Customer Reviews

Shivaji and His Times

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Jadunath Sarkar is one of the most authentic Indian historians.On account of his contibution to history he was knighted by the Queen. Shavaji and his times is a very interesting read of the rise of Maratha empire during Shivaji. It all also higlights what a shrewd ruler he was ( unlike most books which try to be one sided). Would definitely recommend it as a must read to anyone who is interested in Maratha history

It is very sad that Shivaji is considered to be a hero in some parts of the country. From the book it is evident that he sacked the city of Surat twice, used blackmail to exhort money, kidnapped people and took ransom and despite promising otherwise still burnt their homes. Granted that Aurangzeb was a bigot; that he desecrated many Hindu temples and imposed special taxes on Hindus, but at least he was true to the followers of Islam. Such sentiments didn't bother our hero. He looted without any discrimination and turned away people from other Indian communities when they wanted to join his army. All his bravado seemed to vanish when he confronted English/Turkish/Dutch factors that too, when he had thousands of soldiers with him.

This book is grate example in indian history reseach that what happens due to absence of rich reseach culture
or concentrated efforts of single person or society in one field with biased outlook ,for last 90 years we are following this book on each and every account with some exception ,
this book really helpful in knowing exact picture of society and their values ,economics and other important technicalities,
traditions and lifestyle of that era but frankly speaking it is only helpful to those who want to get their masters and doctrate degrees for earning thier bread and butter.
In main stream it is of no use to any one who want to get inspiration from True history ,After all why we studied the history? because we can make life even better for us today.
but falling in to all earthly technicalities looses the ultimate soul of passion ,then things like it makes no difference in any ones life.
Finally it is true fact that with the end of golden era of our rich culture in 800 A.D. we lost the ultimate will of research
culture still with few exception there no signs of recarnation of this grate culture.