About the Book

Book: Eminent Distorians: Twists and Truths in Bharat’s History

Author: Utpal Kumar

Publisher: Blue One Ink

Price: Rs 799/-

Utpal Kumar’s Eminent Distorians is a refresher course for the hard-nosed history buff, and a primer for a reader wishing to detoxify himself/herself from the distorted history he/she has been fed with

When you finish reading Eminent Distorians: Twists and Truths in Bharat’s History, you come out of it dazed as if riding a roller coaster. Utpal Kumar pulls you into labyrinthine of lanes and bylanes of history at a blinding pace

that have been sealed for many decades and kept out of main path of history narration buried under which are the skeletons of millions of Indians, amputated stories of brave Hindu kings and queens. The true history dismissed as myths by the neo-history writers fed on the poison of Marxism. Marxism that is dead now, but its followers continue to flourish selling their own prejudices as ‘scientific history’.

It is neither the first book exposing the ‘eminent historians’ whom Utpal Kumar calls ‘distorians’, nor will it be the last. There have been some excellent books by the new breed of researchers and writers on different aspects of history. The most impressive of them is Sanjeev Sanyal, who chose to take an entirely different path of narrating history that other historians had not thought about, or not found profitable enough for their career and foreign sojourns. Then, there are scholars like Sandeep Balakrishna, Aabhas Maldahiyar, Sabareesh PA, BhaskarKamble, VenkateshRangan, Sourabh D Lohogaonkar, Sahana Singh and so on. You may not recognise some of the names but they have done some unconventional work. Each of them uncovering different aspects of Bharatiya history.

There are writers of contemporary history, such as Vikram Sampath, Anuj Dhar and Chandrachur Ghose, Hindol Sengupta, Kalyan K Dey, who have contributed immensely to correct the distorted history of contemporary leaders. I am sure, this list is incomplete and I apologise to those whose names I may have missed. I am deliberately not mentioning the post-Independence pioneers, but focusing on the new generation of researchers and writers. That generation has been the inspiration of all these new generation writers. They kept the path lit with their immeasurable contribution amid the intolerant, left-dominated toxic history writing.

Utpal Kumar’s Eminent Distorians has gained huge traction because the author has chosen a very wide canvas. It is an ambitious project starting with Saraswati-Indus Civilisation and ending with Bharat’s Independence. He takes us through a journey of more than 5,000 years, even if we go by the Western calculations, copied loyally by our own Marxian historians. To compress this period in 250 pages requires special skill. That is why I used the word ‘pulls you through’ and he does it at a breakneck speed. You miss a paragraph, and you might have missed a period of history. One must remember that he is not just writing history from his point of view; he is quoting Marxist and Nehruvian ‘Eminent Distorians’ and then rebutting them with full force. It is a very well referenced book.

Because of the author’s urge to complete his ‘public trial’ of the distorians, he is sharp and brutal to a point. But he is not partisan. Because, he appreciates leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru where required while he criticises those leaders where he feels the need. He not only appreciates the bravery and courage of Hindu rulers, but also uses strong words for the failure of Hindu rulers and the Hindu citizens of those times.

Utpal Kumar is dispassionate in every sense. He cites the criticism that the ruling class in Bharat was oblivious to threats arising from outside, that they never stitched a united front. He then goes on to give examples of various kings who collaborated to stop the Islamic invasions (Page 103). He gives ample examples to show why fighting on dharmic principles by Hindu kings and queens was disastrous when the invaders were fighting with adharma, following no rules or the game.

For the people who have read or studied history from any source, this book is an easy read. But for those who have no exposure to Bharatiya history due to our strange education system, this book may not be an easy read. Because the dizzying speed at which Utpal Kumar narrates history, and inserts his observations, a new reader not familiar with Indian history may feel left in a lurch as the story leap frogs from one period to another. However, on the positive side, the biggest contribution that this book will do, is to encourage the new young readers to explore Indian history with new insight. The curiosity the writer arouses is the real strength of this book. It is this aroused curiosity of readers that has seen an academic historian like Meenakshi Jain become a bestseller.

What gladdened my heart while reading this book, is that Utpal Kumar could refer to the books of his contemporaries, the young, the new and established books. He did not have to rely mostly on historians like RC Majumdar, Jadunath Sarkar, Dharampal, and French and British historians all the time. This means that we have enough intellectual capital, enough material — the critical mass — for the historical narrative of Bharat. I have seen a strange kind of reluctance to give due credit to our contemporaries by some non-Left writers. It shows the confidence and honesty of Utpal Kumar that he has been generous with his acknowledgements and sources.

Some of his observations pain you. For example, though the Congress encashed the INA (Indian National Army) trials for political ends in 1946, the same Congress when it came to power, removed all INA men from the services and even put some of them on trial (Page 199). He brings out the fact that the seeds of Sikh separatism were sown by the British, using history writing and misquoting of religious texts. He quotes MJ Akbar to acknowledge that Gandhi’s stance of supporting the British in World War II was the correct approach in hindsight. He honestly admits with documentary evidence that there were many within and outside the Congress government who wanted Gandhi out of the way. Utpal Kumar asserts that the events leading to Nehru unfurling the Tricolour on August 15, 1947, actually prove that Bharat was born as a Hindu state in 1947.

To summarise, I would say, this book is a refresher course for the hard-nosed history buff and a primer for a reader wishing to detoxify himself/herself from the distorted history he/she has been fed with.

— The reviewer is a well-known author and political commentator. He has written several books on RSS like ‘RSS 360’, ‘Sangh & Swaraj’, ‘RSS: Evolution from an Organisation to a Movement’, and ‘Conflict Resolution: The RSS Way’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author.