06-27-2004, 10:57 AM
<b>Big brother disapproves of NCERT books</b>-Pinoeer
Udayan Namboodiri
I am from Mallapuram district of Kerala and happen to know a thing or two about "secularism". <b>This is the district which EMS Namboodiripad gifted to the Moplahs or Malabar Muslims in 1969 by splitting up the old Calicut and Palghat districts so that they could have their own little Pakistan tucked deep inside south India</b>.
Search as much as you like, but in the entire annals of free India it would be impossible to find a parallel to such brazen implementation of the two-nation theory. And belated too, by 22 years, which should shock those under the illusion that the "secularism" which was enshrined in our Constitution rejects religion as a parameter in official delimitation exercises.
But a boy from Tirur learns to internalise such shocks. Particularly if he went on to read History in Calcutta's Presidency College in the early 1980s where the original "detoxification" exercise was carried out by the Marxist regime. Today, while reading Professor S Settar's sweeping indictment of the NCERT textbooks, <b>I can't help recall similar incidents of rape of history to which I was a close witness.</b>
In fact, by strange coincidence, I saw two separate cases of such abuse in the summer of 1984. Just before college closed for summer, some of our professors who were known to be card carriers let it be known that the works of redoubtable scholars like Jadunath Sarkar, DC Sarkar and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar were "undesirable". For the sake of marks in university exams, it would be advisable to avoid them for reference purposes as the University's examiners had already been served the requisite (unwritten) orders.
Mind you, this was before the notorious "<b>Shuddho-Ashuddho" circular which was issued at the end of that decade naming specific portions of school level texts which the communist masters deemed as "communal".</b> In my time, the Jyoti Basu regime was just into its second term and was beginning its attack on Bengal's academia to purge it of unsuitable intellectuals and unfavourable scholarly traditions.
I was visiting my home town Tirur that summer. Now Tirur is already famous as the birthplace of Thunjuath Ramanujan Ezhuthachan, the father of Malayalam literature. I saw there was a new tourist attraction added to the old place. It was an obscenity called the "Wagon Memorial".
This was a classic case of communist rewrite of the facts of history. In August 1921, the Moplahs had conducted an orgy of rape and murder in the entire British district of Malabar. Hundreds of innocent Hindus and Christians were massacred, women raped, children quartered and thousands of homes burnt down.
Mahatma Gandhi, who was then besotted by the Ali brothers and their Khilafat movement, tried to gloss it over initially, but later admitted that "<b>our moplah brethren have gone mad..</b> they have committed a sin against the Khilafar and their own country." Annie Besant condemned the killings and praised the resilience of many Hindus who refused to convert even under pain of death. The British sent a detachment of Gorkha soldiers to restore order. One group of rioters was caught near Nilambur, about 100 miles to the west of Tirur, and was in the process of being transported to the railhead, when, on the way, a few, already bleeding with bullet or lathi injuries, died either of their wounds or of suffocation.
By all accounts, these were hardened criminals who, in the popular perception, deserved their fate for the common good. In my own extended family, there was a great-uncle who was murdered when a Moplah mob raided their house near Perinthalmana. Perhaps some of those responsible for his death were in that railway wagon. <b>But, by 1984, the "official" history as prescribed by the government of Kerala, which had the Muslim League as an alliance partner, was in sharp variance with the collective memory of Malabar (now reinvented as Mallapuram)</b>.
<b>The Marxist historians had declared that it was a "glorious revolt" by the Moplahs against their Hindu landlords. Sure, there were murders, but "class annihilation" was justified under communism - or is it not</b> ? As "proof" they cited some "accounts books" <b>which were looted or burnt which proved that the blood-sucking Hindu landlords had driven them to desperation</b>. So, in extension of this barbaric assault on the popular consciousness, the government had rigged up a contraption resembling an old goods wagon and put it up on display outside the municipal headquarters. It stands there to this day as a symbol of humiliation for the minorities of Mallapuram.
Left scholarship's arrogation of what constitutes "secular" history is an age-old thing by now. Marxist dogma and "secularism" have had a hyphenated relationship since 1947. What Professors Settar and Barun De have just done with the NCERT texts is only the reconfirmation of a tradition which began with <b>Jawaharlal Nehru's efforts to thwart the first President, Rajendra Prasad's patronage to RC Majumdar's project to bring out the first ever history of the Indian freedom struggle which the great nationalist historian wanted to write from a uniquely Indian point of view.</b>
Nehru was anxious that a scholar possessing rare spine as Majumdar may be less than hagiographic in his description of the role played by him in the Partition. He forged a tactical alliance with the communist group which was apprehensive that its true character as the freedom struggle's fifth columnists would be exposed. The third factor deployed was "Muslim sensitivity".
Majumdar was unflinching in his conviction that India's history as a slave nation began seven centuries before the East India Company's troops won the Battle of Plassey - we only changed our masters in 1757 The Communists had no use for another redoubtable historian, KS Lal,who had proved in a monumental study quoting Arabic and Persian sources to be mostly the descendants of forced converts, Their suffering under the Turks, Persians, Afghans and Mughals was in no way less than that of their Hindu compatriots.
But the interests of "secularism" lies in preventing Hindus and Muslims from striking common historical ground. So, they were made to believe that they are the natural successors of Aurangzeb and Nadir Shah (<b>incidentally, a road in Lutyen's Delhi was named after Aurangzeb in pursuit of this logic</b>) and therefore a "Hindu" history would cause their image incalculable harm. If one has to look for the source of the mindset displayed by Professors Settar and Barun De, this is where it lies.
Without going into specifics, or caring to consult the authors who have more than reiterated the academic wholesomeness of their works by publishing a point-by-point rebuttal to the Indian History Congress' allegations, Arjun Singh's committee has behaved like a mob of hatchet men. <b>Avoiding an academic debate, which they knew would expose their own ignorance, they took recourse to sweeping generalisations - they say NCERT's books are "communal", "prejudiced" and what have you</b>. But have they cared to hold up even one line from them to prove their contention?
In this context let's recall what Majumdar wrote in his preface to History of Medieval Bengal (1973): "The tragedy of the whole thing is that no stones are left unturned by the government to propagate their views without caring to inquire whether there is any historical justification for them. History books which do not incorporate their views are not likely to be prescribed as textbooks and anybody who challenges the official view of Indian history is included in the black list of the government of India."
That was 31 years back and the Education Minister was S Nurul Hasan, the communist who Indira Gandhi invited to take over India's academic institutions. <b>Today, the past has returned with a vengeance under Arjun Singh, a Congressman goaded by loonie leftists. Somewhere in between lies wallowing in dust and disrepute, India's history scholarship.</b>
Udayan Namboodiri
I am from Mallapuram district of Kerala and happen to know a thing or two about "secularism". <b>This is the district which EMS Namboodiripad gifted to the Moplahs or Malabar Muslims in 1969 by splitting up the old Calicut and Palghat districts so that they could have their own little Pakistan tucked deep inside south India</b>.
Search as much as you like, but in the entire annals of free India it would be impossible to find a parallel to such brazen implementation of the two-nation theory. And belated too, by 22 years, which should shock those under the illusion that the "secularism" which was enshrined in our Constitution rejects religion as a parameter in official delimitation exercises.
But a boy from Tirur learns to internalise such shocks. Particularly if he went on to read History in Calcutta's Presidency College in the early 1980s where the original "detoxification" exercise was carried out by the Marxist regime. Today, while reading Professor S Settar's sweeping indictment of the NCERT textbooks, <b>I can't help recall similar incidents of rape of history to which I was a close witness.</b>
In fact, by strange coincidence, I saw two separate cases of such abuse in the summer of 1984. Just before college closed for summer, some of our professors who were known to be card carriers let it be known that the works of redoubtable scholars like Jadunath Sarkar, DC Sarkar and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar were "undesirable". For the sake of marks in university exams, it would be advisable to avoid them for reference purposes as the University's examiners had already been served the requisite (unwritten) orders.
Mind you, this was before the notorious "<b>Shuddho-Ashuddho" circular which was issued at the end of that decade naming specific portions of school level texts which the communist masters deemed as "communal".</b> In my time, the Jyoti Basu regime was just into its second term and was beginning its attack on Bengal's academia to purge it of unsuitable intellectuals and unfavourable scholarly traditions.
I was visiting my home town Tirur that summer. Now Tirur is already famous as the birthplace of Thunjuath Ramanujan Ezhuthachan, the father of Malayalam literature. I saw there was a new tourist attraction added to the old place. It was an obscenity called the "Wagon Memorial".
This was a classic case of communist rewrite of the facts of history. In August 1921, the Moplahs had conducted an orgy of rape and murder in the entire British district of Malabar. Hundreds of innocent Hindus and Christians were massacred, women raped, children quartered and thousands of homes burnt down.
Mahatma Gandhi, who was then besotted by the Ali brothers and their Khilafat movement, tried to gloss it over initially, but later admitted that "<b>our moplah brethren have gone mad..</b> they have committed a sin against the Khilafar and their own country." Annie Besant condemned the killings and praised the resilience of many Hindus who refused to convert even under pain of death. The British sent a detachment of Gorkha soldiers to restore order. One group of rioters was caught near Nilambur, about 100 miles to the west of Tirur, and was in the process of being transported to the railhead, when, on the way, a few, already bleeding with bullet or lathi injuries, died either of their wounds or of suffocation.
By all accounts, these were hardened criminals who, in the popular perception, deserved their fate for the common good. In my own extended family, there was a great-uncle who was murdered when a Moplah mob raided their house near Perinthalmana. Perhaps some of those responsible for his death were in that railway wagon. <b>But, by 1984, the "official" history as prescribed by the government of Kerala, which had the Muslim League as an alliance partner, was in sharp variance with the collective memory of Malabar (now reinvented as Mallapuram)</b>.
<b>The Marxist historians had declared that it was a "glorious revolt" by the Moplahs against their Hindu landlords. Sure, there were murders, but "class annihilation" was justified under communism - or is it not</b> ? As "proof" they cited some "accounts books" <b>which were looted or burnt which proved that the blood-sucking Hindu landlords had driven them to desperation</b>. So, in extension of this barbaric assault on the popular consciousness, the government had rigged up a contraption resembling an old goods wagon and put it up on display outside the municipal headquarters. It stands there to this day as a symbol of humiliation for the minorities of Mallapuram.
Left scholarship's arrogation of what constitutes "secular" history is an age-old thing by now. Marxist dogma and "secularism" have had a hyphenated relationship since 1947. What Professors Settar and Barun De have just done with the NCERT texts is only the reconfirmation of a tradition which began with <b>Jawaharlal Nehru's efforts to thwart the first President, Rajendra Prasad's patronage to RC Majumdar's project to bring out the first ever history of the Indian freedom struggle which the great nationalist historian wanted to write from a uniquely Indian point of view.</b>
Nehru was anxious that a scholar possessing rare spine as Majumdar may be less than hagiographic in his description of the role played by him in the Partition. He forged a tactical alliance with the communist group which was apprehensive that its true character as the freedom struggle's fifth columnists would be exposed. The third factor deployed was "Muslim sensitivity".
Majumdar was unflinching in his conviction that India's history as a slave nation began seven centuries before the East India Company's troops won the Battle of Plassey - we only changed our masters in 1757 The Communists had no use for another redoubtable historian, KS Lal,who had proved in a monumental study quoting Arabic and Persian sources to be mostly the descendants of forced converts, Their suffering under the Turks, Persians, Afghans and Mughals was in no way less than that of their Hindu compatriots.
But the interests of "secularism" lies in preventing Hindus and Muslims from striking common historical ground. So, they were made to believe that they are the natural successors of Aurangzeb and Nadir Shah (<b>incidentally, a road in Lutyen's Delhi was named after Aurangzeb in pursuit of this logic</b>) and therefore a "Hindu" history would cause their image incalculable harm. If one has to look for the source of the mindset displayed by Professors Settar and Barun De, this is where it lies.
Without going into specifics, or caring to consult the authors who have more than reiterated the academic wholesomeness of their works by publishing a point-by-point rebuttal to the Indian History Congress' allegations, Arjun Singh's committee has behaved like a mob of hatchet men. <b>Avoiding an academic debate, which they knew would expose their own ignorance, they took recourse to sweeping generalisations - they say NCERT's books are "communal", "prejudiced" and what have you</b>. But have they cared to hold up even one line from them to prove their contention?
In this context let's recall what Majumdar wrote in his preface to History of Medieval Bengal (1973): "The tragedy of the whole thing is that no stones are left unturned by the government to propagate their views without caring to inquire whether there is any historical justification for them. History books which do not incorporate their views are not likely to be prescribed as textbooks and anybody who challenges the official view of Indian history is included in the black list of the government of India."
That was 31 years back and the Education Minister was S Nurul Hasan, the communist who Indira Gandhi invited to take over India's academic institutions. <b>Today, the past has returned with a vengeance under Arjun Singh, a Congressman goaded by loonie leftists. Somewhere in between lies wallowing in dust and disrepute, India's history scholarship.</b>