Dear Social Science teachers, It is said that one of the important roles of history teaching-learning is to examine data/evidence from past events/stories and make judgements of the past , for the present and the future .....
In my opinion, we are seeing quite a bit of intolerance to dissenting / differing views and that is dangerous for democracy. The recent cold blooded murder of Srinivas in Kansas by a person who believed Srinivas to be an illegal immigrant is an example. Many believe this murder was associated with the larger climate of hate and intolerance being built in the election campaign in the US. I can see parallels of this crime with what is happening in India, with Akhlaq lynched by a mob, his crime being that he had meat in his fridge. I am not wanting to argue if the meat was beef and if it was a crime to have it in his fridge. My argument is what right did a group of people have to take justice in their hands and kill him. Even the state delivers a death sentence only after lot of due processes. Neither the white man in Kansas, nor the mob in UP had this right. I was distressed to read in today's paper the kind of foul language used against a Delhi University student (Martyr's daughter faces 'rape threat' on Facebook <http://www.deccanherald.com/content/598675/martyrs-daughter-faces-rape-threat.html>). As the revolutionary Voltaire said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it...: In my view, history teachers have a very very very important role in teaching tolerance and acceptance (even celebration) of diversity of beliefs, faiths and cultures. We cannot silence voices through violence but only reason through arguments... As sociology teachers, see the challenges of today's environment and incidents that affect peace and harmony. As teachers of sociology and political science , bring in examples of diverse views and the contestations/disagreements and negotiations between diverse ideas and cultures will help students get a feel of the complexities of contemporary social and political realities. And of course as young minds what they can think of and do to make democracy more meaningful to them and to their fraternity.... I shared my views, disturbed by the news from Delhi. Comments, feedback, thoughts welcome.... Sharing below an article from DH yesterday about how Aurangzeb was perhaps not a bigot as is widely believed and taught .... regards, Guru Source - http://www.deccanherald.com/content/598595/view-aurangzeb-bigot-has-colonial.html New Delhi, Feb 27, 2017, PTI: 'Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth', published by Penguin Random House, takes a fresh look at the controversial Mughal emperor. According to Truschke, Hindu and Jain temples dotting the landscape of Aurangzeb's kingdom were entitled to Mughal state protection, and he generally endeavoured to ensure their well-being. Screengrab *Historian Audrey Truschke refuses to buy the argument that Aurangzeb razed temples because he hated Hindus saying it has roots in colonial-era scholarship, where positing timeless Hindu-Muslim animosity embodied the British strategy of divide and conquer.* In her new book, she also says that had Aurangzeb’s reign been 20 years shorter, he would have been judged differently by modern historians. Truschke, an assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University in Newark and an avid follower of Mughal history, New Jersey, has now come up with a new biography on Aurangzeb. "Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth", published by Penguin Random House, takes a fresh look at the controversial Mughal emperor. According to Truschke, Hindu and Jain temples dotting the landscape of Aurangzeb's kingdom were entitled to Mughal state protection, and he generally endeavoured to ensure their well-being. "By the same token, from a Mughal perspective, that goodwill could be revoked when specific temples or their associates acted against imperial interests. Accordingly, Emperor Aurangzeb authorised targeted temple destructions and desecrations throughout his rule," she claims. "Many modern people view Aurangzeb's orders to harm specific temples as symptomatic of a larger vendetta against Hindus. Such views have roots in colonial-era scholarship, where positing timeless Hindu-Muslim animosity embodied the British strategy of divide and conquer," she writes. She says there are, however, numerous gaping holes in the proposition that Aurangzeb razed temples because he hated Hindus. "Most glaringly, Aurangzeb counted thousands of Hindu temples within his domains and yet destroyed, at most, a few dozen. This incongruity makes little sense if we cling to a vision of Aurangzeb as a cartoon bigot driven by a single-minded agenda of ridding India of Hindu places of worship. "A historically legitimate view of Aurangzeb must explain why he protected Hindu temples more often than he demolished them." Truschke argues that Aurangzeb followed Islamic law in granting protection to non-Muslim religious leaders and institutions. "Indo-Muslim rulers had counted Hindus as dhimmis, a protected class under Islamic law, since the eighth century, and Hindus were thus entitled to certain rights and state defences. "Yet, Aurangzeb went beyond the requirements of Islamic law in his conduct towards Hindu and Jain religious communities. Instead, for Aurangzeb, protecting and, at times, razing temples served the cause of ensuring justice for all throughout the Mughal Empire." Truschke claims state interests constrained religious freedom in Mughal India, and Aurangzeb did not hesitate to strike hard against religious institutions and leaders that he deemed seditious or immoral. "But in the absence of such concerns, Aurangzeb's vision of himself as an even-handed ruler of all Indians prompted him to extend state security to temples." She says Aurangzeb had 49 years to make good on his princely promise of cultivating religious tolerance in the Mughal Empire, and he got off to a strong start. "In one of his early acts as emperor, Aurangzeb issued an imperial order (farman) to local Mughal officials at Benares that directed them to halt any interference in the affairs of local temples." Truschke claims that political events incited Aurangzeb to initiate assaults on certain Hindu temples. She also argues that if Aurangzeb's reign had been 20 years shorter, closer to that of Jahangir (who ruled for 22 years) or Shah Jahan (who ruled for 30 years), modern historians would judge him rather differently. "But Aurangzeb's later decades of fettering his sons, depending on an increasingly bloated administration, and undertaking ill-advised warring are a hefty part of his tangled legacy. Thus, we are left with a mixed assessment of a complex man and monarch who was plagued by an unbridgeable gap between his lofty ambitions and the realities of Mughal India," she writes. -- ----------- 1.ವಿಷಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಕರ ವೇದಿಕೆಗೆ ಶಿಕ್ಷಕರನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸಲು ಈ ಅರ್ಜಿಯನ್ನು ತುಂಬಿರಿ. - https://docs.google.com/formsd1Iv5fotalJsERorsuN5v5yHGuKrmpFXStxBwQSYXNbzI/viewform 2. ಇಮೇಲ್ ಕಳುಹಿಸುವಾಗ ಗಮನಿಸಬೇಕಾದ ಕೆಲವು ಮಾರ್ಗಸೂಚಿಗಳನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಿ. -http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/index.php/ವಿಷಯಶಿಕ್ಷಕರವೇದಿಕೆ_ಸದಸ್ಯರ_ಇಮೇಲ್_ಮಾರ್ಗಸೂಚಿ 3. ಐ.ಸಿ.ಟಿ ಸಾಕ್ಷರತೆ ಬಗೆಗೆ ಯಾವುದೇ ರೀತಿಯ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳಿದ್ದಲ್ಲಿ ಈ ಪುಟಕ್ಕೆ ಭೇಟಿ ನೀಡಿ - http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Portal:ICT_Literacy 4.ನೀವು ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ ಬಳಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದೀರಾ ? ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಯಲು -http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Public_Software ----------- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "EnglishSTF" group. 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