One of the famous English Novelist George Orwell’s quotes “Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” This quote is so apt in case of Indian History.

History is the study of the past which is formed on collective memory. Family history is the story of who we are, where we come from, it helps us compare our present and future possibly to understand where we are headed. Nothing is more mind boggling than learning and discovering more about our ancestors, celebrating family traditions, embracing our culture, and understanding our roots.

Our national history makes us more resilient because it is essential for all of us in understanding ourselves and the world around us. There is a history of every field and topic; from medicine, music, art, education, architecture, fashion, food, religion and many more facets of life. To know and understand history is absolutely necessary, even though the results of historical study are not as visible as they are expected to be.  

Sri Adrishya Kadasiddeshwar Swami of Kaneri Mutt while speaking in Vishwa Hindu Parishad has said that history textbooks across the country did not contain the actual account of Indian history and he has urged the Union and State governments to change history books to reflect on Indian values and record the right kind of history.

Many historians say it’s a myth that India’s freedom struggle was non-violent. India’s founding story deliberates upon an unrealistic national philosophy simply for political ideology. This unrealistic story has wavered our national spirit.

Historians have manipulated the very facts; hard facts are brushed under the carpet. Wrong people are made our national heroes while real heroes are not given their due credit in our history text books. India represents a core Asian tradition as well as one of the oldest strands in the fabric of world civilization. Indian religions, philosophies, art, literature, and social systems have played a fundamental role in defining the human heritage, and they merit a proper discussion in a world history survey. Why was our rich heritage brushed aside? 

I watched Arnab Goswami’s discussion with Sanjeev Sanyal on Republic Television on 8^th Jan 2023. Sanyal is an Indian economist and a famous historian. He is a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, and has helped prepare six editions of the Economic Survey of India starting in 2017.  Arnab and Sanjeev Sanyal were discussing gist of Sanyal’s recent book “Revolutionaries” published by Harper Collins.                   

He writes in his book that the history of India’s struggle for freedom is usually told from the perspective of the non-violence movement. How can we just brush off the facts of armed resistance to colonial occupation? Could it ever be possible without bloodshed? Sanyal  names Vinayak Savarkar, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose, Bagha Jatin, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose who were most prominent and contributed significantly to the freedom struggle. are still widely remembered. Their story is almost always presented as acts of individual heroism and not as part of a wider movement that had any overarching strategy or significant impact on the overall struggle for Independence. Many great freedom fighters have fought, lost lives leaving little trace of their heroic deeds. We the people have forgotten many heroes and their struggles, especially among the peasant and tribal populations. 

Sanyal says that the revolutionaries were part of a large network that sustained armed resistance against the British Empire for half a century. Besides India, they created a wide network in Britain, France, Thailand, Germany, Persia, Russia, Italy, Ireland, the United States, Japan and Singapore. At various junctures, they received official support and recognition from the governments of some of these countries. Even the internal dynamics of the Indian National Congress of the time cannot be understood without the revolutionaries, who enjoyed widespread support within the organization. India’s freedom struggle was not a small-scale movement of naive individual heroism but one that involved a large number of extraordinary young men and women who were connected in multiple ways to each other and to the evolving events of their times. It was a glorious and extensive event panning over almost seven decades.

As an appreciator of history, I always feel dejected the way the Congress downplayed Sardar Patel’s struggle in implementing strategies and his stanch attempts to integrate the princely states into the Indian federation.  In true sense injustice was done to the ‘Iron Man of India.’ And I always feel India’s destiny would have changed if Sardar Patel would be our first Prime Minister because he rose from the grassroot level and he knew the nation. He was not anglicized. 

I profoundly agree with George Orwell’s quote. And, it is so obvious that the Britishers twisted history of India as a tool for demoralizing the natives. Since almost all our leaders in pre independence era were educated under the British system. The prejudiced history had tremendous impact on the psyche of our leaders such as Jawaharlala Nehru. I suppose
while learning slanted history he developed an inferior view of the country.

The British twisted the history of India by misinterpreting the outline; in a letter dated December 16, 1868 the famous Indologist Max Muller wrote to the Duke of Argyll, the then Secretary of State of India, ‘India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again and that second conquest should be a conquest by education’. Please try to understand how Britishers planned our downfall and to a great extent they succeeded. Prof. Max Muller was not just a philosopher; he was also an examiner for the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination. Teaching the Indian students falsified history played a great part in this ‘second conquest’. 

Conclusion

Recognising unsung heroes is an essential step towards restoring the historical narrative of India. The story of non-violence does not go well it is denialism. Ironically India’s romancing of non-violence as an effective political instrument has crimped national security policy since independence. The country felled to nonviolence during the Sino-India war in 1962. Luckily the burden of its idealistic national philosophy has changed since past decade.

Our past cannot be undone. History is not only about lauding past events or heroes. It is also about understanding why something that troubles us today has happened in a particular period and has been haunting since that period. Why we Indians allowed Mughals and British rule us for centuries? The answer is we were dominated because Hindu rulers were never united.

Our heritage is all that has been passed to us by previous generations. Heritage refers to something inherited from the past. The word has several connotations. Natural heritage refers to, an inheritance of fauna and flora, geology, landscape and landforms, and other natural resources. Cultural heritage refers to the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society – man-made heritage. Food heritage refers to recipes and ingredients and procedures of cooking, industrial heritage refers to monuments from industrial culture. Virtual heritage refers to an ICT (information and communication technology) work dealing with cultural heritage. Inheritance of physical goods after the death of individual; of the physical or non-physical things inherited. Heredity refers to biological inheritance of physical characteristics. Birthright refers to something inherited due to the place, time, or circumstances of someone’s birth. And, Kinship refers to the relationship between entities that share a genealogical origin.

It is all around us. It is in the houses we live in, our educational institutions, our places of work, the transport we use, our places of worship, our parks, our gardens, beaches, the places we go to for our social life, in our language, literature, music, sports, in the ground beneath our feet, in the shape of our landscape and in the placing and arrangement of our fields, villages, towns and cities. Heritage is also found in our moveable possessions, from our national treasures in our museums, to our own family businesses, and in the intangible such as our history, traditions, legends and language. While all that we inherit is strictly our heritage, the term has become synonymous with the places, objects, knowledge and skills. I strongly feel that we must learn to value our inheritance for reasons beyond their mere utility and their functional use.

This is because each heritage is unique and exceptional; it is the responsibility of the current generation to preserve it. It’s so sad that due to us – the citizens of this nation and our government’s sloppy attitude we have lost a lot of historical, geographical, cultural heritage. This clearly shows we lack respect for our history. In order to build a great future every nation must connect with its past. Our past is loaded with brilliance, heroism, ethnicity, empires, inventions, also a lot of suffering and sorrows. The peaceful native people were massacred and virtually wiped out by invaders. Our history has experienced slavery in its most brutal and oppressive form. I have this strong belief that all generations born after independence have taken governance, rules and regulations, law & order for granted. They grew up in a very different world where a transition began towards Western culture.

We achieved independence but forgot the freedom fighters, we won so many wars but forgot the warriors, we believe in equality today but forgot those great rebellions who struggled for it,   and we are enjoying industrialization today but forgot the first generation of industrialists who had to bear the brunt of the Britishers; who were not given good treatment and equal chances. We have some of best musical inheritance, paintings, artifacts which we are hardly bothered about. We are so callus to not even make a mention of all those mammoth contributions made by thousands of people to create a powerhouse economy in our country due to which we can boast of many other laudable achievements today.

Our national accomplishments are the result of long journeys and numerous processes. It is these processes and journeys that we have no detailed records of and the very few persons who still remember may not be around much longer. There were long and sometimes painful steps that had to be taken to create the country we have today.

India is home to some great traditions. What are they? The first is spirituality of India. Nowhere else in the world will you find such profound and deep spirituality that can win over the hearts of people and make them blossom from within. The second is Ayurveda, it is such a unique tradition in which the medicines have no side effects, and only work to protect and enhance our mind and body. The third is Yoga; regardless of the country, people all over world are rapidly adopting and incorporating Yoga in their lives. The fourth tradition is music. India is home to so many different types and schools of music. I don’t think in any other part of world you will find such a rich diversity in music and dance.

The other mentionable heritage is of the language and dialect. You will find that after every 200-300 kilometers, the language or the dialect changes; the music and dance changes; the local culture and beliefs change. You will not find such diversity anywhere else in the world. Music, dance and drama (full of Navarasas) are inseparable from our culture. How can we forget our food? India has a fantastic basket of variety of recipes across the country. Next is our dressing and attire; you will see such a variety of clothes and dressing styles, and even the opulence of ornaments and accessories worn along with them. We decorate our idols in temples also with beautiful fabrics and ornaments. Due to such fascinating diversity in all aspects of life Indian tourism stands tall in the world. I have to mention proudly about our Sanskrit language. Do you know that Sanskrit fits the bill to become a computer language? Forbes in 1987 reported that Sanskrit is very suitable to use in computer as a programming language, because of its perfect syntax. Interestingly, Sanskrit has very little room for error as well. We have to take all efforts to nurture and conserve Sanskrit by compulsorily teaching it from primary standards in schools.

Our national anthem mentions about all regions, language, geographical inheritance, natural resources and culture of India and it advocates the people of India to preserve and cultivate its rich cultural heritage.

Albert Einstein said “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”

Max Mueller, German scholar has quoted “If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India”.

Anthropology, as a discipline of Humanities can do quite a lot in treasuring and nurturing our rich heritage. Universities can take some positive steps to stimulate Anthropology branch with adequate facilities and infrastructure; so that many youngsters opt for this branch of study. Besides collecting and preserving the narrative of our past, we should also be proud of it. We lack any real nationalism and pride. This is ruthlessly demonstrated in the way we treat our environment, how shabbily we have kept our heritage monuments, forts, architectural sites. We are very poor because we have not preserved our rich heritage.

Ignorance and shame regarding our own country is not only limited to the younger generations, the older generations are no less to hold closer the western culture with much fervor. Look at any Indian soap operas – they project unreasonable and unsound culture and customs.

I feel unless we wake up from our deep slumber to accept who we are, our authenticity, and begin to take pride in it, we may lose whatever little inheritance is left with us. We should take enormous efforts to maintain our uniqueness of heritage. We cannot displace our past, and if do so, we will become a bland and soulless country.