Author: Vijay Kumar Malhotra
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: December 14, 2001
Introduction: It is the Congress
and the Left who have patronised a cartel of biased historians
The issue of deletion of some select
paragraphs from the history texts published by the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT) needs to be understood in the
context of the desperate struggle for self-preservation by a group of scholars.
For more than 30 years, historians
Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, R.S. Sharma, Bipan Chandra and others enjoyed
such great political backing from the Congress establishment that they
convinced themselves that they, and they alone, possessed god's gift of
the ability to interpret India's past. They operated as a cartel and prevented
others from articulating alternative points of view.
This domination crippled the flowering
of debate. With the brute force of the State behind them, they steamrolled
perceived opponents and, at the same time, tried to indoctrinate impressionable
minds of the absoluteness of their wisdom. They perpetuated the foreign
master's version of India's history and systematically demolished native
truths. Any educationist knows that recalling the contribution of the Sikh
Guru who laid down his life in the war against fanaticism, would have been
an invaluable additionality in the ongoing war against terrorism. But Satish
Chandra would not permit that. Similarly, Jats, undoubtedly one of the
bravest communities who symbolised valour and sacrifice, were humiliated
to protect a bigot by historian Arjun Dev.
Vir Sanghvi (Talibanising our education,
November 25) seems to be the biggest victim of these intellectual pretenders.
He has betrayed some typical symptoms. Their game revealed, agenda lost,
these historians are clutching to empty rhetoric just as a drowning man
grabs a straw. The sloganeering over deletion of some portions from the
NCERT texts has nothing to do with history. It's about control. The name
of the game is manipulation of the country's unprincipled opposition -
the Congress-Left combine - to suit the objective of regaining their domination
over institutions of learning that they had dragged to infamy during three
decades.
I am tempted to write off Sanghvi's
strong words - Taliban, chaddiwallah and lackey - as adolescent outbursts.
But, from the point of view of a reader of the Hindustan Times for the
past 45 years, a paper I respect for its contribution to the freedom struggle,
I feel short-changed.
First, it was not the chaddiwallah,
lackey-director of NCERT who conceived the idea of deleting the objectionable
portion. It was the Congress government of Delhi which first brought those
scandalous lines about Guru Tegh Bahadur to public attention. It was they
who got a resolution passed in the Delhi assembly against the reference.
There was a lot of pressure on NCERT
and CBSE from representatives of these communities to make amends. They
did what they thought best as academicians who respect the structured learning
process, whereby the young mind is gradually prepared to accept controversy,
internalise difficult truths not in one booster doze at age 11. Let it
be clear that not one line has or will ever be removed from graduation
or post-graduation history texts or reference books. But school history
lessons need restructuring, not for indoctrination of the RSS' ideals,
but to give students a wholesome understanding of their heritage.
There is a vast difference between
textbooks and reference books. A textbook published by a responsible educational
institution has to balance the historian's licence to present cold facts
with the sentiments of millions. The NCERT and CBSE are two such institutions
empowered to strike this balance. If a government or one of its institutions
takes steps against history books published by independent publishers,
it would amount to censorship.
This government does not believe
in strangulating free expression. A student of history in the BA or MA
stage continues to enjoy the freedom to draw reference from such books.
Our big historians should know which regime in the past imposed the Emergency
when several draconian acts were committed. A Vir Sanghvi in that era would
by now have been cooling his heels in Tihar Jail.
The use of the term Taliban is unbelievably
inaccurate, rather ridiculous. Can it be true that the editor of the country's
biggest newspaper cannot tell the difference between a democratically elected
government and a rogue regime which exports terror? If Talibanism is a
metaphor for regimentation and mind control, Sanghvi, who accuses the present
government, is clearly barking up the wrong tree. If I were to look for
a desi Taliban, I would go east - to Kolkata. Here is why. The 'red' government
in Kolkata has turned the state's education system on its head. It resisted
the Congress regime's New Education Policy in the Eighties. In 1989, it
issued a circular (Syl/89/1) in which it identified a large number of 'aushuddho'
(impure) historical references and directed their obliteration to suit
the Marxist concept of 'objective and rational' approach to the writing
of history. More than 50 changes were effected in school texts published
in that state over the years.
Till recently, a generation of Bengali
students read the Sahaj Path. For more than a century, this simple, structured
exposition to Bengali literature and culture was taught in every school
of Bengal until 1997. Suddenly, the reds identified it as the root cause
of their lack of standing with the Bengali intellectual elite - the Bhadralok.
Calling it reactionary, outdated, archaic, they unceremoniously booted
out Sahaj Path from the learning process. If I were Sanghvi, I would call
up the HT Kolkata correspondent for more details on this.
And if Talibanisation should also
be a byword for imposition of dress code, Sanghvi should not fail to ask
his Kolkata colleague about Subhankar Chakraborty, present vice-chancellor
of Rabindra Bharti University. This was the original Mullah Omar. He banned
girl students of his college from wearing salwar kameez in 1993, because
the dress, according to him, "revealed the female form and caused excitement".
This man was also given a CPI(M) ticket to contest the 1999 Lok Sabha elections.
Excising politically unacceptable
matter from textbooks was developed into a fine art in Rajasthan. On June
4, 1999, the state government issued a circular which effected 17 changes.
Nobody called it 'interference' then. What was so demeaning about referring
to Prithviraj Chauhan as 'Hindupati'? All references to Arthashastra of
the great Chanakya were deleted. The sweep was not limited to history books,
even texts on economics were expunged. The name of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
was excised from texts in government schools.
The historian who authored that
revolting piece on Guru Tegh Bahadur was not half as intellectually honest
he claimed to be. Satish Chandra borrowed that infamous line about Guru
Tegh Bahadur resorting to "plunder and rapine laying waste the whole province
of Punjab" from "official information as given in later Persian sources".
This is preposterous, akin to somebody describing Mahatma Gandhi as a 'half
naked fakir' just because Winston Churchill called him so. Why did Chandra
ignore sources like Jadunath Sarkar, undoubtedly the greatest historian
India has ever produced? Sarkar had quoted primary sources - not secondary
ones like Chandra - that Guru Tegh Bahadur had encouraged opposition to
Aurangzeb's policy of forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam. For this
he was arrested, brought to Delhi and tortured for five days. Finding his
will impossible to break, the Mughal emperor had the Sikh Guru beheaded.
This fact finds corroboration in
the works of J.B. Cunnigham, Archer, McAuliffe, Mohammad Latif, Gopal Singh
and Khushwant Singh. It is surprising that Chandra did not find contemporary
sources like Parchian Sewadas (1708), the contemporary Udasi, Sir Gur Sobha
(1711) of Sainapat, Koer Singh's Gurvilas Patshahi 10 (1751), Bansawalinamah
of Kesar Singh Chhibbar (1767) and many others including Guru Gobind Singh's
Vachitra Natak unacceptable.
There is no finality about history.
It is all about interpretation. This government is committed to transparency
and that is why the deletions were done under the full glare of those who
felt hurt about it. Some motivated historians may forget the cardinal principles
of their profession, but not this government, which is committed to democracy.
Not a single line has been added
to the text books. Only a few lines have been deleted, which were repulsive
to the sentiments of some significant sections of our society, especially
the Sikhs, Jats, Buddhists and Jains. It is unfortunate that such objectionable
views of these modern historians were tolerated this long.
It is unfortunate that an enlightened
editor like Vir Sanghvi should have attributed motives to NCERT and CBSE
for having tried to exterminate the damage done by these self-opinionated
individuals. To use terms like Talibanisation so loosely is not doing justice
to truth, honesty and integrity.
Let there be balance and fair play.
Let there be appreciation of the motives and intents of all concerned.
The wrongs must be corrected and the perspectives made clear. Or else,
posterity will not forgive us.
(The writer is a senior BJP leader)
