Comment by drieddust | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drieddust | Hacker News Reader

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Edits: - Replacing links with original source material. I included tweets because I would like to attribute the credit to people who I learned from.

- Removing line about Wikipedia's Left and Islam leanings. I will present more details argument later on.

Wikipedia isn't a reliable source when it comes to history. Even for his time he wasn't tolerant. Let me narrate 2 stories from the same period.

When Akbar took over Chittore fort, he ordered butchering of general public (30000) and made a tower out of skulls. This event is celebrated in Mughal painting. He called himself a Gazi(slayers of infidels) after this event.[1]

Maha Rana Pratap was Akbar's great enemy who despite having a small kingdom never accepted Akbar's rule so he sent out Abdul Rahim Khane Khana to fight with Maha Rana. Rahim was travelling with his wife and daughters. Maha Rana's subordinates were able to capture his family. But when prisnors were bought in front of Maharana he ordered them to be returned with immediately without harm. This event changed Rahim so much that he became devotee of Bhagwan(Lord) Krishna and refused to fight for rest of his life.[2]

Both were from the same era. Who looks tolerant?

Akbar ordered his sisters to remain unmarried because he could digest the idea of someone getting physical with women of his family. Later this became a practice and all subsequent Mughals princess died spinsters. He demanded women from the kingdoms he conquered. His harem had 5000 women. He killed his tutor Bairam Khan and married his wife.[3]

[1] Source: Fathnama-I-Chittor, March 1568 (translated by Ishtiaq Ahmed Zilli), Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 33 (1971), pp. 350-361

[2] KS Lal's "The Mughal Harem" (1988)

[3] The Naked Mughals: Forbidden Tales of Harem and Butchery.

[2] https://mobile.twitter.com/TIinExile/status/1224292144023654...

> Wikipedia isn't a reliable source anymore. They seems to have become a Islamist and left propaganda machine

I do think that needs some stronger sourcing. It is one thing to argue that certain wiki articles have some bias or the other, but a categorical claim that it is an Islamist and left propaganda machine seems rather bizarre at first cut.

At the moment these claims seem to be supported by some random tweets?

Wikipedia article for Siege of Chittorgarh (1567–1568)[1] to quote:

>> Rising pillars of smoke soon signalled the rite of jauhar as the Rajputs killed their families and prepared to die in a supreme sacrifice. In a day filled with hand-to-hand struggles until virtually all the defenders died. The Mughal troops slaughtered another 20-25,000 ordinary persons, inhabitants of the town and peasants from the surrounding area on the grounds that they had actively helped in the resistance.

— John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire[8]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Chittorgarh_(1567%E2%....

I have updated my comment to include the original sources. I included the tweets because I first I learned from them.

Did you look at the details in those tweets? They further refer to original source material.

> > Wikipedia isn't a reliable source anymore. They seems to have become a Islamist and left propaganda machine

> I do think that needs some stronger sourcing.

Academic study, showing leftist bias: https://hbr.org/2014/12/wikipedia-is-more-biased-than-britan...

> Greenstein and Zhu borrowed this taxonomy of partisan terms and counted their use in pairs of Wikipedia and Britannica articles on the same subject. They calculated bias as the absolute difference between the number of Democratic terms and the number of Republican ones. For example, if an article contained 10 terms associated with Democrats and only three associated with Republicans, its bias score would be seven.

> They found that Wikipedia is significantly more biased than Britannica by this measure, and a bit more left-leaning.

And a co-founder’s perspective: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

> Wikipedia’s “NPOV” is dead.

> Academic study, showing leftist bias

says rightwing mouthpieces.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm always open to discussion, but if you're going to present a counter-narrative, you'll need stronger sources than some random tweets.

And, as I have said a few times now: he was tolerant for the times. Virtually every political leader in the history of the world has committed things that today, we'd consider crimes against humanity. That shouldn't stop us from finding some light in a sea of darkness. Otherwise, the holier-than-thou spiral has no end.

You can independently google story of Rahim. You don't need me for that.

Sacking of Chittod and subsequent killing of all the population is recorded in Akbar Nama by his own historians.

I am surprised you are running a startup in this domain and you don't know these trivias from Indian history.

Given Kieferski's qualification "tolerant the times" I dont see that he is egregiously wrong. Emperor Ashoka who is considered kindness personified had Kalinga butchered among other places -- till his empire was big enough that more campaigns and conquests were unnecessary. At that point he turned the peaceful Buddhist.

Ashoka never turned pacifist. He got converted in 4th year of his reign and Kalinga war was waged in his 8th year. He waged wars and prosecuted Jains and Ajivikas. Sources are Buddhist text Mahavamsa and Divyavadana so should be considered accurate.

Before Islamic invasion started, Hindu India had a rich history of religious tolerance with Ashoka as an exception yet he finds place in our history books and other great kings don't. Some example of tolerance from an era when killing people for their faith was normal in rest of the world.

When Zoroastrians were prosecuted in Persia by Islam, they found refuge in India. Today's India's biggest conglomerate TATA Group is run by a Zoroastrianian family.[1]

When a ship full of prosecuted Polish Jews Children touched the shores of Gujarat after refused entry by many state as they feared Nazis. Maharaj Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja took them in. Some of those kids are still alive.[2]

[1] https://www.tata.com/

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-the-indian-oskar-schindler...

You are very right about Jewish settlements in India, but the history goes far far far older, centuries older than you indicate.

Jewish settlements in India (in Kerala, for example) are far older than European settlements. India hosts one of the oldest synagogues. They are very pretty visit if you get a chance.

The so called 'anti-Semitism' (that ought to be called anti-jewish) was an European thing. In India they enjoyed great goodwill and still do.

Uhh, ashoka wasn't called kind and peaceful for his kalinga conquest, but how he transformed afterwards.

Unless you also think of nelson mandela as a terrorist?

> Uhh, ashoka wasn't called kind and peaceful for his kalinga conquest, but how he transformed afterwards.

Yes exactly. Perhaps I did not write my comment well enough. Its debatable whether he actually became a non-violent pacifist out of remorse or whether most of the empire building was complete and he no longer had aspirations for more territory. Kalinga was important for its ports that Maurya empire needed more of.

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