HVK Archives: Fragile falsehoods - Karmic maturation of history
Fragile falsehoods - Karmic maturation of history - The Times of India
Sandhya Jain
()
September 30, 1998
Title: Fragile falsehoods - Karmic maturation of history
Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 30, 1998
Having spewed venom and cast aspersions on the intellectual
credentials of historians recently nominated to the Indian
Council of Historical Research, the once dominant Left-liberal
school of historiography finds itself repenting at leisure as
its own performance comes under public scrutiny. Though the
arraigned historians have held their peace, cursory revelations
of academic and financial misdeeds suffice to send the
protagonists scurrying for cover. Already there are desperate
pleas for entente. There is also a tacit admission of defeat as
confessions of false scholarship dispel the intellectual
darkness.
False Premise
A look at the alleged Aryan invasion best illustrates this
point. After raising generations of students on the nowledge'
of the invasion, the scholars admit it was a terrible mistake.
However, a scrutiny of their ideological motivations and the
political benefits that accrued to their patrons tells a
different story. According to this theory, the Aryans projected
as the original usurpers of India - were none other than the
casteist and communal ancestors of upper caste Hindus, who were
thus kept on the defensive vis-a-vis the rest of society.
Let us now see why it has taken five decades for our secular
apostles to admit that the basic premise of their study of
ancient history was false. Incontrovertible evidence from
Harappan sites excavated by Indian and foreign scholars has
established the indigenous evolution of the civilisation, while
scientific examination of the bones found at Mohenjo-daro has
unequivocally ruled out invasion or massacre as the cause of the
city's decline.
There is now no denying that India was a united civilisation in
its collective consciousness long before the British bestowed it
with a political perimeter. The raj ruled over only a third of
the subcontinent at the height of its power, and we owe our
current political unity to the redoubtable Sardar Patel, who
could effect this not merely on the strength of his will, but
because the old collective consciousness had legitimacy in the
eyes of the people. This fact is anathema to our intellectuals,
who quickly allied with Nehru and sought to shape a perception
of history that promoted amnesia about Patel.
Unfortunately, opponents of the Nehruvian school have not been
able to articulate why they disagree with its perspectives, and
tend to digress towards peripheral issues, such as the critique
of secularism. Since they simultaneously claim that Hinduism is
by nature secular, it is not easy to understand what they wish
to contest in the left-liberal view of history.
The crux of the matter is Nehru's attempt, supported by left-
liberal intellectuals, to realign India from its natural
spiritual moorings towards a mundane and pragmatic society,
based on his impressions of socialist utopia. In pursuit of this
goal, he erected a system that smothered the new nation's
innocence of spirit between a rigid bureaucracy and a state-
controlled economy, throttling free enterprise and free thought,
and disempowering the ordinary citizen. The rising mass
consciousness stimulated by the freedom struggle was quickly
squashed in the grim daily struggle for survival.
The intellectual establishment ably assisted this enterprise by
presenting India as a victim of divided and disparate peoples,
which British roadways and railways had somehow woven into a
political entity, of which Nehru was now king. Brutally ignoring
the unity of spirit and consciousness, Marxist historians
projected the multiplicity and plurality of tradition as proof
of hostility and division within society, as if unity ceases to
exist when multiplicity is manifested.
Effective Method
India, however, keeps her own rhythm, and by the process of
karmic maturation, these sterile intellectual structures have
come under strain at the first gust of the winds of change. An
adherent of the JNU-Aligarh-Delhi University school of
historiography laments that "a combination of ideology and,
above all, clientelist, and factional politics, came together to
define a veritable Establishment, which set about defining and
defending agendas from the writing of school textbooks all the
way to deciding which monographs would be translated into the 16
national languages at ICHR expense." This should silence leftist
historians who now wish to pretend that the ICHR had virtually
no role in their intellectual lustre.
Notwithstanding the questionable vibrancy of the subaltern
school in the eyes of some scholars, I feel a more honest
history could be written around the results of archaeological
finds, a most effective method of corroborating or demolishing
historical accounts. This is how in 1971, in a major triumph of
Indian archaeology, K M Srivastava overturned the claims of raj
historiography and discovered Kapilvastu (birthplace of the
Buddha). That he did it in the face of stiff opposition from the
entrenched intellectual czars is a telling commentary on our
commitment to the truth about our past.
Compelling Change
Left historians are apprehensive about studying the history of
ings and dynasties', on the specious plea that this inhibits
the study of underlying socio-economic structures. I believe
this was a ruse to divert attention from the unbroken continuity
of the spirit of India, and to counter the consciousness aroused
by the nationalist movement, which drew sustenance from
historical figures like Maharana Pratap, Shivaji, Laxmi Bai,
Ahilya Bai, and identified certain dynasties with the
nationalist urge. Under such state-sponsored historiography
which served a political purpose, Tilak was unpalatable,
Aurobindo simply ignored, and Bankim Chandra pushed under the
carpet.
The major Indian dynasties were reduced to cultural or
geographical entities and pushed into museums and tourist
circuits, with the result that an ordinary person could get only
a fragmented view of the nation's history. Citizens visiting
prominent historical or religious sites found local history and
evidence at odds with official textbooks, and could never
reconcile the two. The only major kingdom to get some justice
was the Mauryan. But here too, founder Chandragupta who lived
according to the precepts of Arthashastra, received short shrift
in favour of his grandson Ashok, in the mistaken belief that
Buddhism marks a cardinal break with Hinduism and enjoys the
moral edge over it.
We live in a time of compelling change, of a great transition
towards a future, the direction of which is yet to unfold. We
can no longer establish our nationhood on fragile falsehoods;
that experiment has failed. The challenge for historians today
is to ensure that the history they record truly reflects the
complex dynamics of the past, and does not corrupt the present
with a static version of a fossilised truth. What the nation
needs acutely is a larger opening to the light, through which
the mind can follow.
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