IT SEEMS TO ME that during the post-Independence period, certain new trends are growing among a section of Indian historians which violate the high ideals of truth noted above.
Strangely enough, those were foreseen by the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun. He gives a long list of defects of historians which include “a very common desire to gain the favour of those of high rank, by praising them, by spreading their fame, by flattering them, by embellishing their doings and by interpreting in the most favourable way all their actions.” Khaldun then justly observed that “all this gives a distorted version of historical events.”
This characteristic is a growing menace to historiography in modern India. This evil is enhanced by the fact that the Government, directly or indirectly, seeks to utilise history to buttress some definite ideas such as Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence, an imaginary conception of friendly relation subsisting between the two great communities, and several popular slogans evoked by the exigencies of the struggle for freedom.
These have been accepted as a rich legacy by the Government, even though it practically means in many cases the sacrifice of truth, the greatest legacy which Mahatma Gandhi meant to bequeath to mankind.
For example, the cult of non-violence is an ideal devoutly to be wished for, but when some historians of India seriously maintain that this ideal has been followed throughout the course of Indian history, one rubs his eyes with wonder, for not only are all the known facts of Indian rulers against the assumption that they were averse to war, but war has been recommended by political texts as a normal practice and sanctioned by religion through the Asvamedha sacrifice, eulogy of Digvijaya and of Kings who have won victory in hundred battles samara-shata-vijayi.
Such distortion of history can never be excused even in the name of Mahatma Gandhi.
The net result has been that the oft-quoted phrase ‘History is past politics’ is likely to be substituted soon by a new phrase ‘History is present politics.’
But the extent of deviation from the high ideals of history mentioned above may be better judged by the recent pronouncements made by some eminent historians. This is best illustrated by the Addresses of some General and Sectional Presidents of the Indian History Congress during the last decade.
“History,” we are told in a Presidental Address, “has a mission and obligation to lead humanity to a higher ideal and nobler future. The historian cannot shirk this responsibility by hiding his head into the false dogma of objectivity, that his job is merely to chronicle the past. His task is to reveal the spirit of humanity and guide it towards self-expression.”
Some concrete steps are suggested for achieving this end. History, we are told, must not call to memory“ghastly aberrations of human nature, of dastardly crimes of divisions and conflicts, of degeneration and decay, but of the higher values of life, of traditions of culture and of the nobler deeds of sacrifice and devotion to the service of humanity.”
In other words, history should record the spread of Buddhism by Asoka but not the horrors of the Kalinga war, carefully avoid all traces of the devastation and massacre of Mahmud of Ghazni, destruction of temples by Aurangzib, the Jallianwalabagh massacre by General Dyer, outrages during recent communal riots, and so on.
The reason for these omissions is that such things bring some “unhealthy trends which militate against the concept of international peace.” We are further told that “the purpose of history is to trace the course of progress towards liberty.”
To crown it all, it is asserted that “even facts of Indian history have to be judged by the criterion of progress towards liberty and morality.”
Lack of time would not permit me to enter into a discussion on the mission and obligations of history. But I demur to the learned General President’s contention that they are powerful enough to override the objectivity of history, which is a false dogma.
I belong to the old school which regards objectivity as the soul of history, and though the historian’s job is not merely to chronicle the past, it is his first and foremost duty to do so in the right manner. I would rather follow in the footsteps of Ranke and repeat that my books do not aspire to such lofty functions as laid down in the Presidential Address. Their principal object is to show what actually occurred in the past.
I WOULD CITE only another example which gives a forecast of the shape that Indian history would take in future. A President of the Section II (Medieval India) of the Indian History Congress begins his address by pointing out the chief errors of Sir Henry Elliot and other Anglo-Indian writers of Medieval India. One of these is, to quote his own words, “the wholly impossible and erroneous conclusion that the Musalmans, as such, were a governing class, while the Hindus as such were the governed.”
The President then refers to “India’s contact with Islam which had a deep impact on the social, cultural, political and economic life of the country.”
The net result of this is reflected in the following successive stages in the evolution of Medieval India. First, the Turkish state of the Ilbarites; second, the Indo-Muslim state of the Khaljis and the Tughluqs and the third, the emergence of the Indian state of the Mughals. We are told that “Akbar’s political outlook was an outcome of the accumulated political development inherent in the very nature of the situation.”
Unfortunately, nothing is said about his successors, particularly Aurangzib, though it is claimed that on account of the continuity in this cultural evolution, the Mughal empire lasted longer than the whole of the Sultanate period.
I have selected extracts from the speeches of General and Sectional Presidents, because they are elected by the general body of historians and represent the elite among the modern historians of India. As such their views may be taken to represent those of at least a growing section of modern historians.
I do not propose to discuss the merits or demerits of these views, but merely stress the fact that they constitute a great departure from what was conceived as the fundamental principle of true history in our younger days.
As I feel very strongly that this approach to history is quite wrong, I thought it to be my duty to present my views before the coming generations of historians. It is for them to judge whether they possess any value and choose their future course accordingly.
I conclude what may be described as my swan-song by saying that history, divorced from truth, does not help a nation—its future should be laid on the stable foundations of truth and not on the quicksands of falsehood however alluring it may appear at present. India is now at the cross-roads and I urge my young friends to choose carefully the path they would like to tread upon.
Series Concluded
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