Rewriting history
Just finished rereading the book that set me off on my Mastani trail..."The Sword of Tipu Sultan" written by Dr. Bhagwandas Gidwani who also wrote another amazing book "The Return of the Aryans." The amount of reseach that Gidwani puts in takes him into territory which stands at odds with the British sponsored history we learnt at school and opens new vistas, which is what encouraged me to look behind the sponsored dancing girls myths created around Mastani. Even if Gidwani is totally enamoured with his characters, the pictures he delineates of the India of the times of Tipu Sultan reveal one inwhich Hindus and Msulims shared much common space; it also throws light on the perfidy of our so-called Rajahs and Rajputs who have a history of letting India down at every invasion since Time Immemorial. In Tipu's time, apart formhis father Hyder Ali, the only ones who stood up to the British were the Marathas, led by Brahmins. Tipu Sultan himself was tutored by a mullah...