Normally, I should have been the last person to say anything
about history. It is true that like any other small kid, I also had learned stories from
Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vedas, and above all, the glorious achievements of the
great Maratha king Shivaji, revered like a God by most people in Maharashtra,
from my mother and grandmother. During my school days, I had also watched
number of excellent films in Marathi on silver screen, about this great king. However,
that was about everything I ever did with studies of humanities, particularly History
and Geography. From eighth grade, I opted for the technical subjects and never
even opened any history book. I managed to keep myself away from historical dates,
years, births, deaths, battles, treaties, and armistices, so plentifully
mentioned in all books on history. Later, I opted for Engineering as my career
and after passing out, launched myself in the real world of manufacturing
things. I never really repented my choice of my career. Subjects like history
and geography were simply forgotten, only to be remembered occasionally, while
reading an odd column in Sunday newspapers over a cup of tea.
After a long span of many decades, when I finally exited the
world of elevations, plans, raw materials, and quality controls. I had plenty
of time on my hand. I started reading books on many assorted subjects. I read
Hawking’s and Weinberg’s treatises on Nuclear Physics, travelogues of Herodotus
and Ibn Battuta, Philosophical books like Dnyaneshwari (Where I must admit
to have failed miserably to understand anything of substance), books on
Genealogy and migrations. It was then that I hit upon some book finally, name
of which I do not recollect now, on ancient history of India. It was a great revelation
to learn about India of the past, its unimaginable wealth, great Kings, who
ruled here, and the series of murderous invasions from northwest by some of the
most barbarous and cold-blooded tyrants, India had to face. Along with history,
came its natural partner, Geography. I soon realized that one could never really
understand history, if he does not know enough of Geography, of which I was again
very ignorant. Luckily, I found my salvation through Google earth, and from then
on, I was oversold to history.
Yet I had my choices. I loved the history of people from
Sindhu-Saraswati Civilizations. I read about their subsequent migrations to
Gangetic plains, central India and eventually to northern Maharashtra, where
they interacted with indigenous people coming from north and east. The Buddha, Buddhism,
and its slow demise in India were the next. I read about Satvahana, Vakataka,
Chalukya and Yadava kings of Maharashtra. I must admit that I somehow never
felt interested in medieval history of India, though an interest for a brief
period, made me read a few books about kingdom of ‘Vijayanagara’ in south.
Jumping a century or so, I came to Marathas and finally to Peshavas. They
obviously remain my all-time favourites. I tried my hand at writing a few
articles that dealt with bits of this glorious history. I also managed to
travel to many historical places of interest in India.
I think readers are likely to question my intent in giving
above a long list of topics, in which I have managed to read a few books. However,
relax! I have no wishes to claim to be a historian. I accept that reading a few
books on history, does not make one a historian. As I see it, it needs decades
of study and research, field trips, and some original work, before anyone could
even hope to achieve some credit in this direction. Yet I feel that, whatever
efforts I have put in, give me some credentials to express my thoughts about a dangerous new trend that is emerging out in
India or particularly in Maharashtra. With the advent of social media, we
suddenly have multitudes of young historians, who have very little knowledge of
historical facts, yet claim to be in knowledge of everything. This by itself is
harmless. Problem comes when these people start integrating their sentimentality with historical facts and
start believing that historical facts believed so far are incorrect and history
actually was, the way they think it is. They forget that no historical fact can be
accepted, unless it is backed by solid archaeological evidence or a manuscript.
Early warnings of this new malignance, had appeared a decade
ago, when one of the well-known and famous historian, Late. Ninad Bedekar had
openly declared that neither he shall write a line or utter a word in future about
history of Marathas, even though; it was always his favourite subject. I still
remember that I had listened spellbound to a lecture of this knowledgeable
historian sometimes in late seventies, about unknown historical spots in city
of Pune. However, he had sensed the new
danger and preferred to keep himself away. Today, the problems are becoming even
more alarming with advent of social media.
As I have mentioned above, history of Buddhism remains one
of my favourite topics. I have managed to write a few lines about Early Rock
cut Buddhist temples of Maharashtra and the iconography found therein, after
visiting some of them and the museums, which display many of the beautiful
icons and murals from these places. Other day, after reading my comments (all
based on museum legends and well known books written in nineteenth or twentieth
centuries) on one such mural displayed in a museum, one of my facebook friends,
commented that he had started getting doubts, whether I was really a Buddhist
or not? This absolutely alarmed me. I could not understand how my young friend
had assumed that I was a Buddhist. Perhaps, this young man had already this
preconceived notion in his mind that the people, who can write about rock-cut
Buddhist temples of Maharashtra, have to be Buddhists. After receiving his
comment, I simply posted a paragraph from the famous book ‘Cave temple of
India’ by Fergusson and Burgess, in support of what was my contention. My
friend’s reaction was even more deadly. He promptly told me that Fergusson and
Burgess were foreigners and did not know anything about India. Sorry! M/S Fergusson
and Burgess, your research is no longer valid in twenty-first century India,
because you were foreigners and not even Buddhists. I was however, not going to take this lightly, so I posted a
photo of the Legend, displayed by the museum, where this controversial art object was displayed and told my young
friend that this legend exactly supports, what I am saying. A prompt reply came
that he does not care about, what museum says. After this, it became too much
for me and I felt that there was no point in continuing my conversation. I
simple removed the particular photograph, on which the whole conversation in
facebook was based and unfriended this young man to end the matter.
I have given details of my conversations with this young
friend solely to make my readers aware of bringing in sentimentality, while
reading or studying history. For such readers, there are many reasons for such
an absurd point of view. The most
important reason perhaps is the prides these people possess in belonging to a
particular religion or community. Off course, they are perfectly free to enjoy
their pride, but that does not mean that they should lead themselves in
historical theories that cannot be backed up by any evidence.
Remember George Orwell’s famous book 1984. In this book, the
leading character of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party,
who works for the Ministry of Truth, or Minitrue in Newspeak. Minitrue is
responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. Smith's job is to
rewrite past newspaper articles, so the historical record always supports the
Party's agenda. The workers are told they are correcting misquotations, when
they are actually writing false information in the place of fact. Minitrue also
destroys all previous editions of revised work. This method ensures there is no
proof of government interference.
I am afraid that present attitude of the young budding
Historians from social media almost borders the diktats or decrees of the Inner
Party from Orwell’s 1984. To hell, with your evidence! Whatever we say is the truth,
because it suits, greatness of our religion or community. If the trend
continues, I am afraid that study of history, instead of being an occupation of
a few scholarly aspirants, would then turn into a hazardous field, where facing
abuses or even rioting mobs would soon become an order of the day and we might
as well close the museums, as Afghans did in Kabul during Taliban regime.
Study of history (with accompanying geographical factors)
can be quite rewarding. It gives a rare insight into a country’s past. History
is not a list of dates and wars. History can tell us why Sindhu-Sarswati
Civilizations collapsed, not because of any invasions but because of the
successive failures of monsoon rains over years and years. History can tell us
why India could never emerge in the past as a united country, except for reigns
of a couple of Emperors (separated by eight centuries apart). History can
tell us why India always fell before a powerful invader, as fractured small
kingdoms were no match for the might of Greeks, eastern Scythians (Shakas),
Yui-zhi (Kushans), Kidarites (Huns), Hephthalites (White Huns), Mongols,
Islamic Iconoclasts from Arabia and Persia, and finally Moghuls. History can
tell us why land of India, so rich in resources, always ailed as it was divided
on basis of castes, communities, and religions. However, to understand all this
and much more, a reader has to have an open mind, free of prejudices, injected
in him by the false prides in religions and communities. The reader should have
enough sense not to look at history under terms of reference of present day
world and condemn every tradition and belief of our ancestors. I would be last
person to suggest ever that we should adopt ancient traditions and customs.
They are no longer relevant. However, to label them as anti-social, casteist or
chauvinistic would be equally wrong as people had adopted these operating under
totally different factors such as abysmally low (by today’s standards) average
age to which men or women survived, fear of foreign invasions, rule of tyrants,
draughts, floods etc. The list can be
endless. With an objective and curious mind, history rewards you; no other
subject can ever match.
9 April 2018
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