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Introduction: Nothing can be cast in stone
The ongoing debate on history has been quite one-sided so far and needs to be widened in its scope. History and its recording by written or unwritten sources is somehow seen as sacrosanct and, therefore, not open to any revision. The contention that the contemporary historians as well as the historians of earlier times are led solely by objectivity and accuracy is not as incontestable as is made out by its advocates. Prime minister Vajpayee's interesting statement to the effect that if history is one sided, we should change it struck a sympathetic chord in many people.
No historian or history book can justifiably lay claim to authentic history. We are all victims and perpetrators of our biases. When we write history or something as modest as an opinion piece, we cannot pretend to be completely even-handed. Eyewitnesses to history are almost always persons beholden to some empire, emperor, race or ethnicity. Traders or travellers, invited guests and chroniclers all have an agenda of their own or one laid down for them by their sponsors and patrons. Autobiographies and memoirs are equally self-serving. In that way, there are no pristine uncorrupted versions of history.
Moreover, facts can be lifted to suppress one and elevate another historical perspective. The beginnings of a freedom struggle can for centuries be condemned as a mutiny. In 1957, when India celebrated the centenary of 1857, an outstanding example occurred of re-representation of history. It took intellectual vigour and aggressive reasoning to question the biased Anglophile historical branding of the 1857 outbreak as a mutiny, and replace it with the more candid one of the first war of independence.
As students, we had to re-trace the events of that exciting rebellion and for the first time a sense of inquiry was brought to the study of history. Rather than regurgitate what some historian had instructed us to believe, we could arrive at an understanding of what transpired using a different lens. Soon dots crisscrossed connecting one centre of revolt to another, and one courageous rebel to another, leading us to discern a pattern, a thread that linked Indian restlessness against external domination across a much broader canvas than the few odd pockets to which history books had accustoms us.
The pork and cow fat used to grease the cartridges which apparently triggered the mutiny suddenly became trite as appreciation arose of a range of complex factors at the root of the rebellion. That time spent in re-visiting history did not saffronise or Talibanise us. Rather it made us aware that the notion of nationhood and linked protest were known, and the seeds of a future freedom movement may have been laid in 1857.
In key forums, including Parliament, academia and the media, the writing of history has been falsely presented and attacked as re-writing when it needs to be seen as re-visiting. Frustrated there was not a single history book written in English which depicted the true story of Bengal, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee demanded that we write our own history impelling a generation of fellow Bengalis to do so. Sadly, today, we have receded from the path opened by Bankim.
One can argue over the validity of the essentialist view of history. It assumes a static conclusiveness about past events as well as their representation. This seems narrow-minded if not outright bigotry. History is not dead just because its players are. It has to be interpreted within current parameters of understanding. History is also as authentic and monolithic or pluralistic as its presenters and recorders wish it to be.
In re-visiting history, there is no criminal intent or act if certain pruning occurs. The necessity to inject accuracy at times needs to be weighed against its relevance. To offer proof by quoting some Vedic text that beef was eaten or it led to reduced cattle population adds too little depth to an analysis of ancient India's economy or polity. In presenting that single fact, its import for contemporary readers individually and collectively needs to be appreciated and then an honest defence made to justify its inclusion. If it has no overriding import on the understanding of those times, its deletion will not hurt history's authenticity.
The same is true of the reference to a revered Sikh icon. Using official texts of those times to present the ruler's version of the Guru, and thereby rationalise his execution is to perpetrate the imposed version of history twice, once by the text's author of those times, and next by the contemporary citer of the original. In any case, archivists of that period would have hardly dared to present the Guru's own take on his execution.
Icon-building or downsizing is also a regrettable industry in history. That someone's freedom fighter is another's terrorist is not only a contemporary dilemma but also a widely practised ruse in the writing of history.
Looking for objective balance in the teaching of history seems futile in a context that is heavily shaped by our colonial legacy. How else can one justify that for ten years of learning history from high school through masters, the curriculum devoted equal time to British India as it did jointly to ancient and mediaeval India. Yet the span of centuries covered by the former is meagre compared to the latter two.
When Marxists denounce revisiting history, they are denying others what they have practised for long. It needs to be noted that Marxists have no monopoly over restoring a historical space to the voiceless. Secularists are equally in error when they equate history's revision to Hindutva's subjectivity, as they have no independently tested grounds to prove their own analytical objectivity and autonomy. For most of independent India's life, the two groups together have commanded reverential space. If none has questioned their analyses as reflected in school textbooks, it is not for lack of will but platform.
As consumers of what is churned
out as history, we need to keep a balance and not give into the hysterical
fear of history being hijacked by the saffronites. The slogans against
Talibanisation and saffronisation of education are dispensable because
they are misleading and spread fear. If we have accepted, read and been
compelled to learn the leftists' and colonial renderings of history without
being told that we had been Talibanised, why should the hasty unfounded
condemnation of the effort to make history multidimensional as Talibanisation
be acceptable to us?
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