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 8th 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.
