The Times of India
TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2002

LEADER ARTICLE
Manufacturing Myths
K N PANIKKAR
[ TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2002 12:52:49 AM ]
HE enthusiasm of the minister for human resource development for
rewriting history has done incalculable damage to the discipline, but
has, paradoxically, yielded some positive results.
It has generated an unprecedented public interest in matters history,
which is a pre- requisite for democratising historical knowledge.
The public is taking an intelligent interest in the discipline, the
most intricate historical issues are being openly debated and the
grain is carefully separated from the chaff.
In the process, much of the fabrication of evidence by communal
ideologues and the propagation of falsehood by the Hindutva
champions, some of them recent converts, lodged by the sangh parivar
in the Indian Council for Historical Research and the NCERT stands
exposed.
Further, some of the fundamental traits of the method of history have
come to be generally recognised and respected. The debate has quite
unequivocally foregrounded the idea that history is a professional
field of specialisation, like any other branch of knowledge.
Earlier, history attracted some public attention in 1997 when the
then government at the instance of the RSS had sought to withdraw the
same history books which are now under attack.
The difference between the two instances is well marked - in 1997 the
government had referred the allegation against these books to a group
of historians who, including the present chairman of the ICHR, had
then defended these books.
Consequently, the government dropped the suggestion to withdraw these
books. In contrast, the present decision to delete certain historical
facts from the textbooks was taken, if the newspaper reports are to
be believed, by the minister himself.
There is no indication that he did so after observing the generally
accepted procedure of academic consultations.
The only promise he held out is that in future he would seek the
opinion of religious leaders for ascertaining whether any historical
fact included in the textbooks is likely to injure the religious
sensibilities of students.
There can hardly be any objection to the rewriting of history, in
fact, this is a continuous process brought about by changing
interpretations or discovery of new facts.
The present attempt to rewrite history, however, is not a result of
any such movement within the discipline. It is externally-induced and
politically-motivated.
This is not to suggest that history is natural and historiography is
immune to politics. Far from it. History is often invoked all over
the world as a major source of legitimacy for political and social
power.
The instances of rulers appropriating historical antecedents, which
had made an indelible impression on popular imagination, are very
many.
The rise of Louis Napoleon in France was facilitated by his name with
which the people of France associated the past greatness of the
nation.
Even colonialism tried to appropriate elements from the Indian past
for gaining the consent of the subjected. That history is deeply
enmeshed in modern politics is, therefore, not surprising.
The historical interpretation, historiography in general reflects the
changing paradigms of power. The shifts from the colonial to the
nationalist and from the nationalist to the Marxist are not merely
changes in the interpretative modes, but reflective of the contest
for social and political power as well.
However, different interpretations are not histories out to suit the
procrustean bed of politics, but reconstruction of the past
undertaken within the methodological imperatives of the discipline,
respecting what Marc Bloch described as the historian's craft.
The communal history officially supported and sponsored to serve the
interests of Hindu sectarian politics is an exception to this general
rule. Communal history is thus characterised by unprofessional
practice, evidenced by the fabrication of sources, deletion of
historical facts and unsubstantiated generalisations, to conjure up a
past that would justify a communal present. The latest example of
this unprofessional and politically motivated attitude is the haste
with which the minister of human resource development rushed to
publicise the discovery of the 'oldest' civilisation in the Gulf of
Khambat, even before the archaeo- logists looked at the evidence.
A central question in the present controversy is the relationship
between history and nation. The nation as conceived and constructed
by secular historiography, regardless of its differing interpretative
modes, is a multi-religious and multi-cultural formation, sharing a
common historical experience.
In the view of communal history, on the other hand, nation is
embedded in each religious community. Both Hindu and Muslim
communalisms share such an approach.
Central to the Hindu communal view of the nation, therefore, is the
historical experience of the Hindus, which as V D Savarkar had mapped
out, is characterised by continuous conflict with the invaders.
The revision of history, undertaken under the aegis of the present
government, focuses on the right of the Hindu to the nation by virtue
of being the inheritors of history.
The concept of the outsider as the enemy, the effort to prove that
the Aryans are the original inhabitants of India and to establish the
antiquity of Indian civilisation as well as its unequalled
contribution to world civilisations are intended to reinforce the
legitimacy thus sought from history.
The ideologues of the sangh parivar who now control the apparatuses
of the state see the dissemination of a communalised history of the
nation as an important factor in the construction of political
legitimacy.
The earlier governments also promoted secular history for political
reasons - they were engaged in creating a secular state and society.
The present government is also foregrounding communal history for
political reasons.
Its concept of the nation is religious and its politics is rooted in
communalism. However, in the former, history as a discipline was not
a casualty.
The communal intervention is not limited to the realm of academic
history. In fact, the influence of communalism on academic history is
very minimal. But not so on popular history.
Through the activities of several organisations the popular
historical consciousness is being manipulated to usher in a communal
historical consciousness.
Among the many imperatives of historical practice, a meticulous
adherence to the veracity of evidence is perhaps the most important.
The evidence for a historical event is always multiple and the
historian uses his professional competence and judgment to grade
their precedence as well as their relevance.
What distinguishes communal history from other genres of historical
writings is that it shows no respect for evidence.
Either the existing evidence is overlooked or new evidence is
fabricated in order to turn myths into history. The cases of the
Babri masjid and Harappan seal are examples of this logic of
'alternate' history.