Taimur ruled from Samarkand, his capital. His kingdom extended from West Asia to India via Central Asia. He is counted amongst the great and ruthless conquerors of the world. Taimur alleged his co-religionist, Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah Tughlaq, Sultan of Delhi, for being too tolerant towards his Hindu subjects. He wanted Sultan of Delhi to convert every Hindu to Islam.
Well going deep into the histories of rulers, Hindu or Muslim, analysing their traits I do realise that they always had an excuse to attack another province or estate when it was under a weak ruler or under some political unrest. Undoubtedly Taimur held many Hindu subjects captive but his prime aim was to loot India of it’s wealth initially. The idea of conversion to Islam is supposedly an agenda to primarily accuse the Tughlaq ruler. Tughlaq’s themselves were too harsh on their Hindu subjects. What further did Taimur want him to be?
Most of the available historical records glorify Taimur’s conquest of Delhi. These records don’t mention the barbaric Turco-Mongol conqueror’s failed
expedition in Meerut, Haridwar, and the Garhwal region. However the episode is described in 15th-century Persian historian Sharaf-ad-Dīn‘Alī Yazdī’s book Zafarnama , a biography on Taimur. The same is quoted by Muhammad ibn Arabshah, an Arab writer and traveler, in a biography on the Turco-Mongol conqueror.
In December 1398, with a brutal intent to spread Islam by force, Taimur Lang attacked Delhi. His army plundered and massacred lacs of defenseless people who had meant no harm to his army and only wanted to be left alone. It is said Taimur’s blood thirsty army of looters committed naked dance of death and destruction butchering lacs of innocent people and mass rape of hapless women that Delhi took a century to recover. Brutality and bestiality crossed all the limits, when barbarians of Taimur Lang erected heads of decomposing bodies of dead citizens like structures for vultures to feast.
Then we read that Taimur didn’t want to stay in India and hence he left. Come on, his mission was the spread of Islam and looting of India. He had achieved neither of them to the fullest. Why would he leave? I’ll ask the historians to stop joking with the Indians. The truth is far from what is mentioned. The truth is that Rampyari Gurjar and Jograj Singh Gurjar along with the tribes of the Garhwal region offered them a tough resistance before Harbir Singh Gulia Jat was able to hit Taimur on his chest with a spear. In retaliation, Taimur’s soldiers badly wounded Harbir. Jograj Singh Gurjar took charge of the situation, at the same time facilitating the wounded Harbir to be taken to a safe place. The wounded Taimur, escorted by one his ablest soldiers, fled the battlefield. It is said Taimur could not recover fully from this wound. Description about this wound in a Haridwar battle finds mention in one of Taimur’s biographies. He died after 7 years. Taimur had come to India with an army of over 1 and half lakh men. He returned with only a few thousand soldiers.
If your history book has glorified how Taimur attacked and conquered Delhi by committing bloodbath of innocents but has no mention of Rampyari Gurjar and her allies, there is a purpose behind it. The said historians do not want you to draw inspiration from your ancestors. It would not be wonder, if they claim Rampyari Gurjar Chauhan, who exudes sheer strength and courage, to be fictitious character, because she busts falsehood of Taimur Lang’s heroism, which the said historian has created. The only places she finds mention is in the folk songs of Western UP and southern Uttarakhand.
Of course it’s true that there are people who consider her to be a ficitonal character. Ramayana and Mahabharata have also been denied, although archaelogoy has proved that they are history not myths. The Saraswati River was also considered fictitious and the books having a mention of the river were claimed as works of fiction. Most people claimed that a Ram Setu can never be built with stones but now it does attract the attention of archaeologists and historians all over the world.
Historians don’t even glorify Shivaji Maharaj, Maharana Pratap, Rana Sanga, Ahilya Bai Holkar, Rani Laxmibai, Guru Gobind Singh and Banda Singh Bahadur to the fullest, whom even the British writers praise how can we expect them to pen down about Rampyari Gurjar, who had lived when the Europeans hadn’t even discovered India? I’m sure that if they hadn’t even arrived in 1498, most likely we’d even forget people like Maharana Pratap and call them to be a fictious character as well.
Putting my views in, I’ll say as far as Maharana Pratap or Shivaji are considered they existed in the times of Akbar and Aurangzeb. They proved to be their greatest enemies. These Mughal rulers had writers and poets in their courts and therefore the very presence of the Mughal Rule and their resistors appears to be omnipotent. Talking about Rampyari Gurjar, she had performed this heroism when the Tughlaq rule was destroyed and Taimur who didn’t come to India to stay but to plunder and loot. Why would he consider mentioning about her?
Much of the historical records available about the glories and victories of Indian warriors were destroyed by the British. This was to prove their superiority and show the later generations and the world that they were superior and that they civilized India. The Gurjars were very brutal against British. They slaughtered a great number of Britishers. In return, the British declared the Gurjars as a criminal tribe in records and wiped off whatever historical records they could come across about this community.
It’s high time that we recognise the bravery of our ancestors and realise that we have the same blood flowing in our veins. We realise that reading History books of our fake acamadecians just for passing the examinations isn’t enough. We need to keep reading our History and Geopolitics from as many sources as we can.
When would India glorify warriors like Gurjari Rampyari Chauhan in its history text books? How long students of India would continue to study one sided glorification of Islamic invaders in history text books?
A statue of Rampyari Gurjar would tell how women in India has been empowered since ancient times. Shouldn’t India build a statue of Gurjari Rampyari Chauhan to disseminate strength, courage and bravery in current and coming generation? Oh I’m sorry building her statue would attract liberals from all over India asking to build hospitals and schools instead of a statue. Stand-up comedians in their own way have already tried to condemn the building of The Shivaji Statue in Maharashtra.
