Jyotiraditya Scindia is hopeful that after PM Modi’s move, truth about the sacrifice of the Marathas will come out.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historical move renaming Rajpath as Kartavya Path has been widely acclaimed across the nation. Citizens of India are happy that PM Modi is erasing symbols of slavery, and rewriting the history of a new and changing India. Certainly, a history stripped of fallacious accounts to defame and tarnish one section of society or the other. Such efforts by the Modi government have triggered a debate over whether the “wrong historical facts” about the Marathas during British rule will also be corrected.
This debate has some concrete basis, if the history watchers are to be believed. Many of them believe that the British rulers got scripted in the pages of history certain information about the then royal families and dynasties, which were concocted and far from reality. These “factually wrong” inputs keep triggering political slugfest more often than not.
Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia says that the truth about the Marathas’ fight against British and Mughals must come out before the country. Thousands of Marathas laid down their lives fighting against them, but the British rulers did not let the truth come out, he adds.
No doubt, the Scindia family is one of the royal dynasties who were victim to the British’s conspiracy of spreading misleading and false facts about them. But the reality is that the ancestors of the Scindia family had put up a strong fight against the Mughal and British rulers in India. There is several corroborative evidence to establish this fact as well. The information related to Battle of Delhi, also known as the Battle of Patparganj, bear testimony to the fact that the Marathas fought against British troops valiantly. The Maratha soldiers sacrificed their lives in large numbers in that battle.
With this in the background, the Scindia family is hopeful that now the focus will also be on the history dating back to 300 years from where the truths about the dignified past of the Marathas will be brought out. This will be a reality now amid the celebrations marking the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsava’. Jyotiraditya says that even as the country is witnessing a drastic positive change, the time has come to change the history in which the wrong inputs were planted by the British rulers.
At a function organised by the ITV Network recently, Scindia was quite vocal about the allegations levelled against his ancestors. Whatever he said was true as well. There is a pillar in the Patparganj area of East Delhi which mentions the sacrifices made by the Marathas. Scindia assertively said that those who make comments on his ancestors must read history properly. It was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who was the first to raise the flag of Hindavi Swarajya. Shivaji’s dream was that the country should move ahead on the ideology laid down by the concept of the Hindavi Swarajya. One should delve into the historical facts and see who raised the flag of the Hindavi Swarajya in Delhi. He was none other than Mahadji Maharaj, Scindia asserted. He lost his leg but still he fought as a great warrior. Despite losing his leg, he built and developed his army.
Similarly, Maharanis of the Scindia family, from Gangabai to Tarabai, also played an important role in the freedom struggle. They sold off their jewellery and ornaments so as to help build the Maratha army. Mahadji Maharaj continued to expand the Hindavi Swarajya campaign up to Lahore. The Scindias defeated the British in Wadgaon. Around 3000 Maratha soldiers laid down their lives fighting the British army on 11 September 1803. The pillar at Patparganj reminds us of the valour of the Marathas. Maharani Bejabai had launched a battle against the British. Scindia says that the Marathas have a long history marked by their valour but unfortunately nobody recalls and refers to that. They talk about different dynasties from north to south and east to west. But who captured Delhi first? It was none other than the Marathas, says Scindia, adding, “Shivaji kept Delhi under his control for 11 years”.
But this glorious past of the Marathas is skipped by those who prefer to raise some other baseless points. The British rulers conspired to get concocted stories scripted in the pages of history about the Marathas who actually defeated the foreigners.
Now, the renaming of Rajpath as Kartavya Path under the leadership of PM Modi has kindled the hopes that the true facts about the sacrifice of the Marathas will also come out from the pages of history.