A Story of the Sikhs by Har Jagmandar Singh
Pages: 320. Price: Rs. 250/-
Refer any decent encyclopedia and you will know that Christians form the largest population group in the world at about two billion and Muslims second largest at slightly more than one billion. In India too Muslims form the second largest religious group after Hindus. Yet the author states in the opening lines of the chapter, Advent of Islam (page 26), “Islam is the fourth most widely followed religion after Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.” The worldwide population of Buddhists is not even 500 million and of Hindus less than one billion. As if these howlers were not enough to put off an informed reader Prof. Singh discovers that Punjab was never a part of India but of Mesopotamia! Further, he postulates that Hinduism is full of misery because when Aryans came here from Central Asia their life was made miserable by mosquitoes and flies; therefore they invented the concept of Moksha. This book is a fine example of how not to approach a serious subject like history that demands a scientific mindset, rigorous research, objective analysis and a passion for truth and not drawing-room gossip, stale PJs and insidious prejudices. Since the author has specialized in English literature the lacunae are understandable but he could have, at least, read A.L. Basham’s The Wonder That Was India and John Keay’s A History of India, if not the more scholarly works by K.M. Panikkar or the action oriented Bhagwad Gita, before contemplating this collection of dubious history.
THE TRIBUNE
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