“The progressive
secularisation of texts under the Nehru-Marxist consensus has ensured
that most Indians have been badly severed from their own roots and
ancient knowledge. Attempting to correct this balance is hardly the same
as majoritarianism or ‘saffronisation’ in the negative sense.” - R.
Jagannathan
Critics
of the Modi government have always believed that the BJP — as an
affiliate of the Sangh Parivar — has a “saffron” agenda. The initial
statements made by the new HRD Minister, Smriti Irani, and the new Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, seem to have confirmed the suspicions of card-carrying “secularists” in this regard.
I find most of the criticisms meaningless for the simple reason that “saffronisation”
seems to be, by definition, wrong, even without defining the term
clearly. Since nobody has volunteered a definition, I will do so.
Saffronisation can have three possible meanings or implications. One is the narrowest one — which is the imposition of a majoritarian
ideology to write a new history that supports this majoritarianism. We
are yet to see anything like this in the pronouncements or acts of
either Irani or Rao.
Two, “saffronisation” could be a
corrective or counter-point to the current view of history. And, three,
it could be an effort to acquaint the majority community itself with its
past — something that has been systematically denigrated in this
country in the name of a synthetic secularism.
There could be other definitions,
but for now I have defined it my way. Of these three definitions,
saffronisation is a problem only in the first case — and that too, only
in a limited way.
Before we start to examine
whether the Modi government is at all going to “rewrite history” and
“saffronise” it, let us debunk one bit of nonsense straightaway. The
very allegation of “saffronisation” contains within it the guilt of the
accusers. It tells us what they have been doing for years is rewrite
history “their way”.
You can rewrite history in the
saffron way only if you believe what is currently called history is “the
right way”, with unchallengeable “facts”. Our current rendering of
history is, in fact, a version written in the post-independence period,
when the Nehruvian-Marxist consensus was that history should be
“secular”. So when the Left attacks the Sangh for trying to evolve a
“nationalist” version of history, they are effectively admitting that they
had a “secularist” project where history had to be seen through their
lens – and their lens alone. They were the ones who rewrote history.
In the “secularist” rendering of
history, the contributions of ancient Indic civilisations – from the
Vedic age to the time of the Buddha and Mahavira and the age of Vedanta –
must be dismissed as minor or criticised as Brahminical and savagely
inegalitarian; the extreme iconoclasm that came with Islamic invasions
must be categorised as mere aberrations; and heroes must be found
outside the Hindu tradition to make history truly “secular”. Hence the
extreme eulogisation of Akbar as a secular hero when most of pre-Islamic
history has been largely secular.
This is not to say we need to
wallow in a past history of perceived wrongs, nor am I trying to
invalidate the Marxist way of looking at history. But, by that same
token, there can be a Sangh way of looking at history too. It is not an
illegitimate enterprise.
A thief will always divert
attention to others so that his own thievery goes undetected. This is
what those accusing the government of attempting to rewrite history are
trying to do: evade responsibility for their own rewriting of history by
showing up someone else’s attempt.
As Vivek Dehejia, economics professor at Carleton University, Ottawa, wrote in Mint newspaper
some months ago: “We have inherited a Victorian conception of history,
foisted upon us by our colonisers, that the telling of history consists
of uncovering certain ‘truths’, that these truths in turn are based upon
uncontested facts, and that these may thus be woven into the tapestry
of a tale whose veracity cannot be questioned without appearing to be
either retrograde or revolutionary. Modern scholarship turns this view
on its head. History is, rather, the telling of a story, the creation of
a narrative, which involves the careful selection of facts one deems
pertinent and an argument (explicit or implicit) about the causal
relationships that bind those facts together into a compelling tale.”
Once again: If there can be a
secular version of history, there can be a Sangh version too. A saffron
version of history can balance the Marxist version which, anyway, is not
going to go away.
Then, there is the question of
Smriti Irani’s alleged exertions to rewrite school textbooks with more
material from sacred Hindu texts like the Vedas and Upanishads. I can’t
see how this can be wrong, especially if it is not meant to rubbish any
other text or community.
The progressive secularisation of
texts under the Nehru-Marxist consensus has ensured that most Indians
have been badly severed from their own roots and ancient knowledge.
Attempting to correct this balance is hardly the same as majoritarianism
or “saffronisation” in the negative sense.
Sidin Vadukut, writing in Mint newspaper
on July 4th, has no problem with this aspect of Irani’s efforts. He
writes: “Teaching ancient texts in schools, for what it is worth, is a
good idea. Both religious and secular texts are important storehouses of
a civilisation’s history, culture and intellectual development. Yet I
cannot recall a single ancient text of any variety that I was properly
exposed to during my schooling. Yes, I was well-drilled on the existence
of the Vedas and the works of assorted ancient scientists and Sangam
literature and all that. But could I quote a single line from any of
them, let alone with contextual awareness? Nope.”
This leaves us with the final
charge: that Sangh loyalists are being planted on the Indian Council of
Historical Research, a fact reported with subtle derision by The
Telegraph recently. The headline to the story is: “Mahabharat historian
gets research reins.” The impression one gets is that somebody steeped
in mythology is now going to redirect history — which is for real
historians.
The initial paras of the story
start in the same vein: “A retired history professor who has written
articles arguing that stories from the Ramayan and the Mahabharat
are truthful accounts of events that took place has been named chief of
the ICHR, the government agency to promote historical research.
Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, whose interests include Vedic literature,
Sanatana Dharma and Bharatiya Sanskriti, set the tone for his three-year
tenure after taking charge on Saturday.”
So,
a retired professor can’t head the ICHR? And does an expert on India’s
two best-known epics automatically make himself ineligible for a post
involving historical research?
And did he really say that the Ramayan and Mahabharat are truthful accounts of events? His exact words were this: “The stories of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat
cannot be termed a-historical just because there is not enough
archaeological hard evidence. Excavations cannot be done in many places
since people are living there and you cannot evict them. A lot of
historical material has come through cultural, anthropological,
archaeological and ethnographic studies in the last 60 years about the
continuous Indian civilisation. The findings can be compiled by
researchers. I think the ICHR should support historians interested in
doing work on these aspects.”
This is hardly the same as claiming that everything in the two epics is historical fact.
I
am not trying to say Rao and Irani will end up writing or researching
the “right” history, but surely they are entitled to do so. If Middle
Eastern sites can be excavated to find proof of Jesus’s existence based
on Biblical claims, is looking for fact in the Ramayan and Mahabharat
necessarily a dubious exercise?
Whether what Smriti Irani and Rao
will end up doing will be right or wrong we will know only when they
actually show us what they do. Right now, all talk of “rewriting
history” and “saffronisation” is a load of bull. The government’s
critics are crying wolf too early. – Samachar.com, 5 July 2014
» R. Jagannathan is currently Editor at Web 18, which is part of Network 18. In a journalistic career spanning 35 years, he has edited several national general and business publications, including DNA, Business Today, Business World, Business Standard, Indian Management, and Financial Express. He blogs at Newthink.From bharatbharti
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