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Dear Professor Baets,
I very much appreciate receiving your bulletins from the NETWORK OF CONCERNED HISTORIANS (NCH). I respect the valuable work that you do reporting the condition of historians who face persecution. Most of the things broadcast by your organization are very valid and urgent. But I must point out something that does not belong in your report. The Towards Freedom episode in India is not one of the valid and urgent issues that needs to be addressed by your organization. Including this purely political and sensationalized issue in your report is a mistake and trivializes the real cases of abuse of historians.
The whole situation in at the ICHR last Spring was blown out of proportion by the Marxist historians who have dominated Indian historiography for the past several decades. The two volumes of documents edited by Sumit Sarkar and K.N. Panikkar were called back from OUP so that indexes could be added. A letter was sent to OUP on Feb 3, not 11, from Mr. Kaimal, the deputy director of the ICHR. He informed the publisher that the volumes must have an index to be usable. It was Mr. Kaimal's job to do this. The historians, Sarkar and Panikkar, held a press conference and made a big issue of academic freedom, before bothering to find out WHY the volumes were asked to be returned to the ICHR for review. The ICHR, by the way, is the organization that is responsible for the volumes, financially and editorially. The decision to review the Towards Freedom volumes was not initially political. It was professional and practical. Prof. K.N. Panikkar and Prof. Sumit Sarkar used the situation to make a political point-trying to malign the ruling government whom they call fascists. Leftist, fascists, communists. . . India these days is a mine field of ideologically opposed factions. ALL HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH!! I found during the course of my research into comparative historiography in South Asia that the hoopla over this Towards Freedom recall was excessive, unnecessary and overblown. The anti-Hindu rhetoric coming from leftists who feel their loss of power in the country's institutions is more dangerous than the the supposed horrors they envision. I have also found that many of the claims of the old school of Indian Marxist historians are baseless and actual untruths.
----
Professor Panikkar gave
a talk at The University of Texas at Austin on November 7, 2000.
I attended with photocopies of two of the previous volumes of the Toward
Freedom project. I raised some questions. Here is the transcription
of my questions and Prof. Panikkar's responses:
Yvette Rosser asked a question about the lack of indexes which had been the initial problem that had concerned the ICHR regarding the Towards Freedom project and actually until the big hoopla started it was their main objective, to have an index made for each volume.
Panikker: If there had been an index for the S.P. Gupta volumes it would have taken an entire volume of its own.. . . the Calendar of Documents at the beginning is sufficient to look up any particular item.
Yvette Rosser points out that all the documents were only listed in the table of contents with entries such as gazetteer number such and such with a date, but no details as to what was in the documents. "If I wanted to find something on women, or dalits, or even J. Prakash Narayan, I would have to leaf through each of the 3,800 pages to hopefully find a reference to women or dalits or any other particular topic.
Panikkar: A glance at the Calendar of Documents would easily allow you to turn to the document where the information could be located.
Yvette then read from the Calendar of Documents, "Here is a list of entries, see how difficult is would be to find a document that refers to women or dalits:
Date Feb. 18, 1944 Extracts from Fortnightly Report from Orissa Extracts from Fortnightly Report from Punjab
May 5 44 News item from Indian Express News Item from Indian Express
March 6, 44 Extracts from Fortnightly Report from Sind"
How do we know what documents speak about women, or dalits, or any other particular subject or topic? The contents are not described at all in the Calendar of Documents, nor is there an index. So the only way to locate information is to look at each document individually. This greatly limits its use as a research tool. This deficiency was the motive behind the recall of the Towards Freedom volumes.
Panikkar: The over all plan was to do the Towards Freedom project in the same way that the Transfer of Power was done. None of the individual volumes in the Transfer of Power has an index. There is a separate index for all the volumes, the last volume, volume twelve is an index. An index for each volume would have added hundreds of pages. We were planning to do an index after all the volumes were published.
Rosser: Actually, I think that each of the Transfer of Power volumes does have an index.
Panilkkar: No no you have got it all wrong. They would be too thick. There is one volume that is the index, the 12th volume. Ours were to be on that model. The lack of an index was just an excuse to politicize the writing of history.
Yvette Rosser: Isn't it true that since its inception the ICHR has been dominated by Marxists and that in fact when Irfan Habib was chairman, he also recalled the second volume of the Toward Freedom project of P.N. Chopra because it was not, in Prof. Habib's perspective, far enough to the left?
Panikkar: That is all BJP propaganda. Chopra's volume lacked proper references to student groups and peasants, it was provided too much of an elitist perspective.
Yvette Rosser: But isn't that a form of censorship? Irfan Habib, the famous Marxist historian, recalled a previous volume because it was not representative of the Left--that is what you are accusing the current chairman of doing--precisely what Habib did to Chopra. Previously the ICHR was dominated by Marxists historians, and now it is not, isn't that the main issue--whose political perspective will be presented? Isn't it just a matter of different political orientations?
Panikkar: There have never been more than two Marxist on the ICHR board. This is a matter of intellectual freedom. The RSS wants to rewrite history. The forces of the Hindu Right want to erase the distinctions between history and myth. The present government lends exhaustive support and legitimacy to the politics of cultural fascism. They have stacked the boards of India's institutes with communalists who would deprive minorities of their rights. They are rewriting history to support their own ideology.
Yvette: That is what they are saying that the Marxist historians have done, rewritten history to suit their agenda. Professor Panikkar, isn't it true that in fact Mr. Kaimal, a former student of yours from JNU who has been working at the ICHR for 23 years, and whom no on would ever accuse of being saffron, that he is the deputy director who requested the volumes be held up by OUP, returned to the ICHR, because he wanted to get an index added. Kaimal felt professionally responsible since he considered that the books comprising the P.S. Gupta volume were unusable. Isn't it also true that the order to review the volumes was made by Prof. Sattar, the previous chairman and not by Grover, the current chairman and appointee of the BJP?
Panikkar: Yes, I know Kaimal, he was my former student. But you have got it all wrong. They didn't like the negative, albeit, accurate representation of the RSS that was depicted in the volumes. They wanted to improve the image of the RSS when in fact they had been collaborators with the colonialists.
Yvette Rosser: Of course, they say that the communist collaborated with the British in 1944. One of the complaints about the P.S. Gupta volume was that there were only 42 documents about Gandhi whereas the leftists and communists were allocated over 750 documents. Doesn't that seem a bit strange to you, rather slanted?
Panikkar: You know why don't you? Where was Gandhi in 1944?
Yvette Rosser: Well, he spent most of it in jail,.
Panikkar: Exactly, but even so, there are still 42 documents devoted to Gandhi. How can you say there is no representation?
Yvette Rosser: I am saying that there is an over representation of the role played by leftist organizations. And there is no mention in those 750 documents of the collaborative role played by the communists during 1944 and their support of the British who were allied with Moscow.
Panikkar: You have got it all wrong. The RSS were anti-national collaborators not the Communists. They can't face the truth of history so they had the volumes recalled.
---------end of transcript of question/answer-Nov. 7, 2000-UT Austin---------
Please refer to this concerning the role of leftists during India's freedom struggle:
From: Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr. and Stanley A Kochanek. India Government and Politics in a Developing Nation (Fifth Edition), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, Fort Worth (1993), page 294.
The Communist Party
Since its inception in 1928 the Communist Party of India (CPI) has been divided in its social character, its base of support, and its ideological stance. These division reflect its origins in the regional organizations of the Workers' and Peasants' party. IN its early years the CPI, closely tied to the Communist Part of Great Britain, was largely under Comintern control and followed Moscow directives with dutiful twists and turns. During the 1930s the part adopted a tactic of "the united front from above" in cooperation with the nationalist movement. Entering the Congress Socialist Party, )CSP), Communists soon secured leadership in the Socialist organization, particularly in the South, were they gained effective control. Expelled in 1939, they took much of the CSP membership in the South with them. The final break with the Congress came with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the CPI's call for cooperation with the British in what was deemed an anti-imperialist war. The Congress chose noncooperation and as Congress leaders languished in jail, the CPI infiltrated student, peasant, and labor organizations, expanding its membership from 5,000 in 1942 to 53,000 by 1946. Although the CPI effectively gained control of a number of mass organizations, its participation in the war effort, its continued attack on Gandhi, and its support for the Muslim League demand for Pakistan tainted the party as antinational and minimized its influence.
---------
Each of the Transfer
Of Power volumes does in fact have a detailed index as can be seen below.
As well the table of contents is much more descriptive concerning what
is contained in each document than is the corresponding calendar of documents
in the volumes of Toward Freedom.
Here is a reference from the indexes of the Transfer Of Power volumes:
Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power 1942-7: (London: 1970-1983), editor-in-chief Nicholas Mansergh.
Volume I: The Cripps
Mission
January-April 1942
Summary of Documents,
between pages xxiv - lxiii = 39 total pages
Index of persons, pages
between pages 899 - 913 = 14 total pages
Index of Subjects, between
pages 914 - 928 = 14 total pages
Total pages devoted
to index: 28
Volume III: Reassertion
of authority, Gandhi's fast, and the succession to the Viceroyalty
21 September 1942-12
June 1943
Summary of Documents,
between pages xxiix - lxxxv = 57 total pages
Index of Persons, pages
between pages 1060 - 1088 = 28 total pages
Index of Subjects, pages
between pages 1089 - 1095 = 6 total pages
Total pages devoted
to index: 34
Volume V: The Simla Conference,
background and proceedings
1 September 1944-28
July 1945
Summary of Documents,
between pages xxxviii - xcii = 54 total pages
Index of Persons, between
pages 1304 - 1334 = 30 total pages
Index of Subjects, between
pages 1335 - 1346 = 11 total pages
Total pages devoted
to index: 41
Volume IX: The fixing
of a time limit
4 November 1946-22 March
1947
Summary of Documents,
between pages xlii - cxxv = 83 total pages
Index of Persons, between
pages 1017 - 1044 = 27 total pages
Index of Subjects, between
pages 1045 - 1053 = 8 total pages
Total pages devoted
to index: 35
Volume XII: The Mountbatten
Viceroyalty, Princes, Partition, and Independence
8 July 1947-15 August
1947
Summary of Documents
between pages xlii - cxvi = 54 pages
Index of Persons, between
pages 813 - 837 = 24 total pages
Index of Subjects, between
pages 838 - 852 = 14 total pages
Total pages devoted
to index: 38
---------------
As can be seen from this excerpt from the introduction of Towards Freedom, volume (1943-44) edited by P.S. Gupta, the author most definitely has a political agenda:
"Chapter V and VI (on
the CPI and the Radical Democratic Party) could be usefully read with Chapters
IX and X (Peasant Struggles and Working Class Struggles), for obvious reasons.
[. . . ] The term 'nationalist' is used for all political
parties (Congress and the various left-wing groups operating under its
broad umbrella) whose aim was to replace British paramountcy in the subcontinent
with a pan Indian political structure which envisaged equal citizenship
of people of all castes and creeds. Admittedly, in working towards
this goal, the leadership of those parties had, in the past, often betrayed
weaknesses, which were exploited by the imperial power, but it can be said
unhesitatingly that none of these parties aimed to replace British rule
in the entire subcontinent with the exclusive dominance of one religious
community. The term communal or regional is used for organisations
aiming at territorial separatism for Muslim-majority provinces (like the
Muslim League with its 'Pakistan' slogan), or claiming special privileges
and constitutional safeguards for specific castes and religious sects (like
the Dravida Kazhagam in Madras or the Akali Dal in the Punjab, or the All-India
Hindu Maha Sabha). I have used the term 'pseudo-nationalist' to describe
militant organisations like the RSS. Their political programme not
only aimed to rid the subcontinent of every vestige of British rule, but
also to eliminate its Muslim inhabitants and establish the dominance of
persons following Hindu religious practices. (It did not occur to
these pseudo-nationalists that their programme and activities were helping
the Muslim League to justify the Pakistan demand and the British Raj to
encourage the latter). The material on regional, communal separatist
and pseudo-nationalist forces overlap with each other, and so that has
all been put together in one Chapter."
I hope that you will take this item about limititions to history in India off your listing. It is a political issue among Indians and has absolutely NOTHING to do with freedom of speech. It has to do with shoddy volumes which are unusable without indexes. It is also a bit disconcerting to be lied to in a public forum. Prof. Panikker compiled his Towards Freedom volume with the Transfer Of Power volumes in mind. He had to have seen the Transfer Of Power volumes. . . why did he lie about the indexes? If he never took the time to look at the Transfer Of Power volumes prior to editing his volume which was to be "an answer to the Transfer Of Power volumes", then that is just as tragic!!
Sincerely,
Yvette C. Rosser
Ph.D. Curriculum
and Instruction (ABD)
M.A. Asian Studies
The University of Texas
at Austin
NETWORK OF CONCERNED
HISTORIANS (NCH) #17a INDIA
In December 1999 (or
earlier), the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) allegedly decided
to order Oxford University Press to suspend publication of two volumes
in its Towards Freedom series (a documentation project on the 1938-47 period)
by social historians Sumit Sarkar, Delhi University, and K.N. Panikkar,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and return them to the ICHR for
review. The volumes, about the years 1940 and 1946, had been submitted
in 1995 and 1996 and already in press. The authors and general series
editor Sarvepalli Gopal (1923-) were informed of the suspension by the
ICHR on 11 February 2000. On [15] February dozens of historians and
academics from the four New Delhi universities protested in front of the
ICHR office. A statement signed by over thirty academics, including
three former ICHR chairpersons (Ram Sharan Sharma, Irfan Habib, and Ravinder
Kumar), denounced the withdrawal of the volumes as "the grossest form of
censorship". Panikkar declared that the volumes were withheld because
the militant Hindu organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, close to the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (ruling since 1998), claimed a prominent
place in the freedom movement for themselves by emphasizing that Sangh
leaders like (Prime Minister) Atal Vajpayee and organizations like Hindu
Mahasabha played an important role in the freedom struggle. On 3
March the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) discussed the
[Sources include: IOC
3/00: 95.]
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