07-01-2009, 09:18 PM
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<!--QuoteBegin-"brihaspati"+-->QUOTE("brihaspati")<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Urdu and regional language docs around the 1857 period were neglected I think primarily because of the Marxist ideological straightjacket stemming from Marx's hilarious commentary on the first "war of Independence".
Regime supported Indian historians have always felt uncomfortable with 1857. It has many connotations dangerous for all succeeding Indian regimes.
Marx's comments stifled Indian Marxist historians because they could not decide whether 1857 was "good" or "bad" - bad because it spread colonialism, and good because it overturned "feudalism", and like Alexander's supposed invasion, provided with great relief for the historians, a context and connection to the more "understood" and "comfortable" Marxist-European linear schema of historical development.
Even after Independence, GOI would be uncomfortable with the "mutiny" aspect of the the 1857 military, and I think we will recognize this discomfort even on this forum. The whole gamut of constructions of "martial races" actually based on who remained loyal to licking British boots, perhaps continues in their long shadows even on to the current system - thereby possibly causing discomfort.Â
The possibility of collaboration between supposedly unmergable faith communities against a GOI perceived as the common enemy is also a dangerous portent.
Then there comes the political ramifications and merry confusions on images of even current political descendants of forces who took an active role. If you focus too much on 1857 as an attempt at "liberation" against a "foreign" occupying force, what happens to the "shining-sun" Scindhia who carries the name of someone who definitely collaborated with and helped this "foreign occupying" force?
I think it should be obvious why it took a certain Savarkar to portray 1857 as a "war of independence", and what happened subsequently to that Savarkar.
Access to these Urdu records, during my attempts, were stymied because, I was not a "professional historian". I had to be "supervised" by an "acceptable professional historian" if I wanted to get access, which I refused. Western journalists, and historians ofcourse even then had easy access. But I have not seen much coming out of their pens - probably they shied away from writing what they found because it would do their regimes no good at all.
Even, recently, with the supposed Glasnost in UK historians, just try to raise two issues - the triangular Atlantic trade and its role in capital extraction and jumpstarting the so-called "industrial revolution", and the role of exploitation of child labour in British capital formation.
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X-posted...
<!--QuoteBegin-"brihaspati"+-->QUOTE("brihaspati")<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Urdu and regional language docs around the 1857 period were neglected I think primarily because of the Marxist ideological straightjacket stemming from Marx's hilarious commentary on the first "war of Independence".
Regime supported Indian historians have always felt uncomfortable with 1857. It has many connotations dangerous for all succeeding Indian regimes.
Marx's comments stifled Indian Marxist historians because they could not decide whether 1857 was "good" or "bad" - bad because it spread colonialism, and good because it overturned "feudalism", and like Alexander's supposed invasion, provided with great relief for the historians, a context and connection to the more "understood" and "comfortable" Marxist-European linear schema of historical development.
Even after Independence, GOI would be uncomfortable with the "mutiny" aspect of the the 1857 military, and I think we will recognize this discomfort even on this forum. The whole gamut of constructions of "martial races" actually based on who remained loyal to licking British boots, perhaps continues in their long shadows even on to the current system - thereby possibly causing discomfort.Â
The possibility of collaboration between supposedly unmergable faith communities against a GOI perceived as the common enemy is also a dangerous portent.
Then there comes the political ramifications and merry confusions on images of even current political descendants of forces who took an active role. If you focus too much on 1857 as an attempt at "liberation" against a "foreign" occupying force, what happens to the "shining-sun" Scindhia who carries the name of someone who definitely collaborated with and helped this "foreign occupying" force?
I think it should be obvious why it took a certain Savarkar to portray 1857 as a "war of independence", and what happened subsequently to that Savarkar.
Access to these Urdu records, during my attempts, were stymied because, I was not a "professional historian". I had to be "supervised" by an "acceptable professional historian" if I wanted to get access, which I refused. Western journalists, and historians ofcourse even then had easy access. But I have not seen much coming out of their pens - probably they shied away from writing what they found because it would do their regimes no good at all.
Even, recently, with the supposed Glasnost in UK historians, just try to raise two issues - the triangular Atlantic trade and its role in capital extraction and jumpstarting the so-called "industrial revolution", and the role of exploitation of child labour in British capital formation.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->