Historian, historical politician, political historian, and historian politician – how do they differ with each other?

Historian, historical politician, political historian, and historian politician – how do they differ with each other?

Historians and corruption: Based on court case laws, complaints lodged at the police station and other sources, cases of corruption are also noted. This is mainly related to the students who complain that he is not getting reservation benefits, stipends, scholarships, grants etc. Many times, such issues are sorted out at the student, departmental level, so that it is compromised among themselves. When it is elevated, they go to Principal / Vice-Chancellor, committees and then, gets settled. Internal committees are formed and sorted out and settled. M.Phil / PhD students, theses presentation–related issues, sometimes may go to court. Thus, from the court cases only, the details are gathered and briefed here without mentioning the names of the students and the faculty involved.

Historians, courts and judicial judgments: Pro K. Rajayyan has gone to court to recognize the “1800 rebellion” as a part of 1857-Independence movement. Like Rebellion in Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu in 1755, Rebellion in Dhalbum, Bengal in 1769, Rebellion in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh in 1778, Rebellion in Rangapur and Dinajpur, Bengal in 1783 and Rebellions in Orissa and Coastal Andhra in 1794, he argued it should be included.  ICHR documents say that he received some grant, he submitted the papers and the result is not known[1]. Thus, whether his volume published by ICHR came out or not – is not known, however, his book came out published by one private publisher. Like any other historian, Romila Thapar had been a member of the Prachar Bharathi Board till 1999 and of course, she gets many-many positions from the foreign countries also. She used to file petitions in the courts supporting the Leftist ideologists[2]. Barun De had been a member of NCERT, State Heritage Committee (West Bengal), etc. , and vociferous in supporting BM (Babri Masjid) cause.

How the eminent, elite and emeritus historians deposed before the courts in the case of BM-RJB case and get exposed: Many “independent experts”, historians and archaeologists appeared on behalf of the Sunni Waqf Board but in the end, the special bench of three judges unanimously dismissed the objections raised by them about the ruins of a temple under the demolished structure. Supriya Verma, Suvira Jaiswal, Shereen Ratnagar, D. Mandal, Suraj Bhan, R. S. Sharma, M. Athar Ali, D. N. Jha, Shireen Musavi, and others posed as “experts” and deposed before the courts giving manufactured or manipulated details as evidences[3]. It was Justice Sudhir Agarwal who put their claims to judicial scrutiny. Interestingly many of these “experts” had deposed twice in the court — once before the ASI excavations and another after[4]. Before the excavations, they asserted that there was no temple beneath the disputed structure and after it was dug up they began to claim that what was unearthed was a mosque or stupa. Not only that, they found themselves withering under judicial scrutiny in spite of writing signed articles and issuing pamphlets and long public letters. The judge asked pointed queries which might have never been asked by their students. The cross-examination covers several pages and gripping reading. It shows the levels to which our academics have fallen and become handmaidens of the political machinery.

Historians, historian politician, historical politician and political historian: Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Masaryk, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mikhail Gorbachev are mentioned as “historian politicians.” Now, there have been more political historians than historian politicians, as interestingly, though English allows using “historical politician” in the context, historians do not use it. Ironically, “historical politician” makes him hysterical, but, “historian politician” makes him comfortable. Till the World Wars, the historians had to obey to the rulers or the Church, as otherwise, they were killed and in some cases, they escaped to save themselves from getting killed to other countries. The politicians with a close interest in history were often more interested in power than in wisdom, and thus, their histories have been hysterical. The category of “political historians” rule roost to talk anything and historians have to accept and authorize, thus, histories are written accordingly. So naturally, they have to assert that historians do not require objectivity.

Historians, reality and objectivity: The reality of the social, economic, political, fiscal and related issues and problems have to be sorted out, solved and made conducive to all common people. The intellectual historians have to tell honestly, as to how the 1947 – one dollar = one rupee economic condition was changed. Even up to 1980, it was one dollar = 10 rupees. Generally, in India, the production by mass has been the criterion than the mass production. That is why, the Indian society survived and survives also, but, now, artificial infrastructure and logistics have been created to force them to come to the wholesale market, cold storage and other techniques that are not required for Indian conditions. The fundamental “Roti, Kapda aur Makhan = the food, dress and house,” have been taken care of them by themselves without expecting from the government. The entire agriculture, textile production, metal industries and other related production have been village and rural oriented and thus, there has not been any problem.

Historians cannot forget the tradition, heritage, culture and civilization of India: As the urbanization has started increasing, encroaching water bodies with the disappearance of tanks (including temple tanks), lakes and rivers (the kudals = where two or more rivers join together). The remote sensing and other scientific studies bring out the details that cannot be ignored by the historians. As exports of leather finished products, knitted garments, yarn and other goods increased, they only started affecting the water bodies polluting, besides the encroachments pointed out. Thus, during the last 1300 years of rule of the Moghuls and the European companies, the production and manufacturing processes have been changed. As India started depending upon other countries, particularly European and American, the dollar-rupee, pound-rupee, euro-rupee parities crept in and the rupee value started coming down. Thus, the Indian goods and services have become cheaper for European and American companies.

The modern economy and the ideology of historians coincide with dates also leading to harm for common people: During 1960s industrialization, modernization and urbanization started affecting the real Indian economy and the 1980s LPG (Liberalization-Privatization-Globalization) perhaps killed the crawling economy. However, historians have been shying to tell the truth, instead, they interpret in terms of ideology and induce the village and rural communities to fight against the government. Here only, the anti-national aspect comes into play, taking it to separatism. Therefore, history should not be misused to divide people, but to help them to understand the real past and preserve the past. That cannot be interpreted as “nationalism,” and kill the spirit of the common people.  As they use such English words and expressions, jingoism, chauvinism, medieval mindset, sectarianism, communalism, and so on, they try to kill the real patriotism.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

17-02-2022

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[1] 1. Before 1857: K. Rajayan: Rs 12,000; Submitted but not traceable.

2. 1857–1885: S.R. Mehrotra: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

3. 1885–1886: Bipan Chandra: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

4. 1896–98: Not assigned

5. 1899–1902: B.R. Grover: Rs 12,000; Submitted and published.

6. 1902–1903: Not assigned.

7. 1903–1905: Not assigned.

8. 1905–1907: Sumit Sarkar: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

9. 1907–1909: Sumit Sarkar: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

10. 1910–1915: M.N. Das: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

11. 1915–1919: T.K. Ravindran: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

12. 1919–1920: V.N. Dutta: Rs 12,000; Submitted and published.

13. 1920–1922: Sita Ram Singh: Rs 12,000, Submitted, under production.

14. 1922–1924: Sreekumaran Nair: Rs 12,000; Submitted and published.

15. 1924–1926: Amba Prasad: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

16. 1927–1929: Bimal Prasad: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

17. 1930–1931: Bimal Prasad: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

18. 1932–1934: Bipan Chandra: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

19. 1934–1937: Gopal Krishna: Rs 12,000; Not submitted.

[2]  Recently, her name figured in the Elagar Parishad arrest case. Supreme Court of India – RomilaThapar vs Union Of India on 28 September, 2018, Author: A Khanwilkar –  REPORTABLE,  

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA,

CRIMINAL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION,

WRIT PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO. 260 OF 2018

                         Romila Thapar and Ors.                         ….. Petitioner(s)

:Versus:

                         Union of India and Ors.                        ….Respondent(s)

https://indiankanoon.org/doc/52834611/

[3] The judgment gives the details as to how they manipulated and caught in the court through their “quoted-quoted” methodology, etc.

[4] And these very ‘historians’ are cited as witnesses in the pleadings filed by the Sunni Waqf Board in the courts which are considering the Ayodhya matter –

Witness number 63: R.S. Sharma;

Witness number 64: Suraj Bhan;

Witness number 65: D.N. Jha;

Witness number 66: Romila Thapar;

Witness number 67: Athar Ali (since deceased); …

Witness number 70: Irfan Habib;

Witness number 71: Shireen Moosvi, also from Aligarh Muslim University;

Witness number 72: B.N. Pandey (since deceased); …

Witness number 74: R.L. Shukla; …

Witness number 82: Sushil Srivastava; …

Witness number 95: K.M. Shrimali;

Witness number 96: Suveera Jayaswal; …

Witness number 99: Satish Chandra; …

Witness number 101: Sumit Sarkar;

Witness number 102: Gyanendra Pandey; …