This kind of mockery for mockery’s sake has to stop. Honestly, what was wrong with what Madan Lal Saini (President, Rajasthan State BJP) said?
All he said was that the Mughal emperor Humayun, just before he died, called Babur to his bedside and whispered: “Babur, if you want to rule over Hindustan, you must keep three things in mind – respect cows, respect Brahmins, respect women, okay?”
Suddenly, all the useless “historians” of India have come together on Twitter to make fun of a senior leader like Saini ji with these flimsy points: (a) Babur was Humayun’s father, and (b) he died 25 years before Humayun.
Big deal. Who said no? Did Saini saab ever say that Humayun spoke to his father Babur? He spoke to a Babur. Do any of these historians have conclusive proof that there was no other Babur in Humayun’s court? If so, kindly produce that certificate. Otherwise, stop this nonsense.
For instance, in Gandhi Nagar Tennis Court, there are two Krishnamurthis. And they are not even related. But have we made a big deal of it? No, sir. That is not our culture.
Plus, do you know, in Mughlai (the language spoken by Mughals, not the cuisine), Babur means chweetie pie? Don’t worry, future history books which your sons and daughters will be studying in Jio University’s primary section, will reveal that Emperor Humayun’s pet name for his son Akbar was Babur.
Which brings us to Akbar. There is ample proof that Akbar (also known as Babur and chweetie pie by Humayun) took his dying father so seriously that he began all subsequent bovine correspondence with a ‘Respected Madam’.
Be that as it may, I mean, seriously, who gave Akbar the suffix ‘the Great’? Is there any evidence that there was a function where he was given a certificate that said, “From this day on, you, Plain Akbar, will no longer be called Plain Akbar, but Akbar the Great”?
Alexander, for instance, had a grand function like this when he was defeated by Porus. Porus is said to have given the Greek a glass of thandai , and said, “ Woh muqaddar ka sikandar jaan-e-man kehlayega ”. Which meant that he was free to use the suffix ‘great’ along with the Great Wall of China and The Great Gatsby (which were both prefixes, by the way). But there is absolutely no evidence of Rana Pratap bestowing a similar honour on Akbar after he gave him a sound thrashing.
Do you know Rana Pratap had a horse called Chetak? The genuine coincidence here is, so did Prithviraj Chauhan! Imagine two great Indian kings having the futuristic vision to name their horses after a scooter. If one reads history properly, one can see the far-sightedness of our ancestors.
Earlier, there was this big hullabaloo about how our leader got history mixed up saying Sant Kabir, Guru Nanak and Baba Gorakhnath sat together at Maghar, UP, years ago, and discussed spirituality. Their quibble: Gorakhnath lived in the 11th century, Kabir lived in the 14th century and Nanak in the 15th.
Again, who said no? One word, pettifoggers: time travel (okay, that’s two words). Can you disprove it?
Forget the past. Look at what is happening now. Priyanka got engaged, dammit. And dropped out of Bhaijaan’s Bharat. Mallya has promised to return voluntarily. And ₹60,000 crores has been invested in UP.
Don’t waste time, take MLA Surendra Singh’s advice: “Hindus should have at least five children. Two for the man, two for the woman and one surplus.”
If we continue quibbling over which Babur, who Humayun, and which century, what GST, we end up missing the main point.
Which is: it is all Nehru’s fault.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a satirist. He has written four books, and edited an anthology.
