The Maharashtra State Education Board has removed the chapters about the Sultanate period and the Mughals, limiting Akbar to three lines, in history textbooks. The history of India there is now Maharashtra-centric. Uttar Pradesh is doing something similar. Other states are teaching their own versions of history.
History is every politician’s favourite whipping boy. The Congress had its own coterie of historians who were in power for so long that two generations of Indians studied their distorted history, a leftover of the British Raj. The British broke up Indian history into three sections: a backward 3,500-year ancient Hindu India, a battle-scarred 1,000-year Muslim medieval India and a progressive 200-year modern British period that was given equal space. Studying in the 1960s, that is what I learned. Studying in the 1990s, that is what my sons learned.
The British had a specific goal: to divide Hindus and Muslims and to glorify Rule Britannica. They succeeded very well. Having said that, does it mean states cannot change history textbooks? They can and they should. History in India has been the history of Delhi. But there is an India beyond Delhi.
Let us start with ancient India. Our history books still talk of the Aryan invasion of India without an iota of proof. And of a vertical varna system rather than horizontal jatis. How did the environment destroy the Indus civilisation? Most sites are found along the underground Ghaggar-Hakra paleo channel, which was probably the “mighty Sarasvati”, and so on.
Textbooks still speak of dark skinned Dasas who were defeated by the Aryans, whereas Divodasa and Sudasa were Aryan kings who fought and defeated tribes who attacked from the west and sent them packing. These tribes are still recognisable—Pakhta, Pars, Prithu, Pani (among others)—from the Afghan-Pakistan border region. Then the medieval period. We know all about the medieval invaders of Delhi, but how many people know of the valiant kings who held out against the invaders, like Suheldev of Shravasti and Mularaja, the Chalukyan king of Gujarat? Or about Rajendra Chola who took his navy to conquer Southeast Asia? Or that the Ahom and Gond rulers were never conquered by the Mughals?
And finally the British period.
The railways are hailed as the great gift of the British. But they destroyed our forests and wildlife and impoverished our people. In fact, the British Raj was a time of loot and destruction. We are taught to see this period with rose-tinted glasses, as a time of great progress, but the British were only interested in collecting taxes and repatriating them to Great Britain. People were forced to change traditional agricultural practices, from cultivating grains to growing opium and tobacco, which brought revenue. They took Indians as “indentured labour” to work as slaves in plantations elsewhere. The British atrocities in India are never mentioned.
Even the national movement is tinted. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and the INC are hailed, but Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the Naval Mutiny at Bombay and other freedom fighters and events get little mention. We know about 1857, but did you know that there were so many rebellions all over India, especially in the south where the Palayakaras (Poligars), the Marudu brothers and the sepoys of Vellore Fort revolted long before 1857?
The impact of environmental events—such as the frequent earthquakes of North India, the changing course of rivers, the destruction of forests to build cities and water harvesting systems—on Indian history is never discussed. The impact of people on the environment and vice versa makes a fascinating study of how and why events happened as they did. And what about women? Throughout Indian history, in every state, there have been queens, women warriors and scholars who have influenced events and fought fiercely. Few of them are known—even by historians.
Did you know that Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka had a personal battalion of female guards to protect them? Local history is very important. Maharashtrians must know about Maharashtra and Tamilians about Tamil Nadu. But Maharashtrians must also know about the Cholas and Tamilians about Shivaji. Just as Keralites must know about Kalhana’s Rajatarangini and Kashmiris about the Battle of Colachel. The BJP government promised to restructure history textbooks, but nothing has happened to NCERT books as yet. Meanwhile, state governments are on a roll, interpreting, adding and omitting events as they choose.
Unless we foster a national history where great achievers are lauded, irrespective of their state, religion and politics, we cannot achieve a unity of minds. Ashoka, who “shines alone… brightly like a star,” was forgotten within a few centuries of his death and it was left to Charles Allen to resurrect him 2,000 years later. History is full of stories, and children love stories. As a child in the 1950s, I enjoyed British history because the books from England were full of stories. We could do the same for Indian history, instead of bombarding kids with wars and dates.
We need a national committee of historians and history teachers to work out a national curriculum, with blank chapters for each state to insert its own history, and children’s writers to write the stories. History is our legacy and we cannot permit politicians to fritter it away. Today, children don’t know the history of the city they live in, but are expected to rattle off the names of a long line of slave kings of Delhi, along with meaningless dates. No wonder they find history boring.
Nanditha Krishna
Historian, environmentalist and writer based in Chennai
(nankrishna18@gmail.com)