Two Years Of PM Modi: The Use And Abuse Of History

NEW DELHI: Eric Hobsbawm, commenting on the inextricability of nationalism and history, said, ‘History is to nationalism what poppy is to an opium addict: it is the very source.’ Nationalisms across the world have a fetish for history, and it is on the edifice of history that they are constructed, disseminated, and solidified. That the first event of the Idea of India Conclave 2016 – a concerted effort to assess two years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, should be on the use and abuse of history is therefore no surprise. Chairing the august panel was Professor KM Shrimali, and the speakers for the event were eminent historians Mridula Mukherjee and Amar Farooqui.

Professor Mridula Mukherjee spoke of her involvement in the controversy around Bipan Chandra’s seminal work India’s Struggle for Independence. The book ran unto contention earlier this month after certain family members of freedom fighter and martyr Bhagat Singh, as well as right-wing outfits such as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) raised objections to the book’s reference to Bhagat Singh as a ‘revolutionary terrorist.’

Shortly thereafter, the Delhi University stopped the sale and distribution of Bharat ka Swatantarta Sangharsh – a Hindi version of the book published in 1990 by the university’s directorate.

Professor Mukherjee recalled her time with her teacher, Bipan Chandra, explaining that he was in awe of Bhagat Singh and his rich legacy. Bipan Chandra was also responsible for the publication of Bhagat Singh’s celebrated essay, ‘Why I am An Atheist.’ In fact, perturbed by the changing meaning of the term ‘terrorist,’ Bipan Chandra himself sought a revocation of its use for Bhagat Singh. Mukherjee criticised attempts to ‘communalise’ history, and made an emphatic statement against the Hindu Right’s consistent attempts to appropriate the figure of Bhagat Singh, further to even present a kind of iconography antagonistic to the ideals of the freedom fighter. She emphasised that while the terrain of argument used by the communalists is history, it is not about the past.

The controversy, Mukherjee argued, is not emblematic of a concern for Bhagat Singh – it is part of a larger political project to mould minds in a communal direction. Contrary to popular allegation, this does not mean ‘intolerance’ towards debate, but an insistence on solid evidence and tools of historical research and analysis.

Adding to the general argument, Professor Amar Farooqui developed his lecture as an answer to the question: why should we be disturbed? As a formidable scholar with the ability to place politics in its historical context, Farooqui reflected on the controversy around roads, and the general politics of space. The present government has already changed the name of Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road, and India’s Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh recently expressed his desire for Akbar Road to be renamed as Maharana Pratap Road. Farooqui emphasised the historical context of the Akbar Road and Aurangzeb Road – christened by the British to represent India’s legacy and heritage. He said that this has ‘nothing to do with secularism,’ and that the act of renaming roads is an attempt to reverse history and discard certain identities. Refuting the right wing attacks on history, Farooqui added that playing around with historical figures is not a trivial matter. While history does grow with debates and controversies, it is only hindered, he said, by abusive assertions.

Concluding the discussion, Professor KM Shrimali launched a powerful attack on the Sangh’s conception of a timeless Hindu rashtra that forms the crux of its politics. Terming this a ‘completely ahistorical concept,’ Shrimali drew on Vedic literature vis-à-vis the question of rashtra. He illustrated with erudition that the Vedic rashtra is less about territory and more about the way in which power and resources are being shared – concomitant, thus, with paradigms of varna (caste) and griha (household).

While early literature undeniably exhibits visions of entity, such as in the use of mleccha for people of different cultural states who did not speak Sanskrit and had different burial practices, and the terminologies of Bharatvarsha and Jambudvipa, there is nothing to legitimise the right wing idea of religious nationhood and cultural hold. He further traced the historical outline of the figure of Bharat Mata, emphasising that it is of very recent origin. The early rashtra, Professor Shrimali articulated, is an anathema to the rashtra of Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Much as we may present history as a smoothened, simple narrative of singularity, history is replete with creases, plurality, and conflicts. To discursive regimes that base themselves on monolithic conceptions and identities, complexity is threatening. Nevertheless, as historians and public intellectuals have ceaselessly fought to establish, it is in this intricacy that there lies history’s strength.