Saffronisation | SabrangIndia

No moral policing, no saffronisation of police department, Karnataka CM & deputy CM send out strong message

sabrang — Wed, 24 May 2023 09:18:52 +0000

We will put an end to moral policing, declared newly elected Karnataka chief minister, Siddaramaiah stated clearly on Tuesday, May 23 and also vowed to put an end to moral policing in the state, and asked police officials to ensure that there is no discrimination between religions, while maintaining law and order. In his maiden meeting with top police officials after the Congress government came to power, he warned concerned officials that they would be held responsible if law and order situation deteriorates and directed them to take strict action against those disturbing harmony through social media posts. “We have asked the police to be people friendly, they should be courteous towards people who come to file complaints. PTI, Deccan Herald and National Herald carried reports of the meeting.

At the same meeting, also attended by deputy chief minister, D.K. Shivakumar rapped Karnataka police officials and asked them whether they are trying to ‘saffronise’ the state police department.

“Are you all set to saffronise the police department? We will not allow it under our government,” Shivakumar stated while addressing the meeting of high-level police officers of Karnataka at the Conference Hall in Vidhana Soudha of Bengaluru.

He did not stop there. “We know how police officers came to the police station wearing saffron shawls in Mangaluru, Bijapur (Vijayapura), Bagalkot and insulted the department,” he said. “You should have come to this meeting wearing a saffron shawl,” Shivakumar warned police officers.

“If it was to be patriotic, then you should have come to work wearing the national flag. We will not allow saffronisation of the police department,” Shivakumar stressed. “Imagine the level the police department would stoop to if an ADGP-ranked officer is indulged in fabricating OMR sheets in the PSI recruitment scandal,” Shivakumar questioned.

The chief minister detailed his government’s concern about deteriorating law and order. Not only the police inspector, DCPs will also be held responsible for crimes and illegal acts like — rowdyism, clubs, and drug menace — in any of their police station limits, and action will be taken against them,” Siddaramaiah said. Addressing reporters here, he said, “during the maintenance of law and order, there should not be any discrimination between religions, and everyone should be seen equally, and should be protected equally.” “No moral policing here on, we will put an end to this…” he added.

Shivakumar emphasized, “People have elected a new government with the expectation of change. Officials should work to respond to their problems,” Siddaramaiah said. He also directed officials to take strict legal action against those disturbing harmony in the society, through inflammatory and provocative posts on social media. The CM will hold a separate meeting to discuss the issue of traffic congestion in Bengaluru, his office said in a release quoting him.

Drug addiction should be prevented, Siddaramaiah said, as he asked “Hoysala” patrol teams to always be vigilant to check crimes. Directing senior officers to visit and inspect police stations, he said the public who come to the police station with problems, should be treated courteously, without looking at them like criminals. Siddaramaiah also told police officials that they should take merciless action to control illegal activities within the police station limits. “Our government does not tolerate goondaism, illegal club activities, drug mafia,” he said. Ministers K J George, K H Muniyappa, B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan, M B Patil, Satish Jarkiholi and senior officials were also present at the meeting. Taking officials to task over some incidents in the previous BJP government tenure, Shivakumar asked, “Are you planning to saffronise the police department?” He said that it will not be allowed in the present government.

Referring to incidents of policemen sporting saffron shawls or dress, during some occasions in Mangaluru, Vijayapura and Bagalkote, during previous BJP regime, Shivakumar did not hold back, “We will not allow saffronisation of the police department, under our government.” Highlighting the involvement of an Additional Director General of Police rank official in the Police Sub-Inspector recruitment scam, the Deputy CM said, “Look at the bad state of the department.” Shivakumar also charged the police with “harassing” Congress leader and now Minister Priyank Kharge, who brought out the scam, by holding a press conference. Accusing the police of filing false cases against Congress leaders and workers, including Siddaramaiah and him, during BJP rule, he said, “We do not hold grudges. We don’t believe in that. You change, leave the old. Start a new job.”

Shivakumar was firm. “You harass those who conducted the press conference and brought this scandal out. You have harassed Priyank Kharge. The Karnataka police department had made a name in the entire country. You have destroyed the honour and dignity of the department.

“Wherever you see, everywhere it is all about money. Everything has to be cleaned under our government. The people are looking forward to a big change by this government. This should begin from the police department,” Shivakumar said.

The message of political change and sharp change in political functioning should reach people. Your earlier behaviour won’t be tolerated. I know how you (the police department) behaved with me and CM Siddaramaiah during the Pay CM campaign. You lodged cases against us. Thousands of false cases were lodged against our party workers. They were harassed. You did not spare me and Siddaramaiah, you could have done worse to normal people,” Shivakumar said.

He pointed to how partisan behavior had affected police function. “However, you (police) did not lodge any case against the opposite party (then ruling BJP). You danced to their tunes and colluded with them. Why have you not booked a case on those who issued a statement that Siddaramaiah should be dealt with in the same way as erstwhile Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan? He provoked murder, but you didn’t book him (former IT and Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan),” Shivakumar stated.

“Is that not a crime? We have evidence of whatever you have done. All this will not be tolerated henceforth. You should change, your conduct should change. If not, we will have to change you. We will not carry forward hatred. We don’t believe in it. Change yourself, start work afresh and give peace to the people,” Shivakumar maintained.

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‘Rationalisation’ of Text books or Communalisation of the Polity?

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 11:50:40 +0000

Representation Image

Text books of schools are also a site of contestation between differing versions of nationalism. The two inheritors of colonial India, India and Pakistan show this in both parallel and opposite ways. In Pakistan since three decades after the country came up in the name of Islam, it taught a history in schools which began with Mohammad bin Kasim ruling in Sind in eight century. The Hindu kings and Hindus are shown in a poor light to the extent that an average child in Pakistan school grows up to think of Hindus in general in a very derogatory way.

India has had a different trajectory and succeeding the early historians, an attempt was made to make the history scientific and rational. Religion was not the sole marker of the king’s rule or diverse aspects of history, till the BJP ruled NDA came to power in 1999, when Murli Manohar Joshi as MHRD minster undertook project of ‘saffronization of history and syllabus’. Saffronization term was broadly put to promote the view including understanding of History around Hindu nationalist discourse. It was based on the ‘glorious Hindu kings versus evil Muslim kings’. In addition the faith based subjects like astrology were made part of the curriculum. Rituals like ‘Putra Kameshti Yagya’ (ritual to have a son) found a place in the new syllabus.

With the UPA coming to power (2004) and attempt was made to undo part of this saffronization. Now with BJP in the saddle the process of communalization is being brought back, in the name of ‘rationalization’. NCERT on the pretext of pressures laid down by the conditions created by the Covid epidemic and the lockdown has put extra pressure on the students so there is a need to lighten the burden of students is deleting portions of the books which are a sore to the eye of ruling dispensation. Aghast by the rash and untoughtful ‘deletions’ which break the link of the whole many historians have expressed their dismay to the whole process, as portions related to Mughal history are being deleted while the portions relation to Vijayanagar Kingdom continue to be retained.

In the Hindu nationalist view of the ruling dispensation, Islam is a ‘foreign’ religion and Muslim kings were aggressors who came here and spread Islam on the point of the sword. The syncretism and social interactions during this period stands erased. How will these ideologues present the rise of great Sikh religion, Bhakti and Sufi tradition during this period remains to be seen. The Mughal period or any other period, cannot not be understood solely around the religion of the king. This pattern was introduced by British to pursue their policy of ‘divide and rule’. Particularly during the medieval period the alliances between Muslim and Hindu kings will have to be erased by this method of History writing. Just a single example, how will it be explained that in the battle of Haldighati Akbar’s commander in Chief was Raja Mansing and amongst the two generals of Rana Pratap, one was Hakim Khan Sur.

This aspect of ‘deletion’ of Mughals, though at present in part, has been the most glaring part of the present process of rationalization. The accompanying other deletions go on to tell us the whole agenda of the ruling party.

Gandhi’s life was a supreme example of promoting fraternity, mainly Hindu Muslim unity in the country. Now this stands deleted. The deleted portion is as follows “His (Gandhi’s) steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate Gandhiji… Gandhiji’s death had an almost magical effect on the communal situation in the country… The Government of India cracked down on organizations that were spreading communal hatred. Organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh were banned for some time…”

The other major aspect, the outcome of communal politics is the rise of communal violence. The carnage in Gujarat, which was orchestrated on the pretext of Godhra train burning, now its reference is being dropped from the books, particularly where the role of BJP is indicated by National Human Rights Commission in failure of the Government to control the carnage. It was possible to control the carnage but the large military contingent which was available to the state Government was put on hold for three long days! The deleted passage includes an apt observation, “Instances, like in Gujarat, alert us to the dangers involved in using religious sentiments for political purposes. This poses a threat to democratic politics.” It also deletes the advice of Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee to CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, “My one message to the Chief Minister (of Gujarat) is that he should follow ‘raj dharma’. A ruler should not make any discrimination between his subjects on the basis of caste, creed and religion.”

One agenda of communal politics is to stifle democracy and undermine to suppress the mass movements. Many such movements which took place during last several decades stand omitted from the new books. The one aimed at preserving environment, Chipko Movement is out and the movement Narmada Bacaho, which aimed to preserve Adivasi’s rights and also save environment will not be there anymore. Communal politics also wants to ensure that the dalits-OBC remain on the lower strata of society. While the communal politics adopts complex tactics for this, the books will not mention the significant rebellion of dalits in the form of Dalit Panthers, which awakened the dalit masses to their plight and rights in the decade of 1970s. The most democratically empowering ‘Right to Information’ movement, the main achievement of democratic struggles will stand deleted from the new books.

The origin of caste which has been from within the social norms and religious practices has been mostly attributed to the foreigners, Muslims in particular. So such a para has no place in the new books, “The priests also said that these groups were decided on the basis of birth… Later, they classified some people as untouchable. These included some crafts persons, hunters and gatherers, as well as people who helped perform burials and cremations. The priests said that contact with these groups was polluting…” “…Caste rules were set which did not allow the so-called “untouchables” to take on work, other than what they were meant to do. For example, some groups were forced to pick garbage and remove dead animals from the village. But they were not allowed to enter the homes of the upper castes or take water from the village well, or even enter temples. Their children could not sit next to children of other castes in school…”

And of course Nehru’s vision of temples of Modern India has no place in the scheme of things practiced by communal forces today. How can this vision of the Architect Modern India can withstand the communalization of our text books, “Which place can be greater than this, this Bhakra Nangal, where thousands and lakhs of men have worked, have shed their blood and sweat and laid down their lives as well?”

Simlalry chapters like ‘Democracy and Diversity’ along with comments on the Emergency when the media and civil liberties were stifled stands deleted. All in all the deletions are total reflections of the political agenda of communal politics and it is not just the deletion of Mughals.

Saffronisation of education is okay, but hijabs are out?

Education: Saffronisation and Nefarious Agenda of RSS

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Dr. Ambedkar saffronised in a poster, Hindu outfit leader arrested in TN

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 10:52:15 +0000

On Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s death anniversary, to commemorate him, a Hindu outfit leader in Tamil Nadu put up a poster with a picture of Dr. Ambedkar donning a saffron shirt and holy ash on his forehead. This poster was posted on his Twitter account by Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) leader and MP, Thol Thirumavalavan.

Thirumavalavan said that the poster saffronised Ambedkar who refused to pray to Vishnu or Brahma. “Such religious fanatics who portrayed Ambedkar with a saffron shirt and holy ash on his forehead should be arrested immediately,” Thirumavalavan wrote, as reported by India Today.

#சனாதன சங்கத்துவ வர்ணாஸ்ரம பாகுபாடுகளை- பார்ப்பனீய மனுஸ்மிருதி மேலாதிக்கத்தை- தன் இறுதிமூச்சு வரையில் மூர்க்கமாக எதிர்த்து 10இலட்சம் பேருடன் இந்து மதத்திலிருந்து வெளியேறி மதவெறியர்களின் பல்லைப் பிடுங்கிய புரட்சியாளர் அம்பேத்கர் அவர்களை இழிவுபடுத்தும் மதவாத மனநோயாளிகளை மிக (1/2).. pic.twitter.com/PINQVC4hlx

— Thol. Thirumavalavan (@thirumaofficial) December 6, 2022

Soon after, the perpetrator, Gurumurthy, who is the Kumbakonam district secretary of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, was arrested and booked under relevant sections of the IPC.

To portray Babasaheb donning saffron coloured shirt and holy ash (a mark of Brahminism) on his forehead is an insult to the man who denounced the caste system in its entirety and converted to Buddhism, renouncing the Hindu religion.

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How Tribals in Jharkhand Are Being Saffronised

Fri, 31 May 2019 04:07:03 +0000

Jharkhand is witnessing a silent but an intense religious war between the RSS, the Sarna tribals and church.

Ranchi (Jharkhand): “Are tribals Hindus by faith?” this reporter asked Surya Narayan Hembrum – a resident of Mali village at Poraiyahat Block in Godda district – who had just got free after performing rituals at a local, newly constructed Shiva temple. Showing no doubt about it, he replied, “We belong to the Santhal tribe and the word Santhal (Saint+Asthal) means a place of saints – who believe in worshipping and avoid having non-vegetarian food.”

The word Sanatan and Sarna are the same – he said – explaining why the Sarnas are closer to Hinduism than any other religion. He says Sarna worship place has a small stone in the shape of Shiv linga, which is also worshipped in temples. “We worship both,” he claims, adding that some of the Hindu festivals such as Durga Puja are celebrated by the villagers with the same fervor as any Hindu. “Tribals are not Christians, but Hindus or Sanatans,” he claimed.

Jharkhand is witnessing a silent but an intense religious war between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Sarna tribals and the church. The battle has been intensified by the state’s anti-conversion law – the Jharkhand Freedom of Religion Act 2017, which makes the tribal-dominated state, the sixth in the country to put curbs on conversion. Any person found guilty of conversion through force or allurement will be liable for punishment that includes a jail term of three years and a fine of Rs 50,000.

In an awareness camp at Shikaripara in Dumka, an RSS functionary asked a group of villagers in their local Santhali language, “Can you desert your mother who has given you birth after nine months of sufferings?” “No, never,” the crowd responded in unison. “Then why do you convert to Christianity by leaving your Hindu mother? We are Hindus, let us keep this identity intact,” he thundered.

Despite the confidence of Surya Narayan Hembrum and the RSS man in the religious orientation of their community members, there are others in his own tribe who said they are “not Hindus”.

Subal Murmu, who belongs to Phulwaria village at Thakurgangti Block in Godda district, said that the tribals have never been Hindus. They are nature’s worshippers – mountains, forest and water. “The RSS is trying to make us Hindus, arguing that we are descendants of Parashurama (the sixth avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism),” he alleged.

He said that his community is not so religious, and therefore, they don’t worship gods every day. “And this is one of the reasons why people from my community have started believing in the new faith – which is Hinduism. When there is no end to people’s woes and they start losing hope in life, we go to a place in search of God with the belief that all the difficulties will end with prayers. The tribal community does not have any such place where people can go to find solace in a time of great distress or sadness. Therefore, they go to Hindu temples to offer prayers. And if they get peace of mind and their difficulties are eased, the get convinced that they got all in the new faith what their God couldn’t give for so many years,” he explained.

Murmu alleged that the RSS wants the tribals to lose their culture and tradition so that their resources can be controlled. Adding that the saffron outfit is operating in tribal pockets under different names and though different persons, he said, “You will find a Ram Baba in every Adivasi village. When people suffering from different problems go to him, he asks them to worship Hindu deities. He has, of late, got a good influence on the people. He is an RSS agent; has support of the saffron outfit.”

He also said that a good number of Adivasis have started marrying their daughters and sons as per the Hindu culture and tradition. “Adivasiyon ko dharmik samajh bahut kam hai… Hum purnatah prakriti ki puja karte hain aur who bhi apni vyavastha ke hisab se (Indigenous people have the least understanding of religion… We pray to the nature only, and that too as per our convenience),” said Murmu.
Marang Buru (big mountain), Jaher Aayo (land god), Gosai Aayo (the power thatis believed to protect tribals from negative energy and evil spirits) are among the few Gods whom the tribals offer prayers to.

Every tribal village has Manjhi Thans – a concrete structure which is a designated place where community rituals begin and conclude under the manjhi (village head) and his four helping manjhis and ojhas. On the outer periphery of villages, there are Jaher Thans, which have trees, flora and fauna. It is a small patch of greenery, which also is a place where traditional medicines and emergency seeds (for drought) are found. But it is sacred, and one cannot pluck or pick anything without the community’s consent.

Tribal activist Dayamani Barla, who is associated with the Adivasi Astitva Raksha Manch, Jharkhand, said there is an attempt to create religious divide in the tribal population. Introducing anti-conversion bill and linking reservation to conversion were such attempts to create divide and impose Hindu supremacy on the population, she said.

“Tribal villages are being renamed with an aim to globalise it. The moment you change the name of an Adivasi village to some Nagar, it loses its identity and culture,” she says.

Tribal rights activist Xavier Dias says this has been going on for a long time. Earlier, he said, it was more Sanskritisation of Adivasis but now it is their saffronisation for vote bank.

“Temples funded by big businessmen and politicians are being constructed in tribal villages. There is competition regarding who will build bigger temples. Because of continuous brainwashing, a good number of tribals have accepted that they are Hindus. But Santhals – who are strong and stick to their root and culture – have not so far accepted Hinduism,” he said.

In context of the election results – where a huge section of tribals have voted in favour of the BJP – he said that the saffron party has an advantage of having a huge cash economy. “Adivasis have the moral sensibility that they will work for the BJP if they have taken money. Christianisation of tribals became successful because it came with quality education and health services. If there is an attempt to saffronise tribals to take their land, it won’t get success. The attempt, if fails to bring development along, it will collapse,” he added.

Ruby Hembrom, founder of Adivaani – a platform for Adivasi expressions, said the saffron brigade is successfully trying to visual brainwashing and they have a good strategy for it. “Boudary wall, hoardings and government buildings have been painted with saffron colour to give an image that we the people of the state are saffron now. Influx of stone mining in the area has further helped the cause of saffronisation of tribals,” she added.

Courtesy: News Click

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The Sanatan Dharma Recipe for Historical Writing and Research

Tue, 17 May 2016 03:45:59 +0000

Image Credit: Times of India/Sandeep Adhwaryu

In this interview, renowned historian, Gopinath Ravindran, former Member Secretary of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) details the agenda of the present regime, driven by an aggressive Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a majority government to serious affect quality historical enquiry and research. Ravindran resigned as Member Secretary of the ICHR mid-way through his term in 2015 when he evidenced, at close hand, the unprofessional functioning of this top level research body. This interview was conducted by the Indian Cultural Forum. Ravindran teaches at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Would you recall the sequence of events that led you to quit the ICHR?
In October 2013, I went on secondment to the ICHR as the Member Secretary or the chief executive of the research body with a three-year tenure. I entered ICHR at a time when the Council had begun to focus – after a long gap – on promoting historical research, putting in place transparent rules and procedures. The Chairperson and most members of that Council were well-regarded professional historians. They were nominated by the government of the day after the Chairperson and Member Secretary sent a list of names. The government made very few changes. But though the then Chairperson’s tenure was coming to an end, the Congress government did nothing – either in terms of giving him a second term to which he was entitled, or by appointing a fresh Chairperson. UPA-2 appeared to have thrown in the towel much before their electoral debacle.

The Council worked without a Chairperson till the end of May when the modest and soft-spoken Professor Y. Sudershan Rao was appointed. Professor Rao, though not well known to the community of historians, had been a member of the Council of the ICHR during the earlier period of NDA rule. Immediately after his appointment, he gave a series of interviews to the press in which he appears to have honestly spoken his mind and outlined his agenda for Indian history. This is important, as it suggests the view of history that the BJP wants to popularise.

During NDA I, Professor Rao claims, he was awarded a UGC National Fellowship to work on the “Proposed Application of Pendulum Theory of Oscillation between Spirituality and Materialism based on the Cosmic Phenomenon and Indian Yuga (Epoch) Systemic Approach, of the deterioration of Dharma to the Historical process”. He also mentioned that his academic work included research on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata project aimed to establish an exact date for the epic. In an interview published in Outlook, he said:

Western schools of thought look at material evidence of history. We can’t produce material evidence for everything. India is a continuing civilisation. To look for evidence would mean digging right though the hearts of villages and displacing people. We only have to look at the people to figure out the similarities in their lives and the depiction in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. For instance, the Ramayana mentions that Rama travelled to Bhadrachalam (in Andhra Pradesh). A look at the people and the fact that his having lived there for a while is in the collective memory of the people cannot be discounted in the search for material evidence. In continuing civilisations such as ours, the writing of history cannot depend only on archaeological evidence. We have to depend on folklore too.

Similarly, Rao supported the theory of a greater India: “The ICHR should encourage research about India and Greater India – from South-East Asia all the way to Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. There is enough archaeological evidence to show the connect of our civilisation there.”

Despite the fact that topics such as religion and caste have been subjects of philosophical discussions and debates for many years, and the fact that innumerable academic works of repute have been published on these subjects, Sudershan Rao’s views on such topics bear an unpolished, uninformed colour. For example, to a question on the accusation that he may try to foreground a simplistic religious interpretation of history, he said: “Religions are recent manifestations. I feel there’s only Sanatana Dharma. There was no conflict between communities or on religious lines as there was only one Sanatana Dharma. Now there are several reasons for conflict to take place. Besides, Muslims are the only ones who have retained their distinct culture. Can Christians or Muslims say all religions are one? A Hindu can say that. There was no conflict when there was Sanatana Dharma. Conflict or contests came about when temples were destroyed and mosques built on the sites in medieval times.”

His view is very simple: Indian history, with Sanatana Dharma as its prime mover and guiding force, was harmonious till the coming of the Muslims. They introduced conflict and distorted the caste system. It logically follows that to rediscover the past of India, we should go back to the Vedas and sources from a period uncontaminated by contacts between Muslims and Hindus.

When Rao took over, he still had to work with the old Council members. The new Chairperson expressed his views on history in public lectures and newspaper interviews; but, wisely, he did not initiate any major changes, fully aware of possible resistance from the Council. It took the new government another three months to make nominations to the new Council. Past practice has been that the Chairperson and the Member Secretary send a list of names to the Ministry, and these are approved with minor or no changes. After many reminders, the Chairperson asked me to draw up a list of possible names. There was no discussion between us on the list that I had given him. Finally, he said that he had sent the names to the Ministry. None of my names was on the list, and I am not sure how many of the Chairman’s names were finally considered for membership to the Council. For weeks the Delhi press speculated on the names of the new Council members on the basis of unofficial information from the Ministry. Finally, when the new Council was officially announced, none of the eight earlier members who could have been given a second term, found a place. The eighteen historians on the Council, except for three or four, were affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Itihaasa Yojana, the RSS’ Kerala based Bharatiya Vichara Kendra, the BJP, or think-tanks supportive of the BJP.

Indian historians criticised the government for selecting a Chairperson and members who were largely unknown to their peers. The press emphasised the political motives of the Ministry.

Months after the notification, when the new Council met for the first time at the end of March 2014, a routine meeting turned out to be a prolonged outpouring of anger and venom against the Council – notwithstanding the fact that many on this Council had received funds or had contributed to the output of the ICHR. The venomous anger was also directed against history writing and the historians of India. With one or two exceptions, the members loudly demanded the rewriting of history. They debunked earlier research, which they condemned as based on Leftist and Western views of history that consistently denied Indian approaches to historical research.

The newly constituted ICHR emphatically reiterated that the task at hand is to remove distortions from Indian historiography by resorting to an Indian approach that emphasises ancient Indian history. Inspired by this academic goal, they also want to change the constitution of the ICHR that states, inter alia, that the ICHR should promote the writing of scientific history shorn of superstition, and promote secularism and the plural identity of India.

To accomplish the tasks the newly constituted ICHR set for itself, the first step was to invite scholars and gurus who by no stretch of imagination could be considered professional historians. One of these, a Belgian professor, rubbishes Indian historians; another, an American yoga guru, strongly feels we should return to the Vedas and “take the red out of Indian history”.

The second step was to dismiss a renowned historian who had, as Editor, taken the Council’s journal to unprecedented levels of international acceptance. The third step was to disband the entire Advisory Council of the journal that had some of the best historians from around the world – and by no means were they all Marxists. This is when I decided to register my disagreement. But this was not permitted, and I resigned as the Member Secretary of the ICHR less than half-way into my term.

ICHR_logo.svg Wikimedia Commons

Has anything changed since then? What do you think is in store for ICHR?
Within less than a year of my quitting the Council, I heard that Professor Rao had tendered his resignation and had stopped attending office. It is indeed very strange that the Ministry of HRD has neither accepted nor rejected Rao’s resignation. One can only speculate about the reasons why the Ministry has not yet accepted his resignation and appointed another RSS historian. Is it administrative inefficiency, or intra-RSS disagreements, or a still continuing search for an RSS historian of repute?

Unfortunately, I am not hopeful of any positive developments in the Council’s functioning as long as this government is in office. The chronic bureaucratic lethargy of the Ministry, combined with this government’s insistence on RSS-ratified research agendas for Indian history, is a foolproof recipe for undermining the fundamental objectives and functioning of the ICHR.

Why is the discipline of history so important for the current establishment?
Politically, the Council is in the news every time the BJP is in the government. This is understandable. The BJP and the erstwhile Jana Sangh, the parliamentary fronts of the RSS, have continuously sought popular acceptance on the plea that they are the exclusive custodians of nationalism, based on a national identity that is unambiguously Hindu. Since they had no role in the anti-imperialist struggle (remember the repeated written apologies of Savarkar) they go back to a golden Hindu past of the Vedas. They claim the caste system worked well at that time. They claim we had the most advanced technology — our Prime Minister’s speech at the International Science Congress in Mumbai referred to airplanes, automated surface transport and plastic surgery in ancient India. Then what went wrong according to them? Foreigners in the form of Muslims conquered us. That is when, they say, these great institutions of caste, gender equality and improbably rapid technological advance came to a halt.

Historical discourse in India has, by and large, emphasised the plural character of Indian society from the time of the in-migrations of Aryan-speaking peoples, varied cultural patterns and in modern history, and the limited role of the Hindu right in country’s anti-imperialist struggle.

Not surprisingly then, this history does not serve the BJP agenda of creating a Hindu Nation. Hence, the need for a new history. This also explains the unending attempts to provide historical legitimacy to myths and legends. The historical record does not support the nationalism of the Sangh or their claim of Aryan-speaking peoples being indigenous. The Sangh’s simple solution to this hurdle is to rewrite history with scant regard for fact and logic.

The way things stand today, can anything be done about rewritten textbooks?
The earlier NDA government thought that by controlling the ICHR through appointments to its Council, the country’s history could be re-written and offending research could be muzzled. That attempt failed miserably. They did succeed in recalling two volumes by Professors Sumit Sarkar and K.N. Panikkar that were part of the Towards Freedom series from the press. Moneys were granted to once again start research on the Saraswati. But with the change in government, the recalled volumes were published; and the Saraswati research was censured for financial irregularities and academic deficiencies.

The ICHR under NDA-I failed to change the writing of Indian history.

The vastly more powerful present BJP government has overhauled the Council, populating it with history teachers not known to their peers for their research (with one exception). However, about 15 of these 18 historian members have clear links to the RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalan Yojana, or research organizations close to the BJP. The evidence is available in the public domain. This group of historians has not yet produced any research that has intellectually challenged the dominant academic discourse of the country. Academically, it is unlikely that the BJP has the intellectual resources to offer an alternate view of Indian history that will meet even minimum disciplinary standards of historical research. I think the current government realises this, and so there is an attempt to legislate what is national and who is anti-national. In other words, the attempt is to produce a new past for the country by administrative fiat.

Though historians will not accept the Sangh’s administratively prescribed history, the government can easily incorporate this into textbooks. It was tried earlier, and similar attempts have begun once again. Since history is a potent polarising weapon in the hands of a government bent on destroying the plural character of India, the only possible way of countering this rewriting of text books is by exposing misrepresentations and factual inaccuracies in every available popular forum. Selected myths and popular legends cannot be substituted for history. Such a sustained campaign against an agenda-driven writing of history is necessary to prevent what has become, by now, a predictable policy of BJP governments in India. Hopefully, once another political dispensation comes to power in the country that is serious about the autonomy of critical inquiry, safeguards will be put in place to insulate academic institutions from government interference in terms of appointments and the setting of research agendas.

Romare Bearden, untitled drawing from the Iliad series / Pinterest

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