The Dharma Dispatch

Murshidabad in Bengal was a city founded by a Shia Bigot named Murshid Quli Khan, the Governor of Aurangzeb. Its current pathetic state owes to this man. Read the full story! https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/murshidabad-the-city-founded-by-a-shia-bigot

The Best of The Dharma Dispatch: 2024 WISHING ALL OUR readers and patrons a very happy and prosperous Gregorian New Year, 2025. It has been our annual custom to curate a list of the ten most read articles on The Dharma Dispatch. And so, here's the list for 2024. Your readership and support have gone a long way in helping us continue to offer some of the most ennobling and rare stories and essays related to Hindu culture and history. Hope you all have a fabulous, happy and prosperous 2025! 🙏🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/dispatches/the-best-of-the-dharma-dispatch-2024-ce

Acharya Jadunath Sarkar’s Timeless Guidance should be Revisited by our Educationists The Mathematical Tripos of Cambridge is one of the toughest maths courses in the world. In this brilliant exposition, Acharya Jadunath Sarkar lays out his vision to elevate history courses in India to this standard. His mantra was originality of thought and rational study. The student would be evaluated on the basis of quality, not quantity - i.e., the number of questions answered. This is a gold-standard prescription, which will be of immense benefit to our educationists today if we are serious about education reform. Read the full, brilliant piece! 📑🪔🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/acharya-jadunath-sarkars-timeless-guidance-should-be-revisited-by-our-educationists

[SUNDAY READING] Read this intriguing and delightful anecdote of how mass distribution of chapatis played a mysterious role during the first war of Indian independence. https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/how-the-ubiquitous-chapati-forged-the-first-war-of-indian-independence-an-unsolved-mystery

How to Study and Write History: Excellent Tips from Acharya Jadunath Sarkar The students should he made to write their own summaries and, bring them to the teacher for correction. Summaries if made by a student himself serve many useful purposes; the exercise teaches him to separate the wheat from the chaff in what he reads, to marshal facts, in their natural sequence or in the order of their importance, and to practise terseness and accuracy of expression. Above all it calls forth his intellectual self-reliance. How many teachers of this calibre and vision exist in our universities today? And how infinitely fortunate were Sarkar's students, who studied directly under him? Read this highly inspirational essay! 📑🙏🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/how-to-study-and-write-history-excellent-tips-from-acharya-jadunath-sarkar

Jadunath Sarkar’s Piercing Analysis of European Teaching Methods in India In this important essay, Acharya Jadunath Sarkar offers a brilliant critique of the inapplicability of European teaching methods to Indian students. His insights are truly timeless. This essay will prove immensely beneficial especially to teachers at all levels and for education policymakers. Do read! https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/jadunath-sarkars-piercing-analysis-of-european-teaching-methods-in-india

Jadunath Sarkar’s Confessions as a History Teacher A brilliant essay by Jadunath Sarkar, the doyen of Indian history, on the problems teaching history in college more than a century ago. This essay offers the firsthand perspective of the Acharya’s prowess not just as a historian but a teacher of the highest order. This aspect of the Acharya’s legacy is rather little-known and it is only fitting that we hear him speak from direct experience. Among other things, the essay opens up a lost and forgotten world of the exacting academic standards that existed more than a century ago in India. 🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/jadunath-sarkars-confessions-as-a-history-teacher

Muhammad Azim-ud-din: Aurangzeb’s Grandson and the Extortionist of Bengal Aurangzeb’s grandson, Muhammad Azim-ud-din was appointed as the Subahdaar of Bengal in 1697. He ruled the province with shocking oppression and extortion. The kind of tyranny he exercised in Bengal is shocking beyond words. Do read the full essay! https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/muhammad-azim-ud-din-aurangzebs-grandson-and-the-extortionist-of-bengal

Murshid Quli Khan: The Brahmana who Founded Murshidabad This is the first episode of a comprehensive history of Murshid Quli Khan, Aurangzeb's confidant and the first Nawab of Bengal. MURSHID QULI KHAN was born in 1660 as a Brahmana named Suryanarayan Mishra somewhere in Dakshinapatha. When he was just nine, a man named Haji Shafi Isfahani purchased Suryanarayan Mishra, converted him to Islam and renamed him as Muhammad Hādi after circumcising him. Eventually, Muhammad Hādi became Aurangzeb’s right-hand man who ruthlessly implemented a “pure,” Sharia-based financial administration throughout the Mughal empire. In blunt terms, it meant an uncompromising extortion of Hindus to the point of impoverishment or conversion. --- Read this exciting new series filled with eye-opening historical truths. 🕉🛕🪔📑 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/murshid-quli-khan-the-brahmana-who-founded-murshidabad