History should not be
distorted
History is always
written by the winners. Many professional historians have warned of, namely,
the dressing up of myth and religious belief as history. One could see how this problem has been
there for long. Parties have been exploiting their power to an extent to which
they influence the history so as to promote their ideologies.
In Indian history our
sages delved deep into the remote past. History is the subject which explains
about the conditions which prevailed in the past. It is the subject which helps
the present and the future generations to know about their past and so the
subject of history should not be subjected to any distortions. It should be
affected by the current political system. The main aim of history is to make
people know and understand their past and help them in their present and future
actions. It is important to understand that religion is different from history.
History is a broader concept wherein the study of religion is a part of
history. It is important to separate myths from historical facts. Myths are
fictitious where as historical facts are backed by evidences extracted from
systematic research and analysis by a historian.
Left wing
historians have consistently distorted Indian history with fanciful depictions,
and now the right wing thugs want to distort the history by replacing it with
myth. The actual history is somewhere in the middle.
What is myth
should be left in the realm of myth and not mingled with history. But Indian
History narratives mostly focus on the last thousand or so years, mostly
glossing over the period before that, say, between 2 millennium BC to 1
millennium AD. There is nothing wrong with focusing on that period, to get a
better understanding of the past. But this should be done using modern
standards of historical analysis and methodology. The social fabric of the
nation will not be jeopardized by getting greater (and accurate) knowledge of
the past.
Are Sri Rama and
Sri Krishna historical or only myth? The fact that ancient city was discovered
under ocean near Dwaraka and the man-made bridge to Sri Lanka proves that these
two great personalities must have existed in the past.
In the bygone era,
it was the strategy of many imperialist cultures to subjugate other nations and
destroy their unique centres and symbols of culture and civilisation so that
the vanquished may never feel confident or proud even about their past and
meekly accept superiority of the ruling race. Who may forget the sadistic
attackers of Taxila University setting flames especially to its library that
kept burning for over a year. The mutilated idols in innumerable temples in the
length and breadth of India also tell their own tales. Had many survivors of
recurring cruel onslaughts not secretly preserved the scriptures and
manuscripts of ancient knowledge, and some renowned European historians,
archaeologists and researchers not worked hard to compile and bring many such
sources of ancient Indian wisdom to light, one wonders how our traditional
historians would have projected Indian history? So it is high time our current
historians adopt alternative methodologies to present truth.
The history we have learnt for the past two
hundred years had been spoon fed to us by Western historians. These historians
had two main policy objectives. The first of these was to stamp their authority
in every walk of life and downplay the achievements of our ancient scientific, literary
and social institutions. Their second objective was project the superiority of
Western accomplishments over our native talent. They have had success in both
aims because even today, after 65 years of Independence, our historians still
parrot western views on our culture, science, mathematics. medicine etc, etc.
No worthwhile original research has been done in our universities. We haven't
even decoded the Indus Valley script. It’s time to write our history from our
point of view.
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