P. N. Oak (born 1917), full name Purushottam Nagesh Oak, is a Maharashtrian Brahmin historian associated with the Hindutva movement.
He has written several books and articles about the history of India. His interest in rectifying what he believes to be "the biased and distorted versions of India's history produced by the invaders and colonizers" encouraged him to start the Institute for Rewriting Indian History in June 141964. In modern India, he claims, secular and Marxist historians fabricated "idealized versions" of India's past and drained it of its Vedic context and content. Oak's work typically seeks to proclaim the virtues and achievements of Hindu culture and religion over other traditions. He has claimed that both Islam and Christianity originated as distortions of Vedic beliefs. He alleges that Kaaba in Mecca was originally a shrine to Siva and that Christianity began as a form of devotion to Krishna. He has also claimed that the Taj Mahal and other buildings ascribed to Muslim Indians were actually converted shrines to Hindu deities.
His methods and his version of Indian history have been widely rejected:
- "From the 1970s onwards 'Social Studies' textbooks were written in Pakistan to reflect the official ideological line. For example, all history that concerned events prior to the arrival of Mohammad bin Qasim (711 AD) was eliminated. Such misrepresentation has been well documented in 'The Subtle Subversion', a recent study by the SDPI in Islamabad. In India this process began in the 1950s through private organisations like the Institute for Rewriting Indian History. Amongst many interesting claims made while distorting history is one stating that the Taj Mahal was originally a Hindu temple dedicated to lingam worship." — (Zeenut Ziad)
- "Oak, Gautier and those of their ilk have a number of absurd theories." — (Faisal Kutty)
- "Poor old Erich Von Daniken was clapped in irons and marched off to prison but Mr Oak would appear to be the guiding spirit behind a new school of Indian history, what might be called The Hindus Did Everything (But The Muslims Stole The Credit) school of HRD/NCERT scholarship. ... History is now no longer about telling us what really happened. It is about perpetuating a bogus view of the past to shore up a present-day political ideology." — (Vir Sanghvi)
On July 142000 the Supreme Court in New Delhi dismissed a petition that sought to force a declaration that a Hindu king built Taj Mahal, as P.N. Oak has claimed. The court reprimanded the petitioner.
Books
- Christianity is Chrisn-nity, P.N. Oak,
References
