The Reign of Non-History

[INDIC]

I have always been sceptical about the dates conventionally proposed for the Rg veda because of the Sarasvati connection. You are right that earlier dating pushes it close to the IVC period but better to tread cautiously till there is a direct connection. established, the chances of which are probably lost because other such settlements are probably under major Indian cities.

As far as getting called Hindu revisionists or some such, that's par for the course. Depending on the topic, I get called a lot of things, usually contadictory to other things that I have been called elsewhere.

Before 1900BC, there was only civilization known in the region that was Indus Valley civilization, so what kind of connection are we looking for.

But people opposed to Ghaggar-Hakra being Saraswati always bring the snowfed and monsoon fed theory, have you read about the original Sanskrit or atleast, what you say about it. The river originated in Shivalik Hills of lower Himalayas. Quite baffling for me that Indra's mythological battles can be considered as truth but one only river of all rivers will considered as mythical even if we have found a dried river over the same location of so called mythical river Saraswati.

 

[Bang Galore]

ing the snowfed and monsoon fed theory, have you read about the original Sanskrit or atleast, what you say about it. The river originated in Shivalik Hills of lower Himalayas.

Almost every single Rg vedic expert (not Aryan invasion/migration theorists) agrees with the identification of the Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra simply beause of the location. The Rg veda is pretty clear on the location. Some pushing more obscure readings go on to suggest that some references (where there are no clear geographical indicators) are about some other river....say Helmand etc...but there is usually a problem which can demolish that argument. Even they agree that the Ghaggar-Hakra is the Sarasvati mentioned in other parts.The Sarasvati does have poets waxing eloquent about it using language that has been used to suggest it comes from a glacier but never said outright and these are poets who lived in the Haryana area and are simply singing praises to it. Unless the Rg veda is treated as completely fictional, creating an "Sarasvati" where none exists and puting it along with "real" rivers, the geographic evidence points very clearly to the Ghaggar-Hakra. The evidence was accepted by most scholars of the Rg veda, no other reading is logical.

 

[INDIC]

Almost every single Rg vedic expert (not Aryan invasion/migration theorists) agrees with the identification of the Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra simply beause of the location. The Rg veda is pretty clear on the locarion. Some pushing more obscure readings go on to suggest that some references (where there are no clear geographical indicators) are about some other river....say Helmand etc...but there is usually a problem which can demolish that argument. Even they agree that the Ghaggar-Hakra is the Sarasvati mentioned in other parts.The Sarasvati does have poets waxing eloquent about it using language that has been used to suggest it comes from a glacier but never said outright and these are poets who lived in the Haryana area and are simply singing praises to it. Unless the Rg veda is treated as completely fictional, creating an "Sarasvati" where none exists and puting it along with "real" rivers, the geographic evidence points very clearly to the Ghaggar-Hakra. The evidence was accepted by most scholars of the Rg veda, no other reading is logical.

Even Max Mueller and other AIT proposer were in support of Ghaggar-Hakra being Rigvedic Saraswati river and put composition of Rigveda to 1200BC. During those days, nobody thought that the science will expose the real date of drying of Saraswati river half a millennium before their Aryan invasion of India happened.

BTW I have indeed found people disputing Ghaggar-Hakra being Rigvedic Saraswati, only because of one reason that it will push Rigveda or origin of Hinduism beyond 1900BC and this is direct conflict with Aryan invasion theory of 1500BC and connection with IVC, thus its their duty to oppose to any such theory which put dent of AIT and tends to counter it by libeling it as Hindutva propaganda. I even found numerous people calling genetic tests of Harvard Medical school as Hindutva propaganda. Last time I was chatting with some Scottish guy.

 

[scorpionx]

In October 1984, I got my first academic job, at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata (then Calcutta). A week after I joined, a friend from Chennai (then Madras) sent me a petition on the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, which he hoped some of my colleagues would sign. The first person I asked was a senior historian of North-east India, whose work I knew but with whom I had not yet spoken. He read the petition, and said: ‘As Marxists, the question you and I should be asking is whether taking up ethnic issues would deviate attention from the ongoing class struggle in Sri Lanka’.

My colleague was known to be a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Yet I was struck by the way in which he took it for granted that I must be a party man too. Although this was our first meeting, he immediately assumed that any new entrant to the Centre must, like him and almost all the other members of the faculty, be a Marxist as well.

In the 1980s Marxism occupied a dominant place in the best institutes of historical research in India. There were three reasons for this. One was intellectual, the fact that Marxism had challenged the conventional emphasis on kings, empires and wars by writing well-researched histories of peasants and workers instead. Indian history-writing was shaped by British exemplars, among them such great names as E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm, Marxist pioneers of what was known as ‘history from below’.

The second reason for Marxism’s pre-eminence was ideological. In the 1960s and 1970s, anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa were led by Communist parties. Figures such as Ho Chi Minh and Samora Machel were icons in India (as in much of the Third World). These fighters for national freedom were supported by Soviet Russia and Communist China, but opposed by the United States and the capitalist world more generally. To be a Marxist while the Cold War raged, therefore, was to be seen as identifying with poor and oppressed people everywhere.

The third reason why there were so many Marxist historians in India was that they had access to state patronage. In 1969, the Congress party split, and was reduced to a minority in the Lok Sabha. To continue in office, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sought, and got, the support of MP’s of the Communist Party of India. At the same time, several former Communists joined the Congress and were rewarded with Cabinet positions. Now the ruling party began leaning strongly to the left in economic policy—as in the nationalization of banks, mines and oil companies—and in foreign policy, as in India’s ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with the Soviet Union.

In 1969, before the Congress and Mrs Gandhi had turned so sharply to the left, the Government of India had established the Indian Council of Social Science Research. The ICSSR was meant to promote research on the profound social and economic transformations taking place in the country. The Council funded some first-rate institutions, such as the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi; the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Poona; and the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum.

History is both a social science and a branch of literature. In theory, historical research should also have been within the ICSSR’s brief. However, in 1972 the Government established an Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) instead. The Education Minister at the time, Nurul Hasan, was himself a historian. Those who promoted and ran the ICHR were, in personal terms, close to Professor Hasan. In ideological terms, they were Marxists or fellow-travellers.

The two men responsible for establishing the ICSSR were the economist D. R. Gadgil and the educationist J. P. Naik. Both were outstanding scholars, but neither was a Marxist. They were true liberals who promoted high-quality research regardless of ideology or personal connections. The ICHR, on the other hand, was from the beginning dominated by left-wing historians who favoured themselves and their friends in the distribution of funds for research, travel, and translation.

The control of Marxists over the ICHR weakened slightly in the 1980s, but was then re-established when Arjun Singh became Education Minister in 1991. He was persuaded that the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign could best be opposed by the state sponsoring ‘secular’ and ‘scientific’ history. Marxist historians flocked to his call, accepting projects and appointments within the Minister’s favour.

In 1998, the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. The new Education Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, was an ideologist of the right rather than left. Under him, the ICHR was handed over to academics charged with, among other things, diminishing the contributions of socialists to the freedom movement and discovering the origins of the river Saraswati.

In courting Marxist historians, Arjun Singh took inspiration from Nurul Hasan. In promoting Hindutva scholars, the current HRD Minister is following in the tracks of M. M. Joshi. Hence the recent appointment of Y. Sudershan Rao as Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. I had never heard of Professor Rao before, and, nor, it appears, have most other historians. Since he belongs to Andhra Pradesh, I asked some historians in that state what they knew. They described Professor Rao as a ‘non-descript scholar who does not have any academic or intellectual pretensions’, but was known to be close to the RSS. They added that despite his ideological bias and lack of scholarly distinction, he was an amiable and friendly man.

His personal charm notwithstanding, Professor Rao has not published a major book, nor a single scholarly essay in a professional journal. However, he has made known his belief in the essential goodness of the caste system, and the essential historicity of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. These may be among the reasons why he has been appointed Chairman of the ICHR.

The Marxists who once ran the ICHR were partisan and nepotistic, but also professionally competent. The thought of Karl Marx—as distinct from the practice of Communist parties—provides a distinct analytical framework for understanding how human societies change and evolve. This privileges the role of technology and of social conflict between economic classes. Marxist historiography is a legitimate model of intellectual enquiry, albeit one which—with its insistence on materialist explanations—is of limited use when examining the role of culture and ideas, the influence of nature and natural processes, and the exercise of power and authority.

A sophisticated intellectual culture should have room for able right-wing scholars too. In the United States, conservative historians such as Niall Ferguson are both credible and prominent. Their work celebrates the stabilizing role of family and community, and argues that technological dynamism and respect for individual rights are not evenly distributed across cultures. And where Marxist historians chastise capitalists for exploiting workers, right-wing historians celebrate them for creating jobs and generating wealth.

Why are there no Indian equivalents of Niall Ferguson? This is because the right-wing here is identified with Hindutva, a belief system which privileges myth and dogma over research and analysis. And no serious historian can be expected to assume a priori that Rama was a Real Character, that Hindus are the True and Original Inhabitants of India, that Muslims and Christians are Foreigners and that all that the British did in India was Necessarily Evil.

Contrary to what is sometimes claimed in the press, there are many fine historians in India. From my own generation of scholars, I can strongly recommend—to student and lay reader alike—the work of Upinder Singh on ancient India, of Nayanjot Lahiri on the history of archaeology, of Vijaya Ramaswamy on the bhakti movement, of Sanjay Subrahmanyam on the early history of European expansion, of Chetan Singh on the decline of the Mughal State, of Sumit Guha on the social history of Western India, of Seema Alavi on the social history of medicine, of Niraja Gopal Jayal on the history of citizenship, of Tirthankar Roy on the economic consequences of colonialism, of Mahesh Rangarajan on the history of forests and wildlife, and of A. R. Venkatachalapathy.
on South Indian cultural history.

The scholars named in the preceding paragraph have all written excellent books, on different themes and periods, in different stylistic registers. They have all read Karl Marx and digested his ideas. At the same time, they are not limited or constrained by his approach. They have been inspired by other thinkers, other models, in their reconstructions of human life and social behaviour.

Like their counterparts outside India, these scholars bring to the writing of history both primary research and the analytical insights of cognate disciplines such as anthropology, political theory, and linguistics. Their personal or political ideology is secondary (if not irrelevant) to their work, whose robustness rests rather on depth of research and subtlety of argument.

In the forty years since the ICHR was founded, the historical profession has moved on. The economic and technological determinism of Marxism, once so appealing, has been found wanting in pushing the frontiers of research. If the HRD Minister wanted a professional, non-partisan (and non-Marxist) scholar to head the ICHR, she had a wide field to choose from. But it appears the Minister wanted not a capable or respected historian, but a captive ideologue. And she has got one.

HISTORY BEYOND MARXISM AND HINDUTVA
by Ramachandra Guha
(published in The Telegraph, 26th July 2014)

History Beyond Marxism and Hindutva, The Telegraph « ::Welcome to Ramachandra Guha.in::

 

[Indrani]

Ramachandra Guha Gargles Goo Again

By Sandeep Web

Ramachandra Guha never learns, does he? There’s a limit to how many times his bluff has been called. Or is there? Wait…there is a limit to the number of times his bluff has been called but given his record, hiscapacity to bluff is infinite. When I searched for “Ramachandra Guha” on my blog, it returned forty nine results. The piece you’re now reading happens to be the fiftieth time I’ve called Guha’s bluff. And this is just by me, one individual. Do your own research on the number of folks who have called his bluff.

Ramachandra Guha’s metamorphosis is interesting. From being a media-anointed “historian,”—eminent or otherwise…oh wait! His “history” is a little more than volumes upon volumes of textual slavering over Jawaharlal Nehru. Because humans don’t live forever, his Nehru-slavering was exhausted and he took it upon himself to slaver over Mahatma Gandhi. Simultaneously, he steadily metamorphosed into a crude kind of Narendra Modi-baiter. As it stands, he is one of the very few in the public glare who continues to engage in a vile witch-hunt of the Gujarat Chief Minister. As a consequence, he’s become the Teesta Setalvad equivalent of the Indian intellectual class.

But Guha’s Modi-baiting is nothing new. While former Modi-baiters have wizened up to and revised their views on Modi, Ramachandra Guha seems to have launched an unending war against commonsense, facts, and truth in his quest to bash Modi.

The latest exhibit is a ridiculously hilarious piece in the Hindu. Even a cursory perusal of the piece makes it clear that Guha has run out things he can use to criticize Narendra Modi. The byline to Guha’s piece reads thus:

Like Indira Gandhi once did, Narendra Modi seeks to make his party,his government, his administration and his country into an extension of his personality.


But look how he ends his piece:

On the other hand, his presumed rival, Rahul Gandhi, shirks responsibility entirely…Indian democracy must, and shall in time, see off both.


This is a clear pointer that this lapsed Marxist is aware of two things: the mood of the nation, which is overwhelmingly in favour of Narendra Modi, and two, that Guha can no longer abuse Modi with impunity, something he did barely a year ago. Sure, let’s grant Rahul his 0.3289473298473289473 seconds of fame but if Guha was really courageous, he would have criticized Modi alone instead of dragging the Crown Prince’s name in. Poor Guha is dangerously losing his touch. But he is alleged as a historian and an intellectual so let’s examine his claims again. One by one.

With Mr. Modi in power in New Delhi, says or suggests Mr. Modi, India will be placed smoothly on the 8 per cent to 10 per cent growth trajectory, bureaucrats will clear files overnight, there will be no administrative and political corruption, poverty levels will sink rapidly towards zero and — lest we forget — trains and aeroplanes shall run on time.


Really? Guha needs to show us exactly one piece of evidence where Modi has claimed or suggested all this. Indeed, if anything, Modi has time and again simply spoken about what he has actuallyaccomplished in Gujarat. And he has consistently, repeatedly spoken only about Gujarat. And this accomplishment is visible; they’re not accomplishments on paper, the Congress party’s favourite form of accomplishment. Besides, Modi hasn’t ever stated that he will do all these if he becomes Prime Minister—indeed, he hasn’t expressed his desire to even run for that office. Modi’s discourse throughout, has been two fold: his singleminded focus on Gujarat’s development and his vocal critique of the Congress party, which has run India to the ground, a fact that’s verifiable. Despite this, we have Guha who sets up an imaginary antagonist and proceeds to take him down.

And then Guha lets out a highly revealing point when he talks about “unreconstructed Nehruvians,” meaning people like himself. As someone who has followed Guha’s writings closely, I can say with confidence that he’s been honest for once. The phrase “unreconstructed Nehruvians” is synonymous with “blind Nehru worshippers” and “people like Guha.” It’s a fact of nature that Nehruvians—both reconstructed and unreconstructed—have been responsible for why India continues to be a third world country. These are the same people who gave us that wretched term, “Hindu rate of growth.” These are the people who throttled India’s fabled entrepreneurial spirit. These are the people who choked the Indian genius for raising capital and creating enormous wealth by imposing statist shackles. And since Guha proudly claims membership in this ugly club, we need to congratulate his honesty because this is one of the reasons Guha and his ilk are so upset with Narendra Modi.

For the first time since Independence, here’s a leader who recognized that giving free rein to this Indian genius of entrepreneurship is one of the most vital ways to ensure economic growth and prosperity. Gujarat is the best example of the consequences of unleashing this potential that creates wealth and prosperity. There’s therefore little doubt in the fact that Modi will do the same spirit nationwide if he becomes Prime Minister. This indeed, is what my perceptive friend, Vijay observed when he told me that “tomorrow’s India is being made in Gujarat today.” And this precisely is the fear of the likes of Ramachandra Guha who would be nothing without state patronage. And further, this is why Guha riles against the “sundry CEOs, owner-capitalists, western ambassadors” who are his “admirers.” Entrepreneurs and businessmen are primarily concerned with running their business in an atmosphere free of political instability, and in an atmosphere that provides cost effectiveness and ensures wealth creation. If their files don’t get cleared on time, and if they face enormous unnecessary costs—the Tata Nano plant in West Bengal comes to mind—they will pass on these costs to the consumer: you and me. And so, they naturally veer towards a leader who provides an environment that rids them of these unnecessary headaches. Their praise of Modi therefore is entirely justified, and is equally the cause for Guha’s angst.

But Guha the Irascible Rebel against Commonsense and Facts just can’t seem to let go. He talkseconomics.

…the burden of the criticism against Mr. Modi has shifted — on to his own terrain of economic development. It has been shown that the development model of Gujarat is uneven, with some districts (in the south, especially) doing very well, but the dryer parts of the State (inland Saurashtra for example) languishing. Environmental degradation is rising, and educational standards are falling, with malnutrition among children abnormally high for a State at this level of GDP per capita.


“It has been shown?” Where? So can I use Guha’s own yardstick and claim that it has been shown that Ramachandra Guha failed in his Economics paper in college for 10 years and therefore, that his academic record is uneven?

Since he mentions environmental degradation, I can refer him to a detailed study carried out by Modi’s government regarding environmental and ecological issues and the initiatives his Government has taken to meet these challenges. I can additionally refer Guha to the fact that Gujarat’s mangrove cover is amongst the most extensive in the whole world. I can yet again refer this alleged historian to the fact that Gujarat’s water table has dramatically risen thanks to Modi’s initiatives. Of course, Guha makes claims to the contrary based absolutely on no proof whatsoever. Typical of lapsed and unlapsed Marxists whose greatest fear is the fear of mathematics, the Fear of Numbers. Besides, what does Guha expect of Narendra Modi? To perform magic? Why doesn’t Guha mention the fact that it was the Congress party that ruled Gujarat for over 40 years? Why doesn’t Guha realize the fact that it takes far longer to clean up dirt than it takes to put the dirt? Why doesn’t Guha mention the fact that it was under the successive rule of Congress Governments that Gujarat’s entrepreneurial spirit was strangled? Why doesn’t Guha mention the fact that this selfsame Congress party was responsible for the economic mess that Gujarat (and indeed, the whole of India) found itself in?

But now we have a Chief Minister who has tried to undo this ugly legacy, a Chief Minister who has achieved nothing short of an economic miracle, and all Guha can see is negatives? Why doesn’t Guha talk about the abyss that the Congress-NCP government has pushed neighbouring Maharashtra into in less than 15 years—a state which once had surplus power and which now goes begging for power from other states? What does this tell you about Ramachandra Guha? It’s also laughable that Guha finds lack of development in only Saurashtra in the 7th largest state of India. Of course, he typically bases his observations about Saurashtra on personal anecdotes and not on hard data. And why doesn’t he mention the amazing development that’s happened in the rest of Gujarat?

Even more ridiculously, Guha contradicts himself in the very next paragraph when he claims that

As a sociologist who treats the aggregate data of economists with scepticism, I myself do not believe that Gujarat is the best developed State in the country.

If this is true, then everything Guha spoke about Saurashtra’s backwardness is false. He cannotskeptically treat data selectively. But let’s indulge him. So, according to Guha, the “best developed” states are “Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and (despite the corruption) Tamil Nadu.” And what are the parameters he uses to arrive at this conclusion? Knowing his record, he doesn’t mention a single parameter. It is both unnecessary and superfluous to state the relative population, geographical area, natural resources, and other specifics that will instantly demolish Guha’s claims. For one, we can begin with the highly industrialized state of Kerala and proceed from there.

Again, Guha has a sudden change of heart when he asserts that

To be sure, Mr. Modi is not solely responsible for the unbalanced development.


But the real “meat” of Guha’s piece follows this in which he reveals the full extent of his hatred for Narendra Modi. Sample this despicable language:

Narendra Modi is unfit to be Prime Minister of India is that he is instinctively and aggressively authoritarian…“I would have changed the face of India.” Not ‘we,’ but ‘I’…In Mr. Modi’s Gujarat, there are no collaborators, no co-workers. He has a chappan inch chaati — a 56-inch chest…


With this, Guha has descended to a level that’s beneath even our contempt. Additionally, he needs to answer one question: how many Prime Ministers can take office at once? One? Two? Ten? Hundred? Moreover, why didn’t Guha ask the same question to Rahul Gandhi who spoke in Jaipur about waking up at 4 in the morning? That speech too, is littered with tens of the first person “I.”

When he reaches this point, Guha’s article truly goes haywire. It transforms into a continuous litany of Modi’s supposed authoritarianism, his masculinity, his aggressiveness, etc. Unless Guha is blind, deaf, dumb, and illiterate, most world leaders have exhibited these qualities. And it is precisely these qualities that have earned them respect and an everlasting place in history. Commonsense tells us that authority is vested in a leader. Besides, what kind of leader does Guha want? A guy who gets his staff and ministers on a conference call when the enemy has declared war? Oh wait! Nehru precisely did this when China fell upon the Himalayas.

And then there’s the comparison with Indira Gandhi. Let’s look at the comparative record:

• Indira Gandhi abolished the privy purses, an act of supreme betrayal and dishonesty against not just the kings but against the people of India. Guha needs to show us exactly one act of betrayal by Modi.
• Indira Gandhi nationalized banks in a brazen act of despotism, which resulted in killing these once-profitable banks. Modi has on the other hand encouraged private players in every sphere of human activity. The results are there for all to see.
• Indira Gandhi won the battle but not the war with Pakistan when her brashness dictated her to sign the Shimla accord. We’re still living with the ill-effects of that. Modi has been consistent about the need for a strong defence and security both internal and external.
• Indira Gandhi cooked her food in the blood split in the Nevile riots, which in turn was the result of her cynical politics. Gujarat under Modi hasn’t seen a single riot in more than a decade and has an impressive record of maintaining law and order.
• Indira Gandhi’s son, Sanjay thought India was his playground where he both made and broke the rules and got away with it. Modi’s family lives far away from him and has no say in matters of politics or governance.
• Indira Gandhi thought she owned the nation when she declared the Emergency. There’s simply no comparison on this count with even the vilest of Indian politicians.
• Indira Gandhi did talk about the foreign hand because it actually existed. Except that the foreign hand was the hand of the USSR as the Mitrokhin Archives revealed. As for Rome Raj, examples abound: the murderous Italian marines who walked out of India without a single scratch on their body, the truth behind the multi-billion dollar scams under UPA 2, the inner workings of the NAC, and the truth behind all those cloak-and-dagger foreign trips Sonia Gandhi takes.

The truth, as I said, is that Ramachandra Guha has simply run out of things to castigate Modi for. If we observe the tone and tenor of Guha’s piece, we find a clear mixture of apology, illogic, irrelevance, and vacuity. It’s equally clear that he can no longer write about Modi the way wrote in 2011. The nation awaits Narendra Modi and Guha in a way senses this in the same way he senses that there’s really nothinghe can do about it. But the truth is elsewhere, and it has escaped Guha.

The truth is that Narendra Modi has turned the entire game upside down. He has devised a language, lexicon and grammar of his own, and as events have repeatedly shown us, he has made it inevitable for even his detractors to abide by his language, lexicon and grammar. This is the reason the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai are stumped for a response when Modi tells him, Sunna padega bhai aap ki channel ki rozi roti Modi ko gaali dene se chalti hai (You must listen, brother. Your channel earns its bread and butter by abusing Modi).

A media and an intellectual climate that’s steeped in shallowness, ignorance and sleaze simply doesn’tknow how deal with a leader like this, a leader who knows his own mind, a leader who knows what their rightful place is, and a leader who knows that both his reputation and career are decided only by the people and not by the media.

Ramachandra Guha is yet to understand all these. Long years of state patronage have insulated him from the necessity of actually doing grunt work to earn a place in the hearts of people. Modi has decisively, overwhelmingly earned that place. And Guha’s aforementioned insulation prevents him from seeing this simple truth.

But even if he does see it now, it’s already too late.

Addendum: Just thought it is interesting to bring to attention this article on our famous Marxist Historian Mr. Guha.

 

[scorpionx]

Who is Sandeep Web and what are his contributions on academic research on Indian History?
@Indrani

 

[Indrani]

Who is Sandeep Web and what are his contributions on academic research on Indian History?
@Indrani

Well you read it yourself from the horses' mouth Mr. Guha that only Marxists were funded for research and other expenses in India to this date. So please excuse the paucity of right wing historians, basically people who were starved of funds and shunted out of academia.

The ICHR, on the other hand, was from the beginning dominated by left-wing historians who favoured themselves and their friends in the distribution of funds for research, travel, and translation.

However, in 1972 the Government established an Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) instead. The Education Minister at the time, Nurul Hasan, was himself a historian. Those who promoted and ran the ICHR were, in personal terms, close to Professor Hasan. In ideological terms, they were Marxists or fellow-travellers.

Sandeep runs a very perceptive blog, right now for some reason the site is down. He was one of the earliest canary in the coal mine who alerted people about our Marxists administration.

 

[Indrani]

@Indrani - Please state in 3 points what's your take in this matter.

On which matter?

 

[scorpionx]

Well you read it yourself from the horses' mouth Mr. Guha that only Marxists were funded for research and other expenses in India to this date. So please excuse the paucity of right wing historians basically people who were starved of funds and shunted out of academia.





Sandeep runs a very perceptive blog, right now for some reason the site is down. He was one of the earliest canary in the coal mine who alerted people about our Marxists administration.

I have read the article which I found quite honest and eloquent description about how things went. On the contrary there seems nothing substantial in that "blog" that refutes what Guha said in the article I posted. BTW I am reading his blogs right now. Not so impressive I must say.

 

[Indrani]

To Undo the Scandal, Undo the Control

Arun Shourie








"There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans," writes the author. "Islam came out as the enemy of the 'But'. The word 'But,' as everybody knows, is an Arabic word and means an idol. Not many people, however, know that the derivation of the word 'But' is the Arabic corruption of Buddha. Thus the origin of the word indicates that in the Moslem mind idol worship had come to be identified with the Religion of the Buddha. To the Muslims, they were one and the same thing. The mission to break the idols thus became the mission to destroy Buddhism. Islam destroyed Buddhism not only in India but wherever it went. Before Islam came into being Buddhism was the religion of Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar and Chinese Turkestan, as it was of the whole of Asia...."



A communal historian of the RSS-school?



But Islam struck at Hinduism also. How is it that it was able to fell Buddhism in India but not Hinduism? Hinduism had State-patronage, says the author. The Buddhists were so persecuted by the "Brahmanic rulers", he writes, that, when Islam came, they converted to Islam: this welled the ranks of Muslims but in the same stroke drained those of Buddhism. But the far more important cause was that while the Muslim invaders butchered both -- Brahmins as well as Buddhist monks -- the nature of the priesthood in the case of the two religions was different -- "and the difference is so great that it contains the whole reason why Brahmanism survived the attack of Islam and why Buddhism did not."



For the Hindus, every Brahmin was a potential priest. No ordination was mandated. Neither anything else. Every household carried on rituals -- oblations, recitation of particular mantras, pilgrimages, each Brahmin family made memorizing some Veda its very purpose.... By contrast, Buddhism had instituted ordination, particular training etc. for its priestly class. Thus, when the invaders massacred Brahmins, Hinduism continued. But when they massacred the Buddhist monks, the religion itself was killed.



Describing the massacres of the latter and the destruction of their vihars, universities, places of worship, the author writes, "The Musalman invaders sacked the Buddhist Universities of Nalanda, Vikramshila, Jagaddala, Odantapuri to name only a few. They raised to the ground Buddhist monasteries with which the country was studded. The monks fled away in thousands to Nepal, Tibet and other places outside India. A very large number were killed outright by the Muslim commanders. How the Buddhist priesthood perished by the sword of the Muslim invaders has been recorded by the Muslim historians themselves. Summarizing the evidence relating to the slaughter of the Buddhist Monks perpetrated by the Musalman General in the course of his invasion of Bihar in 1197 AD, Mr. Vincent Smith says, "....Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the 'shaven headed Brahmans', that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. 'It was discovered,' we are told, 'that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar.' "Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India...."



The writer? B. R. Ambedkar.



But today the fashion is to ascribe the extinction of Buddhism to the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus, to the destruction of their temples by the Hindus. One point is that the Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction. In one typical instance, three inscriptions were cited. The indefatigable Sita Ram Goel looked them up. Two of the inscriptions had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. And the third told a story which had the opposite import than the one which the Marxist historian had insinuated: a Jain king had himself taken the temple from Jain priests and given it to the Shaivites because the former had failed to live up to their promise. Goel repeatedly asked the historian to point to any additional evidence or to elucidate how the latter had suppressed the import that the inscription in its entirety conveyed. He waited in vain. The revealing exchange is set out in Goel's monograph, "Stalinist 'Historians' Spread the Big Lie."



Marxists cite only two other instances of Hindus having destroyed Buddhist temples. These too it turns out yield to completely contrary explanations. Again Marxists have been asked repeatedly to explain the construction they have been circulating -- to no avail. Equally important, Sita Ram Goel invited them to cite any Hindu text which orders Hindus to break the places of worship of other religions -- as the Bible does, as a pile of Islamic manuals does. He has asked them to name a single person who has been honoured by the Hindus because he broke such places -� the way Islamic historians and lore have glorified every Muslim ruler and invader who did so. A snooty silence has been the only response.



But I am on the other point. Once they occupied academic bodies, once they captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these "historians" came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan, but insist on reproducing his denunciations of "Brahmanism," and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.



Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they raise a shriek: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream.



But they are the ones who had distorted it in the first place -- by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods. And these "theses" of their's are recent concoctions. Recall the question of the disappearance of Buddhist monasteries. How did the grand-father, so to say, of present Marxist historians, D. D. Kosambhi explain that extinguishing? The original doctrine of the Buddha had degenerated into Lamaism, Kosambhi wrote. And the monasteries had "remained tied to the specialized and concentrated long-distance 'luxury' trade of which we read in the Periplus. This trade died out to be replaced by general and simpler local barter with settled villages. The monasteries, having fulfilled their economic as well as religious function, disappeared too." And the people lapsed!



"The people whom they had helped lead out of savagery (though plenty of aborigines survive in the Western Ghats to this day), to whom they had given their first common script and common language, use of iron, and of the plough," Kosambhi wrote, "had never forgotten their primeval cults."



The standard Marxist "explanation" -- the economic cause, the fulfilling of historical functions and thereafter disappearing, right to the remorse at the lapsing into "primeval cults". But today, these "theses" won't do. For today the need is to make people believe that Hindus too were intolerant, that Hindus also destroyed temples of others....



Or take another figure -- one saturated with our history, culture, religion. He also wrote of that region -- Afghanistan and beyond. The people of those areas did not destroy either Buddhism or the structures associated with it, he wrote, till one particular thing happened. What was this? He recounted, "In very ancient times this Turkish race repeatedly conquered the western provinces of India and founded extensive kingdoms. They were Buddhists, or would turn Buddhists after occupying Indian territory. In the ancient history of Kashmir there is mention of these famous Turkish emperors -- Hushka, Yushka, and Kanishka. It was this Kanishka who founded the Northern School of Buddhism called Mahayana. Long after, the majority of them took to Mohammedanism and completely devastated the chief Buddhistic seats of Central Asia such as Kandhar and Kabul. Before their conversion to Mohammedanism they used to imbibe the learning and culture of the countries they conquered, and by assimilating the culture of other countries would try to propagate civilization. But ever since they became Mohammedans, they have only the instinct of war left in them; they have not got the least vestige of learning and culture; on the contrary, the countries that come under their sway gradually have their civilization extinguished. In many places of modern Afghanistan and Kandhar etc., there yet exist wonderful Stupas, monasteries, temples and gigantic statues built by their Buddhist ancestors. As a result of Turkish admixture and their conversion to Mohammedanism, those temples etc. are almost in ruins, and the present Afghans and allied races have grown so uncivilized and illiterate that, far from imitating those ancient works of architecture, they believe them to be the creation of super-natural spirits like the Jinn etc. ...".



The author? The very one the secularists tried to appropriate three-four years ago -- Swami Vivekananda.



And look at the finesse of these historians. They maintain that such facts and narratives must be swept under the carpet in the interest of national integration: recalling them will offend Muslims, they say, doing so will sow rancour against Muslims in the minds of Hindus, they say. Simultaneously they insist on concocting the myth of Hindus destroying Buddhist temples. Will that concoction not distance Buddhists from Hindus? Will that narrative, specially when it does not have the slightest basis in fact, not embitter Hindus?



Swamiji focussed on another factor about which we hear little today: internal decay. The Buddha -- like Gandhiji in our times -- taught us first and last to alter our conduct, to realise through practice the insights he had attained. But that is the last thing the people want to do, they want soporifics: a mantra, a pilgrimage, an idol which may deliver them from the consequences of what they have done. The people walked out on the Buddha's austere teaching � for it sternly ruled out props. No external suppression etc., were needed to wean them away: people are deserting Gandhiji for the same reason today -- is any violence or conspiracy at work ?



The religion became monk and monastery-centric. And these decayed as closed groups and institutions invariably do. Ambedkar himself alludes to this factor -- though he puts even this aspect of the decay to the ravages of Islam. After the decimation of monks by Muslim invaders, all sorts of persons -- married clergy, artisan priests -- had to be roped in to take their place. Hence the inevitable result, Ambedkar writes: "It is obvious that this new Buddhist priesthood had neither dignity nor learning and were a poor match for the rival, the Brahmins whose cunning was not unequal to their learning."



Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and others who had reflected deeply on the course of religious evolution of our people, focussed on the condition to which Buddhist monasteries had been reduced by themselves. The people had already departed from the pristine teaching of the Buddha, Swamiji pointed out: the Buddha had taught no God, no Ruler of the Universe, but the people, being ignorant and in need of sedatives, "brought their gods, and devils, and hobgoblins out again, and a tremendous hotchpotch was made of Buddhism in India." Buddhism itself took on these characters: and the growth that we ascribe to the marvelous personality of the Buddha and to the excellence of his teaching, Swami Vivekananda said, was due in fact "to the temples which were built, the idols that were erected, and the gorgeous ceremonials that were put before the nation." Soon the "wonderful moral strength" of the original message was lost "and what remained of it became full of superstitions and ceremonials, a hundred times cruder than those it intended to suppress," of practices which were "equally bad, unclean, and immoral...."



Swami Vivekananda regarded the Buddha as "the living embodiment of Vedanta", he always spoke of the Buddha in superlatives. For that very reason, Vivekananda raged all the more at what Buddhism became: "It became a mass of corruption of which I cannot speak before this audience...;" "I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism"....



With reform as his life's mission, Swami Vivekananda reflected deeply on the flaws which enfeebled Buddhism, and his insights hold lessons for us to this day. Every reform movement, he said, necessarily stresses negative elements. But if it goes on stressing only the negative, it soon peters out. After the Buddha, his followers kept emphasising the negative, when the people wanted the positive that would help lift them.



"Every movement triumphs," he wrote, "by dint of some unusual characteristic, and when it falls, that point of pride becomes its chief element of weakness." And in the case of Buddhism, he said, it was the monastic order. This gave it an organizational impetus, but soon consequences of the opposite kind took over. Instituting the monastic order, he said, had "the evil effect of making the very robe of the monk honoured," instead of making reverence contingent on conduct. "Then these monasteries became rich," he recalled, "the real cause of the downfall is here... some containing a hundred thousand monks, sometimes twenty thousand monks in one building -- huge, gigantic buildings...." On the one hand this fomented corruption within, it encoiled the movement in organizational problems. On the other it drained society of the best persons.



From its very inception, the monastic order had institutionalized inequality of men and women even in sanyasa, Vivekananda pointed out. "Then gradually," he recalled, "the corruption known as Vamachara (unrestrained mixing with women in the name of religion) crept in and ruined Buddhism. Such diabolical rites are not to be met with in any modern Tantra..."



Whereas the Buddha had counseled that we shun metaphysical speculations and philosophical conundrums � as these would only pull us away from practice -- Buddhist monks and scholars lost themselves in arcane debates about these very questions. [Hence a truth in Kosambhi's observation, but in the sense opposite to the one he intended: Shankara's refutations show that Shankara knew nothing of Buddha's original doctrine, Kosambhi asserted; Shankara was refuting the doctrines which were being put forth by the Buddhists in his time, and these had nothing to do with the original teaching of the Buddha.] The consequence was immediate: "By becoming too philosophic," Vivekananda explained, "they lost much of their breadth of heart."



Sri Aurobindo alludes to another factor, an inherent incompatibility. He writes of "the exclusive trenchancy of its intellectual, ethical and spiritual positions," and of how "its trenchant affirmations and still more exclusive negations could not be made sufficiently compatible with the native flexibility, many-sided susceptibility and rich synthetic turn of the Indian religious consciousness; it was a high creed but not plastic enough to hold the heart of the people..."



We find in such factors a complete explanation for the evaporation of Buddhism. But we will find few of them in the secularist discourse today. Because their purpose is served by one "thesis" alone: Hindus crushed Buddhists, Hindus demolished their temples... In regard to matter after critical matter -- the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of Islamic invasions, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of the Freedom Struggle -- we find this trait -- suppresso veri, suggesto falsi. This is the real scandal of history-writing in the last thirty years. And it has been possible for these "eminent historians" to perpetrate it because they acquired control of institutions like the ICHR. To undo the falsehood, you have to undo the control.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

On which matter?

Indian history has been considerably polluted(I will not give specific proofs for that)*. Research in being done to get a true version out. This will certainly be challenged by everyone - unlike in the old days when a certain clique ruled the roost. Peer-review is more popular now, and there's the internet. Falsehood will go away with time as the process has been made quite transparent over the years.

Leftists and certain intellectuals will certainly object to these changes and demonize the historians as fascists/Hindus etc, but ultimately the one that logically stands will persist. If the older generation historians are convinced that their findings had no political or ideological tint, they have nothing to fear. But we know otherwise - so, any incongruity will be challenged and modified.

*This does not concern me much. What needs to be done will be done. There will be objections, naturally. But they will be either dealt with, edited or ignored. Times have changed.

 

[scorpionx]

^Meritless obstinacy is harmful for historical research.

 

[Indrani]

I have read the article which I found quite honest and eloquent description about how things went. On the contrary there seems nothing substantial in that "blog" that refutes what Guha said in the article I posted. BTW I am reading his blogs right now. Not so impressive I must say.

LOL. There was nothing in the article that was not known already. Mr. Guha was just heaping praise on Karl Marx and his theories while excusing the fallout of Marxism that was evident throughout the world where it was applied.

As I said the site of Sandeep Web is down and so I am unable to access the heap of articles there. This was the sole article by Sandeep about Mr. Guha's lack of perspicacity even on matters of Mr. Modi that was on IBTL. There are just a few of his articles on IBTL.

^Meritless obstinacy is harmful for historical research.

As pointed out by Mr. Shourie

And look at the finesse of these historians. They maintain that such facts and narratives must be swept under the carpet in the interest of national integration: recalling them will offend Muslims, they say, doing so will sow rancour against Muslims in the minds of Hindus, they say. Simultaneously they insist on concocting the myth of Hindus destroying Buddhist temples. Will that concoction not distance Buddhists from Hindus? Will that narrative, specially when it does not have the slightest basis in fact, not embitter Hindus?

Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they raise a shriek: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream.

They have done enough harm to India and Indian history already.

 

[scorpionx]

LOL. There was nothing in the article that was not known already. Mr. Guha was just heaping praise on Karl Marx and his theories while excusing the fallout of Marxism that was evident throughout the world where it was applied.

As I said the site of Sandeep Web is down and so I am unable to access the heap of articles there. This was the sole article by Sandeep about Mr. Guha's lack of perspicacity even on matters of Mr. Modi that was on IBTL. There are just a few of his articles on IBTL.



As pointed out by Mr. Shourie





They have done enough harm to India and Indian history already.

Either you have interpreted wrong entirely or you have been reading selective paragraphs of the article. By not addressing the obvious flaws that had crippled right wing nationalist theories you are only opening up their weaknesses widely.

 

[Indrani]

Indian history has been considerably polluted(I will not give specific proofs for that)*. Research in being done to get a true version out. This will certainly be challenged by everyone - unlike in the old days when a certain clique ruled the roost. Peer-review is more popular now, and there's the internet. Falsehood will go away with time as the process has been made quite transparent over the years.

Leftists and certain intellectuals will certainly object to these changes and demonize the historians as fascists/Hindus etc, but ultimately the one that logically stands will persist. If the older generation historians are convinced that their findings had no political or ideological tint, they have nothing to fear. But we know otherwise - so, any incongruity will be challenged and modified.

*This does not concern me much. What needs to be done will be done. There will be objections, naturally. But they will be either dealt with, edited or ignored. Times have changed.

There was peer review all along. Only it was an incestuous group of parasites, entrenched old boys' (and old girls') networks, with their hostilities against “communal historians.” As Mr. Guha himself identifies they all had their ideological leanings. History was sacrificed at the altar of secularism.