India's History: Time’s Up For The Red-Green Club

Indian historiography has three major classific-a-tions—modern, medieval and ancient. Earlier, an-cient India was largely ignored. The period is a showreel of achievements and contributions by Indians in the fields of science, humanities, spiritualism, philosophy, art and literature. Its awaren-ess gives today’s India civilisational strength. His-t--ory-writing of the Nehruvian era only ment-io--ned these superficially. The reason is obvious. The history of ancient India establishes primacy of our cultural-spiritual dimension of life. When PM Mo-di said in Parliament that “India is the mother of democracy”, it was not a polemical statement. Rather than being made the focus of India’s great historical narrative, the republics of Vaishali and Licchavi remained merely trivia for general kno-w-ledge fiends. There is a dearth of literature on it, as researchers were discouraged from enquiring into these. The only major work we have is Hindu Polity by K.P. Jayaswal, written in 1924. Any attempt to carry out research on these subje-cts was dismissed by the Red-Gre-en academic club, as it was considered ‘exaggerating’ ideas that have no real value in the modern world.

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State agencies like the Indian Council of Histori-cal Research (ICHR) remained contemptuous of alternative viewpoints. In fact, academic freedom was tightly monitored by the aforesaid ideological club. Not only were those who worked on ancient history discouraged, they were also mocked. Sush-ruta Samhita, Tantra Vigyan Bhairav, Vedic Math-e--m-atics, etc., were considered fanciful stories. Tho--se days are now gone.

We have infused new generation historians and social scientists with confidence to unravel our unknown past. In India, every temple has a thousand-year-old history, equivalent to the entirety of European history. They hated ancient history as it generates narratives that contest their imagination of India. For instance, celebration of diversity is both a way of life and a philosophy in Ind-ia. And it emanates from the pre-Mughal period. Why had Hindus not converted Parsis and Jews who reached India to escape religious persecut-ion? In the 1931 census, there were 2,400 Jews and 1.09 lakh Parsis in India. Why were they pers-ecuted in their homelands? What led them to Bri-tish India? The possibility of enjoying free-dom?

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India’s historical discourse has been a prisoner of medievalists, focusing on the Mughal period. The Red-Green academic club used State resou-r-ces to prove the benevolence of Mughal rulers and deny the reality of religious war against the beaut-iful tradition of ekam satyam viprah bahuda vada-nti (There is one truth that is interpreted vari-o-u-sly and differently). Pre-Islamic aggressi-ons had largely socio-economic character. Their objective was to loot, plunder and enslave the people. But Islamic aggressions were meant to end India’s originality, diversity of spiritual life and phi-losophy. Since inception, India as a civilisation integrally possessed spiritual democracy. Islamic aggressors—whether Muhammad Ghori, Mah-mud of Ghazni or Babur—wanted to ruin anyone who differed from their belief. The destruction of temples at Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi or Mathura were not for greed, but to wage war against kafirs. Historians had been indoctrinated to treat such acts as socio-economic events and to accept them as essentially secular in character. Marxists and Nehruvians exhibited excessive love for Mughal rulers and obsessed with medieval history. ?

They remained manipulators of truth. The questions propounded by the events of history remain unresolved by the writings of the historians of this club. The martyrdom of the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, was not due to war for land, power, wea-lth or supremacy. He was brutally killed by the Mug--hal ruler as he stood for freedom of religion of Hindus. His martyrdom in 1675 is a unique inst-a-n-ce in world history. As we study Martin Luther in European history, so should we have read of the Guru’s sacrifice. Instead, NCERT textbooks bla-med him of rape, and when this was removed, they shouted “saffronisation of history”.

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Archaeology is a great tool to know the past. When archaeological studies—which included excavations—countered their historiography, they accused it of bias. In the context of Varanasi’s Gya-n-vapi or Mathura’s Krishna temple, scientific tru-ths and past writings were ignored by the club his-torians. Such suppression and manipulation of truth has neither strengthened India’s civil society, nor added value to our practice and philosophy of secularism, deterring the goal of “one nat-ion one people”.

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Indian history-writing has been equally intolerant of the truth of India’s freedom struggle. Surp-r-i-singly, those who claimed sole ownership of our history, denounced the people’s role in the struggle against British imperialism. During the Neh-r-u-vian era, the State and its historians marched tog-e-ther to compliment and privilege each other. Their history glorified a few figures, pushing those who deserved space in our textbooks to the footn-otes. History remained confined to Gandhi-Neh-ru’s contributions. Undoubtedly, they played a big role, but they denied iconisation of others. History is silent on the Tripuri Congress (1939), when Sub--hash Chandra Bose was forced to quit as Pre-s-i-dent of the party. Was it an accident of history, or were there other issues at stake? Servants of India, a journal founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, rep-orted that Bose came to attend the Congress sess-ion despite high fever. A section of the delegates accused him of trying to garner cheap publicity and went to the extent of blaming him of hiding onions in his armpit to raise body temperature and prove he was indeed feverish. He was reexamined by a doctor—then health minister of Mum-bai—who happened to be at the venue, and only then was he allowed to preside the session. It was not a battle between two individuals, but between the democratic mandate and an alliance of powerful individuals. When, during a Zero Hour debate in Rajya Sabha, I proposed the construction of a museum dedicated to the children who were martyred during the Raj, the committee under PM Modi immediately consented. Why didn’t history books represent the stories of martyrdoms of Baji Rout of Dhenkanal in Odisha, Shirishkumar Meh-ta of Nandurbar in Maharashtra, or the seven sch-ool-going children who were killed by police as they hoisted the national flag atop the Old Patna Secretariat on October 8, 1942, all during the Quit India movement?

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There is also a regional imbalance in Indian historiography. The contribution of the Northeast remained unrecognised till 2014. For instance, Kha-si chieftain U. Tirot Singh Syiem of the East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya, who led the tribals in a protracted battle against the British Army. Histo-rians used to celebrate privileged freedom fighters, ignoring the people’s heroes.

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Rewriting of history is natural and is an attempt to bring it closer to the truth. It is a long a tedious process, but a vital tool in restoring originality of Indian discourse. Unless the correction comes using original source material and original hist-ory, the textbooks would be uninspiring. A bunch of lies do not make a nation. India is coming out of Eurocentrism and the course of contemporary eve-nts show a natural decline of Marxist historians. They are feeling de-legitimised, but are unpr-e-pared to accept their crimes masquerading as historians. Change is inevitable and history will help strengthen our civilisational discourse with Europe and the Islamic world.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Time’s Up for the Red-Green Club")

(Views expressed are personal)

Rakesh Sinha is a BJP Rajya Sabha MP