Raghuvendra Tanwar

Chairman, Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi

In her article printed in these columns (‘Constitution was a product of freedom struggle’, November 30), Neera Chandhoke is little question proper that “Durbari historians… twist the past. Historians who serve power write of a past as if it was taken out of a fairy tale.” The drawback, nevertheless, is that she overlooks the truth that the constructing of historic narratives to suit the necessities of the political class in energy began greater than 5 a long time in the past.

The train of constructing a brand new historic narrative that sought to understate tradition and spiritualism from India’s previous began within the Seventies on the high-school degree and was enforced in any respect ranges, together with the Union Public Service Commission examinations. How biased and motivated historical past instructing may very well be might be ascertained from the textbooks that have been prescribed for Classes X to XII by the CBSE and printed by the NCERT within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties and even later. Class XII textbook The Story of Civilisation (1978) had a chapter, ‘India’s Struggle for Independence’. There have been 9 images on this chapter. One chief figured in seven and even Mahatma Gandhi discovered a spot in solely two. There was no place for anybody else. The Partition of India, a monumental catastrophe of our previous, was mentioned in 45 phrases.

Medieval India was a textbook for CBSE’s Classes XI and XII (1978). While discussing the vastly essential situation of non secular conversions of medieval India, it famous: “On the whole, conversions to Islam were not effected with the strength of the sword.” The ebook goes on to justify the interval of the Sultans as acceptable and never oppressive. “The absence of any organised resistance from the peasantry” was an indication of relative happiness.

This is what Guru Nanak has to say of the instances: “This age is like a drawn sword, the kings are butchers, goodness has taken wings and flown.” The Guru was in Sayyidpur (Gujranwala) when Babur invaded the area in 1521. He writes: “Thou has sent Yama disguised as the great Mughal Babur. Terrible was the slaughter. Did this not awaken pity in thee, oh Lord…”

Chandhoke brushes apart the thought of this historical land being seen as a unified entity. What she clearly misreads is that India has advanced over millennia and isn’t a creation of political wars or redrawing of maps. To quote Sri Aurobindo: “India, shut into a separate existence by the Himalayas and the ocean, has always been the home of a peculiar people with characteristics of its own.”

Coming to the problem of governing practices of historical India, the Rigveda (VI) refers repeatedly to sabha and samiti or a conclave of individuals (BK Ghosh in The History and Culture of the Indian People: The Vedic Age, Vol I, basic editor RC Majumdar). The final hymn of the Rigveda notes: “Assemble, speak together, let your minds be of one accord, the place is common, common the assembly, common the mind, so be their thought united.” The Atharvaveda (III.4) stresses on harmony between the king and a physique of electors (VM Apte in The History and Culture of the Indian People: The Vedic Age, Vol I).

A sutra of Panini coping with the interval from 600 BC to 400 BC refers back to the king as parishad bala, which suggests an individual whose power lies within the parishad. In truth, within the Upanishads the parishad is known as a gathering of specialists. A prayer within the Rigveda, invoked by the king, states: “May the samiti and sabha, the two daughters of Prajapati, concurrently aid me.”

The Vedic time period for legislation is Dharma. Dharma has been the sheet anchor of civilisation in India. To quote Justice Rama Jois: “Dharma is that which sustains and ensures progress of all in the world. It is at this stage of the evolution of human society in India when positive civil and criminal law, the law laying down the powers, duties and responsibility of the king was laid, which marks the commencement of its legal and constitutional history.”

Anyone conversant in the working of our bodies such because the University Grants Commission, Indian Council of Social Science Research, Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), Indian Council of Philosophical Research and lots of others over the previous some a long time would understand how these our bodies have been managed and dominated by a specific ideological setup. Academic areas and chairs of patronage little question should be vacated. This is the place the competition lies.

To recommend that Indians have been mobilised in giant numbers in opposition to the British simply due to Nehru’s egalitarianism and Gandhi’s moral strategy would do nice injustice to numerous revolutionaries and those that impressed them. You have solely to learn the writings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Bal Gangadhar Tilak a long time earlier and even the oath of ‘Abhinav Bharat’ (1901). Do do not forget that Anant Kanhere was simply 17 when he was hanged in 1909.

Western students and even our personal West-inspired ones generally dismiss our historical texts comparable to Ramayana and Mahabharata as refined poems adopted by Indians as non secular texts. The truth stays that the concepts in such texts have sustained this historical land for ages and fortuitously discover a place in our fashionable democratic ethos.

I began instructing historical past on the age of 21 in 1977 and it was the old-fashioned of typical historians we depended upon. But inside a couple of years, a brand new set of historians emerged, abandoning RC Majumdar, Jadunath Sarkar, Raghuvir Singh, DB Sen, RK Mookerjee, Ishwari Prasad, Hari Ram Gupta and so many others. They have been pushed apart not by extra deserving historians however by design and ideological wants.

The ICHR is just not following the earlier observe of imposing cooked-up historic narratives to swimsuit the wants of the political system. An earnest effort with the help and steerage of numerous students countrywide is being made to fill the gaps and draw consideration to legacies and historical past which were consciously, certainly by design, neglected. We stand dedicated to our resolve — if durbari historians, so be it.