01-14-2008, 06:33 PM
<span style='color:red'>CPM-AMU nexus stymies History Congress</span>
By Our Correspondent
The dominance of a small AMU coterie led by Prof Irfan Habib and his presence at the dais on all the important functions and symposiums was indicative of the IHC having been hijacked by a small section of Left historians owing allegiance to the CPM and the CPI.
As usual more than one thousand historians, braving the extreme cold of Delhi, came from all over India to attend the 68th session of the Indian History Congress held on 28-30 December 2007 and hosted by the University of Delhi.
The IHC founded in 1935 and led by the most illustrious historians of the country such as Shafaat Ahmed, R.C. Majumdar, J.N. Sarkar, S.P. Sen, Tara Chand, A.L. Srivastava, K.S. Lal, P.V. Kane, A.S. Altekar, V.S. Agrawal etc. has earned the prestige of the largest academic forum for serious exchange of information and ideas between historians representing different shades of interpretations and areas of specialisation. On the contrary, this session presented a pathetic picture of a mismanaged, disorganised mela of non-serious participants. Majority of Delhi historians belonging to the JNU, Jamia Milia and even the Delhi University itself were conspicuous by their absence.
The dominance of a small AMU coterie led by Prof Irfan Habib and his presence at the dais on all the important functions and symposiums was indicative of the IHC having been hijacked by a small section of Left historians owing allegiance to the CPM and the CPI. The absence of all the Left historians led by Tanika Sarkar, Prof Sumit Sarkar and Neeladri Bhattacharya etc., who had raised their voice of protest against mass massacres at Singur and Nandigram as well as the whole subaltern group led by Prof Shahid Amin exposed the deep fissures in the camp of the Left historians. Regular visitors like Prof Barun Day and Prof Aniruddha Ray from Bengal chose not to attend this session. Could it be seen as a sign of protest against the dominance of Prof Irfan Habib, who happened to be only âeminentâ historian who, issued a joint statement with Prof. Prabhat Patnaik and his wife Utsa Patnaik in defence of the CPM on Nandigram butchery. Incidentally, it was Prof Habib who had led the protest against Mamata Banerjeeâs visit to the AMU. He has earned the image of an official historian of the CPM. It is because of Prof Habibâs dominance and control over the IHC that his pocket borough The Aligarh Historians Society was allowed to run a parallel show for two days in a symposium on Science and Technology exploiting the prestige, venue and resources of the IHC. Will the IHC allow other private forums of historians also to hold their symposia or seminars during its sessions in the same way? This partisan and discriminatory attitude was visible in the placement of the bookstalls of various publishers also. While the bookstalls of the Leftist publishers, such as Tulika, Three Essays, Left Word and Sahmat etc. all the four in some way or the other related to the CPM group of historians led by Prof Habib, and also the Rahul Foundation of Lucknow were allowed to put their stalls near the main Food Pandal, non-left big publishers like Routledge, Oxford, Low Price Publications etc. were accommodated in a different building, out of sight for most of the delegates.
The dominant position of Prof Habib and his coterie in the IHC became evident when in the General Body meeting in a Resolution condemning the cult of intolerance and violence, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and recent anti-conversion riots in Orissa were mentioned, but Nandigram was deliberately left out.
This overt identification of the IHC with the defender of the Nandigram butchers perhaps led to the dissociation of the two UPA ministers, Arjun Singh, the HRD Minister and Smt. Sheela Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi to keep away from the inaugural function held on December 28, under the pretext that they had to attend an urgent CWC meeting, but according to some newspaper reports âSheela Dikshit had gone to attend the Congress Foundation Day at 10 a.m. and later she went to Vidhan Sabha.â Even the UGC Chairman S. Thorat was absent through out and the Delhi University VC. Prof Deepak Paintal did not take any interest in the IHC beyond his formal presence in the inaugural function.
Lack of management efficiency was glaring. To start with, copies of the precise daily programme, venues of the five sectional meetings as well as the side symposia were not provided to the delegates in their kits at the time of registration. The rooms allotted for paper reading were too small to accommodate all the participants in sectional meetings. The number of papers received for the Ancient, Medival, Archaeology and Countries outside India was very small. Only the Modern India section was flooded with papers and therefore had to be bifurcated into two adding to the chaos and confusion.
In the symposium on âForms of Resistance to Colonial Hegemonyâ held on December 29 evening in the Convocation Hall, two out of the three speakersâProf. Rajatkant Ray of Kolkata and Prof Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Chairman of ICHR publically regretted that they had come to know of the exact wordings of the theme just then. Only the third speaker, of course, Prof. Irfan Habib seemed to have prior information of the theme and therefore had come fully prepared. The political partisanship, which seems to have taken hold of the IHC, exhibited itself in this symposium also. Prof Rajat Kant Ray could not suppress his dismay over the BJP victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and ended his presentation with a public appeal to the delegates to defeat the BJP in the coming 2009 Lok Sabha elections. What a misuse of an academic forum to make an election speech for 2009!
The IHC seems to have gone astray from its original objective of providing a forum for serious discussions on research papers to be submitted by young and old researchers as well as to provide them the benefit of the guidance of senior scholars. Now the main highlights of the session are stolen by the parallel symposiums or memorial lectures etc, while the paper reading has been reduced to a casual side business, where senior scholars are almost absent and young research scholars are expected to rush in with their paper reading within 2 or 3 minutes, without any discussion thereon. Their only satisfaction lies in collecting a certificate of âpaper readingâ at the most prestigious forum which the IHC happens to be.
This session of the IHC was held when the country was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 1857 Revolt and also the birth centenary of Shahid Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev. In this session the nationalist school of historians made a frontal attack on the Leftâs hypocritical position on the 1857 Revolt by circulating a well researched book entitled âDid Moscow play fraud on Marx? The Mystery of Marx-Engels article on 1857â. This book of 112 pages, published by the Historian's Forum, Delhi; was written by Devendra Swarup and serialised in the Organiser weekly from June 10 to December 23, 2007. Priced at Rs. 50/- its copies were made available to IHC delegates at a special price of Rs. 40/- only. Its copies were personally presented to some top left historians. A leaflet giving the main arguments and contents of the book was widely distributed in the session. Media also took note of this book. The Asian Age (December 29) reported it under a seven column heading âRight Historians to challenge Leftists on 1857 warâ. It is to be seen whether the Leftists will break their seven months long silence and offer their explanations to the questions raised in the book about the credibility of their research methodology.
In short, the 68th session of the IHC, shadowed by the CPM-AMU nexus showed that its downward slide is fast but still, it continues to be largest annual congregation of historians from all over the country.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=220&page=16
By Our Correspondent
The dominance of a small AMU coterie led by Prof Irfan Habib and his presence at the dais on all the important functions and symposiums was indicative of the IHC having been hijacked by a small section of Left historians owing allegiance to the CPM and the CPI.
As usual more than one thousand historians, braving the extreme cold of Delhi, came from all over India to attend the 68th session of the Indian History Congress held on 28-30 December 2007 and hosted by the University of Delhi.
The IHC founded in 1935 and led by the most illustrious historians of the country such as Shafaat Ahmed, R.C. Majumdar, J.N. Sarkar, S.P. Sen, Tara Chand, A.L. Srivastava, K.S. Lal, P.V. Kane, A.S. Altekar, V.S. Agrawal etc. has earned the prestige of the largest academic forum for serious exchange of information and ideas between historians representing different shades of interpretations and areas of specialisation. On the contrary, this session presented a pathetic picture of a mismanaged, disorganised mela of non-serious participants. Majority of Delhi historians belonging to the JNU, Jamia Milia and even the Delhi University itself were conspicuous by their absence.
The dominance of a small AMU coterie led by Prof Irfan Habib and his presence at the dais on all the important functions and symposiums was indicative of the IHC having been hijacked by a small section of Left historians owing allegiance to the CPM and the CPI. The absence of all the Left historians led by Tanika Sarkar, Prof Sumit Sarkar and Neeladri Bhattacharya etc., who had raised their voice of protest against mass massacres at Singur and Nandigram as well as the whole subaltern group led by Prof Shahid Amin exposed the deep fissures in the camp of the Left historians. Regular visitors like Prof Barun Day and Prof Aniruddha Ray from Bengal chose not to attend this session. Could it be seen as a sign of protest against the dominance of Prof Irfan Habib, who happened to be only âeminentâ historian who, issued a joint statement with Prof. Prabhat Patnaik and his wife Utsa Patnaik in defence of the CPM on Nandigram butchery. Incidentally, it was Prof Habib who had led the protest against Mamata Banerjeeâs visit to the AMU. He has earned the image of an official historian of the CPM. It is because of Prof Habibâs dominance and control over the IHC that his pocket borough The Aligarh Historians Society was allowed to run a parallel show for two days in a symposium on Science and Technology exploiting the prestige, venue and resources of the IHC. Will the IHC allow other private forums of historians also to hold their symposia or seminars during its sessions in the same way? This partisan and discriminatory attitude was visible in the placement of the bookstalls of various publishers also. While the bookstalls of the Leftist publishers, such as Tulika, Three Essays, Left Word and Sahmat etc. all the four in some way or the other related to the CPM group of historians led by Prof Habib, and also the Rahul Foundation of Lucknow were allowed to put their stalls near the main Food Pandal, non-left big publishers like Routledge, Oxford, Low Price Publications etc. were accommodated in a different building, out of sight for most of the delegates.
The dominant position of Prof Habib and his coterie in the IHC became evident when in the General Body meeting in a Resolution condemning the cult of intolerance and violence, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and recent anti-conversion riots in Orissa were mentioned, but Nandigram was deliberately left out.
This overt identification of the IHC with the defender of the Nandigram butchers perhaps led to the dissociation of the two UPA ministers, Arjun Singh, the HRD Minister and Smt. Sheela Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi to keep away from the inaugural function held on December 28, under the pretext that they had to attend an urgent CWC meeting, but according to some newspaper reports âSheela Dikshit had gone to attend the Congress Foundation Day at 10 a.m. and later she went to Vidhan Sabha.â Even the UGC Chairman S. Thorat was absent through out and the Delhi University VC. Prof Deepak Paintal did not take any interest in the IHC beyond his formal presence in the inaugural function.
Lack of management efficiency was glaring. To start with, copies of the precise daily programme, venues of the five sectional meetings as well as the side symposia were not provided to the delegates in their kits at the time of registration. The rooms allotted for paper reading were too small to accommodate all the participants in sectional meetings. The number of papers received for the Ancient, Medival, Archaeology and Countries outside India was very small. Only the Modern India section was flooded with papers and therefore had to be bifurcated into two adding to the chaos and confusion.
In the symposium on âForms of Resistance to Colonial Hegemonyâ held on December 29 evening in the Convocation Hall, two out of the three speakersâProf. Rajatkant Ray of Kolkata and Prof Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Chairman of ICHR publically regretted that they had come to know of the exact wordings of the theme just then. Only the third speaker, of course, Prof. Irfan Habib seemed to have prior information of the theme and therefore had come fully prepared. The political partisanship, which seems to have taken hold of the IHC, exhibited itself in this symposium also. Prof Rajat Kant Ray could not suppress his dismay over the BJP victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and ended his presentation with a public appeal to the delegates to defeat the BJP in the coming 2009 Lok Sabha elections. What a misuse of an academic forum to make an election speech for 2009!
The IHC seems to have gone astray from its original objective of providing a forum for serious discussions on research papers to be submitted by young and old researchers as well as to provide them the benefit of the guidance of senior scholars. Now the main highlights of the session are stolen by the parallel symposiums or memorial lectures etc, while the paper reading has been reduced to a casual side business, where senior scholars are almost absent and young research scholars are expected to rush in with their paper reading within 2 or 3 minutes, without any discussion thereon. Their only satisfaction lies in collecting a certificate of âpaper readingâ at the most prestigious forum which the IHC happens to be.
This session of the IHC was held when the country was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 1857 Revolt and also the birth centenary of Shahid Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev. In this session the nationalist school of historians made a frontal attack on the Leftâs hypocritical position on the 1857 Revolt by circulating a well researched book entitled âDid Moscow play fraud on Marx? The Mystery of Marx-Engels article on 1857â. This book of 112 pages, published by the Historian's Forum, Delhi; was written by Devendra Swarup and serialised in the Organiser weekly from June 10 to December 23, 2007. Priced at Rs. 50/- its copies were made available to IHC delegates at a special price of Rs. 40/- only. Its copies were personally presented to some top left historians. A leaflet giving the main arguments and contents of the book was widely distributed in the session. Media also took note of this book. The Asian Age (December 29) reported it under a seven column heading âRight Historians to challenge Leftists on 1857 warâ. It is to be seen whether the Leftists will break their seven months long silence and offer their explanations to the questions raised in the book about the credibility of their research methodology.
In short, the 68th session of the IHC, shadowed by the CPM-AMU nexus showed that its downward slide is fast but still, it continues to be largest annual congregation of historians from all over the country.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=220&page=16