Statement By Aligarh Historians Society

WE should like to draw attention to the way Sir Syed Ahmad Khan has been portrayed in the new NCERT textbooks for Class IX, titled “Contemporary India”, authored by Hari Om and others. This book on pages 26-27 gives a very objectionable account of our University’s founder. The account comes under the very tendentious heading “Emergence of the Muslim League” though Sir Syed had died in 1898 had no connection with the Muslim League (founded in 1906). The account begins by declaring that Muslims had participated in the 1857 uprising, not (like the Hindus, presumably) for the country’s freedom, but “in order to regain the ground lost and restore the Mughal empire to its pristine glory”. After this bit of insinuation, it goes on to say that Sir Syed “realised that the British rule had come to stay and its hostility to the Muslims will only help and strengthen the rising Hindu elite” – as if the guiding principle of Sir Syed’s effort was not the spread of modern education, but hostility to the Hindus.

Hari Om then goes on to make the utterly false statement that the British so favoured Sir Syed that they “invited him (Sir Syed) to England”, whereas the British had nothing to do with his trip, which was made at his own instance and expense.

A calumny is also made against the Aligarh Movement when it is stated that ‘one of the aims of the Aligarh movement was to “make the Mussalmans of India worthy and useful subjects of the British Crown”. Hari Om quotes these words as if these have come from any document of the Aligarh Movement, whereas the Aligarh Movement is only a general name for the movement based at Aligarh to promote modern and scientific education. There could have been no declaration of any sort made on its behalf; and it included both loyalists of British rule and nationalists, a point which Hari Om deliberately hides.

Hari Om’s account of Sir Syed Ahmad’s criticism of the Indian National Congress also misrepresents his position, giving it a purely communal colour. It is clear from Sir Syed’s Lucknow and Meerut speeches, which Hari Om mentions, that his opposition was not on communal, but other grounds.

Nowhere does the textbook make any reference to Sir Syed’s ardent support of the cause of modern education and to his making no distinction between Hindus and Muslims in the pursuit of this cause.

How tendentious Hari Om is may be seen from his treatment of Dayanand Saraswati on p.22. Dayanandji’s slogan “Back to the Vedas” is acclaimed as a nationalist slogan, despite its totally religious character. Hari Om does not at all mention that Dayanandji always affirmed full loyalty to British rule.