Author for propaganda website The Print Anirudh Kanisetti, who has often distorted history to suit the ‘liberal’ agenda, has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Yuva Puraskar. The Akademi awarded Kanisetti for his book ‘Lords of the Deccan: Southern India from Chalukyas to Cholas’.
Sahitya Akademi selects Anirudh Kanisetti
Kanisetti’s views can be categorized as ill-informed, troublesome, and propagandist. In one of his earlier pieces, he attempted to paint the Portuguese colonizers as being accommodative of the natives while his opinion piece on Ghori portrays the Islamic invader as one who ‘promoted’ Sanskrit and Laxmi coins.
Professor Alok Bhalla, Jerry Pinto, and Dr Indranil Acharya were the English Jury members who selected Kanisetti for the Yuva Puraskar. It is an autonomous organization established by the Bharatiya government on 12 March 1954. The organization was set up to promote ‘cultural unity’ across Bharat by promoting literature in various Bharatiya languages.
Kanisetti’s propagandist, ill-informed views
That he had been awarded for a book that talks about Southern dynasties is nothing but a travesty considering that he views Cholas with jaundiced eyes. In his article regarding the film Ponniyin Selvan laments that it is an attempt to “reclaim the medieval Chola dynasty as icons of muscular nationalism”. While it is considered the golden age of Tamilagam, Kanisetti thinks “the modern obsession with Chola’s glory is misplaced”.
He has written the whole article based on a folk song about 2 landlords claiming that peasants were tortured and artisans were oppressed in the Chola rule. However, one inscription in the Brihadeeswarar temple aka the Big Temple is enough to bust his claim. The inscription says that Raja Raja brought artisans from other places to perform at the Big Temple and they were paid in gold as opposed to Kanisetti’s claims.
His article on Portuguese is even more troublesome (for want of a better term). In addition to glossing over Portuguese brutalities and whitewashing the crimes of Christian evangelists, Kanisetti terms the appropriation of Hindu deities furthering predatory Christian evangelist practices as a noble gesture.
The author paints a ‘humane’ picture of the invaders by portraying them as being accommodative of the natives, their culture, and practices. Apart from insinuating that Abrahamics showed a willingness to ‘compromise’ with Bharatiyas, the author also belittles the sacrifice of natives and Hindu kings by casting aspersions on their bravery.
“Instead of periodic raids and tribute missions, they worked with permanent fortresses on land and moved warehouse fortresses to the seas — galleons”, he writes praising the Portuguese for the strategies adopted by them to colonize Goa.
“Like a true colonialism apologist, he claimed that a war-torn province (referring to the present-day State of Goa) was “fortified and transformed into a sprawling city, half-European and half-Indian” by the Portuguese…He downplayed the brutal tactics, adopted by the invaders, and…suggested that the invaders appeased the Brahmins by stalling the education of the socially backward Hindu communities”, highlighted OpIndia.
Hindu academic ecosystem
Two young authors Aneesh Gokhale and Ami Ganatra called out The Print and Anirudh Kanisetti’s propaganda obfuscating the Goan Inquisition in an attempt to whitewash the Portuguese crimes. Ami tweeted a picture of Hathkataro Khamb pillar and wrote “Hand cutting pillar still stands in Panajim as a testimony to the atrocities of Portuguese on Hindu Goans to get them to convert & follow Christianity. But The Print would rather dig the bottom to find some random art to say conversions were out of love only”.
Aneesh wrote a thread pointing out errors in Kanisetti’s propaganda piece. “Good you mention Portugal and Nagasaki But who will mention that this Nagasaki outpost was expelled by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1638? The reason was Christian converts fomenting a rebellion against the Shogunate”, writes Aneesh bringing out how Kanisetti selectively uses history to give credibility to his theory.
While the leftist-liberal cabal can be expected to promote authors like Kanisetti, the question that needs to be asked is what are we doing to promote the likes of Aneesh, Ami, and others. The recent hounding of Vikram Sampath served as a reminder of the othering of eminent historians like Shri Sita Ram Goel, Shri RC Majumdar, Shri Ram Swarup, and others whose works were discredited by attaching labels to them. Author Sandeep Balkrishna highlighted how RC Majumdar was hounded.
The onus is upon Hindu Samaj to support and encourage authors who counter leftist-liberal propaganda. Unfortunately, historians like Shri Goel and Shri Swarup never received the support they should have. It is as much the responsibility of society as the government to create authors and thinkers who can effectively contest propaganda.
