An incident has come to light from Agra, Uttar Pradesh where a tourist guide was beaten up and forced to rub off his nose after a fierce fight broke out between him and the tourists who visited the fort. The guide, named Sahir Baig had to apologize in front of Shivaji’s statue, after the fight escalated further.
On February 20, some tourists from Maharashtra visited the Agra fort in Uttar Pradesh. They hired Sahir Beg as their toursit guide. It is been said that Sahir said some derogatory things about Shivaji Maharaj. However, as per the initial reports it has been known that the dispute was caused over Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. He said that Shivaji and his army was defeated by Aurangzeb and the former was imprisoned.
The tourists claim that the guide presented the history in a distorted manner, glorifying Aurangzeb and the mughal invaders, at the same time belittled Shivaji Maharaj. Further, they said that the guide passed objectionable remarks against the Maratha ruler. The angered tourists thought of teaching Sahir a lesson on their own. Firstly, the group beated him, and then took him in front of Shivaji’s statue. Sahir was made to apologize, by holding his ears and rubbing his nose to the ground. The video of the incident went viral days after the incident on February 25.
Sahir Beg has issued clarification about the whole matter. He said that hwe didn’t say any objectionable comment about Shivaji Maharaj. He was just dealing with his customers, telling them history. And then dispute broke out with the tourists from Maharashtra.
The local police of Agra has said that if a complaint is registered, they are going to take action after proper investigation into the matter.
It has often been said that the history has been manipulated, and we are taught wrong. Well, that goes on to the part of historians and archaelogists to deal with. Waging war against communities is not an answer. Moreover, taking the law in your hand and beating an individual, taking action on your own doesn’t makes you right either.
Let us wait if any further action is taken into the matter or the police is involved into it or not.