Title: Editorialising
History - I
Author: Anup Kumar Sinha
Publication: The Organiser
Date: March 5, 2000
The Marxists bubble of
history has burst. The recalling of two volumes of the Towards Freedom
project by the ICHR and the subsequent hue and cry over it, has completely
exposed the Marxists' claimers in their 'history' of India.
The ICHR's decision to
"temporarily withhold the work of publication of the volumes edited by
K.M. Panikkar and Sumit Sarkar" and to forward the type-scripts for perusal
by the Council/Review Committee was taken with a view to filling any lacunae
which led to severe criticism by scholars of the volumes published earlier.
The committee consists of Prof. Satish Mittal, Former Head of the Department
of History, Kurukshetra University, Prof. Hari Om, Head, Department of
History, Jammu University and Prof. A. R. Khan, Former Head of Department
of History. It will "look into the manuscripts and also get the manuscripts
examined by eminent scholars from the particular area with which the book
deals". One of the members clarified that the committee's role is confined
merely to make suggestions to the General Editor of the project and to
the ICHR regarding the contents of the volumes.
The distinguished writers
of these volumes took the decision of the ICHR as an affront to editors'
"academic freedom and rights" and launched a misinformation campaign against
the ICHR. One of the editors, Prof. Sarkar, even called a meeting "in defence
of History", only to confuse the gullible students of history in particular
and people in general with a travesty of facts. What was more interesting
was to find that these Marxists and their fellow travellers saw in the
issue a larger game-plan to "transform India into a Hindu nation". The
cacophony reached a crescendo with berating the RSS for 'talibanising'
the country. Perhaps not content with their vehement criticism, the Marxist
historian in truck with some fringe politicians came out on streets acquiring
a reformist tone of cleansing the society with "Fascist forces". While
admitting their fine art of making a mountain out of a molehill, it is
pertinent to look into their (mis) deeds in ICHR in general and in the
Towards Freedom project in particular.
The project was originally
conceived in 1973 to give the Indian side of the story to counterbalance
the Transfer of Power volumes published by the British Government. The
idea was to present a nationalistic view of the final moments of Indian
Freedom struggle, 1937- 1947 and to give an objective presentation of the
plethora of material available on the subject. The project, however, fell
prey to Marxists card-holders and their sympathisers. More about it later.
By the year 1986, with Prof. Irfan Habib becoming the ICHR, the project
came under the grip of Marxist historians. In one stroke, committed Marxist
historians with Prof. S. Gopal as General Editor were appointed to present
the objective account of the last decade of the Freedom Struggle. The academic
Mafia lost no time in turning the project into a subjective one and by
the time the first volume pertaining to the year 1943-44 appeared in 1997,
the intention was clear. The volume (1943-44) edited by P.S. Gupta showed
no restraint in highlighting the role of the Communist Party of India (CPI)
and the Left. Prof. Gupta wore his prejudices unabashedly when he comments
while introducing the chapters: "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." For the "Obvious
reasons" are clear to researchers, Prof. Gupta further goes ahead with
his subjective approach in what seemed to be an objective compilation of
documents and writes: "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, nut 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 'pseudonationalist' 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 pseudonationalists
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 (Ch.
XVIII). Perhaps not content with his 'erudite' comments on the political
and other groups, Prof. Gupta further show his prejudices thus: Indians
who had a fractured vision of independence identified themselves with communal
or regional or pseudo-nationalist parties like the Muslim League, the Akalis
the D.K. in Madras, the Hindus Mahasabha and the RSS (XVIII).With the exception
of the first, none of these groups shared power with the imperial administration
during these years; the documents selected about these groups show how
the League was able to power at the provincial level (especially in Bengal
and Sind)and how Hindu communalism (especially the militant RSS)was growing
in some parts of the country, taking advantage of the political vacuum
created by the arrest of all Congress leaders. It is to the credit of two
Indian officials of the Home Department (Vishnu Sahay and G. Ahmed) that
they warned the government about the ominous long-term consequences of
not controlling para-military communal organisations like the RSS and the
Muslim National Guards (XVIII, 122, 131). He also writes: No propaganda
or the RSS or the Muslim National Guards is to be found in the documents
on the CPI and RDP that we have scrutinized, except for one odd letter
from the Radical Democratic labour leader Jamnadas Mehta, asking the Central
Government to permit RSS memberships among government servants (XVIII,
123). This was probably due to the pro-Muslim League stance that these
parties had taken. Except in so far as their championship of 'Muslim self-determination
(to justify Pakistan) acted as a counter-weight to the pseudo-nationalist
Hindu definition of Indian nationalism (preached by the RSS) the role of
these parties in fighting Hindu communalism was negligible.
So much for the editorial
skills of "a scholar of distinction" as the General Editor Prof. S. Gopal
called him. No need to mention the fact that the edited volumes, three
in parts, running into several thousand pages, flouted every guideline
of the project and the minimum requirements of a decent volume. There is
no index, no volume number, contents only in one of the parts and even.
The publisher's name was the wrongly printed as All Indian Council for
Historical Research on the title page. The price is prohibitive. Interestingly,
the editor admits: "There is a lot of overlap between one chapter and another".
No wonder, the volumes
attracted severe criticisms from scholars. Prof. S.K. Gupta, former Head,
Department of History, presently Vice-Chancellor, H.P. University, comments:
"I was horrified to see that this massive volume in three parts covering
3500 pages and 2000 documents did not carry a comprehensive index Which
is very essential in any compilation of documents of this nature."
Let us look at another
volume published under the project, edited by Dr Basudev Chatterji, for
the year 1938. The edition consists of three volumes running into about
4000 pages and thematically chapterised. The documents include such topics
as 'Cinema Industry in India' (pp.926-929, part-I of volume- II), 'Handicaps
of the Indian film Industry' (pp-929, part-I, Vol. II), 'Newsreel service
in Indian' (pp.931, 939-941, 842-950, part-I, Vol. II), etc. One wonders
What direct bearing these have on the Freedom Struggle. The volumes also
include a number of superfluous documents on agrarian legislation, Bengal-Bihari
controversy and even communal politics Which only highlights the differences
between Hindus and Muslim.
The General Editor, an
ailing man, could not have corrected such deficiencies in these volumes.
He failed even to write the preface to these volumes as he acknowledges
that the first drafts for both the volumes (1983 & 1943-44) were first
drafted by Dr Basudev Chatterji. One could imagine his contribution to
these volumes.
The then Chairman S.
Settar, on the other hand, was unrelenting. In a long letter to the General
Editor, S. Gopal (dt. 1-2-1999) he wrote, "there is some amount of concern
among some senior scholars, who I believe to be objective in their evaluation
and constructive in their criticism about the volumes published so far.
The volume of Professor P.S. Gupta has raised eye brows of many for the
major body of the material is stated to have been drawn from one category
of sources (Intelligence Report) and published without even proper index
and other such requirements expected in a volume of this kind. Some are
not happy even with the introduction written to the volume. The next volume
of Basudev Chatterji is an impressive as that of Dr Gupta in terms of quantity
but its quality seems to have already evoked some concern. I do not know
the quality contents of the other volume which are in press or nearing
completion.
Recently some efforts
are being made to convince me that every one of these volume needs to be
scrutinised by an Expert Committee before it is sent to the press. In the
recent Council meeting also a lengthy discussion took place on this and
other related issues. If the reviews of these volumes were to make some
adverse comments on the quality of the work, things are likely to be more
complicated. I am trying my best to resist interference of outside scholars
in the project".
Having burnt its fingers,
once, nay, twice, the ICHR would naturally be more cautious in publishing
further volumes without scrutinising the contents and the presentation.
The violent protests, however, from the Marxists and their fellow travellers
seem to originate from the view that they are afraid of losing their grip
over an institution like the ICHR, paving the way for other such academic
institution to shed their Marxist tags.
