Author: Saurav Basu
Publication: Vijayvaani.com
Date: July 8, 2009
URL: http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=679
The progressive writer Mark Twain admitted that "Prejudice is the ink
with which history is written." Post-modernism, in order to contest this
defect, appreciated the subjectivity of historical interpretation which is
often mediated by ideological baggage, thereby conditioning the ideological
historian's perception of truth, rendering it susceptible to subjectivity.
This denial of objectivity has incensed many historians like Keith Winschuttle,
who object to this "killing of history" and whose exaggerated reactions
have been collectively summed as 'pomophobia.'
In India, the historical conflict is not between
post-modernists and ideologists of the obsolete school of "Marxist scientific
socialism." Instead, a curious alliance exists between these two naturally
antagonistic thought processes against a common enemy represented by Hindu
Nationalist historiography. Post-modernists charge Hindutva with 'selective
historical memory' and 'xenophobia' every time the question of Islamic tyranny
in medieval India is raised academically.
They make preposterous protests against the
labelling of "Islamic invaders" as foreigners. Authors like Koenraad
Elst, Arun Shourie and Sita Ram Goel view these scholars as "Nehruvian
Stalinists." Previously, the older generation of nationalist historians
like R C Majumdar had expressed grave concern at the hijacking of Indian History
by a peculiar breed of historians who did everything to eradicate the presence,
if not idea, of "Hindu civilization" from History textbooks.
Naturally, such extreme views across the ideological
spectrum take the debate into the writing of social science textbooks, especially
those on History. The world over, history education is beset by continued
controversy as historians, politicians, educators and the public at large
argue about what should be taught to the nation's children and how it should
be presented. No one likes the way history is taught.
Conservatives think it's too multicultural,
and multiculturalists think it's too conservative. Politicians say it doesn't
promote patriotism, and social reformers say it doesn't promote critical reflection
(Teaching History for the common good, Keith C Barton, Linda S Levstik, Taylor
and Francis, London, 2008). Unfortunately in India, parents, teachers and
the general public remain largely oblivious to historical curriculum as the
subject suffers from the popular perception of being the last refuge of the
mediocre.
Yet the controversy has assumed exceptionally
significant dimensions. For over four decades, history textbooks were written
in a particular sophistical tradition which belittled Hindu traditions, culture,
myths and rulers, for the 'great cause' of promoting Jawaharlal Nehru's "rational
and scientific temper" amongst the ignorant and superstitious Hindu masses.
This pretense at 'scientific history' was wholly belied in an old Class VI
NCERT history book which claimed the Inquistionary Saint Xavier's body in
a Goan church oozed fresh blood in the true spirit of a "Christian miracle."
Ideological countercheck
This ideological indoctrination received its
first institutional check under the NDA regime, when the HRD ministry under
Murli Manohar Joshi commissioned new textbooks. But these good intentions
were subverted by poor management and the phobia of appearing "communal"
in the eyes of Muslims and media. This is despite the landmark Supreme Court
judgment which gave the green signal to the new textbooks. However, adoption
of unproven hypothesis like the association of urban Harappan and pastoral
Rig Vedic civilizations undermined the academic legitimacy of the textbooks.
Still, there was an exceptionally well authored
text like that on Medieval India by Meenakshi Jain (educationalist Yvette
Rosser in a recent paper contrasted Jain's book with its predecessor authored
by Satish Chandra and concluded that Jain's was a superior book in writing
style, content, historical authenticity, lack of ideological baggage and school
textbook material).
The return of the UPA in 2004 with Arjun Singh
as HRD minister meant scrapping the old textbooks. One expected the new textbooks
to adopt a more balanced approach and be rid of mindless ideological drivel.
The new textbooks are definitely easier on the eye, heavily illustrated, and
contain overall less content to make the subject less taxing and more interesting
for young readers.
However, a review of the new NCERT textbooks
shows fundamentally little has changed. The hand of the subaltern school (an
illegitimate copy of Gramsci to Indian conditions) is so heavy that dynasties,
barring the Mughals, remain largely untouched! Instead, you find pitiable
pictures of coal miners of Bihar in the British period! In the name of anti-elitism,
history has been robbed of its grandeur and inspiration and reduced to a tale
of eternal woe and class struggle. Historical accuracy has become the first
casualty in the naked desire to propel history as a vehicle for social change
(in the Marxist vein).
Marxists complain about the communal compartmentalization
of history into Hindu, Muslim and British periods by colonial and nationalist
historians (even though the British period was not presented as Christian).
Yet it remains true that every Muslim historian of medieval India including
Amir Khusro, darling of the champions of 'composite culture,' apart from rulers
like Firuz and Sikandar Lodi, interpreted their reign as "Islamic"
and India as an Islamic nation [dar ul Islam] or an infidel nation in the
process of Islamization [dar ul harb]. And what evil designs can be assigned
to Rhys Davis who wrote the famous "Buddhistic India?"
The Aryan Invasion theory today stands thoroughly negated, yet the new textbooks
do not comprehensively assert the significance of the situation. How much
friction and bad blood this corrupt theme caused between Tamilians and North
Indians is well known, but not a note reminds the reader of the colonial origins
and ugly consequences of this theory. The Vedic religion is called 'animist,'
reminiscent of outdated Eurocentric scholarship; alternative interpretations
from the viewpoint of believers is wholly absent.
The Class XII book on Ancient India claims
that only upper caste Hindu women had access to resources. Manu supposedly
did not allow women claim to a share of resources. Daughters had no claim
to the resources of a household. Not a single primary source is quoted in
support of the dismal picture presented.
A scrutiny of texts shows that nothing could
be further from the truth. Manu unequivocally enjoined the daughter to be
equal the son (MS 10.131) Stridhan exclusively belonged to the wife. Manu's
honourable sentiments for the wife as the source of all happiness and bliss
(MS 9.28, 9.45) and as a supreme gift of the gods (MS 9.95) are concealed.
Not a single female Rishi or Vedic scholar like Gargi finds mention in the
pages of NCERT texts. Gupta and post-Gupta era inscriptions, especially from
the South, show women having sufficient agency to make gifts to Brahmins,
Buddhists and Jainas even when their husbands patronized different sects (History
and Culture of Tamil Nadu Vol. 1, Chhitra Madhvanan, DK 2008).
Women's property rights were upgraded by Yajnavalkya
and Kautilya, proving the evolution of women rights in the Indian context,
but these facts remain missing. The NCERT text wonders whether "mothers
were important in India?" while discussing the matrilineal pedigree of
Satavahana rulers, keenly forgetting that the mother was regarded as ten times
as important as the father by Manu himself!
Scant respect is shown for the epics. The
Mahabharata war is described as a mere "feud over land and power."
A fictitious conversation involving an outcaste Nishada (by Mahasweta Devi)
is used to demonize Kunti, mother of the Pandavas. Eklavya is painted as a
hapless victim of "caste tyranny," but conspicuously absent is the
fact that his offering was voluntary and Dronacharya's conduct motivated more
by subjective bias for Arjuna rather than caste consciousness. A balanced
reading should have mentioned the story of Satyakama Jabala, the boy who knew
no father and yet was accepted as a Brahmin for sticking to the truth.
The Delhi Historians group had raised a storm
when a previous author considered the Upanishads the grandest philosophy of
the world while ignoring its speculative genre. But the new NCERT texts almost
dismiss the Upanishads by quoting just two obscure complicated passages, meaningless
to the non-expert. Adi Sankara is written off in just one para which neither
explains his spiritual nor intellectual accomplishments; Nanak and Kabir fill
two pages! Ramanujan's compassion for the downtrodden is nowhere mentioned,
but there is a lengthy extract on Basavanna's Virashaivism and his critique
of caste and idol worship. In fact, Hindu religion, culture and philosophy
rarely receive even a passing mention.
Hinduism is known as the most tolerant and
inclusive of world religions; Arnold Toynbee saw the Hindu ethos as a bulwark
against violent Semitic agendas of world domination. But the NCERT text alleges
that "Relations with others such as Buddhism and Jainism were fraught
with tension, if not open conflict." The writers seem unaware that communal
self-conscious religious identities did not exist in pre-Islamic India (David
Lorezen, Who invented Hinduism, 1999). Hindu rulers patronized Buddhist and
Jaina institutions on a scale equal to their Hindu counterparts (The rise
and decline of Buddhism in India, Kanai Lal Hazra, MRML, 1995). Samudragupta
patronised several Buddhist scholars like Vasubandhu. Hindu rulers often had
wives who practiced and sponsored rival sects.
D D Kosambi had pictured a "process of
syncretism" in the absorption of "primitive deities," a "mechanism
of acculturation, a clear give and take," which allowed "Indian
society to be formed out of many diverse and even discordant elements"
(Kosambi and the discourse on civilization, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya). But
the Marxist historiography dominating NCERT insists "tribals rejected
caste and orthodox Hinduism." That is not true for segmentalization exists
as a single hierarchy amongst tribals (Interrogating Caste, Dipankar Gupta,
Penguin, 2000).
Medieval India
Medieval India has been reduced to an exercise
in legitimizing foreign rule. Al Beruni is quoted once to establish his own
skewed perception of Islamic egalitarianism vis-à-vis Hindu inequality.
But there is no mention of Beruni's stringent indictment of Mahmud of Ghazni
- "Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed
there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered
in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their
scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards
all Muslims."
Instead, we are told "Ghazni raided rich
temples" and "Much of the wealth looted was used to create a splendid
capital at Ghazni," as if that justifies his heinous deeds. Mahmud's
overnight transformation into the "star of the Islamic world" and
his elevation as Sultan by the Islamic Caliph is glossed over. The massacre
of thousands of Hindus who died defending their land and temples is conveniently
suppressed.
Islamic fanaticism, anti-pluralism and the
concept of Jihad are considered too controversial to be discussed, so a syncretic
hymn of Rumi is deemed representative of Islamic tradition. Jizya (protection
tax paid by non Muslims) and the concept of Dhimmi (second class subjects
in an Islamic country) are interpreted by the Class XII NCERT text in an attitude
of glorification and purely from an Islamic perspective which deems them acts
of benevolence, as under normal Islamic law the rule is to 'convert or perish.'
Temple destruction is justified on grounds
of political exigencies, based on Richard Eaton's perverted and long discredited
theory. But NCERT allots quarter page to the rationalization of temple destruction
(Why temples were destroyed?) The message is conveyed that Hindu rulers also
destroyed temples, though as Koenraad Elst has shown, barring two of the dozen-odd
instances cited by Eaton, the stolen statue was respectfully restored in the
invader's kingdom.
Hindu rulers patronized temples but did not
uproot existing modes of worship or impose their favoured gods on the people.
Sita Ram Goel has cited 2000 specific instances of temples and their Gods
which were not only ground to dust, but converted into mosques. Eaton's theory
that temples were destroyed because they legitimized political authority is
dismissed on the ground that temples even in realms of defeated Hindu kings
were often destroyed. This also begs the question why mosques and dargahs
were left unmolested when they were absolute sites of secular, political and
military authority. A complete page is spent discussing mosque architecture
but there is no adequate corresponding discussion of Hindu temple architecture
apart from their socio-eco-educational roles.
The Class VII textbook praises Alauddin Khalji's
markets; the fact is that while the "capital was fed, the country at
large bled" (R C Majumdar). "Mughals did not like to be called Mongols
because they had killed innumerable people", says the same text. The
argument is preposterous for Timur boasted of spilling the blood of tens of
thousands including that of 100,000 Hindus in a single day in Delhi, all in
the cause of Jihad, as testified by him in his autobiography. Mughals identified
with Timur because he was a Jihadi Muslim, while the Mongols in their heydays
were staunch enemies of their faith.
The same text vividly describes a rare instance
of forced Sati in a child bride, but makes no mention of the much more frequent
Jauhars (mass immolations by Hindu women when besieged by Islamic armies).
Some Muslims are described as great patrons of education; no mention is made
of the burning of the libraries at Nalanda and elsewhere by Bakhtiyar Khalji.
Akbar is extolled as a 'secular' ruler; purged
is his despicable 1568 Fatwa-i-Chittor which reads like a televised address
of a modern day Mullah Omar. What is lost is an appreciation of the transformation
of Akbar, the religious fanatic, into the universalist monarch.
No facts of Aurangzeb's bigotry are divulged
in any of the texts. Ludicrous comparisons are sometimes drawn between Akbar
and Aurangzeb.
Vijayanagar receives scant attention and Shivaji,
the great Maratha, is wound up in a single para. One may wonder why no primary
source is quoted regarding medieval history. Perhaps Ziauddin Barani or Badauni
would have defeated the 'secularist' project. The horrors of the Goa Inquisition
are similarly excised.
Modern era
Modern India fares no better. 1857 is crudely
described as a "War of independence." The Class VII text claims
all petty rulers accepted the suzerainty of Bahadur Shah Zafar, logically
implausible as he did not even have a standing army. The puppet Mughal, his
relatives, chief queen, sons and principal advisor Hakim Ahsanulla engaged
in treacherous conspiracy with the English even while the sepoys were involved
in grim struggle (History and Culture of the Indian People, Volume IX, British
Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance Part 1, p.566).
Factual inaccuracies abound. The Class VII
text alleges that Rani Lakshmi Bai joined the rebels when the fact is she
did not share the convictions of the rebel sepoys and acted under duress.
The rebels massacred the entire British contingent at Jhansi, and the Rani
bribed the sepoys to leave. Yet the NCERT text raises unreasonable questions
on the reasons for her joining the revolt because of the obsession of neo-Marxist
historiography to classify 1857 as a "people's movement." The authors
suggest the Rani joined the war with 'personal motives' when actually she
had the overarching well-being of her subjects at heart. It was she who transformed
the half-militant, half-feudal revolt as far as was historically possible
into India's first war of independence (The Ranee of Jhansi, D V Tahmankar,
1958).
As an aside, why is it that those who complain
of nationalistic history do not mention the Jhansi massacres by rebel sepoys
and at Satichaura Ghat and Bibligarh by Azimullah Khan, right hand man of
Nana Saheb?
Freedom movement
While discussing Birsa Munda's revolt against
Christian missionaries, the Class XI reader is reminded that the tribal movement
was also anti-Hindu as violent action was taken against "Hindu"
moneylenders. This suggests a permanent Hindu-tribal schism where none existed,
and tries to draw a parallel between a tribal uprising against evangelists
and resentment against moneylenders involved in economic exploitation of tribals.
The freedom movement begins with Gandhi and
ends with Nehru. Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Sardar Patel, Savarkar, Syama Prasad Mookerji,
Aurobindo Ghosh are blamed for alienating Muslims. But when were they together
in the first place? Bengal's Swadeshi and Boycott movement is defined as communal,
upper caste and divisive. Aurobindo saw in it "a new conception of the
nation not merely as a country, but a soul, a psychological, almost a spiritual
being even when acting from economical and political motives, it sought to
dynamise them by this subjective conception and to them instruments of self-expression
rather than objects in themselves" (The Human Cycle, p. 32-33).
The hegemonic aspiration of writing "history
from below" means that the freedom movement has become a fractured playground
of unsuccessful tribal, worker and peasant uprisings. Instead of appraising
them amidst a larger framework of nationalist collective consciousness, these
smaller movements are being seen as separate, parochial and alienated from
the nationalist mainstream which is claimed to be restricted to the bourgeoisie.
All for the grand task of condoning Muslim
separatists who made the Congress eat humble pie when they secured 99% of
the Muslim vote in the 1946 elections and secured their Islamic homeland.
It is incredible that while Pakistani textbooks falsely attribute Partition
riots to Hindus, Indian textbooks surrender its reasoning to the hands of
fate. No mention is made of the prolonged massacre of lakhs of Hindus in East
Pakistan (Bangladesh), aided by the Nehru-Liaquat pact, so as to spare the
sensitivities of Indian Muslims.
All in all, the NCERT texts are an exercise
in deception. It is not historical truth but 'secular' political agendas which
have dictated their writing. The entire syllabus has been canalized towards
devaluing Hindu civilisation, while denying, if not condoning, Islamic tyranny.
It is obvious these books provide few answers for questions and obfuscate
facts for the cause of 'secularism' will continue to make history the "dull
and boring subject" school students assume it to be. History will be
the end loser in the process.
- The author is researching a book on Swami
Vivekananda
