PERSPECTIVES
The Looming Danger of Rewriting History
THE 10-month-old BJP-led government at New Delhi had gifted the Indians their proudest moments by exploding five nuclear devices in May last - notwithstanding the ominous prospects of their disastrous consequences. The proud Indians relished those moments, no matter, how bitter could their effect on Indian life subsequently. But the effects of what the BJP has been surreptitiously doing to advance the cause of its Hindutva agenda can be more disastrous for India than those of nuclear explosions. Once the BJP succeeds in pulling down the edifice of the country's multicultural heritage and imposes in its place a majoritan ethos on India - which has always been its objective - India will perhaps be left with little to savour and still less to pride on.
True, the BJP has been denied a freehand to pursue its own agenda by its coalition partners and the party also has put on a liberal facade ostensibly to hold on to power, it has however steadfastly adhered to its dogma and has been in a subtle way pushing through, wherever expedient, its precepts.
For example, BJP's controversial Education Policy which was hastily withdrawn in the face of stiff opposition from other political parties proved in no uncertain term that the BJP was still committed to its Hindutva stunt in spite of the party's conciliatory posture on the surface. The Hindutva-tinged proposals contained in the policy paper brought in the open the party's explicit rejection of the country's pluralistic political ethos and composite culture as they recognised no cultural traditions other than those of the Hindus. The paper recommended Sanskrit which had made a unique contribution to the cultural unity of the nation to be the compulsory subject for study in India. On the contrary the language of Sanskrit had never been a unifying factor either in India's historical experience or in deeply divided castes' perceptions and was often looked upon as a symbol of Brahminical hegemony.
Nevertheless, the BJP's diabolical move suggests that it, in spite of its leaders' mealy mouthed liberal talks on national issues, has not totally abandoned the programme prepared for the party by the RSS (Rastriya Swyamsevak Sangh) of which none other than Prime Minister Vajpayee had once been an activist. The RSS wants BJP-led government at least to adopt an idiom of governance that would ultimately serve the purpose of the larger project of establishing a Hindu Rastrya. To doubly ensure the success the RSS ideologues have done something more - an attempt to rewrite India's history.
Unmistakably in keeping with its tradition the RSS has, according to a recent press report, set up a body to 'correct' the history of India. The project considers the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas to be the source material for reconstructing India's historiography. In another ominous move The Indian Council of Historical Research has been reconstituted with persons of lower scholarly repute but known for their particular bias in interpreting history. The undue political interest in the composition of what is eventually an academic body signals a dangerous trend of appropriating history for political purpose. It was such political interpretation of historical facts that led to Vishya Hindu Parishad's (VHP) highly abrasive campaign against Babri masjid and its ultimate demolition in 1992.
The consolation drawn from the BJP setback in recent state assembly election and its dwindling fortune as compared to its upsurge in the '80s and '90s seems illusory in view of the communal situation prevailing in the country. If the BJP wings have been clipped in a coalition government the other components of 'Sangh Parivar' are still potent and active across the country. The Siva Sena's Muslim bashing in Maharastrya, Bajrang's attacks on the Christian churches in Gujrat and VHP's threats of constructing Ram Temple at Babri mosque site are prognostic of a turbulent communal scene. Although all minority communities are targetted by BJP for blatant discrimination its ire is particularly directed against the Indian Muslims in whose hands India's Hindu rulers suffered their medieval defeats. But the defeats were suffered by Indian rulers in the hands of invaders belonging to myriad other races and religions from Alexander the Great to Britishers. Why then the Muslims who ruled India for eight hundred years and made India their permanent abode have to be treated as stranger in their homeland? Who gave 'Sangh Parivar' the absolute proprietory right of the country? To whom does India really belong? What 'Indian' culture the sangh people are up to protect? Which 'Indian Civilization' are they talking about? As tensions escalate afresh a fresh debate rages in the country to address these questions.
In a rare deliberation of its kind the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has raised some fundamental questions on the origin, scope and nature of Indian Civilization in his recent UNESCO lecture in New Delhi. Contradicting the Hindutva zealots who look to India's pre-Muslim period as an era of parity for the unalloyed Indian civilization he has questioned the existence of such era of homogenous Hindu culture in Indian history. Because the only pre-Islamic pan-Indian ruler capable of fostering such culture was Asoka who was a Buddhist. Dr Sen argued that the major world religions other than Islam were already represented in India well before the advent of Islam. During the seventh century when Islam was born India had large communities of Christians who already lived in the sub-continent at least for 300 years by then. After the fall of Jerusalem the Jews in diaspora found sanctuaries in India. Parsis came to India after the defeat and fall of Sassanide dynasty. And, of course, the Buddhists and Jains were quite well entrenched in India for a long time. The Muslim arrival merely filled up the spectrum. Also racially India has been a melting pot of the people and races of varied background from the Aryans, Huns, Sakas, Kushans to Turks, Afghans, Mongols and so on. So, obviously no single people or religious influence could have built up Indian civilization whose charm lies in its diversity.
Indian civilization, Prof Sen observes, evolved substantially with the absorption of Islamic culture as an integral part of it. In fact, the arrival of Islamic influences only furthered the heterogeneity which was already there and the result was enrichment of Indian culture and its indelible mark on Indian life. Of Islam, which later became almost a native religion of the sub-continent, Jawharlal Nehru says that "it introduced vitality and an impulse for progress" in moribund Indian society. Indeed, the simplicity of Muslim creed and outlook tremendously influenced the Indian life and became indistinguishable in course of time. It is not surprising that a communal rift had been unknown in Indian history till about 1857 when Hindus and Muslims joined hands and mutinied against the British rule. Awed by the upheavals, the British decided to divide and rule, thus sowing for the first time the seeds of communal rivalry.
As India's freedom struggle intensified communal tendencies surfaced due to a complex set of dynamics of the history. But it goes to the credit of an enlightened leadership of India's independence movement that even after a 'communal' partition and its gory aftermath they recognised and upheld India's multicultural inheritance. With the remarkable prescience the framers of Indian constitution predicated the success of free India on its political capacity to carry along the minority communities. The articles 29 and 30 which are often under assault by sangh people were incorporated in the constitution essentially as safeguards of minority rights. Now after half-a-century the proponents of Hindutva projects are trying to skilfully reduce those noble deeds of the founding fathers and their struggle to preserve the pluralist character of Indian civil society to a banal conflict between the Hindus and Muslims. And once again their weapon is distortion of history.
But can the history be distorted or rewritten as planned by the RSS? Can India be bereft of its Muslim heritage? Anyone visiting Delhi - the great Indian capital will be overwhelmed by its Muslim symbols - its Redfort, Qutb Minar, Jame Masjid as well as its numerous tombs and shrines. Not only Delhi, but also the whole country is wrapped in the memory of Muslim heroes - both awe inspiring rulers and humble saints. One can hardly pass an Indian city where a couple of domes or minarets do not silhouette its night sky. After Ayodha the VHP will have to exact innumerable such drama if the history is to be corrected to its desire. It is a task impossible.
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