Dear RSS, do write a saffron history, just make it a private project

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been pressuring the Union HRD Minister, Smriti Irani, to make some changes in historytext-books. At a meeting yesterday (30 October), representatives from various RSS front organisations told her that she must “correct” school history textbooks so that children were taught “true” history and learn about “real Indian heroes.” While the RSS’ regular meetings with Irani have been criticised for turning into an NDA version of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council – an extra-constitutional influence on government policy – the purpose of this article is not to dwell on that aspect, but to dispel notions about what history really is, and what school curricula should or should not be about. In calling for the writing of “correct” history, the RSS is falling into the same trap that the earlier Nehruvian consensus on history-writing led us into. If there is any incorrect thing that needs debunking in history, it is this: there is no such thing as “correct” history. All histories are versions of the truth. The more the kinds of histories we write, the closer we will get to the truth. Let me illustrate this point with recent history. If there is one correct version of recent history, which we have all seen on TV screens or read about in newspapers or have witnessed personally, there should be only one narrative emerging from it. For example: did Narendra Modi win the 2014 election or did UPA lose it? Or is a third factor responsible for the results we got. There are enough reasons to believe that both points have some relevance. If Modi partisans were to write history, they would call it the triumph of one man’s vision on development, or some such thing. If his detractors were to write it, they would say communal scare-mongering was a key factor in his victory. A third version may say it wasn’t about Modi or Manmohan, changing demographics had everything to do with it. [caption id=“attachment_1706653” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] If we cannot agree on recent history which we have all had direct access to, how can we ever expect to agree on what is our “true” ancient history, as deduced from broken pottery or shards of glass or defaced coins or religious literature? If there can be 300 Ramayanas, surely there can be 300 versions of history? So, to repeat, there is no such thing as “correct” history. What there can be are many versions of history, and here the RSS is surely right to think its version should also have its day in the sun. Thus, there need not be only a Marxist-Left-Secular version of history, but a Hindu version of history, just as there can be histories told from the gender, underclass, regional or tribal perspectives. What the RSS should not do is try and pretend that only its version is correct. It can’t be. The second issue one needs to address is this: should the party in power seek to use its control of government resources to write (or rewrite) history? I don’t believe so. If Nerhuvian-Marxist scholars like Romila Thapar and Bipan Chandra could shove their version of history down our throats, and we felt suffocated by this insistence that theirs was the only right version, it hardly makes sense for the RSS to impose the same tyranny on us. I believe that all attempts at writing history with different perspectives should be left to private think-tanks and scholars. The HRD ministry or the central government should not be involved in the process. What does this imply? The RSS should fund independent historical research that empathises with its world view and then let these versions compete for attention and dominance with the public. If it is based on evidence, logic and research, it will hold its own against the Romila Thapar version. Writing history top-down from a position of governmental strength will never have validity – just as the Thapar version did not have authenticity with many sections of the country. This leaves us with the question of school text-books: if what we now have is only one version of Nehru-Marxist-influenced history, why should it be retained? If it is not right to thrust a saffron version of history down our children’s throats, how is the Thapar version more palatable? Clearly, our history text-books need to be re-written – but not by replacing one bias with another. Any rewriting should attempt to present history as a version, with references to other versions too being made at various points where there are sharp differences. Our children need to be taught that history is about looking at all versions of the truth and then making up one’s mind. History is not god’s truth. If the RSS is interested in a better version of history, it should build the credibility of its approach by putting its money where its mouth is. It should invest in scholarship and research. Lobbying Smriti Irani for it is not the way to go.