02-07-2006, 01:19 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Privatise history </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Earlier, the standard complaint heard about history and its interpretation, particularly when packaged for impressionable minds, used to be "too much politics". But, after what was witnessed at the recent three-day jamboree of the Indian History Congress at Santiniketan, one would perhaps be forgiven for thinking that history is "all politics".
Everything about it, from the choice of venue to the boisterous slogans raised against perceived "saffronisation", went to reveal the rotten core of academia. The IHC was conceived way back in the 1930s as an annual assemblage of serious historians for discussions and free exchange of views. Whatever expression of latent nationalism that existed was conveyed more through subtlety than maxims because the overtones were strongly for upholding the craft of the historian. A historian's ideological loyalty, unless it overflowed into his dissertation, was not considered a liability. Also significant was the marked absence of state sponsorship, but, of course, the mention of it is quite superfluous given the colonial context.
Maharajahs and altruistic aristocrats who were in plentiful supply back then, contributed to ensure that the modest earnings of members of the academic community did not pose a hindrance. However, the post-Independence period saw the IHC being hijacked by 'scholars' of a particular temperament and its degeneration into a political platform. Though flush with funds and possessing its own secretariat, the IHC's output does not justify the largesse doled out from the budget of the Human Resource Development Ministry.
<b>For instance, the prime focus of the self-styled "eminent" historians who control its executive body has, for the past several years, been on projecting the supremacy of school textbooks written by their ilk over those produced by their rivals.</b> <b>From the reportage on the Santiniketan round, it becomes clear that sloganeering over the issue is likely to get all the more shrill in times to come because of Mr Arjun Singh's policy of handing over the text book contract to scholars who do not enjoy the IHC mafia's patronage.</b> Beyond the quibbling over turf by a bunch of trade unionist professors, one has to consider whether tax payers' money should continue to go endlessly down the drain of academic patronage.
<b>It is time historians joined their colleagues in other disciplines in seeking private sector backing for their research. The delinking of the state from history would do both sectors immeasurable good.</b> Private sector participation in education has already injected qualitative change in India's academic output in the sciences and business management. There is no reason why jobbery and the worst forms of academic perversions - as witnessed in the Indian Council of Historical Research and Indian Council of Social Science Research - should continue to receive official sanction. Let these, and similar bodies, be cut loose from the public exchequer
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
Earlier, the standard complaint heard about history and its interpretation, particularly when packaged for impressionable minds, used to be "too much politics". But, after what was witnessed at the recent three-day jamboree of the Indian History Congress at Santiniketan, one would perhaps be forgiven for thinking that history is "all politics".
Everything about it, from the choice of venue to the boisterous slogans raised against perceived "saffronisation", went to reveal the rotten core of academia. The IHC was conceived way back in the 1930s as an annual assemblage of serious historians for discussions and free exchange of views. Whatever expression of latent nationalism that existed was conveyed more through subtlety than maxims because the overtones were strongly for upholding the craft of the historian. A historian's ideological loyalty, unless it overflowed into his dissertation, was not considered a liability. Also significant was the marked absence of state sponsorship, but, of course, the mention of it is quite superfluous given the colonial context.
Maharajahs and altruistic aristocrats who were in plentiful supply back then, contributed to ensure that the modest earnings of members of the academic community did not pose a hindrance. However, the post-Independence period saw the IHC being hijacked by 'scholars' of a particular temperament and its degeneration into a political platform. Though flush with funds and possessing its own secretariat, the IHC's output does not justify the largesse doled out from the budget of the Human Resource Development Ministry.
<b>For instance, the prime focus of the self-styled "eminent" historians who control its executive body has, for the past several years, been on projecting the supremacy of school textbooks written by their ilk over those produced by their rivals.</b> <b>From the reportage on the Santiniketan round, it becomes clear that sloganeering over the issue is likely to get all the more shrill in times to come because of Mr Arjun Singh's policy of handing over the text book contract to scholars who do not enjoy the IHC mafia's patronage.</b> Beyond the quibbling over turf by a bunch of trade unionist professors, one has to consider whether tax payers' money should continue to go endlessly down the drain of academic patronage.
<b>It is time historians joined their colleagues in other disciplines in seeking private sector backing for their research. The delinking of the state from history would do both sectors immeasurable good.</b> Private sector participation in education has already injected qualitative change in India's academic output in the sciences and business management. There is no reason why jobbery and the worst forms of academic perversions - as witnessed in the Indian Council of Historical Research and Indian Council of Social Science Research - should continue to receive official sanction. Let these, and similar bodies, be cut loose from the public exchequer
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