and ask you what was

[00:09:03] the trigger for you yeah so I already explained that how I had caught into the idea that Marxism

[00:09:10] can be the only solution and just to clarify to the people when even then I was quite patriotic

[00:09:18] because I felt that I have to follow Marxism because this is good for my country and every

[00:09:24] august 15 and jan 26 I would go out into the field and dig the earth to fix in the post where

[00:09:33] I will do the flag hosting so and a bsf camp was just seven kilometers away from my house

[00:09:40] and the guys would be marching in the morning and I will salute them so this was my childhood

[00:09:45] like and I felt that perhaps Marxism is the ritual I need to follow to bring good for

[00:09:51] the country but coming to the the trigger point I was working as a research assistant at a college

[00:10:02] and I had taken certain number of students to for a study trip and the trip was to Ajanta

[00:10:08] caves and the Elora caves and for the first time I witnessed the grandeur of the Elora caves

[00:10:15] and the moment I walked into it and I saw the Kailashna temple I was like wow because so far

[00:10:21] I had just drawn the sketches of Kailashna temple for 10 petty marks in history of architecture

[00:10:27] but I didn't knew that what this sketch actually looked like what it was like the details were

[00:10:34] mind-blowing it just I just couldn't imagine that what it is about that how can someone do

[00:10:40] the things at such a perfection right but that was still okay that okay you can do the grandeur

[00:10:47] and you can build giant structure with that means of detail something would have been there

[00:10:52] but what really was baffling was what I saw in Ajanta caves because Ajanta caves are

[00:11:00] the place where you have got paintings this is known for the paintings and most of the

[00:11:04] paintings are about jatakar tales and whatever but the paintings are there and the paintings

[00:11:09] are done in utmost elaboration they're very elaborate painting they're not just conceptual

[00:11:14] paintings there are a lot of details and they're inside the caves too and the caves are the places

[00:11:20] which are the dark places right you don't have a source of light so I and again the painting

[00:11:27] inside the caves two are very elaborate so I couldn't figure out how did they do this because

[00:11:33] without the light how can you do so only source of light back then was fire right or the sun rays

[00:11:40] and sun rays can't make it to that because it's a dark place of course it's a cave it was stupid

[00:11:44] to expect that the sunlight is entering and of course when you bring the fire it's again

[00:11:49] the problem because the colors which are used are organic they have been extracted from plants

[00:11:53] etc etc and any organic material when reacts with fire forms carbon right yeah so it

[00:12:01] would have just gone if they would have used fire as a source right for source of light

[00:12:07] so I'm just figuring out the guy couldn't answer me he didn't had satisfactory answer he just couldn't

[00:12:14] but in the evening we all along with the students I too met with professor this Monday who

[00:12:21] was an expert of that reason of architecture and it was a part of itinerary that we were

[00:12:27] supposed to meet professor this Monday but I did ask him this question that how did this work

[00:12:33] because I was still struggling to understand and what had and there was something which was

[00:12:41] real troubling me that this cave was unlike any other cave in general so in these caves you

[00:12:48] enter and then you step down there's a ditch large ditch inside and which normally doesn't happen

[00:12:55] in any other cave architecture normally it's either winter and it would be sloping up inside

[00:13:00] or it will almost flat and so there's it is exception if you see the ditch kind of a thing

[00:13:06] so I asked them as well why there was a ditch and how did they do the paintings

[00:13:10] is that to me that the ditches were there to do the paintings I say what do you mean to say

[00:13:16] then he had got a wooden model kept at his house of cross sectional model cross section is

[00:13:24] basically when you cut a building so that's a section of it cross section the similar thing so

[00:13:29] there was sectional model and where the ditch was already seen and what did he brought it he turned

[00:13:37] off all the light and he poured some water inside the the ditch proportion and then he brought a

[00:13:45] torch and the torch were directed in the direction of that water and suddenly the light reflected

[00:13:54] said that you know this ajanta cave is in form of a U in the plan it faces south at certain times

[00:14:01] sun is at a direction that by putting the water in those ditches those monks used to

[00:14:06] get the sun rays reflected inside and I was like wow because the guys whom I thought to be the

[00:14:12] superstitious one the ill-trades and whatnot were doing such a cool stuff they were like

[00:14:19] the you know they're using the so-called snills of reflection to generate light and do the paintings

[00:14:24] and that was a journey backward or I would say that that was a journey which would have happened

[00:14:31] say two decades back when I was three years old four five years old something like that but

[00:14:37] it did happen I began to read about the Buddhist literature and with Buddhist literature came

[00:14:44] the open inshats and it does happen that when you begin to read about religion

[00:14:48] history automatically walks in because you can't dissociate history and religion

[00:14:53] they all walk together because history is nothing but the tale of the culture of that place and

[00:15:00] religion is nothing but the reflectance of that culture if we try to be very honest about it

[00:15:05] without being politically correct religion is reflectance of the culture and vice versa

[00:15:10] so and so in the history began to came into me so and I began to look read about the

[00:15:20] the miracles in the sciences the advancement etc what we had made whether it was the field of

[00:15:25] mathematics or physics there are many things which we had done in the past

[00:15:29] so this all began to came to me and I was quite astonished that Indian past

[00:15:37] was certainly a very bright one it was certainly a place where because we have got a text which

[00:15:43] even talks about exchanges between the Greek philosophers and Indian philosophers so I'm sure

[00:15:48] that even if we make I will not make a very loud claim that everything emerged out of India

[00:15:54] but certainly I would say that even if it was emerging in Greece India to had its very

[00:16:00] sophisticated system if not advanced certainly on the parallel house how the Greeks were thinking

[00:16:06] or maybe better too but certainly we were not those kind of backward people as we have been

[00:16:11] projected as because the time when we were dealing with the universities of the on the part

[00:16:16] of the Ivy leagues etc the western world was still wearing the leather first and etc to make

[00:16:23] the living right so that's how they lived and their houses were so we were living in a very

[00:16:29] complex very civilized system back then so we were great of a great as a civilization

[00:16:36] and that began my journey into the history and that actually was a trigger point too so the both

[00:16:42] were very much related amazing so as a former soft Marxist myself I kind of relate to everything

[00:16:50] that you mentioned right because I think Marxism is so seductive in the in the sense that

[00:16:57] it offers this fast food answer to all the angst that you have as a teenage person right I mean

[00:17:03] and it's tend to externalize your grievances so to speak and want to tear down everything

[00:17:10] all old conventions and build something new bring in the revolution yeah but so glad that you

[00:17:17] know you could find your way back right we are more fortunate that that happened

[00:17:23] and your lens into history right I mean because you are an architect by you know profession training

[00:17:29] and so on right when you look at history I mean you should have a unique sense of that right I

[00:17:34] mean because you're not someone who is from the field in a conventional sense right I mean in

[00:17:40] the sense that you haven't studied like you know a typical bachelor's masters so on and so forth

[00:17:46] right and there is some you know there is some discussion on who is a historian right what does

[00:17:53] it take to be a historian right can anyone write history and if so I mean how should history be written

[00:17:59] so on and so forth I know that's like three or four questions rolled into one but I'd love to

[00:18:04] understand you know what credentials are necessary to be a historian right and you know

[00:18:12] how do you write history so again people may take an offense in this but

[00:18:19] any person who is quite objective is rational and his has got a scientific temperament

[00:18:26] and scientific temperament is also something which necessarily may not come to the guys

[00:18:30] who have a science background it can happen with anybody but these are the three basic

[00:18:36] characters that you have to be objective you have to be rational and you have to have

[00:18:40] scientific temperament of course you have to have some adore of the love for history as a subject

[00:18:46] to love for the past right so these four factors can drive anybody and they can bring up on the table

[00:18:55] what we call as history but the problem lies with the academic historiography is that like

[00:19:03] I will dive a bit into I will take a detour and I will relate it that how it works like

[00:19:11] architecture education too has gone through a lot of churning as in there was a period when

[00:19:16] there was a thought that whether we need to have physics chemistry mathematics as a main subject

[00:19:20] or not whether we'll just have mathematics and you know guy can be led to qualify

[00:19:25] to appear in the aptitude test of architecture there have been those churnings

[00:19:30] I have also seen I have seen practically seen that I won't take the name of the universities

[00:19:36] but I have seen it happening that people have discussed it over the lunch table in a staff

[00:19:42] meeting etc that let's remove the mathematics as subject because we don't have teachers

[00:19:47] right so the subjects because it happens so because architects in general have hatred for

[00:19:56] mathematics and the science I'm just trying to be as brutal and as honest as possible so

[00:20:02] even during the qualification exam right earlier in my period it used to be a IEEE

[00:20:09] CBC IEEE examination and there were separate B arch and in the separate B arch examination

[00:20:15] you would give the test of the mathematics and the aptitude test and many people who would

[00:20:20] make to the the NITs or any other place will either you know be very reluctant to know more about

[00:20:28] science perhaps they would have come here only because they hated the subject and that hatred

[00:20:34] even further carries forward when you get into the subject right you can see that

[00:20:39] you know there's a battle between the engineer and the architect all the time

[00:20:42] and of course and I do have a lot of respect for the engineers because they

[00:20:47] try to realize your dreams they are the core people and that's where many architects

[00:20:52] fail to relate to it and because architects live in their own bubble ego that we're the creators

[00:20:58] etc etc but it can't happen if engineers are not at your bay it's as simple as that so in the

[00:21:06] field of history too somehow the historiography as people tried to make it it was suited to

[00:21:12] the people who were doing it because there were no gatekeepers who were interested in

[00:21:20] making historiography happen to be an objective subject it was just that certain bunch of people

[00:21:25] say 10 20 or 30 who whatever their number would be they decided that this is the way we are gonna

[00:21:30] approach history and certain facts which have been stated this and they are the theories now

[00:21:35] so what facts get established because theory you have hypothesis you research on it and

[00:21:39] when you establish it becomes theory so like our envision theory it though there was no evidence for

[00:21:46] it but it was read as a theory from a long period and that's a premise that's a premise now you

[00:21:52] base your history on that that does a basic checklist the parameter and now you are gonna

[00:21:57] march ahead with it the basic parameter that Indian society was a casteist society and it

[00:22:02] was so ridiculous one that it oppressed everybody who was weaker right so these are the basic

[00:22:07] parameters based on which you do your historiography but what a rationalist minded to or what a scientific

[00:22:13] temperament to do is that say that okay fine I will nullify all of these things and I will

[00:22:18] try to relook at it from a perspective of someone who is trying to decipher that what

[00:22:26] happened in say 1500 BC maybe he will look at the genetic studies maybe then he will look at

[00:22:32] the archaeological evidences maybe he will look at any other inscription etc whatever would come

[00:22:40] through he will use the method of triangulation triangulation as in all the facts would be super

[00:22:46] imposed collateral and then you will come to a conclusion right they will not go ahead with

[00:22:52] a preconcept notion and this is how this supposed to be but unfortunately academic history

[00:22:58] historiography still happens that way with a set notion that this is how it happened

[00:23:03] like like Ashoka has been declared to have become Buddhist of Kalinga world this is a

[00:23:09] preset notion is still in the academic history though the primary sources denied so you pick any

[00:23:14] academic book you know though this has not been debunked even because this has always been a

[00:23:21] if you look the text of the history book I'm not referring to Pandit Javala Nehru's

[00:23:26] discovery of India let's keep it aside because that's of course there's some very incredible

[00:23:31] things in that too but the way the ancient India has been laid is a very problematic one

[00:23:38] but if we keep that aside any other book of academic interest uh non-academic interest in

[00:23:43] that era which were written purely to talk about Ashoka they're very clear that Ashoka was

[00:23:48] Buddhist even before the Kalinga war right but the moment it gets to the academic

[00:23:54] historiography of India there's a problem you see that Ashoka is becoming Buddhist after the Kalinga

[00:24:00] war so there is no enough triangulation there is no enough idea to inspect into it there is no

[00:24:09] enough conviction to really inspect history as it is you are just trying to produce pamphlet

[00:24:17] based on certain set of ideas which has been given to you so that's the reason why you see

[00:24:23] already refuted material surfacing again again a caravan posting same article every year that

[00:24:31] no Hindus destroyed Nalanda but any common sense or logic will just deny what they're trying to claim

[00:24:39] so in fact me as an architect it's not necessary that I would relate always related

[00:24:46] always with the buildings or urban planning etc but being a trained architect I have learned

[00:24:52] one thing that I don't even agree to a lot of architects because they also tend to choose a

[00:24:57] non-rational path because in as I said in a bubble of making concepts look beautiful and everything

[00:25:03] they do some very ridiculous stuff which will not happen that will exist only till the 3d renders

[00:25:09] and after that the real world is much more different right and so have the historians done

[00:25:15] the same mistake but I do see as an architect that I have to be rational it's okay even if

[00:25:22] say that I believed in something and it goes for a toss that now it's not correct so I will

[00:25:27] choose to reject that and I will accept the fact and any rational training pushes you for that

[00:25:33] so that has been quite easy for me and I won't say that it is a unique angle because this

[00:25:38] is how the angle needs to be towards a subject which is so important because

[00:25:43] you're trying to talk about certain historical figure who is not coming here to defend themselves

[00:25:49] right you're writing about them and then you can make all the bold claims and just because you are

[00:25:54] some PhD from some XYZ university so we are not going to take it under a face value rather we will

[00:26:01] ask the questions we'll ask your methodologies and that is what is happening and so maybe

[00:26:05] that many people would be not very happy me as an architect coming to do the historiography

[00:26:10] but perhaps I feel that I have chosen the path which all the historians should have chosen be rational

[00:26:16] be objective triangulate be it's okay if your preconception notion gets wrong

[00:26:23] yeah no I see that you know obviously there are so huge pushback on some of these presuppositions

[00:26:29] right I mean you know you mentioned the arian invasion theory or you know

[00:26:35] Ashoka's you know conversion to Buddhism was that before or after the Kalinga war and

[00:26:41] plenty of things post that as well right I mean and this has been led by you know the likes of

[00:26:48] Vikram Sampath you know Meenakshi Lekhiji of course has produced amazing work over the last

[00:26:53] 30 years we've had Sanjeev Sanyal on the podcast and plenty of others right I mean I do see that

[00:27:00] there's a pushback and this is from you know not necessarily professional historians like as in

[00:27:08] people who are you know would qualify as conventional historians like someone like

[00:27:14] Mr. Sanyal for example right I mean someone again like much like yourself he's also

[00:27:19] he's an urban planner right related professions not the same is what I understood

[00:27:24] in our conversation before this right right he's again looking at it from an outside in

[00:27:29] perspective but again being very rational about it looking at first so first sources primary sources

[00:27:36] looking at the scientific evidence so on and so forth and trying to make sense of this

[00:27:41] and counter these narratives right and there's been a huge outrage about this right I mean

[00:27:48] it's certainly not been easy because obviously like the vested interests have sort of cried

[00:27:53] foul about you know what this means and so on so anytime this whole rewriting history or something

[00:27:59] comes up right I mean there's a huge fuss and uproar about that right so what do you make of that

[00:28:06] so the problem lies that people are more concerned about what would happen to the papers they wrote

[00:28:13] in the past they're not concerned about what would happen to the soul of those people who have

[00:28:19] gone by the people of the past they're more worried about themselves like I'm sure that because

[00:28:26] we saw worker also believed in our innovation theory he did believe because that was a agreed notion

[00:28:34] back then but had it been alive today he'd have been happy to be said proven wrong and

[00:28:41] would have said that rather than they're not saying that he would have been happy to be

[00:28:45] proven wrong I should say that he had been happy to know that he was wrong he was one such guy who

[00:28:51] was a rationalist and who was ready to evolve himself he was ready to evolve his own community by

[00:28:57] large right so they would have been the happy people but the the certain folks who come from

[00:29:06] certain universities or who have been sitting there safeguarding the chairs of those professional

[00:29:11] historiography or academic historians they seem to be perturbed because

[00:29:18] see as I told earlier that when you begin to work with a certain checklist

[00:29:26] preset parameters that yes okay in 1500 BC Aryan came and initially invaded but later on they

[00:29:34] made it a migration someday it will become tourism etc what not I don't know what but

[00:29:40] they begin with that then comes your caste atrocities because the Aryans have come they

[00:29:46] have brought with them the Vedas and Vedas Purushukta is the source of the caste discrimination and

[00:29:53] many go even further to say that that's a source of racism which exists on the earth right when

[00:30:00] this whole thing of the black likes matter movement was picking up then they were not shy

[00:30:05] off to bring in the Vedas too into the picture they were not because India has nothing to do with

[00:30:11] what the whites are doing with the blacks or vice versa right I'm not trying to play trying to say

[00:30:17] that somebody is wrong or somebody's right but whatever is happening between the black and

[00:30:21] white or whatever has nothing to do with the Indians but they dragged Indians too into it

[00:30:26] and began to blame the Vedas and why this is happening because certain historians are giving

[00:30:32] fodder certain historians are giving all the the fuel which needs to ignite that fire right even if

[00:30:40] now somebody is saying that you know racism wouldn't have existed had Indians not been there or

[00:30:47] had they not practiced the ugly caste system right and so I'm not a caste atrocity denier I do

[00:30:55] believe that certainly something would have happened because if smoke is their fire certainly

[00:31:01] would have been there would be something for sure but it was certainly not the way they want to project

[00:31:06] it because there was a nature of society back then you talk about Egypt you talk about Iran you

[00:31:12] talk about any such place right there had been societal hierarchies where there had been certain

[00:31:20] operation it existed it was a basic human nature and I'm very sorry to tell to the people even

[00:31:25] Buddhism was not alien to it in fact during the Buddhism caste system got it got concretized

[00:31:32] and it's shown by the text and so we will not talk much about it today because this is not the

[00:31:38] subject of the day but surely if people are interested to know about it they can look into

[00:31:46] that what exactly was the caste structure during the Buddhist period too so a sect which you

[00:31:51] like to see as something which is which is a rebel against the caste system or something added

[00:31:57] it was actually talking about it and even more rigidly in fact it blames Brahmins for not

[00:32:05] marrying into their caste they're doing intercast marriages because they are now questioning

[00:32:09] the purity of the blood this is what the Buddhism Buddhism Buddhists are doing so again this

[00:32:15] is coming out from the text and I'm not here to blame Buddhism or the Buddhists for it neither I'm

[00:32:23] going to blame Hindus for anything or something neither I'm going to blame Jains for anything

[00:32:30] the ill practice at all something is there because the society of the Hindus or largely

[00:32:36] being called Hindus because all our Hindus in my eyes or the index system was always ever

[00:32:42] evolving because Sanatan is something which keeps evolving Sanatan doesn't mean that you're

[00:32:48] frozen in the time because time moves you adapt with the time you adapt with the system and

[00:32:54] that's how you evolve like how water flows it just takes the shape of the container in which

[00:32:59] you keep it in it's like a water water body so but they have been perturbed that somehow

[00:33:07] certain people are coming in who have nothing to do with academia nothing happens to me that

[00:33:14] you know what you can creep about me or you can creep about say Vikram Sampath you can

[00:33:19] creep about Sanjeev Sanyal and of course I'm too small in front of all those guys but

[00:33:24] you can creep about all of them but how can you take away other things professionally what

[00:33:31] they're doing because they don't come from their field at all right so it doesn't matter to them

[00:33:36] whatever you do you can't block their roads right they will keep doing what they're doing

[00:33:42] and that's certainly something which is troubling them because the whole case of the plagiarism

[00:33:47] which was put against Vikram Sampath that was so interesting actually because the guys who are

[00:33:52] blaming a plagiarism on Vikram Sampath say who was the lady in action or the trustee so

[00:33:59] the size of her books as in what she writes the biography is equal to the size of the citation

[00:34:05] what Vikram Sampath does so you know the bar has been raised so high now they have I'm sure that

[00:34:13] they have will have to find better ways to counter it because people don't take them seriously anymore

[00:34:17] too even in fun Habibi is coming out and saying that hey okay Mathura Ghashi was destroyed by

[00:34:22] orangia but it's known fact right yeah I mean uh and there's been more work like this right I

[00:34:29] mean every you know year we've seen a couple of books or more maybe two three others right

[00:34:35] challenging these presuppositions and that is so important for us to like counter this

[00:34:39] false narrative that's held sway in modern India right I mean thankfully that is happening

[00:34:45] at a more rapid pace I would say right but sometimes when I look at your you know

[00:34:49] Twitter timeline and so on I mean the kind of vicious trolling that happens right I mean

[00:34:55] it's just very sad to see you know for someone who is you know just trying to put some objective

[00:35:02] stuff out there how do you deal with this kind of stuff because I'm objective so I'm able to deal

[00:35:08] with it because see it's very simple that I do understand that people from all the sides

[00:35:15] carry certain emotions and I do respect it as well and that's why engage at times though

[00:35:20] people have told me not to engage and I'm trying not to engage anymore and

[00:35:23] there have been people like Amish will tell directly Vikram Sampath has told it several

[00:35:29] times no Abhas no no no only columns and books but Abhas being Abhas becomes a naughty boy and goes

[00:35:36] there and but still I'm improving and I'm telling to them as well that yes you though you complain

[00:35:43] but I'm improving I'm certainly improved guy I don't respond to the trolls but on the other

[00:35:50] side I too really respect the emotion because the respect is in this sense that either for

[00:35:59] or against pro or anti it's so beautiful that people are looking to express their emotion

[00:36:06] on something for which world was not Indian were Indian Indians were not ready to discuss even

[00:36:13] about at least a decade back or say two decades back history was the most ignored thing people were

[00:36:20] not at all interested of course we have the statistics with the books like that of Vikram

[00:36:26] Sampath selling 50 thousands and so on and on and more in fact and like how size work is selling

[00:36:32] right so we have seen the books which would have been inconsequential at least two decades

[00:36:39] back not because of the content the content is same same even if the content is similar maybe that

[00:36:45] people wouldn't have looked to engage that much social media has of course made that easier they're

[00:36:52] able to do it but it's good that they are doing I only hope that you know people don't have

[00:36:57] agendas because if you have got agenda then you will not even look to improvise upon yourself

[00:37:03] I was a Marxist but still I was a patriotic person so perhaps that's the reason why

[00:37:08] I could make a comeback and so I have a notion I believe that these guys also have

[00:37:16] they're very positive they want to do good for their country and that's why they want to troll

[00:37:20] anybody whom they feel that is not doing good for country so I don't feel angst I don't feel

[00:37:26] irritated but you feel bad at times that of course you will feel bad if you're being trolled

[00:37:32] and something and especially when you see when you something goes against your belief because

[00:37:37] what they are saying is against my belief in short right and of course I know that I have

[00:37:42] done my homework I have done certain research that's why I'm coming at it but I'm largely hurt not because

[00:37:48] of that but as I said earlier that people really take a lot of time to recover in someone hits

[00:37:53] your belief system or someone a belief system as in whatever you are believing in so they're

[00:37:58] questioning my belief for whatever I am putting across but it needs to go on and on and I'm sure

[00:38:04] that if they do read my work and they open their mind maybe that they will come to align with my views

[00:38:10] yeah no doubt about it but I would say I mean you should perhaps rank order the kind of people

[00:38:17] that you respond to right I mean only pick the ones who are truly worth it because some people are

[00:38:21] just like out there just you know just just trolling for trolling sake right yeah but you know

[00:38:28] it's comes back to that that I became a marxist only because I thought that

[00:38:34] so that insect perhaps had still not gone out of me solution still lives in you yeah it lives and

[00:38:43] perhaps it will die someday but it shouldn't die also this is what I feel that that keeps me going

[00:38:49] on and there are people who tell me that there are other people other side of people who say that

[00:38:53] okay and you know you write and everything but you should respond as well but no but it's my

[00:38:59] realization that for my own peace I should disassociate and this get dispassionate about

[00:39:06] Twitter or X what whatever it is right now because that can suddenly gives us heads likes

[00:39:12] and everything that's fine it you can feel good about that but we are here to

[00:39:18] do something substantial and the substantial thing would happen only through the books because

[00:39:25] Twitter became X tomorrow it may be zero as well I mean to say it may not exist who knows

[00:39:31] right but they are something like we are recording something right now and of course it will put

[00:39:38] across YouTube that's there even if YouTube is not their platform you have got that video

[00:39:43] it can go somewhere so it's not the YouTube what matters the content is what matters and content needs

[00:39:50] to be recorded in some way so if say X is gone where are going to be my content they need to be

[00:39:55] somewhere so then comes in the columns the articles the journals the papers the books

[00:40:01] the books are always going to be the vital thing for me yeah no I think the written word

[00:40:07] will never die right so long as we live I think I can come you know I can comfortably say that

[00:40:13] because obviously it's lindi right I mean it survived from the caves to you know from when paper was

[00:40:18] invented to now right when it's largely digital and so on so what do you think it'll take for

[00:40:25] us to develop a more conducive ecosystem for the likes of you to step in and start writing

[00:40:30] about our history because God knows we need more of this right I mean do you think maybe that you know

[00:40:38] some kind of a revamp of our of the way history is taught in schools do you think more of a focus on

[00:40:45] archaeology for example right I mean looking at things you know more from a scientific

[00:40:50] perspective that will help or do you think that people should make more movies on historical

[00:40:56] characters as you know we've seen in recent years and that will perhaps inspire a new generation or

[00:41:01] you know all of the above or something else so all these need to come into picture right because

[00:41:09] we are a wounded civilization yeah and we actually are the wounded one because of

[00:41:16] course we were the glorious civilization and I still have a belief that we have something

[00:41:23] in our pedigree because India happens to be land of extremities you have got extreme summers you

[00:41:29] have got extreme winters you have got extreme terrains you have got extreme flat plain lands

[00:41:37] so everything is a bit too extreme there you don't have anything where something meets in middle

[00:41:43] it's all extreme so we Indians have always grown looking at those extremities that if

[00:41:50] you look at a guy who's growing up there in the north he sees the most extreme of the winters

[00:41:56] it is most extreme of the summers and then still is there thriving and doing the best what he can

[00:42:02] so come to the north system belt there also the topographies what you see the

[00:42:07] but they have been made they have made the living and so we have been used to it

[00:42:12] so what so I always have had a belief that Indians can always bring more and more on

[00:42:20] table we have that potential and perhaps that's the reason why few people thought that

[00:42:27] India was the mother of civilization maybe for that reason and we are I'm sure gonna bring

[00:42:35] more and more literature into the place we are gonna bring a lot of movies in terms when

[00:42:41] I say movies I also include the video conversations what we have of course the audio versions of

[00:42:48] podcasts are there but this is gonna play a very vital role we are gonna have the discussions

[00:42:54] what people have during your travel that is gonna play a very important role as well

[00:43:00] you meet the people in the public transport if you ever share your thoughts and until

[00:43:05] unless it really becomes problematic one because I'm a guy who stands for absolute foe that is freedom

[00:43:11] of expression and I do visualize the world from that point of view that it's absolute freedom of

[00:43:17] expression you just express whatever you want to and I always give a benefited doubt to

[00:43:24] the thing which is called human being because we all are thriving or trying to be a human

[00:43:30] and while we are trying this I believe that everyone wants to contribute good so if there's a

[00:43:35] rational thought people will go up their ranks their beliefs and whatever is there besides it

[00:43:41] to take the part of the rationality what seems a sane idea they will choose it

[00:43:49] so it is bound to happen but of course the films will keep coming maybe in recent times we have

[00:43:54] seen a lot so people at times get emotional if some fact has been distorted but you know the facts

[00:44:00] can always be fixed there is no such thing that this is the final word you can always fix we make

[00:44:07] the drawings in architecture it's not that revisions cannot be made we make the revisions

[00:44:12] of drawing too though they are so important things which goes on to the side so revisions

[00:44:18] always have a scope but just because you saw an error and you stop making the drawings

[00:44:24] it will not work there can be errors there can be you can question the intent of the filmmaker

[00:44:29] you can question the integrity of the people but things will keep coming and you should we

[00:44:36] should encourage more and more those things to happen like say for example in fact Padma

[00:44:43] Vat was you know there were distortion of facts if I have to put it this way they were distortion

[00:44:49] but what that film did is that triggered a debate people came to know about Padma Vati

[00:44:56] right some ideas started brewing in their mind that what it would have been so people will

[00:45:00] at least flip through the Wikipedia page to start with right so any project even if it's

[00:45:06] showing something in a negative light it opens a scope for the people to look at it people to

[00:45:14] debate about it people to discuss about it and if there is a certain personality if he's a great one

[00:45:21] they will remain great they did not they don't need patronage of the guys like Avaz or you or

[00:45:26] any of us we have two small people in front of their personality so when you bring down

[00:45:31] hold their history in front of the people in objective sense they can choose but if they

[00:45:37] have done something really incredibly great like Shastrapati Shivaji Maharaj how we have a dirt you

[00:45:42] want to bring on them he will remain the Shastrapati Shivaji Maharaj because of the character

[00:45:48] what he owned the aura what he owned it will never change and the environment for this kind

[00:45:55] of writing etc needs to be better up and of course we are moving to do it better like I was

[00:46:01] one of the recipient of the fellowship given by RCS Foundation which was run by Asha Jadeja

[00:46:10] through the Mothwani Foundation so it was done in collaboration with Vikram Sampath.

[00:46:14] Vikram Sampath was a part of it he was a main mentor of the whole project so he chose

[00:46:20] seven of us to be the part of the scholarship as a pilot project and this book

[00:46:26] Babar is also result of that fellowship so we never had such kind of fellowship for writing

[00:46:34] which would be pro India especially or something which we can say that can support the idea of

[00:46:41] the nationalistic thought process. Now recently me and Vikram Sampath have come up with a new

[00:46:46] foundation FISCR Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research where we are looking to

[00:46:55] bring on table the work based on the original manuscripts which are written in Pali Sanskrit

[00:47:00] etc we are looking to go back to the primary sources and produce the text best on that

[00:47:06] and we are going to give the fellowship to the people as well so things are being created

[00:47:12] what earlier it was only if you can creep about our system and society you can write something

[00:47:19] as an atrocity literature then you are going to get the fellowship but the things are changing

[00:47:25] there are a lot of private players like us who are trying to do something good and of course

[00:47:30] I have very less of a contribution to even FISCR the brilliant idea was of Vikram Sampath

[00:47:35] and I am just you know like I always call him as a drone a chatter of the system that he is like

[00:47:41] one that piece where we if we follow his footsteps and I am blessed to be always being guided by him

[00:47:49] and I believe that FISCR is going to bring a lot of change in the system. Awesome awesome yeah

[00:47:57] really looking forward to that yeah and you know since we spoke about all of this stuff I mean

[00:48:02] I would be remiss to mention Shri Rajeev Malhotra Ji as well we have had him on the podcast a couple

[00:48:07] of times as well so yeah do check out that episode also all right so let's get to the book I know

[00:48:14] that you know we have plenty to talk about and you know everything that you mentioned has opened

[00:48:18] up like many more rabbit holes in my head but I'm going to stay clear of that and come back

[00:48:22] to the book first of all congratulations on you know publishing this book and I hope you'll

[00:48:28] publish many more but I'm just curious right so why Babar you know what was the process of

[00:48:36] sort of piecing all of this together I mean my understanding is that everything we know from

[00:48:42] Babar mostly is from the Babarnama which is kind of like a diary kind of a thing right so

[00:48:49] so it'd be interesting like how you kind of put everything together and made it you know relevant

[00:48:55] yeah so the first part of the question that why Babar so see initially also I said that the child

[00:49:05] who's something which always drives you through and when I was four that's when the Babari incidents

[00:49:10] had happened the 6th December 1992 I was four years some months and back then when the smartphones

[00:49:19] had not overtaken the mind the psyche of the people now you can see the kids of four five six

[00:49:25] year old also swiping through the smartphones whatever they would be doing right so back then it was

[00:49:33] just the worst of the uncles the aunts and the people around you and of course grandfather

[00:49:40] grandmother and discussions around which carried forward with you which always

[00:49:48] became became like a shadow it always was there with you so when this Babari incidents happened

[00:49:54] it was talk of the town for us as in Hazari Bhagwalas because Hazari Bag is a very religiously

[00:50:01] sensitive place especially in the time of Ramnami so now recently people would have figured out that

[00:50:08] they something called Hanuman Dhwaj and all of 50 feet 60 feet side when Pran Prathishtha

[00:50:14] happened and people were sporting those kind of dhwaj etc but Hazari Bag is known to be

[00:50:20] have the competitions of the Hanuman Dhwaj during Ramnami's so people will come with 60 feet 40 feet

[00:50:28] very large large Ramnami dhwaj huge and in the processions when the processions will pass

[00:50:36] through certain area and the reason some stone building would happen and that's also the

[00:50:41] period when Charter Nauraatri is happening so Durga Visarjan is also happening during Dashami

[00:50:48] Naumi after that Naumi the Dashami is there so at times the stone building would happen if and on

[00:50:54] Pratima of Durga Mata so something would happen every Ramnami it was a band to come out

[00:50:59] during the Ramnami's for it was considered that if you are from a good family or something

[00:51:05] you will just not walk out because you know you know the miscreants or the trouble makers are

[00:51:10] there so with that involvement when the Babri was always a talk of the town because

[00:51:17] you will understand when people have always been seeing it where Ramnami is such a sensitive matter

[00:51:22] and of course because of the faith and also secondly because of the incidences what happens

[00:51:28] so it it grabbed a lot of attention and for next two years or something the local

[00:51:34] newspapers will keep talking about the Babri uncles will talk about it my grandmother would

[00:51:42] even talk about it what happened and so every time this will be there and of course me being

[00:51:50] already getting prepared to be the Marxist till the time I become seven eight or something

[00:51:55] I saw this incident as a problematic one and I had this that a mosque was demolished

[00:52:01] which was the ugliest thing which has happened in our history

[00:52:05] so Babri to me that period meant Babar and and of course my father gave the story of the Mughal

[00:52:14] emperors Akbar Humayun not to that extent and a TV series used to come back then

[00:52:21] and it was on Akbar Akbar the great or something I don't recall the name of the year

[00:52:26] but I would religiously watch it and this that's even the the introductory song which played

[00:52:34] was very secular one trying to mix Ram and everything so Akbar was entirely secularized

[00:52:40] in that serial and of course when the Marxist phase got into me and of course and NCIT books

[00:52:48] had already done their job I had believed that not before Akbar came into the picture

[00:52:56] Bharat was ever tied into one thread as in the first guy who gave us a kind of Bharat was

[00:53:04] Jhaapana Akbar so but when it so happened that and around five years back or so the

[00:53:13] TV debate got heated up where somewhere India today had actually put a meme where it said that

[00:53:21] during the Mughal period India GDP share was 25% and I was like okay and I cross-checked the source

[00:53:29] source was Angus Madison's so that source gave even more interesting data and then already

[00:53:35] India today has given the source of people on the two sides already in the fighting mode and

[00:53:39] you know this the he did this and many what's up university Gyan is coming from both the sides too

[00:53:46] and but I thought that let me go back to the source with their quoting Angus Madison

[00:53:52] and when I looked at the source I was baffled because in 1580 that source says that our

[00:54:01] GDP share was 25% 24 point something to be precise and in 1000 C or 1080 or 80,000 our GDP share was

[00:54:13] 28.7% in 180 or 1C or 81 our GDP share was 32.7% so 32% 28% 25% and our GDP share according to that

[00:54:28] source got below China drastically for the first time during the reign of Akbar the Great

[00:54:36] so that opened up a thing and I thought that I need to give more studies

[00:54:42] and the more and more I studied the facts which came up kept on baffling me and I was

[00:54:50] of course I was troubled because the image of the secular Mughals was falling apart

[00:54:55] the loose and everything was coming into my eyes because I was told that they came and they became

[00:55:00] one of us so the facts were the numbers were showing me something else and everything else

[00:55:06] was showing me something else so I did give a lot of lectures around because after I began

[00:55:12] to put the tweet I was called to deliver lectures etc that thanks to Mohandas Bhai he said that

[00:55:19] I was PPT banale make a PPT or what are you doing I did make a PPT and after the PPT he said PPT

[00:55:26] Hoga and now why not book and of course because Babri incidence was there in the mind and then

[00:55:32] because we related with Babar and then so so why not start a series of the book

[00:55:38] so when you are starting the series of the book of course the first one is Babar

[00:55:42] and when I looked at the sources the first source of course is the Babar now that's

[00:55:48] a primary text and when I refer to translation I could see that contradiction in the translations too

[00:55:54] some very fundamental contradictions like where it's kafeer in the portion so in a translation

[00:56:01] you will find that it's written as pagans and in bracket infidels so you can't replace kafeer

[00:56:08] by pagans it that means that you have already changed the idea together it's not against

[00:56:15] so in general the Babar now my saying about talking about kafeer which is derogatory term

[00:56:21] but it's being generalized as a pagan and then in bracket it's written infidel so instead of

[00:56:27] in pagan actually it should have been only infidel if you want so such kind of fundamental

[00:56:33] discrepancies which I found that some of the translation is saying something else etc etc

[00:56:38] so that made me think that and of course the Babar now my doesn't give you sense of

[00:56:43] the context because Babar Nama is more of a personal diary to Babar it's not an autobiography

[00:56:50] so a diary is something which Babar has written with utmost sincerity but it's something which

[00:56:55] is only to himself right he's recording everything what he is facing or what he's seeing but at

[00:57:03] the same time say that he's traveling in a reason say in Afghanistan I wanted the people to know

[00:57:09] the context of that reason that say that when he's in reason the juniors so what that tribe juniors

[00:57:15] about what is their past till how long they kept facing the Islamic invaders till how long did they

[00:57:24] resist what were the resistance process what is the past of every at the reasons what Babar

[00:57:29] crossed through and what is what is the context of whole geopolitics at the same time so I

[00:57:36] tried to cover all those things and somehow it was important to bring Babar's objective biography

[00:57:44] collaborating all this context some Indian perspectives to it as well which which I would

[00:57:51] say is the first work of its type so that's how I see this work not only as a unique one

[00:57:58] not to just praise it because I have done it so but I couldn't find any such literature on

[00:58:03] Babar either it's complete glorification of Babar which ideally it shouldn't be because he was not

[00:58:10] that great of a man as his glorified neither he was that much of a villain as he is so for

[00:58:17] Bharat Varshi certainly will remain villain for multiple reasons because the moment he

[00:58:21] enters into Bharat what he did is very disastrous there are many instances

[00:58:27] so that's how the book came into being right let's look at Babar's early life right and certainly I

[00:58:36] mean he doesn't have it easy right his father dies in is an in an accident right and he is thrust

[00:58:43] to take the throne at all of 11 years old and obviously you know given the circumstances

[00:58:50] people around him are plotting to kind of dethrone him and get a more pliable person

[00:58:55] in charge so they can have their way right and this is also the time when the Muslim

[00:59:00] empires are sort of in a decline right the Abbasid then and so on Spain is not Muslim around that

[00:59:06] time right and these are the circumstances in which he ascends the throne per se and you

[00:59:13] call him the chessboard king right because he keeps moving around yeah so you know he leaves

[00:59:18] Farghani goes to Samarkand loses Farghani again comes back again loses Samarkand and then

[00:59:24] you know he is homeless for a period of time yeah and he writes about this specifically in

[00:59:32] his Babar Nama also right and somehow he sets up a kingdom in Kabul and then moves to Hindustan

[00:59:40] right but this early period of Babar right what do you make of that I mean just the

[00:59:46] circumstances in which he was you know he was thrust upon right I mean they say you know

[00:59:52] people are a product of the circumstance as well right how do you characterize that

[00:59:58] so see Babar lost his father at the age of 11 and as I said earlier too that when you read

[01:00:07] about any historical character there's a lot of grays a lot of I mean to say that there are

[01:00:14] a lot of blacks and there's a lot of white and when you mix them it becomes gray right it's

[01:00:18] not all colors basically yeah so when I was reading about it that he has lost his father

[01:00:26] at just 11 year old and he's somewhere far off right he's not in the place when his father dies

[01:00:33] and still he has collected the memories of his father so beautifully the way he explains that

[01:00:39] how he looked like he has used a humor that about how the physique of his father was

[01:00:46] he's trying to and he's writing when his father has died so at times if we just try to relate

[01:00:53] with our current times that if we have lost somebody close by and someday we all meet

[01:00:59] together and we talk all the good about him or her right so Babar was doing exactly the same

[01:01:06] in his personal diary and while he is writing it he is facing all sort of adversaries

[01:01:14] he's not having a good time for sure because apart from having lost his father his uncle is

[01:01:22] conspiring our mother is trying to come back Mahmood is trying to come the two Mahmoods one

[01:01:28] one of them is uncle from a paternal side other from a maternal side

[01:01:33] the one on the mother side with a maternal side becomes a good guy later on who supports him

[01:01:38] a lot but it is in this period who is not who is also trying to capture the Fergana

[01:01:47] and everybody has eyes on it and that's when the one of the most important villain of this whole

[01:01:55] Babar's life Shaibani Khan also comes to the picture and Shaibani is a guy like

[01:02:01] Babar moves to Samarkand Shaibani comes there then Babar gets to know that you know he wants

[01:02:11] to turn away from there gets to know that Andhijan is having a trouble he will go to Andhijan

[01:02:16] Shaibani follows so and it goes on and on even later on Shaibani is looking to come to Kabul as well

[01:02:25] so the journey for Babar was all about trying to save himself for Shaibani to a great extent

[01:02:32] apart from initial rift with his cousins etc cousin uncle and own people so so that's the

[01:02:40] point it's more like a Tamil Tom and Jerry game that you know he's just trying to be somewhere

[01:02:47] and suddenly Shaibani will appear and he will again run off from there and so he is pretty

[01:02:52] scared from Shaibani Khan too and it is quite clearly expressed in Babar Nama so his movement

[01:03:00] from one place to other and not being so powerful as in one who plays the chess will know that a

[01:03:07] king of a chess board is all but powerful it's not at all powerful because he just can't do

[01:03:13] anything you can just move one house here one house there and the most powerful guy is the

[01:03:18] wazir or the Rani right or whatever with the name we may like to call it so many people call it queen

[01:03:26] many call it mantra or the wasir right he's also dependent on all his pawns the bakes etc because

[01:03:33] he's so young he can't do the things at his own and while he's dependent he's been betrayed

[01:03:38] also by many people because everybody is trying to bake their own bread right so he's facing

[01:03:45] the betrayal so while all these things are cooking up finally he gets his first territory

[01:03:52] or because he's homeless he's thrown less as well not only is thrown less is a homeless guy too

[01:03:57] so that's the reason why when he walked into his mama's or the uncle's place in Tashkent

[01:04:03] he's so delighted to walk onto the floors of the palace yeah because he has not seen palace

[01:04:09] since ages he has been living in tents so many times people will see that it's being said in a humor

[01:04:15] that Mughal store tent meh rathay of her you know the ancestor of agmar and all lived in the tent but

[01:04:21] that's true that's not humor babel spent most of his time in the tents because he didn't

[01:04:28] had an iteratory he was just moving from here and they are safeguarding this and staying there

[01:04:32] for a while and trying to beseech another fort so he's outside the fort camping there so

[01:04:39] for that reason he was called the chessport king and many got of an opinion that perhaps this is

[01:04:46] trying to glorify babor but anybody who has played the chess would know that you should be

[01:04:53] everything in a chess but the king right so it was quite an interesting read about babor

[01:05:02] especially his initial phases of life right so now he considers an invasion to hindistan right

[01:05:09] from Kabul because there's a trade route and and so on now at this point we're talking about the

[01:05:16] 15th century or so right we've already had invasions so we've had gori ghasni the the

[01:05:25] dynasty as well and so on the lo these are of course there right how is babor invading hindustan

[01:05:32] different from the previous invasions we faced and how is it kind of similar

[01:05:38] so one thing is very important in whole babor's tenure or in fact apart from tenure

[01:05:47] in fact his initiation to enter into hindustan the motivations so he was always motivated by

[01:05:57] taimur and that he wanted to fulfill the unfinished agenda of taimur

[01:06:03] taimur has got two agendas now it's up to the reader to make out that what that agenda would be

[01:06:10] and i did apply the method triangulation i will explain how to come to that which agenda he

[01:06:15] would have chosen now first agenda was to islamize the whole world because the prophet muhammad

[01:06:24] instructed to do it and this is what yazdi the biographer of taimur is saying that is the primary

[01:06:34] intention of taimur the second agenda was to establish a kingdom in al-hind which taimur

[01:06:41] failed to do babor keeps talking about the unfinished agenda of taimur which he wants to fulfill now it

[01:06:49] keeps it can keep keep readers guessing that whether it was about establishing a kingdom in

[01:06:55] hindustan or it was just about islamization of whole of the world of which india was just a part

[01:07:02] now it is answered by another motivation what babor explains he says that i am the third

[01:07:10] tramunthana invader in hindustan after prophet muhammad who will establish a kingdom so tramunthana

[01:07:18] invader or the tramunthana is basically the reason of the hilly region of afghanistan

[01:07:25] where he's trying to and the two guys whom whom he mentions are ghasni and gori so first is ghasni

[01:07:32] in his eyes second is the gori is the guy and the third is he so ghasni and gori are known for what

[01:07:40] they were the idol breakers so he's kind of following in their footsteps yeah and he declares it that

[01:07:46] first was ghasni and then he sees all these guys as inconsequential the khalji's and the lothis and

[01:07:52] which many times vikram sampat says and then people get annoyed that oh lothi were obsecure

[01:07:57] people as they are calling he they had such a big traitory and all but

[01:08:00] babor doesn't consider them's consequential so bhabar says that first was ghasni second was gori and

[01:08:07] third is me so now what this is gonna do is fulfill his act is necessarily gonna fulfill the agenda of

[01:08:17] taimur and i triangulate and i i'm i'm convinced that he wanted to not only invade hindustan

[01:08:24] or establish a and establish a kingdom but he also wanted to islamize right which becomes very clear

[01:08:32] in the acts which he would do in the days to come and of course the situation of hindustan was

[01:08:41] really much more better and he was really looking for a better kingdom what had happened that

[01:08:47] till 1509 as in till when the shai bani khan died he kept on threatening he was all

[01:08:52] threatening the Kabul so and of course he saw hindustan is on a great land with a lot of

[01:08:59] opportunities in terms of a lot of gold and silver flowing so you have got a lot of money

[01:09:05] you've got a people he has he said that who are great artisans and not only they are great

[01:09:09] artisans they are docile people who will just do what you want them to do and he mentions

[01:09:13] this all in bhabar nama so he sees that to build a great empire what you need you need people

[01:09:19] to build for you you need money resource everything so it's easily available like it's so easy to trade

[01:09:27] in hindustan establish an empire so why won't he come here so that necessarily uh is makes it

[01:09:35] quite unique because uh he is looking to to replicate the same thing what ghasni and gori

[01:09:42] had done but with the added layer of establishing a kingdom so perhaps i don't say that the

[01:09:48] khilji's didn't want it to slimmize but perhaps they didn't had the scale or the intent

[01:09:56] or the conviction to that intent what ghasni and gori had so you can't compare the islamists for

[01:10:02] sure that islamism is islamism at the end of the day but in bhabar's opinion those two guys were

[01:10:10] something kind of tells you what the person's motivations are when you compare his idols

[01:10:17] who he is trying to emulate basically so bhabar defeats ibrahim lodi and he sets up and kind of

[01:10:28] consolidates and now he is technically the first mughal ruler i mean the founder of the mughal

[01:10:38] dynasty but it's very interesting i mean you mentioned he is i mean on his mother's side

[01:10:45] he is actually related to gengis khan right but on his pattern aside he is actually

[01:10:52] related to thaymor right but he originally considers himself as a thaymorid right so i mean

[01:10:59] should we call it a mughal dynasty or yeah a tumult dynasty right it's very interesting that if a

[01:11:04] question is asked to you in examination of civil services even that who founded mughal empire

[01:11:10] then your answer has to be bhabar or else he will get zero marks or maybe negative if there's

[01:11:15] negative for the wrong answers right but so big but the truth be said that there was no empire

[01:11:21] called mughal empire to start with there was a mughalistan which was headed by the gengis khan

[01:11:26] and his people later on right apart and again here we have to clarify i think mughal is basically

[01:11:33] mongol and persian yeah yeah so not many people know that it's a corrupted form like

[01:11:40] turkuparsian language or they later on begin to call it as mughal right and what was the

[01:11:46] religious characteristic of the mongols yeah okay so i will dive a bit back into it at the time

[01:11:52] it will be important for people to know to make a distinction that gengis khan is a is a mongol

[01:12:00] right and changis and taimur both have common ancestor as in tumane khan tumane khan is say

[01:12:10] generation one changis is in generation five and generation ten is taimur so by ethnicity or by

[01:12:21] race they all are mongol mongols but taimur didn't consider himself to be mongol he was more

[01:12:31] aligning himself to the persian culture aligning to the persian culture means that

[01:12:38] so you have to first understand that what a mongol culture was about mongol culture was highly

[01:12:43] secular it so changis khan basically was secular killer so when i say secular killer it means

[01:12:50] that he killed everybody without asking that which religion you belong to and in fact he persecuted a

[01:12:57] lot of muslims because a lot of muslims were their enemies not because they were muslims so he was

[01:13:01] killing them just so happened that enemies were muslims it is proven by a fact that

[01:13:07] he was also given a title of defender religion with a certain set of muslims because he had

[01:13:12] protected them too so it white washes the point of view that he hated the muslims that way and

[01:13:19] he wanted to kill all of them but at the same time there was certain though his state was very secular

[01:13:26] and that anybody can practice any religion what they want to there was no state religion

[01:13:32] but still he had two restrictions on the muslims restriction was a there was been there will

[01:13:39] be no halal slaughter b there will be no sharia he necessarily meant that you can worship or

[01:13:47] pray to anybody you want to but you have to stick to the mongol culture and so mongol culture

[01:13:54] necessary means that you were supposed to follow the law of the mongols sharia nain chalega sharia

[01:14:00] can't work so i don't know whether it's a uniform civil code or whatever maybe like to see it as

[01:14:05] so there was something in which the law of a different culture will not work because

[01:14:13] what islam does is that it inheritates the culture from arabian idea because that necessarily it is

[01:14:21] and just to again clarify to the people that khan is not a muslim surname it's a regional

[01:14:27] surname so if anybody has a title or surname called khan it necessarily has nothing to do

[01:14:34] with islam but it has actually to do with the mongol reason people may not be knowing it

[01:14:40] because it may have run from the family line the khan to khan chala aya but actually it's not a religious

[01:14:47] surname so you have taken a surname of a central asia basically now these guys are secular

[01:14:56] taimur is religiously fanatic he wants to slimmize whole of the world as i explained earlier

[01:15:03] and he has two dreams a dream is to become the caliph or the caliph caliph is basically the person

[01:15:12] who heads the islamic reign and he also wants to become the khan khan is the chiften of the mongols

[01:15:21] he can't become the khan because he's not in the line of the changis other gangis

[01:15:27] and he can't become the caliph because it doesn't come from a particular family which

[01:15:31] becomes a caliph so what he does is that he propagates a mythology that i have been ordained by

[01:15:39] Allah that i am your prophet kind of a person and so and it happened in the middle ages that

[01:15:45] if a royal blood or somebody at higher ups propagates and it happened everywhere it happened

[01:15:49] in india too so that you just fall in the trap of a mythology which has been created

[01:15:55] so he is now seen as somebody as same as the prophet or something like that

[01:16:01] necessarily not exactly equal to prophet but something like that so that part is sorted to

[01:16:05] become someone like caliph second to become as powerful as the khan he marries into the

[01:16:12] house of the gangis khan and after marrying there he puts his puppet there and try begins

[01:16:19] to control those guys and at the same time he takes the title of amir and calls himself gurkhania

[01:16:28] gurkhania means son-in-law in mongol language and the empire what he establishes now what

[01:16:34] amir taimur establishes is called timurid gurkhania empire it's not mongol because

[01:16:40] mongol empire is pretty secular but by then the mongols have also converted to islam that's

[01:16:46] why taimur also is muslim right now so there has been conversion in fact conversion also had a very

[01:16:52] interesting history that it was a battle between the two grandsons of gangis khan so one is helagu khan

[01:17:04] and the second is the barqa khan they cross the source because barqa khan is a recent convert

[01:17:10] to islam he's converted by a sufi he's the first mongol guy to get converted into islam

[01:17:15] and he is quite pissed off to see that helagu khan is had destroyed islamic culture so the fall

[01:17:27] of bagdad has happened the bagdad has been sacked califa has been killed the and he's progressing

[01:17:33] further to misopotamia and all those reasons to further destroy and it's almost certain that the

[01:17:39] islamic reign will come into to end and people are petrified really the muslims are worried

[01:17:44] and that's when the helagu khan the barqa khan comes into picture and he says that how can brother do

[01:17:50] this and he talks to his father jochi jochi khan is the son of genghis and perhaps even to morke

[01:17:58] who is the other the brother who is hitting the golden horde this time of the khan's and

[01:18:04] they said i don't like what helagu khan is doing and then they they go into the battle

[01:18:10] in which helagu khan is defeated and had helagu khan not been defeated the fate of the islamic

[01:18:17] influence would have been much more different it people may not like to listen it but islam was

[01:18:22] using to exist back then and that stopped it would have stopped had this battle would have

[01:18:28] left a different consequence so i'm just giving this background so that people get to understand

[01:18:34] what mongol and the timurid etc means yeah yeah 13th century and this is when when all these things

[01:18:43] have happened now the persecution of christians become a regular phenomenon in the mongol traditions

[01:18:47] which was not the case earlier because helagu khan was a historian christian himself and so they

[01:18:54] practice different kind of religions different people but christians are facing very bad time

[01:18:59] and later on by the period of say and babar established empire which was nothing but timurid

[01:19:07] gurkhani empire 2.0 of course he didn't call it 2.2 but i'm just saying trying for the people's

[01:19:12] convenience i'm telling that this is what he did and he hates mughals mughals are the people

[01:19:18] who are from the lineage of so he says in babarnama that wherever the mughals or the

[01:19:23] mongols come there is unrest there's no peace there are troublemakers and he's abused them like

[01:19:30] anything so so you are calling them him to be the founder of our empire of those whom he abused

[01:19:38] so this doesn't fit right in the bill of the truth right right so how would your character is

[01:19:47] babar as a ruler i mean was there a lot of loot and plunder or you know did he settle down in

[01:19:54] india for good kind of embrace uh indians and indian culture uh so on and so forth

[01:20:02] yeah so what are the common misconceptions with respect to that and what is the truth

[01:20:07] so babar was certainly not one who became indian for sure because he had more ador and love

[01:20:15] for kabul for very obvious reason that i won't say that it was hate for india but it was love for

[01:20:22] kabul rather because kabul gave him the fame which no other place could because he first rises from

[01:20:30] racks to riches only in kabul so people can keep on imagining him as being shown in the film as

[01:20:37] some very wealthy guy and all those things and someone who is very powerful etc but he was

[01:20:42] chessboard king and he rose to the fame and to the glory and his golden period began only coming

[01:20:50] to kabul so that's the reason why he even wanted to be buried in kabul not that he hated india

[01:20:56] though there are certain texts where he has criticizing indian climate so criticizing

[01:21:00] indian climate etc or the people doesn't mean that he hates india in general or something it's

[01:21:06] it will be a bit too strong of a claim to make but he choose to be buried in kabul because he

[01:21:12] had certain thing for kabul and for anybody or any one of us we always have certain place for

[01:21:18] certain people we have certain place for certain places which have been responsible or who have

[01:21:25] been responsible for our rise there are certain things so what's with babar too there's nothing

[01:21:29] wrong in it but he certainly was not someone who became one of us or didn't loot he carried a lot

[01:21:40] of plunders to us bigistan the wealth was distributed to his bakes the wealth was distributed to his

[01:21:48] amiz and he has given all the account in babar nama that how much of gold how much of silver

[01:21:55] what made out of gold and silver have been taken what else he has taken he has given

[01:22:00] detailed account of it so plunder was really made and he was quite clear that you know he is

[01:22:07] made the distinctions that he is not gonna be somebody else but he's gonna be ghasni and gori

[01:22:14] 2.0 right so what ghasni and gori did they just did the persecution of hindus and destroyed our

[01:22:21] temples and took the plunders away as simple as that he did exactly the same thing he was

[01:22:29] following the same model and because we are talking about plunder and because the discussion

[01:22:35] is more about babar but i like to bring the notice of the people that plunder didn't stop there

[01:22:42] and that's the reason why what we spoke initially GDP per capita growth was negative i don't know

[01:22:49] whether spoke about it initially or not so GDP per capita growth of hindustan was negative

[01:22:58] growth rate was negative growth basically 1500 to 1820 it means that if you are boasting at one

[01:23:05] site that our GDP per GDP share was 25 percent and the growth was negative it actually reflects

[01:23:13] so negative of that green map which you always show us that this was the empire which made

[01:23:18] India a great one because the people were becoming poorer right so and it is also evident from the text

[01:23:25] and other incidents which happened back then like to bring to light one of those incidents is about

[01:23:31] the Taj first more to do with the Shah Jahan but it's important that people know about it

[01:23:37] because it broke my heart when i read about the Taj again people might be expecting that i'm

[01:23:42] gonna tell them the tale of thousands of hands being chopped off and all but no that's very

[01:23:47] far from truth we don't have any of Shah Jahan's love for Montaz Mahal yeah so but what it really

[01:23:53] so even my childhood like anybody of us would was that if you go to Delhi there was an obvious

[01:24:00] ritual that you have to go to Agra and have a pic from a Kodak camera of course click one of those

[01:24:07] yeah photographs yeah people many won't know that what kind of cameras used to exist back

[01:24:11] then right we don't had these cameras the type of cameras what we have today and but you have

[01:24:16] to be in front of Taj and that's what you're supposed to but when i began to honor the truth about

[01:24:23] on the whole empire and especially when i reached the section of Shah Jahan it's baffled to know that

[01:24:31] when the Taj was commissioned i will use it i'm commissioned because many people have a

[01:24:35] belief that it was already a structure existing so i have not gone through the primary sources

[01:24:42] i will not make a claim whether it was existing structure or not but it was certainly a structure

[01:24:46] which was commissioned whether it was working over the existing or not but something was commissioned

[01:24:52] as a musulian for Moom Taj so it was for cost of 4.18 silver silver coins so it means around

[01:25:06] 4 crores 18 lakh silver coins were used to commission this structure and this is happening in 1630s

[01:25:16] early 1630s when Surat Malwa and Deccan that in Gujarat and Dakshan Deccan is suffering from

[01:25:24] worst of the famine and around 7.4 million people have succumbed to death because of it

[01:25:31] and that famine interestingly was created by our lover boy Shah Jahan

[01:25:38] he did it and it becomes more problematic because what has happened that the the governors who are

[01:25:48] operating from these reasons have revolted against Shah Jahan and he doesn't likes it

[01:25:54] but these are the reasons which gives the maximum revenue to Shah Jahan Malwa for example is the most

[01:26:00] fertile belt and it gave him revenue of around 53 percent so i thought that how can i let it go

[01:26:07] if it doesn't belong to me it can't do you the people who have betrayed me and they have

[01:26:14] the rebels have joined hands with Adil Shahis who are enemies of Shah Jahan or the Mughal

[01:26:21] or Timurid Empire to be precise because there was no empire called Mughal Empire

[01:26:26] and so Shah Jahan sends his army which goes and ravishes the crops destroys the crops

[01:26:35] when the horses passed over the earth of the soil which is fertile it got barren for a certain

[01:26:40] period because when the horses run on it it is not fit to grow the crops again rain didn't

[01:26:46] happen and coupled with the lack of rain and the destruction of the crops we got a famine

[01:26:52] which led to a death of around 7.4 million people or around 75 lakh people and just to put in

[01:27:01] perspective the Marxist blim Churchill for the famine which he created in 1943 in Bengal

[01:27:10] which led to a death of around 3.4 3.5 million people around 4 million here the death toll is

[01:27:17] almost twice that number population certainly was proportionately very less compared to what we had

[01:27:24] in 1943 yet the Marxists like to see Churchill as the villain but they don't want to see Shah

[01:27:32] as a villain or a genocide maker right he also created a genocide by that and the and the

[01:27:40] feminist eyewitness accounts are so troubling because Peter Mundi who was eyewitness he says that

[01:27:47] the people are eating from the excreta of the dead so more and more what he has written it's

[01:27:54] troubling when you read about it so that's the legacy what Babar had left

[01:28:01] so it began somewhere and it didn't end in the right direction we can we know that what Orang

[01:28:06] Jeb did it was the worst of all but it's not that the great guy Shah Jahan the great

[01:28:12] architect was doing something beautiful right how was Babar as a person you know we've talked

[01:28:18] about him as a ruler you know certainly grew up in difficult times right he seems to have been a

[01:28:26] good poet as well right but what are some nuances about his individual character or his family life

[01:28:36] and him as a person some some new things that you discovered along the way there were a lot

[01:28:41] actually because Babar in general was a great poet for sure I will I will be an admirer of

[01:28:47] Babar for his poetry for sure and but again that certainly can't wash away what he did in Hindustan

[01:28:56] whatever like taking the title of Ghazi and after having killed so many Hindus and being proud of

[01:29:05] it creating the skull towers etc so anything is not gonna take away from what I did but

[01:29:14] having said that yes he was marvelous as a poet he was a family man too because he

[01:29:23] had this you know the more and more you read Babar Nama you see that this guy is trying to

[01:29:29] remember his father almost all the time you see that he's so connected to his grandmothers as

[01:29:34] in one from the maternal another from the paternal side he is really worried about his wife's too

[01:29:40] he's worried about his cousins that how they are you know if he's finding them

[01:29:48] wrong company he's trying to ensure that they come to the right company and

[01:29:53] they become good people this is what Babar wants so you always see him being very caring for his

[01:29:59] family very caring for his people and even the plunders what he did in Hindustan like

[01:30:05] carrying away the gold and everything which was a disastrous which the villainous act but again

[01:30:13] while he's doing this funnily he's saying that how much he has given to his this cousin and

[01:30:18] all those people so he always had his own his people in good books he always had it

[01:30:24] and at the same time the certain traits of him like which

[01:30:28] a lot of people want to idealize Babar but this is troubling facts like Babar in my opinion was

[01:30:35] bisexual Babar was alcoholic in nature in the later part of his life so there's a very interesting

[01:30:44] story of Babri so Babri is a young lad of around 12 years old and he has found him he as in Babar

[01:30:54] has found him during his first marriage to Aisha Aisha Begum so when he's married to Aisha Begum

[01:31:02] he states in Babar Nama that he is very unattractive to his first wife and he doesn't want to spend

[01:31:09] time with her in fact he never walks into her room or the place where she lives in but while

[01:31:14] he's talking about this unattractiveness towards his wife he's talking about passion compassion

[01:31:19] and love for a lad called Babri whom he has found in Camp Bazaar and he's saying that I'm

[01:31:25] maddened in the love with this guy called Babri he's writing beautiful poems for Babri so many

[01:31:32] people will not be able would be saying that how can you call him to be a bisexual or homosexual

[01:31:40] or whatever but it so happens that while he is making a comparison that he's unattractive

[01:31:47] to his wife and he's talking about Babri and he's saying that I'm maddened in the love with this lad

[01:31:52] so you can't make out anything but you have to accept that he was bisexual so this is something

[01:32:00] then again his alcoholic trait so people who want to idealize Babar they're names like Babar which

[01:32:08] are being taken by a lot of people in Pakistan and so yeah and it's you know one famous cricketer

[01:32:16] at least yeah now the question arises that you generally idealize the people whom you see some

[01:32:24] good trait in right people can take the names like Moor and whatever so of course there the name

[01:32:32] has got certain meaning we do understand but will you ever imagine someone you know even if he's a

[01:32:41] German or say a Christian for that sake taking a name Hitler in the time of now naming his son

[01:32:48] as a Hitler of course I don't know whether Hitler has got some meaning or not because many English

[01:32:53] names are meaningless I know it they're just the sounds right but despite that is it really

[01:33:01] possible for anyone to idealize who perhaps will not fall at all in your ideal so what you are looking

[01:33:08] upon Babar at for because he was bisexual I don't I know that you're not going to support it

[01:33:15] the at least the people who are trying to idealize him he was alcoholic I don't know then third trait

[01:33:22] he is hate for the people who worship the idols the Hindus so are you choosing him just because

[01:33:31] he slaughtered the Hindus how you gonna choose him just because he took the title of Ghazi

[01:33:38] are you gonna idealize him just because he said that I am third in the line after Ghazni

[01:33:43] and Gori because in Pakistan we know that the missiles are also names of the Ghazni and

[01:33:48] Gori right so we understand that point so can you really make us clear that what your idea trying to

[01:33:55] idealize Babar for because certainly doesn't stand to the idealistic principles of Islam

[01:34:02] and if you're seeing him as a revert figure in Islam and you don't have any abuses for him but

[01:34:08] you have all the good words then of course it then reflects upon that are you choosing to

[01:34:14] say that you have got certain hatred for the Hindus so I'm just making it quite open and I'm just

[01:34:21] posing a question to them that for what do you idealize a guy like Babar

[01:34:25] what do you have in the book from him at best he is complicated at worst he is you know all of

[01:34:33] those base things that you mentioned right of him certainly you know I mean those who are

[01:34:42] idealize him or want to emulate him should certainly question the traits that they want to

[01:34:46] kind of emulate for sure right and what their motivations are certainly so Babar dies at 47

[01:34:54] right is that kind of the norm around the time I mean in terms of average age lifespan and so on

[01:35:00] or I mean he's still a little young for yeah he's still young because his father did write

[01:35:06] quite early but there were certain people who were around him who died at very late age say 80s and

[01:35:14] the things like that so Babar died quite at an early age and because we have seen about a few of

[01:35:23] the Sufis homies speaks about they died late in the age but again it was more like a very

[01:35:31] I would say that it was very it's a I would have a mixed opinion about it because I can't be very

[01:35:37] sure but there were a lot of cases and incidences which I came to know from Babar Nama where people

[01:35:41] died at early age and there were many who lived very long right there is this story right and

[01:35:46] again you can kind of separate whether what what is myth and what is reality there is a story

[01:35:52] that Humayun falls ill right and Babar prays that you know let him live right and then he recovers

[01:36:00] and then Babar falls ill after that and shortly after that he dies right I mean is that real

[01:36:07] so that's the narrative which we have and I'm gonna reveal it in my sequel

[01:36:14] so there is a lot more to it and in fact there are many other subjects

[01:36:18] in which I will deal with and certainly the truth which will come is is going to be far from what we

[01:36:25] know as a popular narrative. So finally when we look at Babar right what is his significance because

[01:36:33] you know we're talking about the Babri Masjid today right obviously he spawns the Timurid

[01:36:42] dynasty right afterwards right Humayun and everyone down to the Zafar and whoever right

[01:36:50] a good 400 year sort of or maybe 250 years 150 around 150 years of rule right yeah so when you

[01:37:02] consider all of those things right what is Babar's legacy. So his legacy is certainly a tainted one

[01:37:09] to start with I won't consider his legacy to be a glorified one which many people try to make out of

[01:37:15] it but more or less how did it impact India. Hey there's a very big impact I would say that had

[01:37:23] the Timurids not come into Hindustan perhaps our education system would have been much more

[01:37:29] better we wouldn't have fallen to those dark ages because the whole era of the Timurids was

[01:37:36] a dark period where we didn't build a lot of universities what lot of we didn't build any

[01:37:42] universities we didn't invest in the research and technologies so like I would say Bharat as a pioneer

[01:37:50] of the science and technology at least in terms of the ideas if not the applications but

[01:37:56] what really went wrong that when in the period of enlightenment and all of course

[01:38:02] enlightenment or something which is non-religious they were religious angle to it too but still

[01:38:07] the scientific discoveries were happening outside India but what happened that suddenly

[01:38:13] India's had a full stop to it we didn't have much of the work happening if they were sure

[01:38:19] the patterns of rationality if they were patterns of secularism and if they're

[01:38:24] patterns of what you say the most rational thoughts they would have invested in universities

[01:38:32] rather than investing on their own luxuries and etc yeah so Babar's legacy is all about

[01:38:41] the dark from bringing the dark phases to India and certainly that is something which pushed

[01:38:48] us so backward and in fact they are the people who are responsible for the entry of British

[01:38:53] too because Thomas Rowe got to get inside Bharat only the time of a Temurid ruler

[01:38:58] he gave him the permission and that's how the things begin in Surat right so finally

[01:39:05] what do you hope to achieve from this book so intent is to really make a case study

[01:39:14] it be use a case study that's how to do an objective biography because I have put all

[01:39:20] my efforts to be as objective as possible while writing about Babar so he's a character whom I will

[01:39:26] never be able to look at as hero or somebody and it's a very antithesis isn't it that most of the

[01:39:32] time you write the biography of the people whom you see as hero most of the times and of course

[01:39:38] Vikram Sampath is doing Tipu Sultan in the days to come he also doesn't see him as hero but

[01:39:45] it's very important to talk about the people who have been enemies of Bharat

[01:39:52] what they were who they were like and what really transpired in the mind and in the actions

[01:39:58] on what transpired as an action in around them that led to what they did is very important to

[01:40:03] know because the case studies of your enemies or who happened to be the people who destroyed

[01:40:11] your culture and tradition is at most important because we are at a junction of a time where

[01:40:18] the times are quite volatile we see that something keeps on erupting every day

[01:40:23] like the organizations calling upon Gajwai Hind in Bharat in a certain period but they have set a

[01:40:29] timeframe too right that by this period we will be able to achieve the Gajwai Hind so when

[01:40:35] all these ideas are cooking around us it's important that we go back into the roots right because even

[01:40:43] when the Lavi was crying that the empire of the Mughals have ended with the Aurang Jai

[01:40:51] and the Jats and the Rajputs and the Marathas have become the powerful and they're the notorious

[01:40:55] one who are further crushing Islam so he was also referring to the empire of the Mughals

[01:41:02] so they have always been certain force which brought on the Islamization of Bharat to the

[01:41:08] largest of the extent they did and so it becomes of utmost importance to know about their legacy

[01:41:17] it's becomes of utmost importance to know about their foundational years so that way this book is

[01:41:22] not only gonna set a way how to look at objective biography even of your enemies I do see him as

[01:41:28] enemies of India but at the same time it also gives you enough data and information that what

[01:41:37] exactly was happening that in the era of the disinformation because most of the times you will

[01:41:43] circulate it with a lot of disinformation to the whatsapp and other social media mediums

[01:41:51] but you need to have something very handy at your base which is based on the primary sources

[01:41:57] not everybody would be able to come through the primary sources it does happen say that

[01:42:01] when you want to pick the books on roman empire you have a series of the books

[01:42:05] that you know that where you're gonna go when it comes to the Mughals or Jajunath Sarkar did

[01:42:11] amazing job with Aurang Jai but do we have a collection of our books one two three four

[01:42:16] all stacked together like how we have Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones that this is

[01:42:20] the book to go for so what I'm trying to achieve is that set a series of the books in

[01:42:25] that line which can be a go-to literature to know about them very objectively of course the evils

[01:42:32] what they have done will not be overseen I will certainly go into the minutries of the details

[01:42:38] of that but I will also put other parts of the the empires as well so that people can look at it

[01:42:44] very objectively a 360 degree view but they know the truth as it is right fantastic I mean that's

[01:42:51] that's an amazing amazing endeavor and I really hope that you're able to achieve all of that

[01:42:57] you have this quote upfront in the book that a generation that ignores its history is doomed

[01:43:02] to repeat it something to that effect right and you know sometimes when I think about it so many

[01:43:08] of our hopes and fears insecurities aspirations all of these I mean they're such old emotions

[01:43:14] right I mean the ideas itself that we are seeing today you can find a precedence to it maybe

[01:43:20] 500 600 years back you know back to a totally different time completely unrecognizable right

[01:43:28] you mentioned a sequel right you mentioned a series of books so what can we expect from

[01:43:34] our boss in the next you know your couple of years time so we are targeting to bring

[01:43:39] the sequel of the book next year okay so I'm getting bit too ambitious of targeting it

[01:43:44] to hit the stores in January or 22 22 January 2025 the sequel comes with that that's the target is

[01:43:53] but let's see how publishers plan to bring it on and the sequel will certainly cater to a lot of

[01:43:59] things including some ideas about the case studies on how the persian islamization happened

[01:44:06] at how persia got dislimized what was geo politics when the time when babbar is looking to enter

[01:44:12] into hindustan like the european colonization has also begun so a view of the world around when so

[01:44:21] so that i want to build a case that what babbar did was nothing but also a form of a colonization

[01:44:27] so it was a timurid colonization in my eyes and at the same time i would certainly be diving

[01:44:33] deep into the rest of the life of babbar and humayu humayu will also be covered along with this

[01:44:39] with a elaborate nuanced way to look at what exactly had happened with ram mandir at iodha

[01:44:46] and so yeah so these are the things which is gonna be which are gonna be covered in the sequel

[01:44:52] and then so on and on it will go on with akbar jhangi's shajahan and the guy called orang jave

[01:45:00] of course awesome and i'm sure there's going to be plenty of new details that will be revealed

[01:45:07] right so thank you so much again abbas for this this has been a splendid conversation i mean i can

[01:45:13] continue but i'm sure that you know we have a schedule so hopefully we'll have you back on the

[01:45:20] podcast to talk about plenty of these things again phenomenal stuff thank you for your contribution

[01:45:25] to our history and for reviving a sense of you know patriotism and ethos of dharma in the

[01:45:33] country my pleasure it was really pleasure being on your show thank you so much all right folks thank

[01:45:40] you so much for joining us on this podcast do share this content widely with your friends and family

[01:45:46] and i'll see you on another episode