Shah was addressing a gathering at the launch of Omendra Ratnu’s book Maharana: Sahastra Varsha Ka Dharma Yuddha when he asserted that "we are now independent. We can write our own history."
Reacting to this declaration, former Union Minister and ex-Congress leader Kapil Sibal stated, "What “is real history” and that we "consider to be false" are for historians to interpret, not for politicians to decide."
'Truth Will Emerge': Amit Shah
"I want to tell something to the historians. We have many empires but historians have concentrated only on the Mughals and wrote mostly about them. The Pandya empire ruled for 800 years. The Ahom empire ruled Assam for 650 years. They (Ahoms) had even defeated Bakhtiyar Khalji, Aurangzeb and kept Assam sovereign," the Bharatiya Janata Party leader had claimed on Friday.
Urging historians to take corrective action, he said that many people will have to work to write reference books on these empires, and eventually the "the history which we believe wrong will gradually fade away and truth will emerge."
“The Mauryas ruled the whole country – from Afghanistan to Lanka for 550 years. The Satvahanas ruled for 500 years. The Guptas ruled for 400 years and (Gupta emperor) Samudragupta had for the first time visioned a united India and established an empire with the whole country. But there is no reference book on them,” he added.
'Stop Blaming Historians for Your Own Astonishing Ignorance'
After Shah's comments, Kapil Sibal took to Twitter to say:
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra also censured Shah for his statements saying, "Who can stop us from writing history, asks Hon’ble HM Amit Shah? Facts, actually."
TMC Spokesperson Saket Gokhale also chimed in on the row and added that the Union minister is allowed to "openly lie about what history we were taught and what we weren’t for propaganda."
A professor of South Asian history, Dr Audrey Truschke, too, took to social media to contend Shah's claims and said, "Stop blaming historians for your own astonishing ignorance, and stop trying to cover up BJP's failures with crude myths."
Author Abishek Mukherjee also took to Twitter to dispute the claim and wrote:
(With inputs from PTI.)
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