THIS ESSAY SERIES is an updated version of my lecture delivered at the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs, Bangalore on May 9, 2025 titled The Historical Method of History Exemplars. Click this link to listen to the full lecture.
Happy reading!
WHAT IS PASSING OFF as Indian history in recent years are two faces of the same phenomenon.
The first is the familiar face of the flood of antiquated and discredited mass of Marxist distortions. The second is a similar deluge of distortions stitched with the assorted threads of good intentions, misdirected patriotism and undefined notions of the glory of Sanatana Dharma and Hindu Rashtra. While the former is catastrophic, the latter does disservice to the very cause it purports to espouse – floating bizarre theories that if you get close enough to the Sun, you hear the sound of Om, peddling untenable dating to the antiquity of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and claiming that the Vijayanagara Empire lasted for 500 years hurts more than it helps.
Easy access to information and the proliferation of social media has only exacerbated this dastardly phenomenon. This is more pronounced in what is incorrectly known as the “Hindu Right,” “Right Wing,” and other labels, which are themselves the products of lazy thinking and lazier scholarship.
Especially after 2014, most people who are or claim to belong to the “Right” are also self-minted historians. Their serial assaults unleashed as Twitter (or X) threads on every conceivable area of Indian history is breathtaking for their vacuity and are resplendent showcases of shoddy cut-and-paste jobs and screenshots.
It is easier to gain social media celebrity status by stirring up pride and make people feel good than spending lonely years engaged in honest, thorough and diligent study. Mediocrity is the mother of celebrity while excellence is a jealous mistress.
It is this mindless, headlong embrace of mediocrity that must be undone to prevent further damage. The key to this is in understanding and embodying some of the major qualities, attitudes, traits and methods evolved and employed by the true exemplars of Indian history.
For example, a Radhakumud Mukherjee did not become a giant of Indian history just by studying hundreds of books and manuscripts. Nor did his greatness solely rest upon the lasting volumes of history that he has produced. His eminence has a deeper and a subtler quality.
For the purposes of this essay series, I’ve selected just a few exemplars of Indian history at random because they are among the best representatives of that whole era.
In fact, Mahamahopadhyaya P.V. Kane, in his presidential address at the 13th Session of the All India Oriental Conference at Nagpur on 19 October 1946, gave a list of more than 150 top-notch history scholars in India and another list of more than 200 institutions engaged in history research. The profound tragedy is that today, not a single history scholar of even ten percent of that calibre exists in a country of more than 140 crore people.
HERE ARE SOME quotes about history as an academic discipline, a philosophy, and even a way of life.
The first is by the contemporary American historian, David McCoullough who died in 2022.
The lessons of history are manifold. Nothing happens in isolation. Everything that happens has consequences. We are all part of a larger stream of events, past, present, and future. We are all the beneficiaries of those who went before us… who braved the unknown, who gave of their time and service, and who kept faith in the possibilities of the mind and the human spirit…
The next is by Will Durant.
The record of the past can have a great deal of significance, but the events themselves have significance only if you approach them from a philosophical standpoint and ask the right questions.
Durant essentially echoes the immortal words of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides that history is philosophy teaching through examples.
Another quote is by the novelist Vladimir Nabokov who writes about historians.
[The historian can do] his best to unearth and combine all pertinent facts and details; he can frankly indulge in farce or satire by treating the past as a parody of the present.
And when we go back even farther in time, we can look at the legendary historian B.G. Niebuhr who is regarded as the founder of modern Western historiography. This is what he says rather beautifully:
“We must be able to say in the sight of God, ‘I have not knowingly nor without earnest investigation written anything which is not true.’”
Niebuhr was also one of the earliest inspirations of Sri R.C. Majumdar, who is himself one of the doyens of Indian history. And so, let’s look at some priceless gems from Majumdar about history.
“History must be regarded as an eternal quest for truth. This is the fundamental basis… everything else being only secondary and subordinate to it. “Moral judgment as well as various inferences are welcome and even necessary, only when the facts are established with a scrupulous regard for truth alone, without any influence of preconceived judgment, and afford sufficient materials for forming a judgment.”
After this, we can look at Majumdar’s senior contemporary, the distinguished historian and scholar, Jadunath Sarkar.
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 of a historian.
Jadunath Sarkar is undoubtedly the pioneer of Indian history writing and what he has given here is an eternal motto of a historian, which closely adheres to the spirit of Vedanta.
To be continued
The Dharma Dispatch is now available on Telegram! For original and insightful narratives on Indian Culture and History, subscribe to us on Telegram.
