The Hindus: An Alternative History

An engrossing and definitive narrative account of history and myth, The Hindus offers a new way of understanding one of the world's oldest major religions. Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account. Many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated within a century; its central tenets arise at particular moments in Indian history and often differ according to gender or caste; and the differences between groups of Hindus far outnumber the commonalities. Yet the greatness of Hinduism lies precisely in many of these idiosyncratic qualities that continues to inspire debate today. This groundbreaking work elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds, the inner life and the social history of Hindus.

"Don't miss this equivalent of a brilliant graduate course froma feisty and exhilarating teacher." -The Washington Post 

Review by Vishal Agarwal:

I have read the book from cover to cover, and am afraid that it has literally hundreds of factual errors that will be noticed by anyone who has even a mediocre knowledge of Indian history. Just to give a FEW examples:

I. In the Map titled "India From 600 CE to 1600 CE" at the beginning of the book, at least four sites (Janakpur, Nagarkot, Mandu, Haldighati) are marked literally hundreds of miles from their correct geographical location.

II. In the chapter XIX titled "Dialogue and Tolerance Under the Mughals", the errors would shame even a Graduate student of Medieval Indian history. E.g.

1) Doniger (on the title page of the chapter) says that Emperor Humayun ruled from 1530 - 1556 AD. Actually, he ruled from 1530-1540 and for a few months in 1556 AD. He lived in exile in the intervening years as he was deposed by Emperor Sher Shah Suri (who in turn was followed by several rulers before Humayun returned from Iran).

2) On page 532, she claims that Emperor Akbar moved his capital from Fatehpur Sikri to Delhi in 1586. In reality, he moved it to Lahore and then to Agra. And she has got the year wrong too!

3)On page 534, she claims that Emperor Akbar was saved by Hindus from a Muslim rival. In reality, it was his father Humayun who was saved by the Hindu King of Umerkot. Unless, she wants to term every instance of Hindus fighting in the Moghul army as a life saving event for Akbar.

4) On page 536, she claims that Mumtaz Mahal (whose tomb is the famous Taj Mahal) died during the birth of her 13th child. The correct fact is that she died during the birth of her 14th child.

5) On page 537, she claims that Emperor Aurangzeb started persecuting Hindus, Sikhs and Shiite Muslims in 1687. Actually, he started doing this several decades earlier, destroying numerous Hindu temples while he was the Governor of South India (even when he was a Prince, and before he became the ruler in 1658 AD) and getting the Sikh teacher Guru Tegh Bahadur beheaded (for his refusal to convert to Islam) more than a decade earlier.

6) On pages 537-538, she claims that the Sikh teacher Govind Singh was assassinated in 1708 while 'attending Emperor Aurangzeb'. In reality, Emperor Aurangzeb had died a year earlier in 1707 and Govind Singh was assassinated during the reign of his successor Emperor Bahadur Shah I.

7) On page 539, the author implies that 'Jahandah Shah' (sic!) became the ruler after Emperor Aurangzeb. In reality, Aurangzeb was succeeded by his son (and the father of Jahandar Shah, not Jahandah Shah) Emperor Bahadur Shah I.

You can find such historically untenable statements page after page in her book. I have given a few examples from just 1 chapter because this review to you is not the appropriate medium to point out the errors in all chapters and pages of the book.

To cap it all, she claims on page 446 that there is a controversy as to whether Mahatma Gandhi uttered 'Ram Ram' or 'Ram Rahim' when he fell to his assassin's bullets. In reality, the controversy is totally artificial (and largely non-existent) and is mainly encountered in agenda driven atheist or crackpot websites. His last words are said to have been "Hey Ram" and the same are inscribed on his 'Samadhi' (his memorial) in New Delhi. His followers sometimes say that he uttered 'Ram Ram'. Or her laughable claim (page 194n) that Gandhi's commentary on the Gita (a sacred Hindu scripture) was titled 'Asakti Yoga' (=The Science of Deep attachment - she even explains the word ungrammatically!) when in fact the title of Gandhi's work was 'Anasakti Yoga' (= Science of Non-Attachment). Surely this cannot pass for an 'alternative history' because this is just bogus fiction.

Let me not even go into the racist and hateful tone of her chapters when she actually deals with Hinduism. Her claims that she loves the Hindu culture is like a Pedophile claiming that he 'loves' children.