Has the time come for rewriting ancient Indian history?

Rajan Agarwal

Is history merely what is written in our text books, meticulously compiled by esteemed historians through years of research and excavation or is the history that which has been carefully hidden and needs to be revisited. A single event in history has many deviations be it about the Indus valley or Vedas or caste system or for that matter most of the events of the ancient Indian period. While reading about the events in the ancient period we face numerous questions and are unable to justify ourselves for lack of evidence. 

Some literary sources have praised a conqueror while others have tagged him as an invader. There has been an inherent bias among historians too which has corrupted the interpretation of history. Some texts were written to the praise of rulers and accorded them godly status while others criticised even their humane acts. Is a one sided approach or a balanced approach justified or are we still far from the truth. History without archaeological or literary evidence is termed mythological or fictional but stories arise from everyday happenings and an element of truth, be it of any minuscule proportion, must have been there. 

The rapid advances in science and technology such as remote sensing and satellite technology, along with new findings from sonar readings and carbon dating of submerged underwater man-made sites have helped us immensely in recreating and studying history and full use should be made of it. The worst part about all this research and new discoveries is that these changes are not reflected in the textbooks and students keep reading about things they did 20-25 years ago. One might argue what difference would it make if we come to know that people of Indus valley were ruled by merchants or by priests, whether they cultivated xyz crops, whether Ashoka was as noble as projected or whether Vedic age preceded Harappan civilisation? These questions are mired in debates which have remained inconclusive mostly.

One must not forget the time period and people under whom our history was penned down. It was during the colonial era that excavations took place and different interpretations were given to suit their own needs. It was during this time that two extreme views were put forward by the colonial historians and nationalist historians. The essence of the debate was who was superior and it defeated the purpose of historiography. It is this debate which has continued till date.

The colonial historiography of India was based on the pre-conceptions and debates about the orient in the then European society. This resulted in the creation of the ‘stereotype’ of the Indian society which was the ‘other’ to the European society. With the maxim ‘knowledge is power’ in mind, the history of India was being shaped in a way, so as to help in legitimising the European control over the sub-continent. The Aryan invasion was indeed a masterly stroke on the part of the British: thanks to the Aryan theory, they showed on the one hand that Indian civilisation was not that ancient and that it was posterior to the cultures which influenced the western world - Mesopotamia, Sumeria, or Babylon - and on the other hand, that whatever good things India had developed - Sanskrit, literature, or even its architecture, had been influenced by the West. Thus, Sanskrit, instead of being the mother of all Indo-European languages, became just a branch of their huge family; thus, the religion of Zarathustra is said to have influenced Hinduism - as these Aryan tribes were believed to have transited through numerous countries, Persia being one, before reaching India - and not vice versa. The dating of the Vedas and the wrong interpretation of the caste system and its gradual degeneration to suit vested interests are other issues to be looked into.

The Nationalist school of historians emerged towards the end of the 19^th century. Their interpretation was used for the anti-colonial movement for independence. In this school, history was used for two purposes, firstly, to establish the identity of Indians and secondly by establishing the superiority of the past over the present. For the first purpose, the Aryan theory of race and other similar concepts came handy, whereas for the second purpose, the concept of the ‘golden era of the Hindu civilisation’ was created. This was done because the remoteness in history of the ‘golden age’ was directly proportional to its utility in imaginative reconstructions and inversely proportional to factual scrutiny. The basic thing to be noted is that, the colonial nationalists to a large extent used the same methods of historiography as the imperialists but they interpreted these ‘facts’ differently so as to suit their socio-political needs.

The makeshift temple that was erected at Ayodhya after the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, the Ram Janmabhoomi temple was not only the privileging of faith over reason, but also the identification of an enemy who acted against the religious interests of Hindus. Among the variety of factors that define the relationship between communalism and revivalism in India, history plays a central role. There is widespread belief that soon text books will be revised or rewritten, to inculcate such a strongly misleading and divisive brand of history among pupils in our schools," the historians said in a resolution passed at the platinum jubilee session of the prestigious Indian History Congress. 

The speed of the attempted textbook revision had been so fast that the newly reconstituted NCERT evidently had some difficulty in find­ing historians to do this task who would be both reasonably distin­guished and adequately compliant. In the early school textbooks that emanated from the NCERT, there was not only the predictable sectarian bias in the direction of the politics of `Hindutva', but also numerous factual mistakes of a fairly straightforward kind. School children were to be taught, in one of the textbooks, that Madagascar was `an island in the Arabian sea and that Lancashire had been `a fast-growing industrial town'.Quite predictably, leftists in India raised a cry of tampering with history, as if history is a fixed science that cannot be adjusted.Former Union minister Shashi Tharoor has apparently come out in support of BJP minister Dr Harsh Vardhan's claim that Greeks and Arabs received credit for advances in Mathematics that rightfully belong to India. He goes on to state that Indian mathematicians invented negative numbers: the British mathematician Lancelot Hogben, grudgingly acknowledging this, suggested ungraciously that "perhaps because the Hindus were in debt more often than not, it occurred to them that it would also be useful to have a number which represent the amount of money one owes".

 The time has come for rewriting ancient Indian History! Are we indeed afraid of the truth so much that we have so forth not incorporated the recent excavation in standard textbooks? With time new schools of thought has emerged-the Marxist and the Subaltern which has given a more holistic interpretation of the events and forces us in the direction of rewriting ancient Indian history. What is holding us back? Are we afraid what we have known for years as truth and supported our claims will change? Are we afraid we will have to face questions for which we will have no answer? Students have the right to know about the real facts of historical events which could be corroborated with proofs and sugar coated events tend to make the subject more like a fairy tale. Debatable portions of history have been termed mythological and no significant efforts are being undertaken to undertake further research.

This attempt at rewriting history is of course meeting with a lot of resistance on the part of those who have a vested interest in keeping Indian history under wraps, as well as those who for decades have taught and written books and articles which blindly copied the British version. But nevertheless, unless it is done truthfully, however painful it could be for certain sections of India’s vast ethnic and religious mosaic, India will never be able to face squarely its own history and evolve a justified pride in its great and ancient civilisation.

------------------------------------------------
Rajan has a keen interest in history.He inspects the recent furore over 'real' history.