Michael Wood: The Story of India
Running Time: 60 minutes (approx)Michael Wood journeys through the subcontinent, tracing the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes. Still looking for more?
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Michael Wood: The Story of India is a History Documentary programme.
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Hello there,
I missed this super programme. Is there a way I can watch it online or is there a chance it will be telecast again in the near future ?
Thanks
Arav
HELLO,
YOU CAN WATCH THE STORY OF INDIA ONLY AT DISCOVERY CHANNEL(INDIA)ON WEDNESDAYS AT8 PM
This series brought me to tears so many times. It was such an emotional journey that was so well documented by the presenter. It just concluded on Discovery (India). Looking forward to any repeat telecasts.
The show is repeated now... wednesday 8 PM...i just watched episode:2 power of idea ,
repeat telecast every monday 10PM IST discovery
Hi
Can anyone provide the email id of michael woods.
The series Story of India is simply one of the most interesting series i have ever seen. also i am searching if i can get soft copy of the series some where.
Yes it was a great series. i am searching for michael woods email id and his contact information. can anybody give that to me.
Never before ,any one has presented India so beautifully as Michael Woods has done,he is amazing.
A very good research work .
Another 'Discovery of India'
I have few queries ,and few points(contradictions) to discuss with him,can some body provide me his email ID
A fabulous episode bringing some of the unknown facts, great work by Micheal woods.
I agree the best documentary portraying India and its history made so far.
I would however like to question some of the facts in the earlier episodes on the origins of the Aryans. There is a lot of information which contradicts the series claims. The Aryan race originated in Northern India and was different to the Dravidian races of the south; which may have originated from Africa as per the claims.
email: sharma@pentaq.com.au
hi,
this series is absolutely a great one which portrayed the true india from exact locations and reminds every indian that why they belongs to a country most respected! can i have the email id of michael sir?
hi,
aweosome job done by michael and team of camera person.this type of documentry defenatly mirror of indian history.this documentry (the story OF india) makes a illitirate person into historian.good work.
@ Raj sharma
Don't be stupid. Don't spread false information because of your inferiority complex and personal demons.
This documentary is all about breaking the myth of Aryan-Dravidian divide.
1. 70,000 yrs ago, people from africa into india. They landed in south india and moved on to north india. From north india, people moved up.
2. So, Raj sharma, all our ancestors, including yours came from Africa. Don't be ashamed of that.
3. This documentary traces the roots for sanskrit language, which obviously came from outside India. It does not mean that indians came from central asia. It was just the language which passed on from one tribe to another.
4. There is sanskrit influence in all the 22 different languages in India, including south indian languages.
5. People like Raj sharma should be hanged for dividing india.
Friends, unfortunately he had to strugle quite a lot to sell it to an Indian television network. How bad is that ! No Indian network was even willing to broadcast it. Reports say that even the Tourism Ministry wasn't much intersted in displaying it ! It can only happen in INDIA!
hello Mr.WOODS,
it was really nice to explore INDIA with you,im greatfan of urs,i really admire ur simplycity,d way to talk,ur presentation everything is great,but i was shocked whatever u said about RAMAYANA,and SHRI RAM, and AYODHYA,as a HINDU i dont think i can believe what u said,so it would be appretiated if u thow some light on it.
MR.WOODS,
i also want u to show some documentry on discovery channel regarding terrorist activities in INDIA,especially in JAMMU&KASHMIR,i would be dthe most happiest and most satisfied person if u really do something about it,if not JAMMU&KASHMIR,then atleast u can work on such activities in other parts of INDIA,it would be really appretiated.
thank you MR.WOODS.
hi wood
i came to knw abt the story of india resently and i havn't watched it and i got the information frm an article in kannada(one of the indian language) news paper and i would like to thank him for providing the information and thanks to u as well because without u it wouldn't be possible.....some how i'll definitely find it and watch it and one more thing all indian are proud of u and will thankful for u forever
The documetary in the end propagates old lies. I used to admire Michael Woods.
Hello,
After I heard of your new docu-series I was very excited. I was then
utterly disappointed after watching just the first episode. It was a
rehash of old ideas that are wrong. I am a person without religious or
racial motivation... but your documentary caters to the Hindu Aryan
sentiment.
I do not know if this will reach you... most probably not.
Episode 1
It is really sad to see how instead of digging you too subscribed to
the story told by victors. You ignore the people who are the original
Indians and are confounded into thinking that today’s mixture
represents the ancient people who gave India her culture. Really sad.
1. There was a discontinuity from the Indus.
2. The chariots came after Indus was destroyed.
3. Brahmins were not the only carriers of knowledge. AND do not
believe that Brahmins were hereditary as it is today.
4. Indians are not Aryans but a mixture.
5. Sanskrit is not the mother language but a mixture of the Aryan
language and a major native language.
6. You do not refer to the Gangas who built India – without that you
only rehash the same old concocted story.
7. The Rg Veda has been much modified… the original themes were
deleted and replaced by tales. The name remained but the contents
changed.
8. The link of languages (words) that you and all other ‘accepted’
scholars see as evidence of some proto‘indo-european’ has actually
another non-indo-european link.
9. Arya does not actually mean noble or civilized – that’s the meaning
later attributed by religion.
10. Soma may be homa in Iran. It is most probably Aryan.
11. You have been duped by religiously and racially motivated “scholars”.
12. The Indus people had settlements elsewhere outside India.
13. Indus was pre-Aryan. Some texts from there survive and are not
relics but cannot be shared.
14. Shiva is an African concept originally and was the God of Indus
non-Aryan people. They were one of the TWO major types of Dravidians
in India. Originally Shiva (shib meaning good) was a concept of a
‘god’ without form…
15. Bricks do not exist in the Rig Ved but you believe that the
writers of the Rig Ved lived in a “mud brick” settlement. Interesting.
There are many other Indus items missing in the Rig Ved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_India_theory#Items_not_in_the_Rigveda
These may be because Rig Veda was composed before the Indus
Civilization or simply by non-Indus folk.
16. Read Indra’s exploits in the Rig Ved and you will know how Indus
died. http://www.geocities.com/shivsantan/#indra
17. At one point some people you interview say the people moved WEST,
that would be away from India but you concluded again that it was on
the way to Iran and India.
18. There was a pre Aryan (pre indo-european) civilizations in the
Turkish and near east region.
19. Look at the story from the defeateds’ perspective and please try
to unearth the real history instead of some cooked up version. Today
most Indians have been Aryanized in their belief system… so you should
keep that in mind before believing them outright.
20. Kerala (not your Brahmin of Aryan Kerala) is a place you may dig
in but there are clues elsewhere from Karnatak to Bengal (East and
West).
21. Mahabharat and Ramayan depict major events in millennia of Aryan
conquest. The non-Aryans are the villains… but they are also given
Aryan lineage sometimes by later story tellers.
22. I have given you many clues… you may, as most, ignore them.
NOVO
(Here you would expect some scholarly identification/designation but
degrees do not give authority. So instead of searching for my
credentials be true to history and not to what Indians feel history
should be.)
Bharat said...
Don't be stupid. Don't spread false information because of your inferiority complex and personal demons.
This documentary is all about breaking the myth of Aryan-Dravidian divide.
So you are now a self declared judge , jury and hangman?? and you have the audacity to claim that I am divisive?
You must live inside your own planet, maybe you should pull your head out and smell some fresh air?
I am sorry, I cannot accept the evolution theory as I have a better understanding of the Vedas - My ancestors are scholars of all four VEDAS branches, Bharat- and yours??
Hello again,
Once again I am not happy with your second episode of "A Story of India". This time I shall make it short.
1. India had great empires before the Mauryan Empire.
2. When Alexander came to India he was faced with the army of Gangaridae (Gonga or Ganga) and the army was intimidating.
3. The Gangaridae is mentioned by Homer and Virgil. After the Indus there were some empires... Gangaridae was the longest surviving and probably the most expansive. You avoid Gangaridae once again.
4. Ashok probably never became a Buddhist as Buddhists claim.
5. Ashok was cruel as was Jaluka... he is great to the Indians who came later to India. Your story of Ashok is the one that North Indians and Buddhists wish to propagate and turn a monster into a hero. It is one sided at best. Read the Jain version may be. Have you considered that Ashok had no other option than to suddenly turn pacifist... his empire's survival was at stake...
6. You do not mention the schisms in Buddhism and the role of Kushan in modifying the religion.
7. Bengali Pal Emperors spread Buddhism in the East... you skip that.
8. Are you sure that the flag bears Ashok's wheel of law?
To Michael Wood,
The third Episode.
This episode was much better.
1. I am particularly glad you have mentioned the Kushans. They are a key to understanding Indian history and how Buddhism evolved to its present form. Thanks also for saying that they were foreigners... but very important foreign rulers.
2. Thank you for mentioning Kerala and Tamil Nadu. However, you have missed the Guptas, and the Pal empire of Bengal. You could have shed light on Hampi.
3. You forgot the ancient Muslin fabric. Apparently you missed everything connected to Bengal. How typically British! The British divided the Bengal nation and erased much of its history and has nearly destroyed Bengal. Is it just a continuation of the British policy in your docuseries?
4. Ayurbed is older than the Kushans ... even the HastiAyurbed (Ayur Bed for Elephants) is older. Non Brahmanic lineages of AyurBed practitioners existed... despite claims to the contrary.
Try to rise above the Hundutvavadis' wishes who know not that the seeds of their brand were planted by their colonial masters. They have been duped into thinking that they are fighting against them (colonisers). It is a sad affair. Those who deny the Dravidian of India deny India. It would be great if you do not join the deniers.
NOVO
Episode III
This time I am not unhappy. However, I would have been glad if you had mentioned the Pal Empire and the Bijoy Nogor empire.
And once again, caste was not hereditary. That was always the intention of some families but it was not until the British that it became totally hereditary.
NOVO
Final episode of The Story of India by Michael Wood.
Once again, this episode was not satisfactory. It was good... but not as good as it could have been.
1. The Congress was not created as a result of the freedom struggle... but was created by the British to impede Indian independence. It was to allow the British educated Indian people a degree of self importance so that they would in turn influence the country against independence.
“Every adherent of the Congress, however noisy in declamations, however bitter in speech, is safe from burning bungalows and murdering Europeans and the like. His hopes are based upon the British nation and he will do nothing to invalidate these hopes and anger that nation.” (A. O. Hume, founder of the Indian National Congress In 1885)
More Quotes: http://www.geocities.com/glorybangla/iqtes.htm
2. The Congress had been infiltrated by those seeking independence at the beginning of the 20th century. At a conference it was obvious (party had broken into two) that the Congress could not be used to serve the British purpose with the pro-independence leaders. This was followed by killings and jailing in the thousands. Many also fled India. The leader of that upheaval (and underground movements) was the great Bengali Revolutionary Aurobindo whom you failed to mention. He re-kindled the spirit of rebellion with the very instrument (Congress) of the British which was designed to hinder independence.
3. Likewise the Muslim League was formed by the British to divide the people and dilute the independence drive. After the suppression of the Aurobindo rebellion the British sought to destroy Bengal. They formed the Muslim League and resolved to divide the state. The Muslim League was formed in Dhaka, now capital of Bangladesh, at the Ahsan Manzil with this purpose and also to divide all Indians. However, the initial preparations for the formation of the party had taken place at a Brothel at Shahbag of Dhaka where the British rulers and Muslim business leaders, who benefited under colonialism, frequented.
1906: "To promote, among the Musalmans (Muslims) of India, feelings of loyalty to the British Government..."
1913: "To maintain and promote among the people of this country feelings of loyalty towards the British Crown..." (Muslim League)
The Viceroy, Viscount Wavell, gave "... unabashed support for Jinnah and the Muslim league" (Denis Judd: ibid.; p. 40)
4. Bengal was divided at that time but Hindu-Muslim united movement forced the British to cancel the division. They later snuck it back in 4 decades later.
5. You never mentioned Subash Bose. Why? He was basically the force behind independence but history was recorded in favour of Gandhi who had opposed independence until the very end.
"Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore, Nobel Winner) formally conferred the title Deshanayak (Leader of the Nation) upon Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose , and perceived in him the highest quality of courage, patriotism, vision and leadership that an independent India would need desperately..." (Monish R. Chatterjee)
6. Where is Bhagat Singh? Where is Savarkar? Where are the Punjabi Singh’s?
7. Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah were british puppets! Gandhi was not everybody’s leader… he was built by the British and media. Your interviews were selective. British educated Indians and those who learn a British edited history in India will parrot whatever the British propagandized
“The Western news media and their Indian allies by a massive propaganda exercise created the illusion of sainthood around Gandhi and made people believe that he fought Apartheid in South Africa, and in the process of doing so developed a new method of non-violent struggle called satyagraha. Nothing is farther from the truth.” (Velu Annamalai)
“Gandhi, for the major part of his life, worshipped British imperialism and too often proudly proclaimed himself a lover of the Empire. He was Kipling's Gunga Din in flesh and blood.” (Velu Annamalai)
8. Non-violence was Abul Kalam Azad’s program who opposed division of the country.
9. What about the violent struggle that forced the British to leave India? Where did the Indian National Army vanish? You focused on the story that was created to make a hero out of Gandhi. You failed to dig further. India did not become independent through a peace movement… dig deeper. It is a popular notion but a myth.
“There are more than forty major rebellions and hundreds of minor ones against the British in India from 1763 to 1856.” (Ashish Dharmadhikari)
10. India’s partition was basically a partition of Bengal and Punjab… because they fought to get rid of the British (and Gandhi took credit).
11. The riots were planned and organized in its initial stages. Groups were trained ahead of time for the initial attacks.
12. Your story of India is incomplete unless you dig deeper… from the first to this episode… you have glossed over and just reported the STORY and myths that have been popularized. You have missed vital episodes of Indian history and have rehashed the same old fake stories. It has been disappointing.
13. You did not mention the genocide of 3 million in Bangladesh by the Pakistanis that led to the revolution in Bangladesh.
14. The revolution in Bangladesh began without Indian help. Later India helped and eventually again the history of the revolution followed the Gandhian story. Credit and power, because of the Indians, went to a group that was not due and Bangladesh’s misfortunes continued. The fake story is now popularized as history in both India and Bangladesh. Sad! India helped to keep the revolutionaries out of power and get their man in power in Bangladesh just as the British did in India. Later this “man” in Bangladesh was made out to be synonymous to Bengali independence.
15. My final comment… you have not discovered India.
The British have sanitized the appalling 2 centuries of British rule over India - and the BBC's "The Story of India" Chapter 6, "Freedom and liberation" is no exception to what must be described as continuing, entrenched British holocaust-denial.
I am a scientist with a 4 decade research career in plant biochemistry, protein chemistry and biochemical pharmacology - but in the last 15 years my interests have included thanatology (the science of the causes of death).
My book "Body Count, Global avoidable mortality since 1950" (2007) provides an avoidable death-linked history of every country in the world , including succinct history of India (Chapter 3, pp113-118).
This succinct 6-page history of the countries of the former British Raj (Chapter 6, pp113-118) - unlike the BBC's "The Story of India" (TV or book form) - mentions the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine (10 million victims), the 1943-1947 WW2 Bengal Famine (4 million dead in Bengal, 6-7 million dead in Bengal and adjacent provinces) and horrendous, recurrent famines in the intervening years that killed scores of millions.
Also mentioned are the Indian excess deaths (avoidable deaths , deaths that did not have to happen) that totalled 1.5 billion under the genocidal, racist British (1.8 billion if you include the so-called Native States of the British Raj).
How this Indian Holocaust happened - and how centuries of lying, racist British historians, academics, journalists and politicians have white-washed them out of British history - is set out in the 1998 and 2008 editions of my book "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis inn biological sustainablilty".
Even my huge, comprehensive pharmacological treatise "The biochemical targets of plant bioactive compounds" found space to refer en passant to the appalling man-made Bengal Famines under the British.
Yet the word "famine" didn't even arise in the last episode of the TV version of "The Story of India" - except for an IMAGE of a file labelled "famine" in the Indian National Library in Delhi.
In the book version of "The Story of India", famine under the British in the latter half of the 19th century IS mentioned; it is blamed on a "the failure of the El Nino world climate system" failure" with a prior statement in the preceding paragraph that "In the almost thirty years since the Mutiny they [educated Indians] had seen for themselves the the failure of the British Government in many key areas, but especially in the basic one of providing food and security for the population" ; and the 1866 Orissa famine (3 million dead) is mentioned (but with no mention of the impact on Bengal).
However the BBC 's "The Story of India" makes NO mention of the horrendous, recurrent Bengal Famines between 1769 and 1945 and makes NO mention of the 1.8 billion Indian excess deaths due to the British policy of keeping most Indians on the edge of starvation (with the exception, of course, of their Indian collaborators - soldiers, public servants etc).
Unlike the BBC in its "The Story of India", even Winston Churchill (who hated India and Indians) mentioned the Great Bengal Famine of 1769-1770 in his "A history of the English-speaking peoples" (albeit in only several words) - although in his "History of the Second World War" he fails to mention his deliberate starving to death of 6-7 million Indians in the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust.
Indeed in 1935 this hater and mass murderer of Indians, Churchill, made the following frank confession the House of Commons" : "“In the standard of life they have nothing to spare. The slightest fall from the present standard of life in India means slow starvation, and the actual squeezing out of life, not only of millions but of scores of millions of people, who have come into the world at your invitation and under the shield and protection of British power.”
The BBC's "The Story of India" is grossly deficient in this awful holocaust-ignoring. (Indeed it is worth noting that the word "holocaust" was first applied to a WW2 atrocity by Jog in his 1944 book "Churchill's blind-spot: India" in referring to the Bengal Famine, the Bengali Holocaust that killed 6-7 million Indians.
Just imagine a history of Germany that omitted any mention of the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) - indeed David Irving was sentenced to 3 years in prison in Austria for conceding only 1 million violent Jewish deaths and asserting that Jewish concentration camp deaths were due to deprivation and disease.
In contrast to David Irving's MINIMIZING of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the BBC's "The Story of India" doesn't even mention the 1757-1947 Indian Holocaust (1.8 billion excess deaths) or the WW2 Bengal Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British).
Indeed there is a MUCH more to object to in the holocaust-ignoring BBC "The History Of India" e.g. the 10 million Indians estimated by Amaresh Misra to have been butchered by the British after 1857 in reprisals for the killing of 2,000 British invaders (see "War of Civilisations: India AD 1857" by Amaresh Misra) ...
Just as Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and other European counries have made denial or minimization of the Jewsih Holocaust a criminal offence, so the various South Asian countries should similarly criminalize denial of the Indian Holocaust and the various repeated Bengali Holocausts.
My personal view is that in the interests of freedom of speech (an hence of unimpeded scholarship) those found guilty of holocaust denial in a proper judicial process should not be fined or sent to prison (but should simply be punished by the ignominy of having been found guilty in a public judicial process of the heinous and repugnant crime of holocaust denial.
Dear Michael Woods,
I watched your excellent documentary "Story of India" trying to piece together the past history of India. However, you did not incorporate recent archeology findings of about past 20 years with which you may have given a correct and better perspective. Your document does not mention nothing of Sarasvati civilisation which has been discovered since 2002. This was through carbon dating proved to be 7500 BC, older than Indus valley and Harapan civilisation by at least several thousand years, which are even older than races in Persian and Zorastrian races north. Basic fact to be drawn from this is that Aryan race never came from North into India , a view held by Indologists led by Max Mueller for past 200 years. Sarasvati river is mentioned frequently in the Vedas and during Mahabharat era 3500 BC this river was drying out as mentioned in it. Regarding Sanskrit language and it's cultural influence was not only spread to Greece and Rome but throughout the world. Stephen Knapp author of Proof of Vedic Culture's Global existence gives an excellent account. He also has an excellent web site showing the proof by P.N. Oak that Taj Mahal was an ancient Vedic Temple. Far older than Mahabharat and Sarasvati ages is Ramayan era. In 2002, NASA photographed from satelite a bridge mentioned in Ramayan built across India to Sri Lanka. Details of it building is given in Valmiki's Ramayan. As per ancient Hindu texts there four ages that repeat and these are called Yugas. Our current yuga is Kali-yuga and it will last for 432,000 years and it started about 5000 years ago after Krishna-a Vishu Avatar departed earth and Dvapara-yuga culminated which had lasted for 864,000 years before that when Rama- a Vishnu Avatar departed earth culminating Treta Yuga Therefore, Ramayana era was 869,000 years ago. Here it would be interest for Anthropolists to note that Hanuman's race as mentioned in Ramayan (the monkey race) was ending it's coexistence with Human race. Treta yuga lasted for 1.296 million years.For geologist,it should be noted that when India plate touched the Asian plate. Before that was Satya Yuga again that culminated in Vishnu's Avatar. What is Vishnu's Avatar? Here not quoting any source is my perception. It is God's personal presence to guide all living things not only humans but it's origins starting from sea. From scientific perspective Darwin's theory is correct. Hindu priests to this day when praying to Vishnu make symbols of fish and birds by hand gestures. So you documentary is right about one thing that you mention in "begingings" that only India has preserved the unbroken thread of human story that binds us all.