Historical revisionism in the new Indian Right

The proceedings of the 102nd Indian Science Congress held in Mumbai shocked most participants when it was decided to include a paper titled  'Ancient Indian Aviation Technology' which spoke about ancient Indian spacecraft which roamed the planets 7000 years ago. It was claimed that the sages Agastya and Bharadwaja had invented aeroplanes which flew not just forward, but backwards and sideways as well. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, while opening the conference said "If Germans and others can, on the basis of our language (Sanskrit) and our ancient science, produce new equipment, what can't we?". Within the RSS run schools, children have been taught for over a decade that the Qutb Minar was not built by Qutb-ud-din-Aibak, but was built by Hindu Emperor Samudragupt and was called Vishnu Stambh. 

Late last year, in a move that was widely criticised, the new BJP led Indian Govt decided to appoint Professor Y S Rao as the head of the prestigious Indian Society for Historical Research. Prof Rao has no scholarly articles in any peer reviewed journal. In his own words, he deems historians as ‘people like Valmiki [who] were scholars documenting their lives. We believe that they are rishis, who know the past, present and the future’. Professor Rao dismisses modern methods of historical enquiry — based on evidence from manuscripts, inscriptions, and artefacts found through detailed archaeological explorations — as ‘Western inspired’.

A very interesting narrative often heard among the hindu right fringe is that Indian history has been written by Marxists using Marxist and Western methods. What is interesting is that for the most part of its existence, the ICHR has been under the chairmanship of non-Marxists such as Lokesh Chandra, S. Setter, MGS Narayanan and so on. So if they had wanted to remove the so called "Marxist tools of research", there was nothing to stop them from doing so. Interestingly, Rao's appointment was as loudly criticised by the right leaning historians as the 'marxist' historians.

Romila Thapar - a historian often in the crosshairs of these fundamentalists says - "It is perhaps worth pointing out that the kind of history that is often dismissed by Hindutva ideologues as Marxist is not actually Marxist but bears the stamp of the social sciences. The distinction between the two, despite its importance to the interpretation of history, is generally glossed over by the proponents of Hindutva. This is largely because they have scant understanding of what is meant by a Marxist interpretation of history and therefore fail to recognise it. For them, a Marxist is simply someone who opposes the Hindutva ideology."

A new wave of revisionism is now creeping into the Indian mainstream. People with no University level education in history and historical research are providing "new evidence" of historical "facts" that had been missing. The new wave of history seeks to spread hatred by being written in way so as to judge history. History is a series of events that provides cultural, socio-economic and geo-political facts of a particular era. Seeking to polarise it with opinion based on modern day realities is simply a recipe for disaster. Some of this "history" is being taught to hundreds of thousands of children in schools run by the RSS.

In 1993-94, the national steering committee on textbook evaluation concluded that 'history' being taught in RSS run schools was transforming children into "bigoted morons in the garb of instilling patriotism". The meteoric rise of the BJP has provided the fringe with a platform with which to distort mainstream education. The problem is compounded by the current generation of professionals who actually believe these fairy tales as fact by "googling" for "evidence" on the "internet". Peer reviewed, evidence based literature produced by qualified researchers is being treated with disdain, and replaced by revisionism. And it isn't RSS run schools either. Madrassas run by extreme schools of Islam have a similar problem.

History isn't gospel. As evidence is found, history is revisited and corrected. Until 200 years ago, Emperor Asoka's existence had, but disappeared from Indian history. Archeological evidence, in conjunction with Buddhist chronicles from Sri Lanka were used to piece together his life and reign. His emblem is now the national emblem of India. History is always re-appraised and corrected as evidence is found. However, opinions by non-scholars based on their interpretations of mythology is, perhaps, the stupidest method. 

So while we're talking about revisionism, it as a historical fact, chronicled by the famous historian George Lucas, that a very wise Jedi warrior once said "But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." The words are so true. The seduction of this revisionism is leading people down the dark path… bound to end in tears, this experiment is !