The reform related to the education of women in the state of Maharashtra is historically credited to Savitri Bai Phule who stood alone to fight for the educational rights of women. However, in the past few years, several leftist, activists had begun lauding ‘feminist educator Fatima Sheikh’ and claimed that she was the first Muslim woman teacher who struggled to make the country’s first schools for girls alongside Phule.
In a sensational remark on Thursday, 9th January, author and activist Dilip Mandal revealed that Fatima Sheikh celebrated as India’s first Muslim school teacher, never existed. Mandal claimed that Fatima Sheikh was a fictional character he created and that she was never a real person or historical figure. “Please forgive me. The truth is that Fatima Sheikh never existed; she is not a historical figure. Not a real person. It is my mistake that, during a particular phase, I created this name out of nothing—essentially from thin air. I did that knowingly. You will not find a single entry in a Google search earlier. No article, no book, no mention. Nothing,” he said.
He stated that he created a fictional figure for narrative building and that there was no photograph of her so a fictional sketch was also made. “I know the art of creating narratives, of building images. I have mastered this craft, so it was not difficult for me. A fictional sketch was created because there were no old photographs. I spun many stories about her. And thus, Fatima Sheikh came into being. The story spread. Those who needed this narrative for political and ideological purposes amplified it,” he said.
He also said that the name of Fatima Sheikh is not found in the writings of Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule. Notably, Sheikh has been described as a colleague of social reformers Jyotirao Phule (also known as Jyotiba Phule) and Savitribai Phule in Maharashtra.
Dilip Mandal wrote, “The complete writings of Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule have been published, and nowhere is the name Fatima Sheikh mentioned as someone who taught alongside them. Even Babasaheb Ambedkar never referred to such a name. No biographer of Mahatma Phule or Savitribai Phule has mentioned Fatima Sheikh. No Muslim scholar referenced this name until 15 years ago. British documents that discuss the educational efforts of the Phule couple make no mention of Fatima Sheikh either.” She is nowhere to be found nowhere, he said, adding at the end, “I have mentioned Fatima Sheikh’s name the most. I admit to this. But she never existed”.
Evidence claiming Sheikh’s existence
It is crucial to note that there is a Wikipedia article on Fatima Sheikh, and Google celebrated her 191st birthday on 9th January 2022 with a doodle. The name Fatima was once also mentioned by Savitribai Phule in her letter, but it nowhere mentioned that she was a school teacher or a reformist.
Interestingly, Savitribai’s letter is not the only evidence that claims the existence of Fatima Sheikh. Several Urdu textbooks prepared by Balbharti by the Maharashtra Education Board have mentioned Fatima Shiekh alongside Zakir Hussain and Syed Ahmed Khan. There’s also a separate chapter on her in Andhra Pradesh standard 8 textbooks.
“Fatima was Savitri’s adjutant and took over as headmistress of the school when Savitri was unwell or had to go canvassing for more girls to attend school. Savitri and Fatima met at Mrs Mitchell’s school in Poona where they both took English lessons. Jyotirao Phule and Usman Sheikh went to school together and they both had the same mentor in Pune, Munshi Gafar Baig, an Urdu and Persian scholar,” Reeta Ramamoorthy Gupta who researched on life of Savitribai Phule to write a biography was quoted as saying.
‘Legacy’ of Fatima Sheikh lauded by Islamists, leftists
Several media houses and leftist, Islamist leaders continue to laud Sheikh as India’s first woman Muslim teacher. Aakar Patel, head of Amnesty International India said in the year 2022 that some of the Hindu Nationalist leaders were trying to erase the contributions of the minorities, especially Muslims like Fatima Sheikhh from the Indian history.
“Muslims have been marginalized in ways which only partly include wiping them out of history books. If you look at the political representation of Muslims in India, it is at its lowest point,” he was quoted as saying.
Telangana CM Revantha Reddy also paid rich tributes to Sheikh calling her a ‘social reformer’. He said that Sheikh, an ally of Savitribai Phule, the first Muslim woman teacher remains an inspiration for countless individuals striving for education and equality. He further lauded her so-called efforts for the upliftment of the oppressed and the marginalized communities.
Wikipedia which has a history of spreading propaganda and misinformation has also refused to delete the page on Fatima Sheikh, which probably is a fictitious character as claimed by Mandal. While there was a proposal to delete the page after Dilip Mandal’s revealations, other editors rejected it, and removed mentions of Mandal’s claims from the page.
They refer to a 1991 book as evidence that Fatima Sheikh actually existed. However, the book names a woman named Fatima Sheikh just once and does not mention anything about her being the first Muslim female teacher or that she was an educationist who worked closely with Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule. It just mentions that she was a colleague. A detailed report regarding this can be read here.
Media houses like Shesightmag, and News Laundry also claimed that Sheikh was India’s first Muslim teacher and that Mandal had written a piece for The Print asking why history had forgotten the contributions of Fatima Sheikh. Notably, Fatima Sheikh indeed may have existed and worked in schools set up by Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, but she was never a teacher or a reformist and Mandal is insistent that she is fictitious.
It is further important to note that Fatima Sheikh is not the only lie that has been propagated by the leftists or activists for narrative in history. The leftist activists have made it a habit to propagate false narratives and portray the minority community as the activist, reformist, or freedom fighter, then be it Tipu Sultan, an Islamic bigot who slaughtered Hindus, or Bahadur Shah Zafar who is revered as India’s ‘great patriotic kings’.
Tipu Sultan ordered the killings of Hindus
Tipu Sultan is often credited in our history textbooks as a ‘secular’ ruler of Mysore who fought against the British in the late 1700s. While the latter part of the sentence does hold merit, the former is nothing but blatant propaganda planted in History textbooks by the Congress party.
Tipu Sultan was one of the most ruthless Islamic invaders in South India. There have been several recorded instances of Tipu’s army forcefully converting, raping, and kidnapping Hindus on his orders. Many temples are recorded to have been demolished under his reign. Historians such as Khan Hussain Ali Kirmani have pointed out that Tipu Sultan had animosity toward the local Hindus and tribals in the area.
It has been recorded that at least 3 temples in South India were demolished by Tipu Sultan’s army, such as Harihareswara temple at Harihar, the Varahaswami temple at Srirangapatnam, and the Odakaraya temple at Hospet. He also forced around 40000 Hindus to convert to Islam. A detailed report regarding this can be read here.
Despite this, several Islamists and left leaders continue to hail Tipu Sultan as a freedom fighter.
Bahadur Shah Zafar and the Left propaganda
In 2020, Sagarika Ghose, a prominent propagandist in the mainstream media glorified Jihadis who had committed unspeakable atrocities against Hindus. According to Sagarika, people such as Siraj-ud-Daulah, Tipu Sultan, and Bahadur Shah Zafar were India’s ‘great patriotic kings’. On one hand, it has been argued that India did not exist before 1947 while on the other hand, Islamic despots are held up as ‘great patriotic kings’. Quite obviously, liberals don’t care about the truth, they only care about the agenda, and their agenda requires the glorification of Islamic despots from time to time.
The truth about Tipu Sultan is noted above. Notably, the tale of Bahadur Shah Zafar is more complicated. The War of 1857 has been established as the ‘First War of Independence’ in the popular imagination but it certainly wasn’t a tale of ‘Hindu-Muslim Unity’ as it is put out to be. It was a diverse set of groups temporarily collaborating to achieve a strategic objective. The Sepoys raising Zafar as the face of the rebellion had more to do with realpolitik than any real devotion towards the man.
Ghose’s version of history is typical of liberals who blame the British for everything that is wrong with Hindu-Muslim relations. In reality, there has never really been any significant period in the last thousand years when Hindu-Muslim relations have been healthy. However, a conscious effort was made to blame the British for all the divisiveness between Hindus and Muslims so that Congress’s secular-liberal worldview could be justified.
Recently, the Delhi HC dismissed a plea filed by a Mughal descendent seeking possession of Red Fort. The petitioner Sultana Begum is the widow of the great-grandson of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar-II. The appeal was filed against a 2021 decision by a single high court judge, which had earlier dismissed her petition. Sultana Begum claimed that the possession of Red Fort was taken away from her forcibly by the British East India Company in 1857. The plea claimed that Begum was the rightful owner of Red Fort, as she inherited the property from her ancestor Bahadur Shah Zafar II.
Not only has history about Muslims been changed, but several instances from the past have been modified to suit the probable narrative being propagated by several communities for their benefit, far from the truth.
Ashoka converted to Buddhism after the Kalinga war
One such crucial incident from history claims that King Ashoka converted to Buddhism in 262 BC after the war of Kalinga. It is claimed that he converted his religion as a result of regrets he felt for the sufferings of the war. However, this narrative is based on very little evidence and is notably fake as the King was in association with the Buddhists from 10 years before the war, and he had converted his religion to Buddhism two years before the war.
The minor rock edicts of Ashoka, the earliest inscriptions of the Emperor, written in the 11th year of his reign state that the King’s conversion to Buddhism predated the war and that he seems to have had links with Buddhists for a decade before his conversion. As per the reports, around 1,00,000 died in the war, around 1,50,000 were taken as captives, and many more died of hunger and injuries.
According to the popular narrative, Ashoka felt horrified by his own brutal acts and converted to Buddhism after the war. However, his own inscriptions, written in the 11th century, display his association with the Buddhists over the past 10 years, which was before the war.
The myth of breast tax
Another imaginative story claims that upper caste Nairs and Nambuthiri Brahmins in Kerala did not allow women from lower castes to cover their breasts and then levied a ‘breast tax’ on them.
According to this legend, the ‘breast tax’ was imposed on women from lower castes in Kerala to prevent them from covering their breasts. It says that lower caste women who covered their breasts were forced to pay a tax, and it depended on the size of the breasts. The folklore goes on to narrate the story of Nangeli, saying that she had cut her breasts and offered them in place of the tax to the king, protesting against the tax. The folklore also talks about the ‘moustache tax’ imposed on lower caste men who wanted to sport moustaches.
The story has been published and propagated by the media several times, making a section of society believe it to be true. However, according to several arguments made by historians, the story of Nangeli is a fiction based on folklore that had no names whatsoever. In 2018, OpIndia published a detailed report on the origin of the story of Naegeli. Recently, our Hindi team did an explanatory video on the matter after Drishti IAS’s UPSC instructor Vikas Divyakriti’s video narrating the story went viral.
While it is true that lower caste people were taxed by the rulers in Kerala, it had nothing to do with breasts or mustaches. As the land tax was low at that time, the kings introduced various kinds of other taxes to collect revenue, and one such tax was separate taxes for men and women. The tax to be paid by men was called talakkaram or head tax, and the tax to be paid by women was called mulakkaram or breast tax, only to differentiate it from the tax for men.
The head tax was also called the moustache tax, in line with how the breast tax was named. The tax had nothing to do with actual breasts and moustaches, it was just the words used to mean men and women. The rate of tax was different for men and women, therefore they were named this way.
Buta Malik discovered Amarnath: Fake
The famous Amarnath Yatra which leads to the cave is of great religious significance to the Hindus. However, according to another Islamist propaganda, it was first supposedly discovered by a Muslim shepherd from Batakot. It is claimed that the shepherd, Buta Malik, stumbled upon the sacred spot after his flock strayed amidst the mountains. Over time, the shrine of Amarnath became a holy pilgrimage that attracts people from all over the country. The folklore is propagated by several media houses and leftists portraying the Hindu-Muslim unity behind the event. However, several historical records show that the shrine was worshipped by Hindus even before it was allegedly discovered first by Malik.
As per the folklore propagated by leftists, the shepherd, a resident of Batakot in the 1850s took shelter in the cave where a Sufi saint gave him a Kangri, a small pot filled with burning coal that is held close to the body to keep it warm. When he went home, he saw that the pot of coal had turned into a pot of gold. Overjoyed, he went back to the cave to thank the saint. But instead, he found only the cave and the Shiva Linga. His descendants then became the custodians of the shrine for a long time. However, now it is looked after by the Amarnath Shrine Board headed by the Governor of the state.
It has been reported earlier that the mention of Amarnath has been found in several scriptures written before 1850s showcasing that the shrine has been worshipped by Hindus for centuries. The pilgrimage to Amarnath caves is an old tradition, and it is mentioned in Kalhana’s Rajtaringini, Nilmat Puran, Ain-e-Akbari, accounts of Francois Bernier, and many more. A detailed report on this can be read here.
The folklore of Buta Malik is being told by his descendants and local Kashmiris, the legend is an amalgamation of Hindu religious traditions and its relation to the local Kashmiri Muslim population. It creates a perfect picture of Hindu-Muslim unity where Kashmiri Muslims are protectors and discoverers of a shrine that Hindus worship. As a local folklore, it is good to have such stories told (like various other folk stories in India). The problem arises when such stories are mainstreamed by eminent historians and celebrated liberals as a historical fact.
Fake claims that Mughals built temples
In 2021, the National Council of Educational Research and Training posted in the school history books that the Mughals destroyed hundreds of Hindu temples, killed lakhs, and offered grants to rebuild the temples. Information in the book ‘Themes of Indian History (Part II)’ for class XII, page 234 of the history textbook, read, “All Mughal emperors gave grants to support the building and maintenance of places of worship. Even when temples were destroyed during the war, grants were later issued for their repair – as we know from the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.”
However, later the NCERT said that it had no sources to claim that the Mughals had rebuilt temples after destroying them or had even issued grants to maintain them. The NCERT has a history of spreading misleading claims and illicit knowledge to youngsters. Earlier it had made misleading claims against the Brahmins, however, the same was later removed.
The Mughals invaded the land of Bharat and destroyed its culture and civilization by attacking Hindu temples in all four directions. They killed Hindus and also converted many to their religion attempting to change the demography of the region. Several historical records show how the Mughals destroyed Somnath temple in the West, Lord Shiva temple in Kashi, and many more in Nashik, Ujjain, Indore, etc. It was the Hindu queen Ahilyabai Holkar who restored the Hindu temples and paid her rich efforts towards protecting and promoting the Hindu Dharma.
Aryan invasion never happened, leftists invented it on their own
The Aryan Invasion Theory, put forward during the colonial period has been propagated by the leftists as the truth. However, it was based on speculative linguistic analysis rather than archaeological or scientific evidence. The theory stated that the Aryans invaded India around 1500 BCE subjugating indigenous people and establishing Vedic culture. However, it was noted that the theory was influenced by Eurocentric colonial perspectives, aimed at justifying British rule, and often misinterpreted Indian texts and culture through a materialistic lens.
Despite discoveries of Indus Valley sites like Rakhigarhi and Lothal, the said theory was probably adopted to fit these findings rather than being questioned. It further evolved into the Aryan Immigration theory. The set colonial narrative then divided Indian society as it portrayed the Aryans as culturally superior to indigenous people, ignoring India’s historical pluralism.
Interestingly, the left-leaning historians continued to uphold and propagate the story, sidelining India’s ancient scientific and cultural contributions. Details regarding the issue can be read here. However, given new archaeological findings and literary evidence, the Aryan Invasion or the Immigration Theory should be discarded in favor of a more nuanced understanding of Indian history, integrating both scientific and textual sources.
Conclusion
The leftists have a history of modifying historical events for favourable benefits and propagating them suppressing the truth. This practice has to date done nothing but malign India’s history and cultural significance on world maps with many still continuing to spread fake information about the glory. This can result in misinterpretation, misunderstanding, prejudice, and poor understanding both at individual and societal levels.
Earlier, a small section of media was operative who was responsibly undertaking tasks to spread correct information and current events to the public after proper verification. But in today’s era, there are plenty of leftist media handles, social media channels, and influencers who possess the ability to reach out to the citizens. Given this, the probability of the spread of misinformation, half-baked information, or fake news at the hands of leftist Islamists has gone on the rise leading to chaos. Amid this, it is now also the reader’s responsibility to analyze and maybe question the source of information for a better understanding of the truth in favor of the country.
While media houses or social media influencers are expected to follow the ethics of verifying and analyzing the facts before making public the details, the readers or the audiences must equally today adopt the practice of critical thinking and verifying questionable claims posted by the leftists. This would help one get closer to the facts, and the truth and be a responsible mind both at individual and societal level.
