Guest guest Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 >Manthan Listowner <owner-manthan >manthan (Manthan) >Manthan <manthan >[manthan] "Freedom for history" by J.S. Rajput >Thu, 11 Mar 2004 06:45:20 -0800 (PST) > >************************************************************************ >manthan: Information Exchange Network for Intellectual Defense of Dharma >Sponsored By: Bharatvani - http://www.bharatvani.org >************************************************************************ > >Title: Freedom for history >Author: J.S. Rajput >Publication: Hindustan Times >March 10, 2004 >URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_608645,00120002.htm > >Freedom for history >J.S. Rajput >10 March > >The inventors of the controversy over the communalisation of Indian >history are at it again. Since the early Seventies, theyve been >campaigning against historians who disagreed with the Leftist-Marxist view >of Indias past, which, thanks to official patronage, became the dominant >school of historiography. > >From the tenor and content of Romila Thapars articles, Future of Indian >past and One nations many pasts (March 1, 2), its clear that she wishes >society to remain ideologically anchored to one of the most forgettable >chapters in the history of Indian scholarship. > >Since few students pursue history at a higher level, school history is >about all that most educated Indians are ever exposed to. Across the >world, school-level textbook writing is left to professionals. But the >scheme of our eminent historians was not entirely didactic; it was about >mind control. > >Even today, many Indians believe that the Aryans were a foreign community >of settlers in India, or that Guru Tegh Bahadur was nothing more than a >brigand who got his execution orders from the Moghal administration. >Aurangzeb, the zinda pir, was nowhere in the picture in this sordid act. >To them, India was a backward civilisation, a fragmented nation moving >from the control of one invading party to another. > >The publication of the new NCERT books was opposed by these historians. In >fact, the first slogans against the saffronisation of history began long >before the first new book was even commissioned. Under the banner of the >Indian History Congress, they published a compendium of perceived errors. >When the NCERTs authors began to go over the allegations, they discovered >that under the garb of presenting a secular, scientific and liberal >history, the historians had presented generations of school-goers with >textbooks that were long on rhetoric and short on facts. As Irfan Habib, >the prime mover of the IHC project to defame the NCERT, acknowledged, much >of what Thapar wrote in the old Class VI textbook was far from the truth. > >Habib castigated the new NCERT author, Makkhan Lal, for parivar writings >for suggesting that Asokas emphasis on building a moral and >welfare-oriented State had adverse implications on Mauryan Indias security >outlook. But that amounted to belittling Thapars Asoka and the decline of >the Mauryas because this famous work formed the basis of Lals approach to >the specific context. Elsewhere, Habib dismissed an observation on the art >of growing silk and making paper in the 5th century AD. He claimed that >these articles of daily life entered India via the Muslims (sic). But >hadnt Thapar written much the same in Early India? Till 1999, Thapar was >telling her 12-year-old readers that the Aryans may have come from Central >Asia or Europe. Not once did she mention the existence of a group of >scholars who believed the Aryans had their home in India. > >Moreover, this was in contrast to the position she herself had been taking >in her more serious works for at least 15 years now. Is it not strange >that a scholar who insists that history cannot be rewritten (on the basis >of new facts, as the NCERT has steadfastly maintained), should abandon her >old fundamental approach to the Aryan question? She rightly acknowledges >the flaws in the old theory that the word Aryan represented an ethnic >group and emphasises now that it could have meant a family of languages. >But when these omissions are juxtaposed with the general tendency of >Marxists to downplay the scientific and philosophical breakthroughs >achieved in ancient India, one begins to wonder if the allegations about >the eminent historians hidden agenda were right after all. > >Also, their insistence on foregrounding the story of medieval India with >the (mostly fabricated) salutary effects of foreign invasion was >controversial. Why was it supposed that Muslim Indians would take offence >at instances of iconoclasm or persecution of non-believers by dynasties of >foreign origin which ruled in Delhi and other provinces for centuries >before British domination? Does linking Muslim Indians to foreign >marauders not constitute an insult to their patriotism? If the secularism >token is advanced, should it not extend to Christian Indians too (after >all Clive and Curzon were Christians) and a basic overhaul be ordered into >independent Indias analysis of British rule? > >In totalitarian societies (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia), books on history >were banned if they questioned the official line. But linking the present >Indian experience with those dark traditions is a figment of the >imagination. Today, Thapar accuses the NCERT of not bothering to put its >new books through committees. Not only is that untrue, but she unwittingly >admits that earlier regimes tolerated only the presence of like-minded >sycophants . > >If anything, the NCERT has thrown open Indian history to scholars of all >ideological hues. Independent scholars are breathing easier and the >selection to major positions is no longer the prerogative of a select few. >It is only through a free exchange of ideas that scholars can arrive at a >consensual identification of facts and analyses. This would enable >educationists to develop a new generation which is at once imbibed with >the values of its ancient heritage as well as equipped with the faculties >and commitment to face the realities of the age they live in. > >(The writer is Director, NCERT) > >************************************************ >Manthan is a moderated, by invitation only list. >Listowner: owner-manthan >************************************************ > _______________ Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee when you http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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