By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
A single love-marriage between Prithviraj Chauhan and Samyogita, daughter of his cousin and king of Kannauj, Jai Chand, perhaps played a more significant role in changing the history of India than several other factors. Though the mothers of both were sisters, Prithviraj eloped with Jai Chand’s daughter. In return Jai Chand––unlike other Rajput kings and chieftains, who supported Prithviraj––allied with Muhammad Ghori, who succeeded in capturing Delhi in his second attempt in 1192. Ghori did not spare Jai Chand either and in 1193-94 defeated him in the Battle of Chandawar. He was killed and his son Harish Chandra ruled Kannauj as a sub-ordinate of Ghori and his successors until 1225, when Iltutmish ended his reign.
When so much heat is being generated over ‘love-jihad’ it is necessary to understand that the history of India might have been quite different had Jai Chand, what many historians feel, not betrayed Prithviraj Chauhan, who against his will married Samyogita, a few years before.
[Photo Courtesy: islamophobiatoday.com]
Thus, it is this love-marriage, which has contributed more than the so-called love-jihad in shaping the history. This has not happened in India only, but elsewhere in the world too. So if the Sangh Parivar is really serious in preserving what it calls India’s ancient cultural values and civilization it needs to have a fresh look and understanding of history, rather than make mountain out of molehill of isolated incidents of a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim boy.
There are umpteen examples of Muslim girls marrying Hindu boys too, which is not getting as much attention during the current debate. There are cases where both follow their respective religion while in many others the girls get converted. In several cases even the boys embrace the religion of girls. So it is not just the one way traffic. Unlike the general perception being created by a section of people it would be wrong to believe that girls are weak and thus can not influence or attract boys towards their faith.
Ironically all these issues are being raised at a time when the Sangh Parivar is claiming that Muslims and Christians are also Hindus. If it is really so then why is there so much controversy over ‘love-jihad’ and charge of conversion.
If a Hindu girl marries a Muslim boy––or is even being ensnared to do so––she is going nowhere but is still in the larger Hindu family. By this definition there is nothing like Muslim, Christian etc in India. We are all Muslim Hindus, Christian Hindus etc. So where is there any need for ‘sudhikaran’ ––or bringing back a Hindu or Muslim to the Hindu fold.
But then this logic raises another poser. Why should we accept this alien construct of Hindu or Hindi. If the Arabs call all Indians, including Muslims al-Hindi, as it is being argued, let them do so. Is not it a fact that the RSS does not accept any foreign concept and has its own view on different issues. No doubt the expression Hindu came into practice during the medieval Muslim era. Initially it referred to the people living on either side of Sindhu (Indus) river and has little to do with religious identity.
It would be better for the RSS to explain to the new generation as to how people living in the sub-continent were addressed before the advent of Muslims.
One may agree that Hindu is a cultural identity and all Indians should be addressed as such. So there should be Muslim Hindus, Christian Hindus etc. Then what should be the religious identity of Hindus––should it be Hindu-Hindus. There is another related problem as there is no dearth of irreligious individuals and atheist who love to be called Hindus.
So initiating a new debate over the definition of Hindu will lead us to nowhere as they are based on weak logic and reasoning and are self-contradictory.