Politics Of Indian History -2

[dhu]

Special Deepavali Expose
An Emerging trend in the Kerala Christian, Muslim historigraphy
Distorting to claim a mythical history
Dr. C.I. Issac

The religious minorities of Kerala, particularly Christians and Muslims, are proud of their historical past. However, these days they have started to feel a sense of insufficiency of their historical value. Since the days of Portuguese, stories regarding the first century of Common Era (CE) origin and aristocratic beginning began to circulate widely amongst the Kerala Christians. Later on this articulated tradition got deep rooted with the Christian faith. Scholars even from amongst the Christian community began challenging the historicity of the legend that claims the noble descent and first century origin of Indian (Kerala) Christianity. Those who supported the first century origin of Christianity mainly highlighted some mystifying stories related to certain saints and churches. The veracity of the stories associated with these monuments is doubtful. This is because the architectural style that was adopted in constructing these churches (structures) does not match the style that prevailed in that period.

Similarly, the Muslims of Kerala were a peace loving national community until the days of the expeditions of Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan. Thereafter, they were forced to transform themselves into fanatics. The seeds of fanaticism that were sowed by the Mysorian invaders were reaped in the bumper harvest during the days of the Mopla Riot of 1921 (Malabar Riot). The Muslim fanatics who were at the front of the Hindu massacre during the course of the Malabar Riot are now christened as freedom fighters and comrades, respectively, by the Right and Left coalitions of Kerala. This is the thumbnail portrait of the contemporary politico-social structure of the Muslim social formations of Kerala. But recently as a result of the GEB (Gulf Economic Boom), the Muslim community of Kerala also began to think of rewriting their history by incorporating the story of a rich and distant past. As the Christians of Kerala did they also coddled themselves in fabricating a so-called history of Islam in Kerala – a history of Hindu kings converting to Islam and attributed antique value to a few of their mosques.

In order to evade enquiries from the students of history, such monuments of religious importance are being demolished without preserving the relics of antique value and new and lofty structures are being contructed in their place with granite slabs (with inscriptions on them) claiming that at the site of the new building there was another one dating back to the days of the founder of their religion. Today the process of the demolition of churches and mosques is happening at an extensive and unprecedented rate. A set of would be secular historians with vested interest is supporting the Christian and Muslim historio-graphical exercise (distortions). All these necessitated an enquiry into the antique values of the Christian and Muslim places of worship that are subject to the demolition exercise and into the (religious hierarchical) social psychology behind their reconstruction.

Monuments of religious importance are being demolished without preserving the relics of antique value and new and lofty structures are being constructed in their place with granite slabs (with inscriptions on them) claiming that at the site of the new building there was another one dating back to the days of the founder of their religion.

Christian interest in the construction of new churches or chapels in the Hindu dominated areas is shrouded in obscurity. Now the mushroom growth of churches and chapels is a serious threat to the socio economic relations of the state. Pope had declared that church’s ultimate motive in the new millennium is to ‘plant a cross in Asia (India) as it was done in the previous millenniums in Africa, Europe and Americas’. In the light of this Pontifical design the demolition and reconstruction of the churches of Kerala leaves a lot of doubts. All these should be viewed in the light of the Vatican Council, 1960, that drafted a new strategy for conversions in Asia. After the Vatican Council, Indian Catholic missions have shown remarkable dynamism in activities in economically backward regions with Hindu majority. As a part of the ‘new strategy’ church is following a less intransigent attitude towards birth control. International Christian proselytism enterprises are labouring for a large baptized Christian population in India by 2025. In addition to it they are hoping for a Crypto Christian population of three crore by the said date. By this time the population map of India will have 7.4% Christians, 72.9% Hindus and 12.2% Muslims.

It is believed that Christianity set its foot in Bharat through the gateway of Kerala during 52 CE. That was long before Europ or the Middle East enjoyed the tenets of Christianity. In 1952 CE, the native Catholic Church hierarchy approached the Papacy [Rome] for Pontifical approval to celebrate 1900th year of Thomas’s [one of the disciples of Christ] venture of proselytism of Kerala. Papacy instantaneously declined the humble request of the Kerala Catholics on the ground that the claim [legendary belief of Thomas Apostolic transaction in Kerala] has no historicity. But the Catholic Savarna (Syrian) aristocracy of Kerala couldn’t accept such a response from Rome and celebrated the 19th centenary of the arrival of Thomas (planting of cross in Bharat) with much pomp.

Some beleive that in the first century of the CE one of the disciples of Christ, named Thomas, reached the seashores of Kerala and established seven-and-a-half churches [Seven big churches and a small church] to fulfill the requirement of his proselytismic measures. That most of the claimed places of the eight churches were located either on the ruins of old Hindu temples or near celebrated temples is a historical fact. One such famous church of this category now functioning at Malayattoor, near the birthplace of Adi Sankara, was till the date of the national independence a Siva temple. The revenue records of the old princely state of Travancore justify this fact. Now the Papacy has declared, in its spiritual as well as temporal capacity, that Malayattoor is an international pilgrim centre. What is the reasoning behind the interference in the sovereignty of India by an alien religious head, Pope? Has it happened with the concurrence of the king-making ‘Italian Catholic Lady’?

In 1983 the Christian Catholic lobby attempted to occupy the ‘Holy Garden’ (Sacred Groves) of the celebrated Lord Ayyappa Temple at Sabarimalai (Kerala) claiming (on a lame excuse) that this was the place where one of Thomas’s eight churches was located. But the timely interference of Hindu organisations saved the temples from sharing the fate of the one at Malayattoor. All these encroachments or forceful occupations of temples and temple lands have taken place mostly in eight locations wherein Thomas is claimed to have established churches in the first century. The aim behind the forceful occupation of Hindu temples and temple lands for the construction of churches is to historicise the arrival of Thomas and to thus claim a tradition and aristocracy for the Christian community of Kerala. Similarly this is aimed at creating ‘schism’ and confusion ‘in the souls’ of the Hindus who believe that all upasana systems are true.

The native Catholic Church hierarchy approached the Papacy [Rome] for pontifical approval to celebrate 1900th year of Thomas’s (one of the disciples of Christ) venture of proselytism of Kerala. Papacy instantaneously declined the humble request of the Kerala Catholics on the ground that the claim (legendary, belief of Thomas apostolic transaction in Kerala) has no historicity.

It is estimated that during the last two decades about a thousand old Christian churches were demolished in different parts of southern Kerala. The church hierarchy claims that all such churches were constructed during the first century. Behind every such claim they deliberately popul-arise a story of a Namboothiri (Brahmin) having converted to Christianity. Here the question as to why they demolish particular churches with such immense historicity and antique value remains unanswered. It is not logical to consider it as a part of the church strategy of sharing the fruits of recent economic progress of the community, for the renovation of their churches. Since the days of the British the churches in Kerala were endowed with vast patches of royal lands and are financially sound institutions. Several Hindu temples including the one at Palayoor (Guruvayoor) were destroyed by the Christian fanaticism between the 16th and 17th continues. This temple destruction trend continued unabatedly in the old princely State of Travancore for a long duration. The last of such demolitions took place in 1950, by setting fire to the famous Sastha Temple at Sabrimalai. In the Malabar region it continued unabatedly until the resistance movement organised in 1969 under the organisational umbrella of Kshetra Smrakshna Samiti by the renowned freedom fighter K. Kelappan (Kelappajee).

The history of temple annihilation in Kerala starts with Francis Xavier in Travancore-Cochin and the Malabar regions during the time of Mysorian invasions when it acquired a pragmatic colour. The first organised temple destruction of Kerala took place in the 16th century under the stewardship of Francis Xavier, who was the architect of Inquisition in Goa—the first Christian fanatic of India. The initial prey of his dogmatic wrath was the temple at Thevalakkara in Quilon district and Palluruthi near Cochin. It is relevant to consider the information available from the work of C.M. Augur, an English missionary, to pencil in a correct picture of the Christian intolerance since the days of Padre Francis Xavier to the generations of the contemporary church renovators. According to Augur in 1816 there were, in Travancore State (now the part of Kerala), 19,524 temples and 301 churches. But in 1891, that is after 76 years the number of temples came down to 9,364 and the number of churches burgeoned to 1,116. At the same time William Logan, District Collector of Malabar, notes that during the eighties of the nineteenth century the Latin Catholic Christians of Travancore, Cochin and Malabar together had in possession only 40 churches and the Syrian Catholics of this region had 160 churches. In the said period the Syrian Catholic and Latin Catholic population in Kerala including children was two lakh and 90,000, respectively. The Basel Missionaries started Protestant mission activities in Malabar region of Kerala in 1839 and with their proselytizing effort the Protestant population in Malabar in 1883 including children was 2632.

Before the arrival of the Europeans in India, Christian presence was seen only in the Travancore and Cochin regions of Kerala. The antagonism that was generated amongst the Christians and Muslims due to the Crusades of 11th, 12th and 13th centuries prevented Christian proselytism enterprises from planting their roots in the Malabar region where Muslims got roots quite earlier. It is only during the British period that the Christian society came into being in the Malabar region. That is why the Christian claim of Apostle Thomas’ establishment of eight churches has not extended to the Malabar region. It is true that the Christians in Travancore Cochin were only a marginal community confined to a few port towns before the arrival of the Europeans. For that reason during this period the churches in Kerala were very few.

During the last two decades about 1000 old Christian churches were demolished in different parts of the southern half of Kerala. The church hierarchy claims that all such churches were constructed during the first century.

The Church History of Travancore points out positively that in the interlude between 1816 and 1891 in Travancore alone 10,160 temples were demolished and in its place 815 new churches were constructed. Such a church construction took place at Guruvayoor (Palayoor) The Palayoor church authorities until the day of the collapse of the disputed structure at Ayodhya, kept a board in front of the church that read “the church is constructed by Saint Thomas after demolishing a temple”. (Now the board has been removed). At such an instance even Rome (Papacy) is not ready to believe the story of the arrival of St. Thomas in Kerala; it is true that the demolition of the temple might have taken place only after the European occupation of this land. The erstwhile Princely State of Travancore was a place approximately 300 kms long and maximum width of 100 kms with an area of 12,000 sq. kms. In such a small region the temple destruction was inaugurated by Francis Xavier and it continued unabated. Considering the geographical area the number of temples set ablaze or knocked down in Travancore was proportionately much higher when compared to the temples demolished by the Muslim rulers.

While Francis Xavier launched his proselytism enterprises in the coastal region of Kerala in the 16th century the native Christian society was mostly confined to a few seaport towns and were loyal to the native rulers. The alarming growth of the Christian population in this region through the subsequent period was the outcome of the intolerance and obsessive approach of people like Francis Xavier and the Portuguese’s malicious designs. The Portuguese did not spare even the Jews of Kerala from their wrath of intolerance. In 1565 the Jews of Crangannoor (at present Kodungalloor) escaped to places of Hindu dominancy of the then Kerala like Paravoor, Mala, Chennamangalam, Ernakulam in order to escape the Portuguese persecution. The mission that was inducted by Francis Xavier continued here without any apathy through the Dutch, the French and the British regimes in the subsequent centuries and this completed the circle of Christianisation of this tiny landscape. The mission that was unwrapped by the Portuguese was carried on by the British under the disguise of a more sophisticated mode, that is, of education and modernisation of Kerala in general and particularly of the subalterns. While these missionaries sowed the tenets of Christ amongst the basic classes purposefully they conveniently avoided the responsibility of elevating them from their long-established socio, cultural and economic backwardness.

It is this western unholy interference in the social relations of Kerala that enhanced numerical strength of the Christians from a three-digit number in the 16th century to 20.8% of the total population (approx. 16 million) of Kerala in 1951. The present attempt is to whitewash the detestable past of the native Christianity by the distortion and suppression of the above sequence of events.

‘Churchianity’ was not a business in Kerala until the arrival of European missionary interest in this land. The first church of Kerala was constructed in 849 CE at Quilon. Then the Hindu King of Venadu (a small principality of Kerala) Ayyan Adikal Thiruvadikal had granted permission to the Christian merchants of Quilon to construct a church. This royal grant is known as Theressappalli Copperplate Grant of 849 CE. This is the first valid/authentic document relating to the Christian history of India. Until 1550 CE no reference pertaining to the construction or existence of a Christian church is available. One of the oldest Christian churches is the Valia Palli (big church) of Kottayam, constructed in 1550 under foreign influence with liberal contributions from the native Hindu Raja, where the legendary Persian Cross is kept. There was less than half-a-dozen Christian churches functioned all over Kerala until the sixteenth century. The subsequent centuries witnessed the rapid growth of church and Christianity in Kerala due to the coercive tactics of European colonial interests. But at present more than 1000 churches are claiming 1000 to 1900 years of existence. The contemporary church hierarchy is eagerly striving to establish historicity to these legends.

Temple destruction trend continued unabatedly in the old princely State of Travancore for a long duration. The last of such demolitions took place in 1950, by setting fire to the famous Sastha Temple at Sabrimalai.

Most of those churches that claim long history from the days of Thomas (Apostle) were constructed during the period of European intervention by demolishing the existing native (Hindu) places of worship or on the site where the Hindu places of worship were deserted due to natural calamities. To a certain extent even the church hierarchy recognises this as a crippled reality. The time is not far when the heritage of these churches which claim great antiquity will be questioned in the light of modern science and technology. The church is well aware of the inherent danger of scientific enquiry into the archaic space of most of the churches that claim more than 500 years of existence. Hence the only available escape left for the godfathers of the ‘Chakkraviewham of the apostolic origin of Indian Christianity’ is the destruction of the ‘monuments’. Their exercise is, no doubt, a criminal offence under the purview of history and they can be compared to a criminal who destroys evidence after committing an offence.

Should these churches, which claim antediluvian impor-tance, be protected as national monuments? The reconstructions of the old churches are justified as a process of ‘pulling down the old’ so as to cater to the spiritual needs of its ever-increasing laity. Why do the parishes which posses extensive landed property destroy the old churches instead of protecting them by constructing new ones in their vacant lands? When the State and central archaeological departments are ready to protect the old churches as national heritage monuments why are the church authorities in a hurry to demolish the old churches? To the Christians there is no place value to their places of worship unlike in the case of Hindus. The church constructions and reconstructions which is happening in present day Kerala have raised doubts in the minds of the people.

Kerala Muslim historiographical exercise is not much different from that of Christians. The Christian ‘Syndrome of attributing antique status’ to places of worship is being imitated by the Muslims of Kerala. A much more shocking news is their attempt to highjack ancient Kerala kings to Islam. One such story that they built in the near past was the conversion of Cheraman Perumal (an ancient Kerala King) to Islam. They also claim that after the conversion, the king went on a haj to Mecca where he met the Prophet and later he died there and was buried at Zaffar in the Arabian seashore. Before the King left on Haj he had constructed a mosque at Crangannoor that is presently known as the Cheraman Palli. This story is aimed at claiming aristocratic origin ‘theory’ of the Kerala Muslims and thus to penetrate into the heart of the native Hindu society and dismantle them. Here it is relevant to look at the recent conversion of the writer Kamala Das to the religion of Islam. After the conversion she changed her name to ‘Kamala Suraiyah’. The prime motive behind her conversion was to make fragile the Hindu ego. Fortunately it did not produce the desired impact on the people instead the Hindu population viewed it as a hysteric transaction of the person involved in the conversion.

Let us make an enquiry into the authenticity of the Hindu King’s conversion story. The story is that this conversion took place either in 325 or in 825 of CE. The first year is 200 years before the birth of the Prophet and the second one is 100 years after the death of the Prophet. None of the early and medieval Muslim travelers like Sulaiman, Al Biruni, Al Kazwini, Ibn Batuta, Abdur Razzak, etc, had referred to this fabulous story of conversion. The mission behind Ibn Batuta’s journey towards the Malabar coast was the conversion of its ruler Zamorin of Calicut. His mission failed miserably. Let us quote K. P. Padnabha Menon, “It is remarkable that Ibn Batuta (1442 CE) makes no reference to the conversion of Cheraman Perumal or of the story of his Mecca pilgrimage”. Ibn Kurdad Bah (869) and Abu Zaid Ziraf (916) referred in flattering terms to the nature of the commercial relations between Arabia and Malabar (Kerala). But they did not mention anywhere about any sort of conversion of a Hindu king to Islam. Let us quote Sulaiman (851), the Arab traveller, “I know not that there is anyone of either nation (China & India) that has embraced Muhammadanism or speaks Arabic”. It is interesting to see that the legend of the conversion of a Hindu Raja into the Islamic fold crept into the accounts of foreign travelers only after the advent of the Portuguese. A cautious examination of the data available may reasonably be said to lead to the conclusion that there is nothing to illustrate that the last Cheraman Perumal became a convert to Islam.

The Palayoor Church authorities until the day of the collapse of the disputed structure at Ayodhya, kept a board in front of the church that read “the church is constructed by Saint Thomas after demolishing a temple”. [Now the board is removed]

The rewriting of history by the Muslims does not end with this Mosque at Crangannoor. They are attributing age-old mystic relations with several of their mosques spread all over the Malabar region. That in some cases their stories go beyond the birth of the Prophet is a matter of sarcasm. The new GEB and charity inflows from oil rich countries are helping the demolition and reconstruction of several Mosques for which they claim historicity as well as antique value. As in the case of Christians they are also demolishing the said old mosques without leaving any trace of its heritage and this is a humorous ‘transaction’.

Before concluding this enquiry, it is necessary to quote Christian Encyclopedia on future Indian population pattern: “Christians and Muslims will probably both find room to grow in the mosaic of India’s peoples so that by 2025 Christians account for 7.4% and Muslims 12.2% while Hindus decline to 73%. …With sustained growth over the next few decades Christianity could grow to near 10% of India’s population by AD 2050. … Hindus will potentially decline as a percentage of India’s population as other religions continue to win adherents over the next few decades.”

Therefore, the ongoing process of the reconstruction of the semitic places of worship in Kerala that claims antiquated value as well as mystic importance is to mislead the catholicity of the native Hindu population.

References:

1. Christian Encyclopedia, OUP, 2001, New York, pp 359-370

2. This ‘Seven and a half’ concept is the replica of the ritual of the renowned Hindu temple at Ettumannoor where the main deity is Lord Siva. During the annual ritualistic procession of the temple seven and a half elephants idols made of gold are exhibited as the part of its ritual. The Christian church emerged as strong force in Kerala during the European period around this temple region. That is why the Christian faith on account of the importance and social recognition to the said temple incorporated the idea of seven and a half in their faith in the form of church.

3. Rig Veda, Chapter III, Mandala I, Vargam 22, Sooktam 164.

4. See discussions in The Church History of Travancore, C. M. Augur, 1902, Kottayam, pp 7, 8, 9.

5. A. Sreedhara Menon, Survey of Kerala History, 1970, Kottayam, pp 228, 229.

6. C. M. Augur, op cit, pp 7, 8,9.

7. William Logan, Malabar, First Published in 1887, rpt.1981, Trivandrum, p250.

8. The steady growth from there upon to this day caused the birth of a Christian/Catholic majority State Legislative Assembly Constituency named Irikkoor.

9. C.M. Augur, op cit, pp 7, 8,9

10. A. Sreedhara Menon, op cit, p 228.

11. T. M. Yesudasan, Dalit Svatvaum Adhikarathinte Prasnavum [mal], 1997 Changanacherry, pp 166, 167, 168.

12. M. S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, 1996, Bangalore, p159.

13. A. Sreedhara Menon, op cit, p 160.

14. “In the absence of some written record of respectable antiquity to corroborate the tradition of conversion and pilgrimage, one is disposed not to attach any evidentiary value to the tomb on the shores of the Arabian Gulf”, K. P. Padnabha Menon, History of Kerala, Vol. I, rpt, 1989, Trivandrum, p 446

15. Ibid, p 437.

16. Ibid, p 442

17. Ibid, 437

18. A. Sreedhara Menon, op cit, pp 103, 104.

19. Ibid, p 135.

20. Christian Encyclopedia, op cit, pp 364, 366.

(The author is the head of department and professor of History at CMS College, (Kerala) Kottayam. His Email- drciissac@dataone.in Web- www.christiansofkerala.com)

[Guest]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/ap_on_...irving_arrested

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Nov 17 2005, 01:09 PM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Nov 17 2005, 01:09 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/ap_on_...irving_arrested
[right][snapback]41398[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo--> Wow!! Such historians in India are awarded Padma Bhushan!

[acharya]

http://flonnet.com/fl2202/stories/20050128002803800.htm


Printer Friendly Page Send this Article to a Friend

ESSAY

KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION

ROMILA THAPAR

N. BALAJI
<b>
Textbooks shape the minds of children and to that extent invest the next generation with values of citizenship. Consequently there has to be an awareness of the attitudes inculcated through textbooks - not values that promote political ideologies but values that ensure an informed citizenry and a vibrant civil society, and particularly an awareness of the human rights that go with both.</b>

1. The historical method

Keeping in mind that one of the purposes of education is ultimately to advance knowledge, and where this is not always possible, at least familiarise the educated with the advances in knowledge, I would like to consider this question in two ways: one is to discuss what an advance in knowledge involves, even at the level of schooling and even in relation to the one discipline that I know - History; and secondly, to touch on some of the practical aspects of education that involve contemporary governmental educational bodies and institutions that are expected to encourage the advancement of knowledge.

It was recently reported in the press that the ex-Minister for Human Resource Development, M.M. Joshi, had stated that historians such as myself, and a few others, needed to brush up our history in order to be in touch with the latest views. This was rich, coming as it does from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated little or no familiarity with history, whether old or new. Doubtless the remark was also intended to renew the controversy over history textbooks.

PICTURES: THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

Ancient Roman coins found in Khammam district in Andhra Pradesh. Historical method involves the process of understanding the nature of the data - a potsherd, a coin, an inscription or a text - and learning how to analyse it.

The debate on history teaching and textbooks will continue because the issue is not limited to the writing and interpretation of history, but concerns at least three aspects that impinge on history teaching as part of the process of education and as a part of the advancement of knowledge. The first of these raises the question of how committed are we to advancing knowledge even in a particular discipline. The second concerns the methods used to advance knowledge. The third is the degree to which we are aware that a discipline is being misused in the interests of assisting political mobilisation.

Commitment to advancing knowledge applies not just to history but to every branch of knowledge. This involves a familiarity with the direction taken by a system of knowledge via its evolution, a comprehension of how and why it has changed over time, and what the relevant questions emerging from current knowledge are. In the case of what has more broadly been called Indology (which is often at the root of the present controversy) it would involve examining the early texts - for instance, the Vedas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and such like - as well as the commentaries on these texts that were written during the centuries between their composition and now. If we are to study these texts as part of a system of knowledge we have to consider the scholarship and the historical context of the discourse from early times and understand how scholars commenting on these texts analysed them. This requires a degree of expertise not easily available to all.



Pottery of the Harappan period, recovered from Ropar in Ambala district of Punjab.

Associated with this were the variant versions in which the themes of these texts were treated. Why, for example, were there Buddhist, Jaina and multiple other versions of the Ramakatha that differ in significant ways? This was also part of the discourse among scholars of the ancient past and among those who responded to these versions. But in the current discussion of these early texts we marginalise the commentaries and variant versions and refer largely only to 19th century writers. This is an impoverishment of our intellectual tradition. It would be worth examining why our views of these texts are largely determined by 19th century views of the past. Similarly, we are intolerant of attempts to analyse the past crosscurrents of intellectual life and their historical context, using contemporary techniques of analysis. If such discourse is thought to be a Western way of looking at the texts, then surely the logical reaction in terms of advancing knowledge is to discuss these analyses and not merely dismiss them. Why do we wish to freeze the past instead of exploring it? If the Jaina Ramayana - the Paumacariyam - tries to provide rational explanations for some of the fantasies of Valmiki, as has been argued by scholars, it would be of interest to find an explanation for this.

I refer to the 19th century because what is being projected as `tradition' is generally the limited view of the 19th century, and then too of the more conservative writers on the past. Even when earlier commentators are occasionally referred to, little mention is made of the lively and contested debates among these scholars and commentators throughout the centuries, debates that arose through questioning and commenting on the meanings of established texts. There was a long lineage of such commentators spanning a range of views. Both the continuity and the changing historical context are relevant. Yet few students know that there were differences of opinion among intellectuals of the early periods on the texts that today are straitjacketed into an almost meaningless description. Every text is `sacrosanct'. Few kings are not `great'. Most kingdoms are empires. Every hero is the epitome of moral values and there is no discussion of lapses. This is sought to be justified by arguing that such a treatment of the past is necessary for building confidence in the Indian identity; but in effect, a more realistic evaluation would create far more confidence since it would be pertinent to person, place and time.

If we are to familiarise ourselves with our intellectual tradition as a prelude to advancing knowledge, we have to bring into the discourse the debates and controversies among scholars of the period prior to colonialism who wrote in Sanskrit, Persian and a range of regional languages, commenting on a variety of earlier texts. Discussions of the views of opponents were treated as essential to the start of a philosophical debate. Current explanations of the Vedas for instance, frequently quote the views of Aurobindo and Vivekananda and other 19th century commentators. Their audience was the colonial power and the Indian middle-class and the end purpose was frequently some kind of mobilisation. Few attempts are made to try and understand why a major commentator such as Sayana writing in the 14th century A.D., explained the Rigveda for example, in the way he did. If his comments were more familiar to us, even those that remain opaque, we would learn about his intellectual world and also have to consider ways of responding to the text, ways that are currently unacceptable. Since the modern theory of "the Aryans" did not exist in the 14th century, the context of the Rigveda was looked at differently. This is not to suggest that we adopt the fourteenth century reading of the text, but that we try and understand why the reading was different from what it is today, and the degree to which knowledge in this field has changed and advanced. There was in the past a constant exchange of diverse views among scholars, writing in Sanskrit, in Persian and in what are now called regional languages. What was the impact of these dialogues? An advance in knowledge does not mean the imposition of a single point of view. It means analyses and assessments of a system of knowledge and these may sometimes lead to fresh perspectives.

The second aspect that impinges on teaching history is that of the method used to advance knowledge. The defining of a method, acceptable to those who are proficient in a particular area of knowledge or a discipline, is essential to the advancement of knowledge in that area. Curiously in India, and especially at the popular level, this concession is made to scientists and to scientific method, but less so to other disciplines. Non-scientists hesitate to pronounce views upon the work, for example, of physicists, astronomers, engineers and those conducting medical research. It is conceded that both the handling of data and the methods of analysing data, require special training. But in the social sciences, barring the use of mathematics and statistics in economics, for instance, this receives little recognition.



The Great Bath, or tank, on the citadel at Mohenjodaro, surrounded by enclosing verandahs and rows of small rooms.

Some social sciences are becoming quite technical, as for example, in the use of mathematics and statistics in economics and in certain kinds of sociological and geographical studies. But history remains the plaything of anyone and everyone. This is largely because the centrality of what is sometimes termed `historical method' in the profession is not generally discussed in the average history syllabus even at college level, leave alone high school. This is parallel to the kind of science teaching that ignores talking about scientific method. The result is that scientific formulations are often repeated in school (and sometimes even later) as if they were mantras without going through the process of understanding the pros and cons of how they were arrived at.

Historical method involves the processes of understanding the nature of the data and learning how to analyse it. The data, for example, can be a potsherd, a coin, an inscription or a text. Understanding the first two categories requires a knowledge of the material from which they are made and their functions as an object. The information from the latter two tends to be more abstract. It is not enough to be able to say that the potsherd belongs to the Northern Black Polished Ware variety, or that the coin was issued by Samudragupta, or that the inscription is a document recording the grant of land in Tamil Nadu or that the text, the Ain-i-Akbari, is, among other things, a statement on Mughal revenue administration. Each source carries a further range of information, not always obvious, but evident to the person trained to search for the information. The analysis of the information does not stop at the obvious statement, for the well-trained historian can draw out much more evidence than just the obvious, and seek answers to a further set of questions.

Explaining the quality, number and distribution of the potsherds and the coins adds further information to what is obvious. If potsherds of the Northern Black Polished Ware are found at sites all over the subcontinent, it is not enough merely to say so since the reasons for this distribution have to be sought. The weight and metal content of coins provides some glimpse of economic exchange, and the depiction points to style and symbolic content. What does it mean - beyond the obvious - if a coin shows Samudragupta slaying a tiger? In the case of an inscription the language and the format can point towards many perspectives. If it is recording a grant of land by a king to a person, then there is the issue of political legitimacy - who is making the grant and why and who is the recipient; what information does it convey about the person issuing the grant, or about a religious sect that is being favoured and if so why; or the implications of the grant for the agrarian economy, if such grants are frequent and on a large scale. The primary questions posed to a text are those concerning the background of the author; the purpose, function and content of the text; and whether these can be compared with those of other texts similar in time and function.

What this means is that the historian has to think beyond the surface information. And since it is the function of the historian to try and explain the past, and the study of the past involves not just chronology but other social sciences as well, the historian has to be aware of the theories of explanation, not only in history but also in other social sciences, theories that have a bearing on the historical aspect of the study. Theories do not have to be applied literally, but an awareness of suggested explanations can help in formulating questions. If the purpose of history is to understand the past and attempt to explain it, which is what the contemporary approach to history is all about, then the theories of explanation in other related social sciences - archaeology, linguistics, social anthropology, sociology, economics, for instance - all have a bearing on this understanding. It is the inter-relationship of all these strands that go into the making of a historical generalisation. This is why historical explanations can be and often are, complex.

[acharya]

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/000834.html

Dear Sepia Muntiny,
I'm writing in reponse to you posting on the Indus Script.
Dave Kelley once told me that: "The only thing that is worse that having your research attacked is having it ignored". I was hoping to ignore Farmer et al in the same way I will be ignoring Barua and his Tantric decipherment and the flurry of competing Sanskrit decipherments. Unfortunately, in the light of recent developments I may not be able to. There are several serious error in the Farmer et al argument, so many in fact that it is not possible to discuss them all here. I offer this rather lengthy e-mail as a critique of the most obvious as serious of these errors.

Here is what's wrong with Farmer et al's approach:

1) They makes the argument that because there are so many singletons in the Indus sign list it cannot be writing. They do not command any ancient script so they have no idea of how these scripts work. Out of curiosity I downloaded the Proto-Sumerian sign list from the Cuniform Library Inititive web page. I compared the frequency of signs to that of the Indus script. The sign frequency is nearly identical. In fact the r2 for these distributione is 0.97. The same data is available for the Proto-Elamite script which has an even a high percentage of singletons. It seems that the high frequency of singletons is not proof that the Indus Script is not writting but rather that it is a normal linear scripts from South Asia.

2) They Says: "Inscriptions consist of high frequency signs that rarely repeat even in the longest inscriptions". Then in their proof that the "duck in a pond" texts is not writing (his Case #1) they give the following reason: "The most common Indus sign...shows up no less than three times in this six sign inscription". He is only partly right in both case. There are some examples of the same sign repeated in a given text. I don't know the exact count yet, but I will get my programer to count them. This point is important to Farmer et al because they is assuming the script is "heavily syllabic". I count ≈ 700 signs, way too many for a syllabic script. It is most likely logo-syllabic, with a high probability of at least some determinatives being used. Also In the "duck in a pond" text the two segments of the text are separated by a iconographic element (Bull). It looks to me like two 3 sign texts.
This is a very rare artifact (a silver seal). Not that Farmer et al ever address the bulk of the corpus except in a gross statistical way. They focus instead on rare artifacts types and unusual texts.

3) They say there are no evidence for perishable texts in the Indus Corpus. This is not true. We have the impression on the back of a clay sealing of a text that was carved on a wooden doweling (Mackay, Vol. II, Plate XC:17) and has 9+ signs. The text runs the full length of the sealing and seems to run off in both directions. It is in very rough shape and the sealing picks up only the bottom of the signs. Nevertheless., this is proof of two things. First, Farmer et al have no clue as to what is in the Corpus (or chooses to ignore data that are in opposition to his views) and second, that Indus people carved texts in wood.

4) Farmer et al's treatment of Indus Numbers would be comical if it were not such a serious topic.
a) On the one hand they complain Indus numbers are mostly "2s and 3s in several morphological types". Similar I would guess to 3, 30, 300 etc are in our system. That is, he conflates linear short strokes, stacked short strokes, and linear long strokes into one set of numerals. Strangely, he ignores the very common occurrences of short and long one stroke signs? I have no idea why. He goes on to complain that "Frequently apparent numbers are grouped with other numbers in idiosyncratic ways". He is referring to a seal texts with one long stroke, followed by 3 short stacked strokes, followed by five short stacked strokes. This looks far from "idiosyncratic" to me. In fact it is common in positional notation in all ancient scripts to have strings of numeral which combine systematically to form higher order numbers. In this case one could guess 135 or 1035? I am aware of 20 or so examples of positional notation without really looking.
b) They also completely miss the simple right bracket ")" as five, and several other signs, that from their contexts in replacement sets, may also be numbers or minimally their are functional equivalents.
c) Farmer et al point out that "Certain apparent numerical signs are regularly found in conjunction only with specific non-numerical signs, never with others -- in a way that again seems peculiar for an abstract number system." Again not well thought out. First, "only with specific non-numerical signs" translates from Farmer speak to English as: 16 sign very frequently, and occasionally with 60 additional signs. That is, "only with specific non-numerical signs" = 76 or about 11% of all signs. This is also a common pattern in ancient writing systems: that numbers occur with the nouns the discribe -- 10 sheep, 15 people etc.

5) As if to reinforce their complete lack of knowledge about the Indus Corpus, Farmer et al repeatedly refer to HR3005 (M-0314) as the longest indus text. It is really the forth longest text. It is the longest seal texts, but there are several bas relief tablets with more signs.

6) Farmer et al make much of the terseness of Indus Texts (now about 4.87 signs). Don't they know the average length of a texts from Nissans Uruk data is 6.8 signs? Of course there are some really long ones, but the vast majority are about 3-5 signs long. They consist of noun+number constructions with occasional totals in the longer texts.

7) As to there discussion of the high frequency signs I refer them the recent article by Peter Damerow of the Max-Planck-Institut (Berlin) on Proto-Elamite. As with the signleton signs, the high frequency signs occur in nearly identical proportions in Proto-Elamite, Proto-Sumerian, and the Indus Script.

8) It has also been said that inscribed Indus artifacts occur mostly in garbage heaps and in refuse. This is also a gross exaggeration. In fact there are many good examples of seals clustering in specific houses and near kilns at Mohenjo-daro. There is also a clustering of seals and weights in specific rooms in some of these houses. A careful examination of the excavation data from Mackay allows the tracking of changes of seal use through time based on these distributions at Mohenjo-daro DK.G area. The simple fact is that Farmer et al have no clue about either the archaeology of the Indus Valley, where the seals come from in these deposits, or how inscribed artifacts were used.

MY question is why do publisher continue to print garbage on the Indus script? Couldn't they find a competent referee for the Farmer et al paper? It also suprises me that the basic facts concerning the components and mechanics of ancient scripts seem to be unknown, not just the media but in the academic community as well.

There is a lot of valuable research into the Indus script, unfortunately it is the more bizarre work that attracts the attention of the press. This is too bad because the informed work on Indus Writing is so much more interesting, if somewhat less simplistic than Farmer et al's perception.

Best Regards
Bryan Wells
Traveling Scholar
Harvard University

The arguments of Farmer in this paper are easily
falsified. He claims that the Harappans could not have
had writing because the seal inscriptions are too
short. This opinion is arrogant and Eurocentric. The
size of the inscription does not define its existence
as writing or non-writing.
The research of Farmer et al lacks validity, fails to support their conclusions and is contradicted by their own statistics. For example, Farmer et al make it clear that the mean word length for comparable Egyptian text is 6.94 and Indus text 7.39, this shows no statistical difference and should have alerted the researchers’ to the fallacy of their arguments. In addition, Dr. Gunter Dryer, an Egyptologist, has found Egyptian text with as few as two (2) symbols that phonetically readable. This is evidence that the literature review of the authors does not reflect the actual knowledge base for ancient writing.

For example, Egyptian writing discovered in 1998,
by Dr. Gunter Dreyer, director of the German
Archaeological Institute in Egypt, has one to four
signs with each sign being a CV lexical item. This
writing is recognized as "true writing". Farmer
maintains that no writing can have meaning with only a
limited number of signs, yet these Egyptian clay
tablets number in the hundreds.The presence of a large number of ancient inscriptions written with a limited number of symbols that have a phonemic identity falsifies the theory of Farmer,
since the foundation of his theory rest on the brevity
of the Indus seals and singletons.
Finally, Farmer et al maintain that their work is falsified (p.48) when someone publishes a clear set of rules for Indus writing that can be used to interpret the writing. This was done and was published a decade ago, see:

_________. (1994c). Ancient Dravidian: And introductory
grammar of Harappan with
Vocabularies, Journal Tamil Studies, No.41, 1-21.

_________.(1995a). Ancient Dravidian: The Harappan
signs, Journal Tamil Studies,
No.42, 1-23.

__________.(1995b). Ancient Dravidian: Harappan
Grammar/Dictionary, Journal Tamil Studies, No.43-44,pp.59-130.

You can find an electronic version of these papers at:

http://us.share.geocities.com/olmec982000/HarWRITE.pdf
or
http://geocities.com/olmec982000/HarWRITE.pdf

In Farmer et al's paper they claim that the Dravidian theory for Harappan was rejected. You will notice that they discussed some of the Dravidian based attempts at decipherment, but they failed to discuss mine. Farmer can not claim he does not know about my decipherment because I referred him to my decipherment during our recent on-line debate on one of the Yahoo groups last Spring on his thesis that Indus writing can not be phonetically read. Due to our exchanges on this forum, I know he read what I wrote. This is confirmed by the fact that in his new paper he did not use the Zipf Law to support his theory, because I showed how it did not fit his theory, and supported the view that Indus writing is phonetically readable.
In conclusion the theory of Farmer et al is without foundation. They do not prove that the Harappans were illiterate, because many short inscriptions from other ancient civilizations can be read phonetically.

[Guest]

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books8.htm

[acharya]

AUTHORS: Great universality



By Dr Muhammad Reza Kazimi


Romila Thapar, the pre-eminent historian of India, recently visited Pakistan to participate in the Karachi International Book Fair. She is the Professor Emeritus of History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy. Romila Thapar is a prolific writer who has viewed the human past from various angles. Some of her works include The History of India (1966), Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (1997) Cultural Pasts (2000) and History and Beyond (2000). The remarkable thing about her is her interpretation, analysis and a completely unclouded horizon in her works. Some of the themes should be familiar to the readers.

The great chronicler Tabari began his monumental History of the Prophets and Kings with a treatise on time. Modern theories of history have been categorized as linear, cyclic or chaotic, the last of which means that history does not allow generalizations. Cyclic theories are popularly known through the works of Ibn Khaldun, Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. It is not in the context of the rise and fall of civilization that Romila Thapar explains what is linear and what is cyclic. Her analyses are a result of greater abstractions and greater universality.

Her monograph, Time as a Metaphor of History, has both great conceptual and expository value and summarizing her views is an onerous responsibility. For example, she talks about two important things in her book: (1) change plus progress is equal to linear time; (2) cyclic time was seen as diametrically opposite to linear time and was associated with dialectical change.

The last sentence is meant to question European historians. Dr Thapar introduces the concept of cyclic time in relation to the Hindu and Buddhist concepts of time. This has been further associated with karma and the need to escape from the cycle of rebirth. She charts the course of the cycles in terms of metaphysical notions of time. “A series of such cycles would deem to take the shape of a spiral, and if the spiral is stretched, it approximates a more linear form.”

For every phase of early Indian history, Dr Thapar offers us insight based on the most thorough and meticulous research

Relating the cyclic to the linear is a cognitive process and she traces the steps of cognition. Astronomers calculated time and conceptualized it. Concepts of time integrated with ideas on creation go into the making of what may be called cosmological time. “Space is also projected where the universe is measured by a rope signifying speed.” From the cognitive, Romila Thapar takes us to the speculative level: “Time, it is sometimes projected as a deity”, “Time was a creator begetting heaven and earth, and that which was, and that which shall be”, “Time could be the ultimate cause”. This is a concept which parallels that of Stephen Hawkins. Nor should we be surprised that mythology, even though subject to higher criticism, should lead us to the threshold of logic. This abstraction attracts mainly because the theory is related to the practice of history and she concludes her treatise by saying: “This is not an exercise in intellectual curiosity. I have tried to argue that even concepts of time in early India, as read by scholars, need to be interpreted afresh.”

For every phase of early Indian history, Dr Thapar offers us insight based on the most thorough and meticulous research. But before we list these, we need to cover another theoretical aspect of history which concerns all historians, most particularly those on either side of the South Asian divide, that is, ideology. In Interpreting Early India, she says “The relating of ideology to historical study is a bifocal situation where the frame of reference provided by the analysis of ideology remains the distant view, while theoretical explanation of the data indicates the nearer reading.”

Romila Thapar has had to contend with both ideology and theory in the debate about the origin and impact of the Aryans. After first outlining Max Muller’s theory that the speakers of Indo-Aryans had their original home in Central Asia, and spoke a language which was not yet Sanskrit or Greek, she takes up the theory of Colonel Olcott who maintained that Aryans were indigenous to India and were also the progenitors of the European civilization. (Cultural Pasts)

Romila Thapar’s considered view is: “Although the earlier notion of a systematic destruction of Harappan sites by Aryan invades has been questioned by archaeological evidence, this does not allow us to maintain that the speakers of Indo-Aryans were indigenous to India.” Nor does the evidence support the identification of Vedic culture with Harappan culture (because Harappan culture was urban and Vedic culture was rural). (Cultural Pasts)

In tracing the evolution of Indian states, Dr Thapar posits a lineage system which preceded state formation. She finds evidence of lineage systems in the Vedic Age. According to her, lineage is a corporate group of unilineal kin with a formalized system of authority. (From Lineage to State) The state is defined as “a collection of specialized agencies and institutions which help in maintaining an order of stratification. (Ibid) She calls the lineage system a crucial stage because initially territorial sovereignty or the delineation of boundaries did not play a central role. Lineage became the legal sanction and regulated the activities of its members. (Ibid)

In the Indian situation, a lineage society gave shape to the caste system. (Ibid) Coming to the Age of Epics, Dr Thapar first traces their earlier versions and then observes that, “Idealized characters are seldom the gods but rather the heroes who occupy centre stage while the gods remain in the wings”. (Ibid)

In her interpretation of the role of Jainism, and Buddhism, she describes their relation to state power. “The movement towards hierarchical vertical authority was mitigated by the countervailing presence of the renouncer and the charisma attached to them. (Interpreting Early India) She further asserts that since Jainism and Buddhism rose as a counter culture, they had a clearer sense of their historical purpose. The influence of Jainism and Buddhism was most obvious when Chandragupta Maurya became a Jain, (Bindusara became associated with Ajivikas) and Asoka became a Buddhist.

In Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Romila Thapar dealt with the first imperial dynasty in detail. She came back to this dynasty especially when she based her study on Asoka’s inscriptions to determine his relation with Buddhism. She points out, most pertinently, that it is rare in Indian history to have access to personalized edicts. She asserts that Shramana (that is, non-Brahmin) ideologies were prevalent and popular in the Maurya milieu. Hence what Asoka was exposed to was not heterodoxy, but current ideologies. (Cultural Pasts) She cites the Major Rock Edict as evidence that Asoka went to the Bodhi tree, 10 years after he had been consecrated, and the Nigalisagar Pillar as recording Asoka’s enlargement of the Konakamana Stupa. The significance of both acts highlight the historical aspects of Buddhism.

The Mauryan dynasty represented the Shramana persuasions, though what persuasion is posited by Kautilya needs to be determined. The Gupta dynasty saw the flowering of Hindu culture. On the question of nationalism and its treatment of Gupta history, she is of the opinion that the early readings of Gupta history were influenced by the idea of cultural nationalism of the 20th century. However, her lecture on Sakuntala shows that she has not actually neglected this phase of Indian history.

Romila Thapar’s engagement with history is epic. She is as outspoken as she is erudite. Her following words record not only her struggle but the struggle of all historians who need to be heard: “When cultural traditions seek legitimacy from history, thereby imprinting themselves on the perception of the present, and are used as building blocks in the construction of contemporary identities, then the voice of the historian has perforce to be heard.”


Reza Kazimi Professor Thapar, you are a living legend as a historian. Following your eulogy of D.D. Kosambi, how would you describe your contribution?

Romila Thapar: D.D. Kosambi has been a major intellectual influence on my thinking about early Indian history as he has been on many in my generation of historians. I do not necessarily agree with his final generalizations but I have been impressed by the kinds of questions he posed to the data and his use of extensive evidence.

RK: You argue that Jains and Buddhists being dissidents had a clearer sense of their historical purpose. (History and Beyond) Didn’t the transition from Indra-centred worship to Shiva-centred worship also involve some dissent?

RT: A sense of historical purpose implies that there can be dissent from existing explanations. Buddhism and Jainism being ideologies based on a historical founder and functioning through a system of institutions — the Sangha and monasteries — had a clearer sense of historical purpose in human activities than many of their contemporary schools of philosophy.

RK: Does Asoka’s enlargement of the Stupa of Konakamana imply greater antiquity for Buddhism? (Cultural Pasts)

RT: The activities of Asoka in relation to Buddhism are important not only for shedding light on Asoka’s policies as well as the teachings of the Buddha, but also because they establish the historicity of Buddhism. His marking the birthplace of the Buddha at Lumbini and enlarging the Konakamana Stupa are indications of these.

RK: Do you see a relation between the mythology of Indian creeds and the sophistication of Indian philosophy?

RT: There is always a relation between mythology and philosophy, but not at the literal level at which it is often treated. Mythology encapsulates beliefs and thus attempts to provide an explanation for them at the popular level. Philosophy goes much further in questioning beliefs or confirming beliefs but through a sophisticated intellectual process of analysis. So the relationship is not absolute, it is tenuous. Also it extends to only some myths and their treatment in philosophies.

RK: You follow D.D. Kosambi in holding that “Far from the Guptas reviving nationalism, it was nationalism which revived the Guptas (History and Beyond). Two questions arise from this: firstly under what structure could nationalism make the Guptas its instrument? Secondly, if nationalism was a force stronger than the rulers, do you include religion as part of that nationalism?

RT: Nationalism has to be understood as an entirely modern phenomenon. It arises with the modernization of structures, as we are witnessing today in many parts of the world. Therefore nationalism constructs its ideology in part by using early history and giving it an interpretation that supports its own modern ideology.

The Guptas were seen as rulers who supported a Hindu revival by those nationalists who were influenced by religious nationalism. The need to emphasize the “Golden Age” of the Guptas was in part a legacy of the colonial views of Indian history; the periodization of James Mill of dividing Indian history into the Hindu, Muslim and British periods; and the emphasis of Orientalism on the revival of Hinduism in the Gupta period, after a long period of Buddhist dominance. Religion is not a necessary part of nationalism but it is often introduced for political reasons as, for instance, in the two-nation theory of pre-1947 which was supported by certain groups of Muslim and Hindu politicians.

The treatment of the Gupta period as a “Golden Age” of Hindu revival has been questioned by a number of historians. There is now a far more realistic assessment of this period.

[Guest]

Re-writing history
Jayanth Jacob in Kolkata Newsline, Jan. 28, 2006
From: ExpressIndia

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Kolkata, January 27: THE Indian History Congress, which kicks off at the Visva Bharati University in Shantiniketan tomorrow, is making an attempt to re-write its own history by giving voice to the young and the new. So, old favourites have been left out in favour of the new, and younger, crop of historians and intellectuals.

''There are many historains to be heard. In the discipline of history, new voices and interpretations are emerging from different parts of the world. We want to give them a platform to be heard,'' confirmed Ganapati Subbiya, convenor of the conference and a professor of history at Visva Bharati.

''Old historains have their importance. But also important are the fresh minds in history with a fresh perspective,'' he added.

<b>So, except for Irfan Habib who will be present, others like Romila Thapar, Sumit Sarkar and Mushirul Hasan have not been invited to the meet which concluded on January 30. </b>

Incidentally, this is the 66th session of the Indian History Congress. And since it is Akbar's 400th death anniversary, special focus will be on the Mughal emperor and the evolution of composite culture in India.

Apart from Indian historians, delegates from Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and England are taking part in the conference. In total, about 1,200 participants are expected to attend the meet.

''This is Akbar's 400th death anniversary. So the History Congress will have a special session on Akbar, evaluating the legacy and contribution of the Mughal emperor,'' informed Subbiya.

About 700 papers will be presented during the conference, which will have five sessions. Apart from the history of different periods, there will be a session on archaeology as well.

Since the meet is being held at Visva Bharati University, a special session is being organised on Rabindranath Tagore.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

I don't understand this - I guess logic is beyond the comprehension of "mere engineers" or "mere physicans" or "mere bank employees" (as Farmer or Vinay Lal would put it). Maybe some here can help:


In interview with Marxist historian K N Pannikker
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>How do students of history know what is real history if the historians start quarrelling among themselves and start propagating their own versions of history? </i>
A historian is known by a methodology which he uses. It may be biased because no historian is without a bias. You know a methodology itself is biased in a way. And those historians who do not use certain methods of history are no historians at all. <b>I, for instance, use the Marxist method. I look at the social evolution and the movement of history in terms of Marxist methodology. And, I use the method of Marxism in understanding and analysing history. </b>

<i>As you say, you are biased towards Marxism... </i>
(Immediately) I am not biased towards Marxism. <b>I believe that Marxism is the scientific method to understand history. </b>

<i>You say you use Marxism as a scientific method to understand history. What is wrong if the Rightists use Hindutva to understand history? </i>
I don't think there is anything wrong with people using another methodology to define history. <b>But there is nothing called a Hindutva methodology. There is nothing like a religious methodology in history. </b>If somebody uses empiricism, it's okay, because it is a method.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
source or rediff

[ramana]

30 Jan.,2006 Pioneer has op-ed by Gautam Sen and is quite despondent.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India's long defining moment

Remember the Nineties as the decade that signalled the end of Hindu civilisation, says Gautam Sen

The decade on the eve of the 21st century was a momentous one for India. This was the decade in which the true political consequences of the fragmentation of Indian society became firmly entrenched. The political protagonists of supposed Hindu interests unexpectedly came to the fore and just as quickly decided there was no such constituency and espoused the politics of being in power for the sake of power alone. Just as jihadis resplendently speak of dying for their faith, contemporary Hindus overwhelmingly seek personal advancement and also apparently crave vacuous entertainment.

The nuclear tests in May 1998 marked an apparent fresh beginning of India's quest for a place in the high table of the international arena. But it proved a chimera in retrospect since it mainly managed to instil fear in Indian policy makers and hobbled their ability to act. The economy began to grow rapidly, but much of this advance was insubstantial because it has primarily been clever Indians hawking their intellectual skills and the rest remitting foreign exchange by skivvying abroad.

The real hard economy remained in the mendacious thrall of politicians and bureaucratic pilferers and trade union thuggery. The rapid advance of the crucial manufacturing component of the economy that has accompanied success elsewhere remains hostage to the socialism of the few, squeezing a sore udder at the expense of the disorganised many.

Yet, this is clearly the decade in which the final denouement of Hinduism began, accelerating unprecedentedly. The clock ticking ominously for 12 centuries since the conquest of Sindh suddenly sounds fearfully audible. The deeply rooted self-doubt and self-destructive impulse of Hinduism has joined hands with the opportunistic Semitic paws that had been stroking their kill since time immemorial. They conjoined malignantly with the mundane imperatives of venal business greed that Indian politics unequivocally incarnates now. In this denuded world, children and grandparents, any country's future and the past, cease to matter. The melancholy historical fate of womenfolk being bartered in foreign bazars becomes a resigned metaphor.

The rapid advance of centrifugal political forces in India is loosening central authority, now in constant negotiation with diverse explicit separatist demands. India's separatists have invariably formed relationships with India's external foes in the expectation of a fleeting moment of political power and, as always, the prospect of personal enrichment. These foreign enemies of India are likely come to the aid of separatists by interceding directly at a moment when internal dissent rises to a crescendo, pointing to Indian help in creating Bangladesh for justification.

The likeliest scenario is the loss of domestic political legitimacy that incites individual states to declare sovereign independence. Tamil Nadu may be an unexpected candidate for this dubious honour since it's in the hands of the most wilful and depraved politicians, exhibiting vaulting self-regard. Others likely to follow the clamour too include Punjab, Assam, Bihar and West Bengal. Such an awesome scenario is most likely in the context of prophylactic intervention by the armed forces during a growing phase of national collapse at the Centre. The moment that happens, all political legitimacy will evaporate.The fiction of electoral politics binds India together, though in reality only serves to justify personal and parochial political ambition.

Alas, the historic Hindu world has long been a vale of tears, untold stories of countless enslaved women and children walking across desolate mountain passes to faraway places. It is this tragedy that is being celebrated with scornful glee by the enemies of the Hindu people. The single accusatory word, communal, demolishes all Hindu entreaties in the contemporary world. It turns them into utterly friendless creatures, much like the medieval auto da fe that almost invariably led to burning at the stake.

Yet it is Hindus themselves who have made material greed their predominant impulse, above all else. Even their worship of the divine is a mockery to facilitate material acquisitions while tragedy unfolds all around them. No Hindus, with the sole extraordinary exception of Sri Lanka's Tamils, have shown willingness to die for their beliefs. Of course, Tamil militants perish exclusively for their ethnic community and only incidentally as Hindus.

Perhaps this is why Hindus are accused of lacking historical sensibility, a misfortune now surfacing as grim amnesia, though fortified by wilful self-denial. This is the fate of slaves since they do not possess legal personality and autonomy, consigned to an anonymous footnote in the history of their masters. Hindus like having masters, otherwise so many would not be serving them so earnestly.

<b>At every juncture Hindus are fighting each other on behalf of imperialist intruders.</b> In comparison, the discord between the Latin and Orthodox churches that facilitated the Ottoman conquest of Byzantium seems a household infraction. <b>The nominally Hindu intellectual class is in virtual unison in their wish to crucify their past, embracing Christian and Islamic imperialism instead. The loathing to utter a single word in defence of their own heritage is surely remarkable on sociological grounds alone. </b>Is there any other people, who find nothing in their history to celebrate, recalling it only as suffocating and oppressive?

The recent near-unanimous chorus of a virtual who's who of Indian academics around the world, led without self-respect by the nose by Harvard's Michael Witzel, against changes to the curriculum on Hinduism for California's schoolchildren is an apposite illustration. Many who signed the petition's scathing denunciation remained unfamiliar with the requested changes when they signed it, suggesting a classic instance of self-hatred. In stark contrast, there was not a single protest voiced from any quarter against the many more tendentious changes demanded by other religious groups, some of them truly outrageous.

In comparison, the changes sought by Hindu parents and their supporters were on the whole innocuous, at worst, prone to give a slightly positive spin on minor issues. But they provoked the vehement ire of hundreds from the world's leading universities and all religious affiliations, including Muslims and evangelical Christians. It is an astonishing testament to the piranha-like feeding frenzy at the smell of blood. The serried ranks of evangelists and jihadis are truly lining up to deliver the coup de grâce.

This is surely the decade that will be remembered in generations to come, if anyone remains to write its history, as the one that signalled the final demise of the Hindu civilisation. Like many rich polytheistic cultures before them, from Greece to Persia, the monotheists will have terminated them. The ostensible defenders of Hindu interests turned out to be traders looking to make a fast buck while they chanted sacred hymns in feigned religiosity to divert attention. The treacherous intellectual tradition within it hoisted a banner to dwarf the skies, while senselessly proclaiming their own moral excellence.

It will not last, since the celebration of ultimate triumph will be reserved for their victorious masters alone. Their temporary havens and rewards will be withdrawn and they too will find themselves kneeling before the enemy they served only too well. A small band of the defeated will make their lonely passage to oblivion though they knew what was in the making, but could not bring their community along to do battle.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Feb 2 2006, 01:51 PM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Feb 2 2006, 01:51 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Dont know if this is the right thread but here goes.....

Link: NCERT withdraws 4 books, rewrites portions on Sikh ifgures

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NCERT withdraws 4 books, rewrites portions on Sikh figures
New Delhi: Four NCERT textbooks containing ''objectionable'' matter on prominent Sikh figures Guru Nanak, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Banda Bahadur were being rewritten and fours others have been withdrawn after objections from scholars of minority comunities.

The NCERT took the decision on a recommendation of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), after receiving the objections from the scholars, the Commission said here today, adding that the information was conveyed to it on January 31.

<b>The NCERT consulted authors before deciding for making changes in the books, it said.</b>

Portions relating to the three Sikh figures being rewritten are found in 'Social Sciences' written by Prof Romila Thapar for class seven, 'Social Sciences'(Part 1) by Prof Arjun Dev and Indira Arjun Dev for Class eight, 'Modern India by Prof Bipin Chandra for Class 12 and Contemporary World History (Part 11) by Prof Arjun Dev for Class 12.

<b>The Commission said the NCERT had also amended some controversial portions about Jainism and Vardharman Mahavira in the book 'Ancient India,' written by Prof R S Sharma' for class 11.</b>

<b>The withdrawn books are 'Indian and the World' written by Seema Yadav for class seven, Contemporary India' by Hari Om for Class nine, Modern India by Satish Chandra Mittla for Class 12 and Medieval India by Prof Satish Chandar for Classs 11,</b> the Commission said.

The objectionable portions in the textbooks were discussed in a meeting with NCERT academicians which was presided over NCM chairman Tarlochan Singh at the Commission office here.

The NCERT have also agreed to include the names of Bhai Vir Singh, Nanak Singh and Amrita Pritam, all eminent Punjabi Litterateurs in the list of modern writers in the textbook 'Contemporaray World History'(Part11) by Prof Arjun Dev for Class 12.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Looks like books written the infamous historians are being withdrawn and rewritten. Maybe votebank politics is in effect.
[right][snapback]46186[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--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
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Before Hegel, others had tried to see a pattern in history. Most saw such patterns as cyclic. Here, for instance, is history as The Wheel of Fortune (Rota Fortuna). This sees history progressing from peace to wealth, from wealth to pride, from pride to war, from war to poverty, from poverty to humility, from humility to peace.

<b>Hegel also saw history as progressing through a series of phases, but not in eternal circles. To Hegel, history had a sense of direction, with the Universal Mind progressing towards a total consciousness of freedom through the process of the dialectic.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

ramana,
Your Link in previous thread was very information, but why Indian Maxist have no problem understanding Chinese History.

[Guest]

<i>" Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless word, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Marx</i>

He postulated that, the matter is the only reality. Mind, life, consciousness etc. were the products of matter. He was inspired in the formulations of his theories, <b>by Darwin's "Theory Of Evolution", and Hegel's "Dialectical Logic". </b>

He declared, that in the former he got evidences in biology, supporting class war.

Like species (and everything else), social relationships at any point of time are decisively superior to the preceding form. Logic, well-suited to advance the theory of inevitable replacement of Capitalist system, by Communist system. But the same theory was quoted (survival of the fittest) by Nazis in support of racist agenda, and bigger capitalists swallowing the smaller ones. And Darwin, 10 years after the publication of his theory, regretted that it was misinterpreted and thoroughly abused by sociologists.

Next is Hegel (he was not a materialist but an idealist)'s three laws, borrowed by Marx for formulating his opinions.

<b>1. Law of transformation of quantity into quality</b>. Liquid does not gradually become more and more glutinous, and semi-solid. It leaps at one bound from liquid to solid state.-- Marx interpreted that, social revolution too is a sudden jump, when accumulated quantitative alterations pass into qualitative change. <b>In other words, when conditions in a bourgeoisie society reach a critical point, revolution would be a mere routine.</b>

<b>2. Law of unity of opposites</b>: Opposites do not express an absolute difference. They are same at the bottom. -- like debts and assets. What is negative to the debtor is positive to the creditor. The North pole of the magnet cannot be without South pole. Marx saw a parallel to his idea of class struggle. (In fact, the dictum of negation of negation--unity of the opposites- disapproves the Marx's theory of classless society)

<b>3. Law of characteristic features of evolutionary process</b>: One change negating a given state of affairs, and a succeeding change which negated the first, reestablishes with some essential features of the original state of affairs. Each idea calls forth its opposite. As these two ideas struggle, a new idea, synthesis would emerge , which contains elements of truth from both. <b>The synthesis , in turn, becomes a new thesis, and the process goes on. The process is called dialectic.</b>

<b>And Marx believed that Hegel's laws are universal and eternal; as they were essential to sustain the logic of inevitability and universality of his own theories.</b>

Marx took over from Saint Simon a fine sounding phrase, " In a socialist society, political government would cease to exist, and would be replaced, by administration of things.


At any rate, for other obvious reasons, his followers and devotees believe "Whatever Marx said could not be incorrect, for it was none but Marx who said it"


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Marx on India:

Between 1853 and 1857, Marx wrote 23 articles on India , and Engels eight, bearing on British rule in India. His was a "Europe centered" view, which Britain was to lay the foundations of the material progress in India on the annihilation of the traditional Indian society. <b>He wrote " Indian society has no History at all, at least no known History</b>. What we know as History, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. <b>The question therefore is, not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by Britain.</b>

"England had to fulfill a doube mission in India: One destructive, and the other regenerating - the annihilation of the old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia.

Arabs, Turks, Tartars,Moguls, who had successively overrun India, soon became Hinduised, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law of history, themselves conquered by the superior civilisation of their subjects.

<b>According to him, the British were the first conquerors who were superior, and therefore inaccessible to Hindu civilization</b>. <b>They destroyed by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by leveling all that was great and elevated in the native society</b>.

The work of regenaration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun." (The Future Results of British Rule in India--by Marx). <b>The Indian Marxists fully accept this thesis, and fully subscribe to it.</b>

In India by 1940 a serious Marxist history was produced--R Palme Dutt's "India Today" and, D.D.Kosambi's "An Introduction to the study of Indian History" 1956, Which is regarded as a substantial Marxist interpretation of Indian History from the earliest times to the rise of British power in India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

Misrepresentation by Marxists and media cronies
Pioneer.com
Sudharshan K Kapur, Educator and author of textbooks
On June 29, 1966, Dr DS Kothari submitted a monumental report of the first post-Independence educational commission to the then Union Education Minister, MC Chagla. The report, which was about 760 pages long, was aptly titled Education and National Development but was later simply known as the "Kothari Report". It covered matters like education and national objectives, education system, its structure and levels, status of teacher and teacher-education, school education, school curriculum, higher education aims, administration of universities, etc.

It goes to the credit of the Kothari Commission that the report was based on proper and sound understanding of concepts and basic principles of education with recommendations logically delineated. The report contained a summary of as many as 230 recommendations , which are as valid, relevant and practicable today as they were four decades back. It is perhaps for this very reason that the Kothari Commission Report is still regarded by the educationists as the "Bible on Indian education".

The National Policy on Education, 1968, was entirely based on this report. It is another matter that those who were at the helm of affairs in the 1970s were not sincere enough to implement these recommendations in letter and spirit and made a mess of the whole thing and arbitrarily imposed upon the country an educational system which negated the recommendations of the 1966 Education Commission and the stipulations of NPE, 1968.

The Government had established NCERT as an autonomous body with the objective to assist and advise the Ministry of Education (now MHRD) in the implementation of its policies and major programmes in the field of education, particularly school education. One of the principal responsibilities of NCERT was to develop curriculum and prepare model textbooks and instructional materials in all school subjects from Classes I to XII.Obviously, it became the responsibility of NCERT to implement the recommendations made by the Kothari Commission. In 1976, Education was brought in the Concurrent List by a Constitutional Amendment.

It was during the Emergency that NCERT was subject to public mischief, committed by the concerned authorities of the Ministry of Education, which deprived NCERT of whatever little autonomy it ever had. The central government of the time superimposed 19 subject committees, each consisting of four or five members, upon NCERT to develop curriculum and prepare textbooks in various subjects.

Most of the subject experts in these committees belonged to Jawaharlal Nehru University or were their bedfellows who had no experience in school education and pedagogy. They either selected themselves or their bedfellows as authors to write school textbooks to be published by NCERT. They exploited the situation and monopolised the authorship of NCERT textbooks and grabbed huge amounts of money as royalties.

Much can be said about their character and standards of integrity. Thanks to their artful manipulations, NCERT, which was supposedly an autonomous organisation comprising experts, academicians and educationists, was reduced to the status of a servile and slavish institution serving the interests of these exploiter-masters occupying important positions and chairs in JNU, ICHR, ICSSR and other institutions. Some of these artful manipulators later started writing for the Press and a few of their bedfellows have monopolised columns in the English Press of today.

Over the past six years, most of the English newspapers have madly engaged themselves in discussing and debating irrelevant and insignificant issues, or rather non-issues, like "saffronisation" or "detoxification" of education. Our worthy editors and armchair columnists wasted hundreds of columns on these topics without having a knowledge of how much history is taught in Classes III to X and what was the quantum of the contents to be detoxified by Arjun Singh. Everybody started beating about the bush without knowledge of the A, B or C of school education whatsoever.

And, what has been the contribution of Arjun Singh as HRD Minister in the last 20 months? Replacement of one set by another set of tricksters, uncalled for and unwarranted reprinting and publication of unrevised and unreviewed History textbooks in thousands of copies each to benefit his bedfellows, the Marxist historians, and serve their vested interests.

It is a sad reflection on the functioning of the Press that it has failed to take notice of a landmark Judgement, with wide-ranging implications, delivered by the Supreme Court of India on September 6, 2004. It is going to benefit millions of school and college level students who opt for HIndi or any other Indian language as medium of instruction. The Order was passed on a Public Interest Litigation praying for directions to the Union of India, the HRD Ministry, NCERT and CBSE to implement Presidential Order on recommendations made by the Committee of Parliament on Official Languages in the First Part of its Report vide Resolution No. 1/20012/1/87-OL(A-1) dated 30.12.1988. This Presidential Order was not implemented for all of 12 years.

The entire Media, including the national English Press, almost blacked out this Judgement and did not take due notice of something which concerned the quality of education of crores of students. Perhaps, the all-knowing journalists and editors did not comprehend the requirements and implications of this revolutionary order of the Supreme Court. One implication is that NCERT would have to withdraw HIndi versions of all its textbooks which had not used technical terminology evolved by the Commission for Scientific Technical Terminology.

[Guest]

from [url=http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?
main_variable=EDITS&file_name=edit2%2Etxt&counter_img=2]Daily Pioneer[/url]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Pioneer Edit Desk

It's heartening to note that a Japanese association has offered to rebuild the ancient university of Nalanda, now lying in ruins, into a global institute of learning and a centre of excellence. The Union Government should have undertaken the task of rebuilding Nalanda university to show case India's rich heritage and civilisational history. Other countries with far less resources but much greater pride in their past have tried to rejuvenate centres of excellence. For instance, Egypt has rebuilt the ancient library of Alexandria with single-minded determination, recreating the splendour that was ravaged by earthquakes and invaders thrice in history.

Today, Bibliotheca Alexandrina stands as a monument to Egypt's past and as a symbol of hope for its present and future generations. In India, however, there has been little or no effort to recreate the past apart from organising son et lumiere shows at historical sites for the entertainment of casual tourists. The compulsions of Congress-style 'secular' politics forged by leftists for whom India's history begins and ends with hagiographic tribute to Islamic invaders and marauders have prevented the Union Government as well as State Governments to build institutions for India's future on foundations of the past.

A classic example of 'secular' neglect is Nalanda university which has been virtually reduced to nothing more than a footnote of India's history by 'secular' historians and their political patrons; they would have succeeded in erasing the story of Nalanda entirely from the pages of our history had it not been for Buddhist pilgrims, most of them from Japan and other Sout-East Asian countries. What has now been proposed by the Japanese association should have been done by Government long ago.

After all, Nalanda university predates Al Azhar, the world's so-called oldest university: Between 5th and 12th Century AD, Nalanda boasted of 2,000 teachers, including scholars like Nagarjuna, and 10,000 students and was renowned as a centre of learning and Buddhist studies. In his lifetime, and before Nalanda gained its reputation as a residential university, Gautam Buddha visited the site several times and gave sermons near what is known as the mango grove of Pavarika.

During its heyday, Nalanda university enjoyed the patronage of powerful kings, notably Ashoka and Harshavardhana. The Tang dynasty Chinese pilgrim Xuangzang's writings include detailed descriptions of academic life in Nalanda in the 7th century. If our 'secular' politicians are discomfited by the overtly religious syllabus of Nalanda university and are thus loath to rebuild it, they are horrified by the very thought of admitting that this ancient seat of learning was sacked in the 12th Century by Bakhtiyar Khilji whose dark shadow is presented in radiant colours by their kept historians.

And now that there is a Japanese offer to rebuild Nalanda as a centre of modern education, the same politicians are salivating at the prospect of subjugating yet another institution to identity politics: <b>Witness the alacrity with which Mr Ram Vilas Paswan has sought to link quotas with the proposed university even before the Japanese offer has been officially accepted.</b> Obviously, India is yet to learn any lessons from its history, least of all from the chapter on Nalanda.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/islam/

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium...islamindia.html

The following is based on one of the chapters in the book Rewriting Indian History (Vikas). In this first part, the author argues that History books should be rewritten.

Elst- Negationism_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negationism_i...Record_of_Islam
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/book...gaind/index.htm



Habib on Elst
http://www.geocities.com/a_habib/Dada/elst.html

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One wonders, though, at Elst's claim of the superior judgement of modern historians in taking "minor distortions into account". He gives no methodology for doing this. Nor has he shown any evidence of it in these writings.
<i>
    The unanimous and entirely coherent testimony that the wars in Hindustan were religious wars of Muslims against Kafirs is a different matter altogether: denying this testimony is not a matter of small adjustments, but of replacing the well-attested historical facts with their diametrical opposite.

    Habib tried to absolve the ideology (Islam) of the undeniable facts of persecution and massacre of the Pagans by blaming individuals (the Muslims). The sources however point to the opposite state of affairs: Muslim fanatics were merely faithful executors of Quranic injunctions. Not the Muslims are guilty, but Islam.</i>

On the contrary, Prof. Habib drew a careful distinction between the original Islamic ideal, and the corrupted version adopted by the Muslim invaders and ruling classes in India.   <!--emo&:unsure:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='unsure.gif' /><!--endemo-->  He spared no effort in taking the latter to task, while espousing the former as a worthy ideal.

Elst's distinction: "Not the Muslims are guilty, but Islam", is a perplexing one. What does this mean in practice? Is the religion of Islam to be tried and convicted but its followers left in peace? It is clear this cannot be. His distinction therefore is mere sophistry.


<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Elst on Habib
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/bo...t/ch10.htm

[ramana]

The West has this image of India and its people handed down through millenia which clouds their judgement. THis negative image is reinforced and propped up by Western travellers and scholars who have a vested interest.
For instance hereis Columbia Uty's webpage link to History by Herodotus the first of the history writers.

link: Herodotus on Darius and India

Romila Thapar and all are part of this tradtion and scholarship. Fanciful tales are passed down as history and reinforced periodically so that Indians can be treated as downtrodden.

[Guest]

India was not the only ciivlizatin subject to the myth of' white man as savior'. so were the Aztec when they were conquered by Hernando Cortez (after being cordially received at first as a mythical white savior).

we were not the only ones that the history was subverted. but there is one differnce in the case of India. we are the only ones left to correct the tale. so we are in a unique situation . Hence the attempt by the modern day inquisitors to thwart and malign us and hopefully bury us in a welter of confusing lies.

But they did not reckon on the fact that the ethos of India is timeless kept alive by a tenacious bunch.

[acharya]

A new kind of history textbook

Sumit Sarkar

Books just brought out by the NCERT teach history in creative ways. All themes are sought to be looked at from the angle of everyday life and its changing patterns, bringing history down from the distant skies, as it were.

A FEW days ago, I came across the three History textbooks just brought out by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), for Classes VI, IX, and XI. I opened the second — India and the Contemporary World, from roughly the French Revolution to the mid-20th century — with the idea of just turning over some pages, for it was a very busy day for me. But soon I was engrossed, and could not stop reading till the end, so exciting did it seem, so different from what one expects from school or college textbooks. The other two books proved to be just as interesting. For reasons of space, however, let me dwell mainly on the second book.

What makes the new books such an unexpected pleasure to read — a feeling, I am sure, the students and their teachers will also share? Their physical appearance, first of all. The books are filled with illustrations, most of them in colour: photographs of historical sites, inscriptions, monuments, reproductions of paintings, posters and pages from leaflets: an immense range of visual material going back to the times being described. Thoughtful designing has achieved a sense of space, very different from the usual cramped, breathless impression one gets when reading history books, filled with closely packed text.

The books teach history in creative ways. There are extracts from contemporary documents, many of them of contrasting kinds: the French Declaration of the Rights of Man set beside Olympia de Gouges' feminist alternative, an official Soviet account of collectivisation alongside a letter from a peasant who hated the changes. Students are introduced to the basics of historical research: both to documents and to understanding how open-ended historical reconstruction is. Every section is accompanied by questions and suggested classroom activities, visualising creative student-teacher interaction in place of enforced rote-learning. After reading about the coming of modern agriculture in England, students are asked to look at the previous, open field system from the points of view of a rich farmer, a labourer, and a peasant woman. An activity suggested after the chapter on Nazi Germany recommends writing one-page histories of it from the points of view of a schoolchild studying there, a Jewish survivor, and a political opponent of the regime. The chapter on the Roman Empire in the Class XI book on "Themes in World History" asks students to imagine the shopping list of a city housewife in those times. Let me add, though, that books like these will require a fundamental transformation also in the pattern of setting questions in CBSE examinations, which so long have been of a so-called `objective' type, totally unsuitable at least for history, social sciences, and the humanities in general. I do hope that such changes will be brought about as quickly as possible.

What made such textbooks possible? Fundamentally, a simple innovation, pedagogically vital: the clear break with the earlier dominant assumption that textbooks must be `comprehensive,' `cover' all `relevant' facts. Never mind the overcrowding, sheer boredom, rote-learning — followed by quick oblivion, as those of us who have been teachers at college or postgraduate levels have often encountered. One can anticipate that this will be the line possible critics of the new books will take, and they will find it easy enough to point to much that has been `left out.' But the point surely is that no book, not just meant for schools but really at any level, can ever cover `everything,' one always has to be selective. The need is to stimulate interest and curiosity, some understanding about what history today is really about and why it is important. The points or themes of entry here always suggest broader patterns. Some students might be stimulated to read further about them. To take an instance from Class VI, about Ancient India: giving comprehensive lists of archaeological sites relevant for a particular period may place a great burden on memory. Instead, one or two sites or inscriptions have been chosen here, but these are looked at in detail, with profuse illustrations followed by discussions about what can and cannot be inferred from them. Similarly, we have French and Russian Revolutions but not all the 19th century European revolutions; Nazi Germany but not Fascist Italy. These, however, are studied in profuse and interesting detail. An incidental gain is that the burden of dates gets reduced, particularly at lower levels. Time-charts are introduced in Class XI. They are divided according to continents, with an additional one for South Asia. They indicate at a glance that one must not assume a single, linear, pattern of development for all times and places.

But surely history has a special role in schools, its purpose is, above all, the promotion of `national unity,' `identity,' `integration,' pride in one's country? And so should not every region and community be covered at the same level of detail, all prominent figures mentioned? To have all that all would consider important is not possible within any textbook, however voluminous. <span style='color:red'>Moreover, there will always be conflicting political opinions about what is important and what is not.</span> The choice will then depend on the dominant view of political correctness, and not on pedagogical needs or the logic of the subject. We saw some of these problems during Bharatiya Janata Party rule. But even state-of-the-art notions of history or progressive values need to be conveyed in interesting and interactive ways. Otherwise they remain facts and values that are memorised, reproduced, and then speedily forgotten, while the assumptions and stereotypes current in their immediate environment, often retrogressive or obscurantist, live on in the minds of the new generation. The approach of these books is very different. After a searing account of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, for instance, a question is posed about whether students have ever encountered stereotypes of other communities among people around them, and how they could have come about. I cannot think of a better way of providing a pointer towards the dangers of narrow identity politics of every kind, and the need for basic secular and human values.

More than trivia

Are not some chapters about `trivial' things, though — what has a `serious' history textbook to do with cricket, or the social history of clothing (Class IX)? On the contrary, students are bound to get interested as they discover that these, too, have histories, and so the subject is not about remote and dead matters alone. Both lead on to other themes, including more conventional ones the importance of which no one will deny. The handicrafts that declined under colonial rule, the mills of Lancashire and Bombay, were all inseparable from clothes and changing tastes about them, while at the core of Gandhian mass struggle lay boycott, the wearing of khadi, and the Mahatma's conversion to the loincloth.

The books quietly introduce students to many of the new ways in which history is developing in recent times. There are sections in all three volumes about the lives of hunters, foodgatherers, and pastoralists, and the ways in which their more interactive relations with nature have been disrupted in modern times: themes that recent environmental history foregrounds. Women are central to all the narratives. The section about clothing mentions its relations with social hierarchies: class in pre-Revolutionary France, or caste in South India. Above all, all themes are sought to be looked at from the angle of everyday life and its changing patterns, bringing history down from the distant skies, as it were. The crucial point emerges that literally everything, every kind of relationship, has histories. The social world, as Vico proclaimed in a foundation text of modern history almost three centuries ago, is made by human beings, not divinity or nature, and it can be changed, too, through human endeavour.

In all these ways, these textbooks both respect and enhance the students' imagination and critical thinking.

(The author is an eminent historian of modern India.)