STANDING ON THE SOIL of Kashmir, I cannot forget that Kalhana, the historian of this land, the great and the only real historian that ancient India can boast of, had also preached this high ideal of history. He held that the true historian must keep a detached mind and like a judge should recount events after having discarded bias and prejudice.
This lofty ideal was held up as a historian’s motto by the greatest historian of modern India, Sir Jadunath Sarkar. The following is a literal translation of a passage in his Presidential Address in Bengali in the year 1915:
I would not care whether truth is pleasant or unpleasant, and in consonance with or opposed to current views. I would not mind in the least whether truth is or is not a blow to the glory of my country. If necessary, I shall bear in patience the ridicule and slander of friends and society for the sake of preaching truth. But still I shall seek truth, understand truth and accept truth. This should be the firm resolve ofa historian.
Later, when Dr. Rajendra Prasad launched a scheme to write a comprehensive national history of India on a co-operative basis and requested Jadunath to become its Chief Editor, Jadunath wrote to him on November 19, 1937:
National history, like every other history worthy of the name and deserving to endure, must be true as regards the facts and reasonable in the interpretation of them. It will be national not in the sense that it will try to suppress or whitewash everything in our country’s past that is disgraceful, but because it will admit them and at the same time point out that there were other and nobler aspects in the stages of our nation’s evolution which offset the former. ... In this task the historian must be a judge. He will not suppress any defect of the national character, but add to his portraiture those higher qualities which, taken together with the former, help to constitute the entire individual.
In his reply to the above, dated November 22, 1937, Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote:
I entirely agree with you that no history is worth the name which suppresses or distorts facts. A historian who purposely does so under the impression that he thereby does good to his native country really harms it in the end. Much more so in the case of a country like ours which has suffered much on account of its national defects, and which must know and understand them to be able to remedy them.
I solemnly hope and pray that these words would be remembered by the present and future generations of historians, for I see great dangers lurking ahead. I was reading recently a book entitled Contemporary History in the Soviet Mirror, published in 1964. I was struck by many passages, a few of which I quote at random.
The present official line in historiography is, if anything, even more militantly partisan than it was in Stalin’s day. The Soviet politicians have a narrow and utilitarian view of the functions of scholarship. Nothing could be more destructive of historical scholarship than the claim that the party is the repository of supreme wisdom.. . . In the Soviet Union today, historians, like everyone else, are required to believe that, by some mysterious process unfathomable to ordinary mortals, the party has been infallible. The partisan approach to history prevents the observer from recognising the sanctity of objective facts and requires him where necessary to deny the evidence of his senses; for there are occasions when he must subordinate his own personal concept of truth to that held by individual or group of individuals, namely the party.
How far these allegations are true, I cannot say, but it would be obvious to most people that these symptoms constitute dangerous impediments to the growth of historiography. What is less obvious is that our country, dominated by party feelings, is rapidly moving towards the same goal.
I KNOW from personal experience how the Government of India has sought to utilise history for the spread of ideas which they have elevated to the rank of national policy to their own satisfaction.
They are not willing to tolerate any history which mentions facts incompatible with their ideas of national integration and solidarity. They do not inquire whether the facts stated are true, or views expressed are reasonable deductions from facts, but condemn outright any historical writings which in their opinion are likely to go against national integration and their views about such things as eternal Hindu-Muslim fraternity, the non-existence of separate Hindu and Muslim cultures, and their fusion into one Indian culture, etc. etc.
I mention these particular instances, as I am in a position to substantiate my charge by documentary evidence, but reference may be made to many other illustrations, less susceptible to positive evidence. All these are done in the name of national policy which is at best the policy of a political party. But it violates the only national policy, which cannot be challenged by any party, namely, “Truth shall prevail,” the motto engraved on our national emblem.
Unfortunately, it is not the Government alone that violates the true ideals of history as upheld by Niebuhr, Ranke, Sir Jadunath Sarkar and a host of others who are justly regarded as creators of modern historiography.
To be continued
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