Opinion
-
News Analysis
Reading messages from the past
By Sudhanshu Ranade
December 6 has become a standing reminder of many things. One is that we, as a nation, are yet to agree about what happened to us over the period before the British arrived; and what is to be the national identity now that they have left, taking Pakistan (and Bangladesh) with them.
Clearly, medieval history needs to be rewritten. We cannot remain at war with ourselves forever. Besides, our failure to come to terms with this period has, somewhat unreasonably, left ancient history, too, hanging in the air.
Fortunately, the medieval period does have some rough edges. Some promising openings do seem to present themselves here and there. It might be possible to get a good grip. Take for instance the Battle of Haldighatti, fought heroically against great odds, by the legendary Maharana Pratap Singh of Udaipur to resist Akbar's attempt to subdue the last of the independent chiefs of Rajasthan. Though it was a Mughal army that the Rana battled, it was led by (the no-less-patriotic) Raja Man Singh of Jaipur. (Similarly, patriotic Muslim commanders were willing to lay down their lives in the service of Shivaji).
And yet, the burden of the past sits so heavily on our shoulders that the then Prime Minister of India, secular to the core, went first to Jaipur and then to Udaipur to celebrate the 421st anniversary of the battle in 1997, explaining somewhat quixotically that it had ``taught us the lesson that we must be ready to make any sacrifice for upholding our cherished principles - we should not forget our past which provided values to our lives!''
Incidentally, Akbar, whom the official history of Pakistan predictably tars as a `pseudo-secularist', was more secular than our own Ashoka - who, though he `tolerated' his Hindu majority for practical reasons and urged Buddhist missionaries not to run it down too openly, did not hesitate to take public swipes at the `idol-worshippers' - as we know from Rock Edict 10, in respect of customs that were very dear to them, and entirely harmless.
Second, consider Shivaji, who some now wish to honour with a statue (con)fronting the Agra Fort. It is true that he and the Marathas, extending their raids beyond Delhi and, to the north-east - as far as Alivardi Khan's Bengal (riding roughshod over all they encountered on the way, be they Hindus or Muslims) - finally put an end to Islamic rule in India. But they were unable to put anything in its place. So, it was not `Hindu' rule which followed (whatever that might mean), but one hundred years of painful and purposeless anarchy (during which the country lay at the mercy of people like Nadir Shah and the Pindaris - ``private armies'' comprised of soldiers who got disbanded after their kingdoms went bankrupt) - followed by two hundred years of British rule.
It is true that a nation's ``cultural identity'' has little to do with the hard facts of history: the level and rate of growth of ``social productive forces'' (comprising both technological and institutional resources); the extraction of surplus by the rich and famous from the vast majority which just about manages to subsist; the uses to which these people put the surplus they extract - and the effect that this has on the pace of development and on the extension of its benefits to hitherto excluded groups.
Still, cultural issues cannot be swept under the carpet, as our experts have tried to do in the process of piecing together a coherent and purposeful history. Once again they have been deceived by their instincts. The fact that there is no such thing as ``objective'' history comes out over and over again in debates over revisions of the 20th century history of China, Japan and Russia (and, for that matter, the controversies that we ourselves are embroiled in). History cannot have an object unless you have first been able to come to an agreement on the subject.
In short, the battle to retrieve our history is essentially a battle for our minds. But this is a battle that can only be fought by someone who is trusted; someone whose conscience is clear. These are qualifications that the Bharatiya Janata Party simply does not possess.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Opinion
|
