In response to ‘Heroes and charlatans’

Being one of the most vocal proponents of Hindutva ideology, Swapan Dasgupta finds it necessary to take up the cudgel on behalf of the backward looking ‘charlatans’ of sangh parivar & history, as usual, remained his favourite battleground. Dasgupta & his ilk first tried hard to capture the centrestage of history writing in India. When, the RSS “historians” dismal quality of history writing got exposed, like a bad workman, pamphleteers like Dasgupta started quarrelling with their tools i.e. the history writing itself. His columns in The Telegraph bear enough evidence of this new design.

Dasgupta questioned the “priorities & pre-occupations of the professional historians”, whose aim is to make history scientific. And, that, in Dasgupta’s opinion, robbed history of its glamour & splendour. This reveals a basic inadequacy in Dasgupta’s understanding since history is primarily based on facts. A historian can only choose his facts backed by evidence. Under no circumstances can he manufacture it, which unfortunately has become the priority & preoccupation of Saffron pamphleteers. Making history scientific is not to deny great individuals their rightful place in it but to discard the custom of fallaciously glorifying kings & queens in the history books. An historian is not only a mere chronicler of lives of Dasgupta’s ‘actual men & women’ but also an explorer of facts so as to offer a ringside view of social, cultural & political life of the bygone era. 

History, like every subject, has an academic core, which not only deals with form but also ponder over its content. However, historians aspire to accomplish something more as Eric Hobsbawm pointed out – “What goes into school textbooks and politicians’ speeches about the past, the material for writers of fiction, makers of TV programmes and videos, comes ultimately from historians.” Hence, novel by novelists on past occurrences is not in conflict with real history books by historians as both of them cohabited since time immemorial. An intelligent reader is capable of recognizing the raison d’çtre of their separate existence. Expecting an Amar Chitra katha reader to comprehend A.L. Basham’s Studies in Indian History & culture is as absurd as every Harry Potter fan finding Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind extraordinary. The real threat to liberal history writing does not originate from the academic left but from those who puts absolute & unquestioned belief of ‘their culture’ over evidence from carbon dating, mitochondrial DNA & archaeological analysis of pottery.

Finally, dumbing down is a very different kind of threat not just to history writing but also to every serious social & cultural activity. To promote history & its analysis as easy fun sends wrong signals & attracts people to history for the wrong reasons. Real history is much more challenging and therefore fascinating. But, like classical music or quantum physics, worth the effort. The so-called ‘science through game shows’ could not thwart the declining interest in basic scientific research in India as students who were promised lot of ‘entertainment’ fled off once they face the reality. Dasgupta’s creation of non-existent philosophical problems with history writing is actually a smokescreen for further mischief by the saffronites. These are ‘pseudo-intellectual’ attempts to destroy the role of scientific evidences in history writing, to blur the distinction between fact & fiction and above all to indulge in fantasy & fanaticism while manufacturing Indian history.

 

Kolkata, September 12, 2005

written in response to the article ‘Heroes & Charlatans – http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050909/asp/opinion/story_5217251.asp

 

 Debt : ‘Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder’ by Richard Dawkins, 1998 ;     Boston : Houghton Mifflin