Vivek Agnihotri flays historian Irfan Habib for his dig at Amit Shah's surname
Kolkata, Nov 13 (IBNS): Noted historian Irfan Habib has ignited a fresh controversy when he took a dig at the renaming of Indian cities by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by picking the surname of BJP president Amit Shah himself. However, BJP sympathisers hit back with filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri tweeting the inherent bias in historians to ignore Indians while extolling the conquerers of the land.
In a recent interview to the ANI, Habib took a pick on the surname Shah of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) all India president, urging the party would do good to change their president's name before jumping into the renaming spree of India's major towns and cities.
According to the historian, surnames like Shah, Munsi and Majumdar are of Persian origin and bear no relation to Sanskrit.
Habib made this comment in the backdrop of the BJP led governments' attempt at renaming places in India, originally bearing Muslim names, to the Hindu ones, alleging the party is alienating the culture of the minority.
Recently, the Uttar Pradesh government renamed Allahabad as Prayagraj. On Diwali, state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced changing of Faizabad's name to Ayodhya while Mughalsarai Railway Station has been named after BJP icon Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.
Plans are afoot to rename Agra, famous for the Taj Mahal built by emperor Shahjahan and a bustling tourist destination in India, as Agrawal or Agravan, Muzaffarnagar to Laxminagar and as stated by the Gujarat chief minister Bijay Rupani, name of the city Ahmedabad would transform to Karnavati before the 2019 elections.
Setting his guns on Habib, noted film director Vivek Agnihotri slammed the professor for his controversial anti-BJP toned comments.
Agnihotri tweeted how the nation's history has been written to credit the Mugals, Persians, Brits and everyone except for the Indians.
This is how they wrote our history. Crediting everything to Mugals, Persians, Brits and everyone except for Indians.
— Vivek Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) November 11, 2018
Dear Habib Sahab, Pl return your Padma award because you deserve Persian Award for Excellence. pic.twitter.com/fGvZOdPJWL
The filmmaker also asked the professor to return his Padma Bhushan award he received from the Indian government, reviling he deserved "Persian award for excellence".
Historian Irfan Habib says RSS is ISIS. By his logic it can be deduced that India is Syria. Then question is how does he enjoy such freedom?
— Vivek Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) November 2, 2015
In 2015, Habib had ignited a similar controversy when he compared the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) , the ideological patron of BJP, with the Islamic State, the dreaded extremist organisation reported to be spreading terror in Iraq and Syria.
Habib made the comment at a protest gathering of about 350 historians, artists, scientists and intellectuals in New Delhi, condemning the rising intolerance in the country at that time, which was branded by the BJP as 'manufactured rebellion'.
War of tweets broke out and 'Irfan Habib’ soon started trending on the micro-blogging website Twitter.
People scorned the historian for his extreme tongue for comparison. Vivek Agnihotri, then, too flayed the professor.
In his scathing tweet, he had questioned the freedom the professor enjoyed in this country since RSS likened to the IS would make India comparable to Syria.
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