Openminded Fanatic

If a historian allows his/her personal feelings towards particular groups to shape shape their work, they are, by definition, failing at their craft. Historians are of course humans and inevitably carry emotions and biases, but when an entire field becomes systematically skewed, the stakeholders and people with "skin in the game" notice it. The seeds of the distrust that exists among Hindus for Western academics (especially in humanities) has been sown by scholars like Audrey Truschke. This has unfortunately led even well meaning people to become overly(and sometimes unfairly) suspicious of all Western academics, which might have unfairly affected you too. I haven’t followed your work closely beyond your videos on the Indus Valley Civilization. Correct me if I’m wrong, but since you focus primarily on prehistory and the ancient period, I assume you haven’t made any content on later periods of Indian history. If some Hindus have attacked you simply for presenting evidence on AMT, I apologize on their behalf. On the specific issue of medieval and early modern Islamic rulers in India, the narrative promoted by scholars like Truschke is not refuted merely by “legends,” but by extensive primary historical evidence. The Mughal Empire belongs to the early modern period, its well within the era of written records, royal chronicles, and court histories. The problem is not the absence of evidence, but its selective treatment, these scholars often downplay or ignore the explicit statements of the kings and their own courtiers, who repeatedly describe the destruction of Hindu temples and idols as a religiously ordained duty. And yet some historians equate large scale, ideologically driven Islamic iconoclasm with occasional shifting of idols from one temple to another etc that might have occurred during conflicts between Hindu kings, and then conclude that all such violence by Islamic actors was purely political. This flattening of the record does a disservice to historical truth.

Surya Pratap Chauhan did not hate Muslims. In fact he was friends with them. Asad, Javed, Sameer, Aqif etc were his friends. They used to play together, even watch movies. Surya saw his Muslim friends as just other humans. That was his fatal mistake. His Muslim friends saw him as a Kafir to be converted and if not, to be eliminated. On Eid Asad invited Surya to come join him in painful slaughter of a goat. Surya didn't want to see the painful visuals. He refused. That convinced Asad Surya won't convert. Even at 16 they were clear what to do next. They slaughtered Surya with a knife on Eid. It was their greatest religious act. The greatest mistake a Hindu can make is not being a human, but to assume others are human too. Islamophobia can save your life.

Well, even I have been attacked by Hindutva ideologues for the last 6 years. Now imagine if someone has experienced this hatred for a lot longer, as Dr. Truschke has. I might react in much the same way. Regarding her portrayal of Muslim rulers, I have to ask you, which seems more ideologically-motivated: 1) saying a Muslim ruler probably was not as evil as the legends say, or 2) saying that the legends of a Muslim ruler being the epitome of evil must be true, because I hate Muslims?

来啦来啦，豪哥哥带着他的最新印度神曲《真的太热了》来啦😂

Recently I was looking at the geography of Central Asia and it stuck me what a big loss PoK was for India. We don't hate that moralfag Nehru enough. His cowardice and pacifist delusions have cost us a lot of innocent Hindu lives and economic opportunities. Even the present situation of Iran war negatively affecting our energy procurement would not have happened if not for this one blunder of Nehru(and it's just one of many such Nehruvian blunders). Just see how close Tajikistan is to India and yet we don't have access to Tajikistan and Central Asia now, because of Nehru. If we had retained control of our Gilgit Baltistan region, by just leasing a tiny bit of land from Afghanistan we could have build roads to Tajikistan connecting us directly to the whole of Central Asia and even Russia. Instead we have to depend on the longer, more vulnerable Chabahar-Iran route to reach Central Asia right now. Worse, Pakistan turned the region into a terrorist factory. Many Terrorist attacks on India and Hindus originate from there. Northern India would have been far more prosperous and peaceful if not for Nehrus stupidity. I will never forgive Nehru and Nehruvian establishment for the actions or inaction that weakened my nation and Hindu civilisation. While its possible to correct those mistakes and BJP is working on it, it would be much more difficult and costly to correct them now compared the situation Nehru faced.

See, it's not as if Nehru had zero contributions, just that his fkups were so massive that they insanely outweighed whatever good he had done. For example, You don't consider a serial killer a better person if you find out that he was nice to some street dog once.

David, I’ve watched your videos on the Indus Valley Civilization and Indian prehistory. I will say that your approach was even handed and evidence based. IIRC you clearly stated that the Aryan Migration does not necessarily preclude cultural continuity between the IVC and later Hindu civilization. The reason many Hindus are critical of scholars like Audrey Truschke is that they often appear to function more as political activists than as objective historians. They begin with the premise that Hindutva is “fascist” and shape their work around trying to discredit it. This ideological commitment visibly influences how they select, interpret, and present historical facts. While prehistory allows more room for ambiguity, her treatment of medieval Indian history is particularly revealing. She consistently downplays or whitewashes the well documented atrocities committed by several Islamic rulers against Hindus, while cherry-picking evidence to present an overly rosy picture of a period that Hindus collectively remember as traumatic. This selective framing undermines her credibility and reduces her scholarship to little more than ideological advocacy.

A curious rule in academia: when evidence is ambiguous, Egypt is explained through Egyptian tradition, Greece through Greek tradition, and Scandinavia through Norse tradition. India alone is often denied the benefit of civilizational continuity. Here, the first instinct is not continuity but an outside origin, migration, or import. The Pashupati seal controversy is just another reminder.

This seal has nothing to do with Shiva and the Indian-nation-state that is shamefully kanging onto it. The seal depicts a Eurasian deity of animals, NOT Shiva. Hinduism as we know today didn't begin until 5 centuries after the death of Mohenjo-daro. Mohenjo-daro is in the heartland of Sindh, Pakistan - next to the Pakistani city of Larkana - along the Indus River that has sustained most of modern Pakistan for thousands of years. It is, also, the river the Indian nation-state is named after. This is nothing but ancient heritage of modern Pakistan. Cope and seethe.

Women in Pakistan have started sounding like men due to side effects of too many cousin marriages in Pakistan.

During the 1970s–80s, the saree was banned from Pakistani television (PTV) and declared un-Islamic, causing it to virtually disappear from public life, because it was "too Hindu". And now they claim saree as Pakistani.

Recently I was looking at the geography of Central Asia and it stuck me what a big loss PoK was for India. We don't hate that moralfag Nehru enough. His cowardice and pacifist delusions have cost us a lot of innocent Hindu lives and economic opportunities. Even the present situation of Iran war negatively affecting our energy procurement would not have happened if not for this one blunder of Nehru(and it's just one of many such Nehruvian blunders). Just see how close Tajikistan is to India and yet we don't have access to Tajikistan and Central Asia now, because of Nehru. If we had retained control of our Gilgit Baltistan region, by just leasing a tiny bit of land from Afghanistan we could have build roads to Tajikistan connecting us directly to the whole of Central Asia and even Russia. Instead we have to depend on the longer, more vulnerable Chabahar-Iran route to reach Central Asia right now. Worse, Pakistan turned the region into a terrorist factory. Many Terrorist attacks on India and Hindus originate from there. Northern India would have been far more prosperous and peaceful if not for Nehrus stupidity. I will never forgive Nehru and Nehruvian establishment for the actions or inaction that weakened my nation and Hindu civilisation. While its possible to correct those mistakes and BJP is working on it, it would be much more difficult and costly to correct them now compared the situation Nehru faced.