Shivanand Kanavi in Ghadar Jari Hai:
“It is intriguing that a nation that groaned under the colonial yoke for 200 years and whose pre-colonial past is glorified by some and decried by others, is researched and documented in only a fragmentary fashion. We continue to be indifferent to rediscovering ourselves even after gaining political independence. Our schoolteachers rarely take students to museums or monuments and do not teach history in a living fashion; our history departments in 200+ Universities remain under-funded and totter on the verge of being declared “non-merit” by administrators influenced by market economics. On the other hand, we continue to boast of a 5,000-year-old civilisation, but when confronted by foreigners or our own conscience, we find few books that tell our past in a way that ignite popular imagination.”
(Son of the Kannada poet Chennaveera Kanavi, and a theoretical physicist from IIT Kanpur and Northeastern University, Boston, Shivanand Kanavi is vice-president (special projects) at Tata Consultancy Services. He is also the author of Sand to Silicon: The amazing story of digital technology)
Agree with concern of the author. Indian History needs to be rescued from Official history writers- whoever comes to power change it to suit their ideology and further votebank.
Lets look at (say) Indian History Congress, an organization whose goal is to deepen sense of history amongst Indian people. Majority of those who attended this, became office bearer have been political activist under the grab of historian. Few of them, like Irphan Habib actually a card carrying member of CPI(M), a political party.
Look at Romila Thapar- premier historian. She is engaged more these days whether Rama did exist or not.
We need a massive compilation, cross reference of Indian History. But those who are in power, control positions of historical reserach, universities will not allow.
I think Rajasthan Govt started a project few years back of comiling history at a local level. All those will then be collated and finally a grand history of Rajasthan will be compiled by people for the people.
As long as we are trapped in the clutches of eminent history written by eminent historians what we read will not help us learn or develop a sense of ambition or esteem. It is strange indeed that a hack who is unlettered in any Indian language, claims expertise on timescales stretching over millennia, sports airs of familiarity with economics, the arts and letters, anthropology, the humanities with no education in any pone of these fields, is held up as an exemplar. I mean ignoramus extrordinaire Romila Thapar. This is the same person who claimed that Adi Sankara formulated Advaita, learning about monotheism from the Arab traders who frequented Kerala! In a recent column in The Hindu Thapar claims that Rama is not a historical personality on the lines of Muhammad and Jesus! So Thapar believes that Muhammad rode a winged stallion to the heavens, and Jesus turned water into wine. As Subramaniam Swamy, putting Thapar in her place, fired off a retort on being questioned about his Harvard credentials, said that he has learned a lot from Harvard, including the warning never to make an ass of himself. As for the other dunces, Irfan Habib, RS Jha, Shrimali, and Panikker, less said the better.
Hi !
Got your id from Ranjana in Belgaum when I met her at a wedding. It was great catching up on everyone.
I have a blog too, do read it ! Its goinghomeshubhayeri.blogspot.com
Regarding History,we seem to always be in a hurry to push everything under the carpet, that too, without learning any lessons from it.Our ego -collective or individual, does not permit us to accept any mistakes, so where is the question of learning ?
Whether it is the Chinese invasion or the temples- the attitude is the same.