Partha Pratim Mazumder
(He can be reached at
parthapratimmazumder1988@gmail.com)
The importance of following history is to find out the reality and then the narrative. But if the order is reversed, it turns into an ideology that converts truth into half-truth. In post-Independence India, history-writing had become an ideological task; it was to strengthen certain narratives. Marxist historians always tried to manipulate the methodologies to deny the truth about our past, good or bad. In schools, students were taught well-written scripts prepared by historians ('Red-Green academic club') under the shadow of Marxism and Nehruvian vision. Thus, history-writing became a way to inculcate the new generations.
As we know, Indian historiography has three major classifications; modern, medieval and ancient. Earlier, ancient India was largely ignored. That period was to showcase the achievements and contributions by Bharatiyas in the fields of science, humanities, spiritualism, philosophy, art and literature. However, the history written during the Nehruvian era only mentioned these superficially. The reason is obvious. The history of ancient Bharat establishes primacy of our cultural and spiritual dimensions of life.
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. Sushruta Samhita, Tantra Vigyan Bhairav, Vedic Mathematics, etc., were considered fanciful stories. Those days are now gone. Now, we have infused new generation historians and social scientists with confidence to untangle the hidden 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 Bharat. For example, here we celebrate diversity as both a way of life and a philosophy in Bharat. And it continues from the pre-Mughal period. Has the question ever struck anyone as to why Hindus did not convert the Parsis and Jews that reached Bharat to escape religious persecution?
The Red-Green academic club used state resources to prove the magnanimity of Mughal rulers and deny the reality of religious war against the beautiful tradition of ekamsatyam viprahbahudhavadanti. If we focus on the pre-Islamic ideology, their aggressions 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 philosophy. Since inception, Bharat as a civilization has possessed spiritual democracy. Islamic aggressors like Muhammad Ghori, Mahmud of Ghazni or Babur always wanted to ruin anyone who differed from their belief. The destruction of temples at Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi or Mathura was not for greed, but to weave 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 were obsessed with medieval history.
We have never seen any history book focusing more on the sacrifice of our Bharatiya heroes. Some one or two pages are not enough to understand the real truth behind the incidents. The martyrdom of the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, was not due to war for land, power, wealth or supremacy. He was brutally killed by the Mughal ruler as he stood for freedom of religion of Hindus. His martyrdom in 1675 is a unique instance in world history. As we study Martin Luther in European history, so should we have read of the Guru's sacrifice. Historians used to celebrate privileged freedom fighters and always ignored the people's heroes. History is not permanent; with time it has been rewritten and it is quite natural and is an attempt to bring it closer to the truth. Though it is a long and tedious process, it is a vital tool in restoring originality of Indian discourse. Unless the correction is made using original source material and original history, the textbooks would be colourless. A bunch of lies does not make a nation. India is coming out of Eurocentrism and the course of contemporary events shows the decline of Marxist historians. Change is inevitable and history will help strengthen our civilizational discourse with Europe and the Islamic world.