Teaching History: new approaches need new books

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1 Teaching History: new approaches need new books With the collapse of Aryan myth and the invasion model, we need new approaches to teaching Indian history to children. And any teaching of history must include the role of Hinduism in history. The two books discussed below take a major step in that direction. New era in history writing N.S. Rajaram When India became independent in 1947, it had outstanding historians like R.C. Majumdar, A.K. Narain, Jadunath Sircar and many more. Also the late K.M. Munshi founded the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and initiated a major history project under History and Culture of the Indian People under the direction of Dr. Majumdar. All signs pointed to the beginning of a golden era in historical research. But what happened was the exact opposite: instead of taking their cue from these pioneers a new clique of historians with prominent colonial-marxist and anti-hindu leanings used their political influence to gain control of the Indian history establishment. Their agenda was denial of the greatness of India s achievements in toto. This they did beginning with the perpetuation of colonial impositions like the Aryan Invasion Theory that denies any Indian achievements including the Vedas and whitewash the record of destruction of the Islamic period. The result has been a half-century Dark Age in historical scholarship. The depths to which these Eminent Historians have taken history can be judged from the fact its leading light on ancient India especially Vedic India for fifty years, Romila Thapar does not know a word of Sanskrit! Still the political influence that she (and her colleagues) commanded was such that colonial-missionary sponsored Aryan invasion theory (favored by the Nazis also) was her main contribution. This long after archaeology and other sciences had discredited both the notion of the Aryan race and the invasion. Speaking before the Kerala History Association, Kochi on 18 Dec. 2005, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, then President and perhaps the most respected intellectual in India observed: The best historians present us with descriptions and analyses of the past that make unfamiliar times and places somehow comprehensible. In seeking to penetrate the veil of the past, we end up by studying how other individuals and societies dealt with the practical and existential problems at least related to our own. After this sage observation, Dr. Kalam came specifically to Indian history and noted: My observation is that in India many have written history of India [coming] both from the Indian historians recently and by those who had conquered us. So far, even 58 years after Independence, the dogmas, rituals, systems and norms of the historical past, imposed by the last

2 millennium of invasion and conquest, still continue to condition our minds. Most tellingly he emphasized: We tend more to conform to the past, rather than think in true freedom and create a future, free from the pain of the past. Now time has come, in the 21st century, we need new breed of historians who can make the past meet the present and create the future More than a century before Dr. Kalam, Swami Vivekananda told a group of youngsters (1891): Study Sanskrit, but along with it study Western sciences as well. Learn accuracy, my boys, study and labor so that the time will come when you can put our history on a scientific basis The histories of our country written by English writers cannot but be weakening to our minds, for they talk only of our downfall. How can foreigners, who understand very little of our manners and customs, or our religion and philosophy, write faithful and unbiased histories of India? He then went on to observe: Naturally many false notions and wrong inferences have found their way into them. Nevertheless they have shown us how to proceed making researches into our ancient history. Now it is for us to strike out an independent path of historical research for ourselves, to study the Vedas and Puranas and the ancient annals (Itihasas) of India, and from them make it your sadhana (disciplined endeavor) to write accurate, sympathetic and soulinspiring history of India. It is for Indians to write Indian history. Without resorting to polemics, Vivekananda exhorted his youthful audience to never cease to labor until you have revived the glorious past of India in the consciousness of the people. That will be the true national education, and with its advancement, a true national spirit will be awakened. What he left unsaid was that such an approach would need them to develop new tools of historical research leading to new methodologies

3 Historical method One scholar who appears to have taken this message to heart is Smt Kamlesh Kapur, an educator of great experience both in India and the U.S. She has put her knowledge, experience and the spirit invoked by Dr. Kalam and Swami Vivekananda into practice in producing the book Portraits of a Nation: History of Ancient India. The result is a valuable book not only for teaching history but one that can serve as a possible guide for future writers. In addition to giving the facts of history as can best be reconstructed the author provides details of methodology used and historiography. A book along these lines should have been and could have been written fifty years ago but was not. The reasons are several, but two need to be highlighted because they have persisted. First, there was the Nehruvian feudal establishment; and pandering to his tastes and prejudices became the route to recognition and career success. This meant that the views advanced in Jawaharlal Nehru s amateurish and entirely Eurocentric work Discovery of India became entrenched in history books as the authorized view. To go with this, a whole generation of historians beginning with Romila Thapar and R.S. Sharma were trained by a single British professor A.L. Basham of the School of Oriental Studies in London. Basham was more a religious scholar than a historian or archaeologist and his legacy has persisted. Trend setting history book In pursuit of their goals, this clique has not hesitated to deny and even falsify evidence. A prime example that had tragic consequences was its denial and falsification of evidence for the existence of a prior temple and its destruction beneath the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. This was noted by the judge who severely criticized these scholars for their role. In its judgment on the long-standing Ram Janmabhoomi dispute, the Allahabad High Court flayed the role played by

4 several witnesses including Thapar s protégé Shereen Ratnagar. She was forced to admit under oath that she had no field experience in archeological excavations in India. Still their hostility bordering on hatred towards their ancestral land and culture is hard to comprehend. They owe everything to India; unlike Indian scientists and professionals, they would be nonentities in the West. Be as it may, Smt Kamlesh Kapur, the author of Portraits of a Nation: History of Ancient India suffers from no such deficiencies. She displays a refreshingly original approach to the sources. For example, she observes that the Vedas, the Rig Veda in particular has been the most faithfully preserved text of the ancient world and hence has suffered the least in terms of interpolations. As a result, we must treat the Vedic records names, dynasties, astronomical statements, etc as the most reliable and accorded the highest priority. This is a valuable insight: it means that statements that seemingly violate our beliefs (like Aryans as nomadic invaders) cannot be dismissed. For example, if the Rig Veda describes a maritime society of rivers, oceans and ships as David Frawley pointed out more than 20 years ago, we cannot ignore it and insist that it was nomadic pastoral. Also to be admired is the author s bold multidisciplinary approach to history by looking at natural history, genetics, and archaeo-astronomy in addition to the usual sources like archaeology and literary records. In fact, some of this material appears for the first time in a textbook (as opposed to articles and research monographs by Oppenheimer, Cavalli-Sforza and this writer). In the process, the author succeeds in building a sound foundation in historiography not only for her book but for future students of Indian history. A particular strength of the book is that its author is no ivory tower academic writing to please her peers but an educationist of great experience who has worked with students and teachers for many years. She has seen the problems and by taking the bull by the horns, produced a book that is at once up to date and pedagogically sound. It is an invaluable source for teaching about ancient India that no school or library should be without.

5 We must also recognize that Indian history cannot be taught by excluding the influence of Hindu dharma on the people and leaders of India. Smt. Kamlesh Kapur has followed up her outstanding book on history with a no less remarkable book on the far more challenging task of teaching the basics of Hinduism. It is challenging because Hinduism is often viewed through the prism of Semitic religions or at best in terms of comparative religion. Both distort and omit the essence while exaggerating issues like monotheism that to a serious student are unimportant if not trivial. The essence of Hinduism is spiritual freedom: it allows the individual to choose what he or she wants to worship and also the mode of worship through action, devotion or knowledge as the Bhagavadgita so beautifully expounds. This is quite unlike in Abrahamaic religions in which both what to worship and how are dictated by an entirely human creation called the Book meant to be enforced by a priesthood. To reduce spiritual freedom to a God-counting exercise in terms of one vs many is to reduce spiritual life to numerology. It is this spiritual freedom that has given the world the vast body of literature both spiritual and secular from the Vedas and the Puranas to philosophic and even scientific works. But such freedom also calls for sound judgment and fine discrimination to separate the real from the illusory and spiritual seeking from empty rhetoric and ritual. This is why the Gayatri Mantra makes dhi (untranslatable, but the basis for an enlightened and discriminating intellect) a central feature in the Hindu tradition. Dhi is central to spiritual seeking, just as dogma is central to Abrahamaic creeds and their theology. A Hindu is not forced to accept anything if the dhi is not convinced. The challenge of teaching this is obvious, but it is one that Kamlesh Kapur meets admirably. The book is organized in the form of teaching modules which teachers will appreciate. The author s vast experience as a teacher has ensured that the book is not just filled with commentaries by ivory tower academics but the wisdom and experience of a thoughtful teacher who has faced and overcome the challenges of dealing with this difficult subject in the classroom. I have seen no book comparable to this for teaching or even learning Hinduism. Her courage in taking on this highly challenging task deserves the highest praise. It was twenty years ago that this writer began as an outsider to question what was then the dominant paradigm in the historiography of ancient India: Indian civilization beginning with the Vedas and the Sanskrit language was of foreign origin brought into India by outside invaders

6 called Aryans. Today that model lies in shambles though its advocates are resorting to various rhetorical devices to save it (and their reputations). But we are still some distance from having these new findings introduced into textbooks and classrooms. The author of these two books has shown us how this can be done and also given us the tools to carry forward the inspiration and insight of sages like Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda.