| Interview given to Business Standard. |
Sir,
you have been a target of a concerted campaign by a section of historians and
academicians. The allegation against you is that you have been appointed to
appropriate history to suit RSS’s notion of history. Even Amartya Sen had said
that you have not done any worthwhile historical research. What do you have to
say about it?
A : Prof Amartya Sen’s coin, ‘Argumentative
Indian’, very well applies to the present generation of Indian intellectual
class. Ancient Indian intellectual tradition was based on Tarka wherein two discussants would put forth before the assembly
of scholars what all they know about the contested topic supported by pramana. The merits and demerits of this
intellectual exercise were assessed by the collegium and one would gracefully acknowledge
the weakness of his proposition. The judgement was objective and impartial. You
can take the example of Sankaracarya and Mandana Mishra where Mandana Mishra’s wife was the judge. Mandana
Mishra accepted his defeat, took to sanyasa
and became Sankara’s disciple.
The present class of ‘argumentative intellectuals’ thrive by condemning others
and their views. Their arguments mostly follow their political ideologues. The
idea of ‘appropriating history’ is
generated from the idea of political aggrandizement. One becomes vocal and
vociferous when he imagines a threat to his holding. Not being an ‘
Argumentative Indian’, I might have disappointed Prof Amartya Sen and the like.
Their disillusionment is unbearable to them that they set aside minimum decency
and courtesy to condemn the other without atleast knowing about him. However I
thank them for showing interest in me and I take their comments in good stead
for my introspection.
In
one of the interviews, you have said that there was a need to look history from
an Indian perspective. What is the problem with the Marxist or for that matter
Western narrative or approach to historiography? Why at all there is a
need for an Indian perspective?
A: Your question itself says that we have been
‘looking’ at our history from the Western window. The post independent
historiography till now is dominated by the Marxist thought. All our historical
perspectives are based on the Western theories on society, economy and culture.
We can easily identify the birth of these social theories in the ‘Enlightenment
Era’ in Europe. These theories and understandings, are, thus, based on the
European experience limited to a few centuries. Even if we apply empiricist
methods of Social Sciences to the historical studies, the wider sample is
always desirable. In such case, India offers a huge corpus of inscriptions,
artefacts and monuments dating back to atleast 4 millennia. The much developed
orature backed by continuous, well developed civilization, stable society,
prosperous economy and diversified religious practices, profound knowledge
systems and philosophies from times unknown must be more welcome for an
unbiased historian to work on. Let us see history as it stands before us
without using a coloured glass in the guise of ‘proper’ perspective. General people believe that
intellectuals would lead them to know what is/was real. We historians have
greater responsibility than a general intellectual.
According
to newspaper reports, there is an effort to push back the antiquity of the
Vedas by some Vedic scholars. Is ICHR associated with this project? What
is your idea of the antiquity of the Vedas?
A: Vedic studies is not a recent phenomenon.
The study of Vedas has been continuous since times much before our ‘historical’
period has begun. We need not try to ‘push’ its antiquity backwards. The
efforts of dating Vedic literature by the Western scholars and English knowing
Indian scholars are also known to us from atleast two centuries. In the
pre-independence period, the
problem drew the attention of both Colonial and National intellectuals and in
the post independent period the Marxist school took the brief from the Colonial
and Imperialist school coming in the way of every sincere effort to find the
truth. Not only archaeologists, many other scientists belonging to disciplines,
geology, anthropology, astronomy etc have attempted in their ways to find the
antiquity of ancient civilization in India. A scientist searching for truth
must be open minded to accept what comes out in his research. The present trend
of hypothetical research and trying to justify our own hypothesis does harm historical studies. A historian should
allow himself to be led by his data. He should not resort to select data to
confirm his opinion. Marxist school starts with the assumption that the present
is definitely better that the past. This determinism conditions the writing of
history. While Marx could substantiate this linear progression with his
understanding of European past, India offers a totally different picture where
astonishing culture and civilization coexisted with uncivilized but cultured
tribal life each thriving in peaceful coexistence. Civilisation too had several
levels of development
simultaneously at several pockets. The same phenomenon still continues in India
while the West has gone for a uniform pattern. These aspects of Indian life and
culture offers great inspiration and scope to the present genre of historians
to work on.
This
move will bring back the debate on the Aryan invasion theory. What is your view
on the Aryan invasion theory?
The fathers of this theory have denounced it
after they realized during the Second World War that they burnt their fingers.
But it was continued in Indian intellectual circles further for some years in
the post independent era but they too had to moderate the theory as ‘Aryan
Migration’. Colonial mind is
deeply entrenched in Indian
psyche that they some how want to keep it alive for
purposes better known to them.