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ASSEMBLY POLL '98
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'History is, has been, and will be written by the winners'
E-mail from readers the world over
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:06:33 -0000 This woman is totally biased in what she says about the teaching of history. While it is generally known that the BJP governments have tried to twist certain historical perspectives in school books, what is not talked about is the Leftists attempts to do the same, for example in West Bengal. Since Thapar herself is associated with the pinkos, she will obviously not have the integrity to mention this. Her criticism of Arun Shourie is also typical of her type. The fact remains that Shourie does more research than most history professors, and presents references to back his hypotheses. Thapar is just jealous of Shourie, because he is obviously better educated, has a better mind, and is more widely read than herself. The fact is that most Indian historians are third rate, do not do enough research, and certainly do not publish on the scale that historians in the West do. We should look at the teaching of history objectively -- when has it been free of bias? While Thapar makes a valid point about interpreting the facts, the tragedy is at the point of presenting the facts. And I'm amazed that she can argue that this bias in factual presentation is limited to the BJP ruled states. Please, Ms Thapar, do have a look at the text books of Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala also. Ruchira Raghav
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 17:21:59 +0000 I cannot believe Rediff would do the controversial task of interviewing the best known Communist of India! This apologetic bull has to stop, and I urge you to stop it. I have but one question for this "celebrated historian"... what is her opinion of Bombay being held ransom by Islamic fundamentalists during say... the Satanic Verses controversy??? You know, her apologetic behaviour disgusts me. SB
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 12:34:38 -0500 Arun Shourie is indeed right! These people are sick and dangerous. Suresh
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 11:40:25 -0600 I think Romila Thapar and people like her should try and ascertain the facts before drawing premature conclusions. The only fascism that India ever experienced was at the hands of the Congress under Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, not to mention Sanjay Gandhi. I can go on and on, but what is the point? K L Narayan
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 10:07:24 PST I don't know why Rediff is up to Hindu bashing. The results of those polls have been a real slap on your face. Why can't you have a site which is more balanced? Why can't you have a site which poses poll questions like "Do you think Rushdie should be allowed to visit India;" "Do you think there should be no ban on Satanic Verses;" "Do you think Christian missionaries are really doing selfless work;" "Do you think it is proper to exploit the poverty of people to induce them into conversion" etc. Come on Rediff, come out of what you landed yourself into. Although I am not sure whether spineless people like you will ever publish this letter of mine, but still I am forced to express my opinion.
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 13:10:54 -0500 Romila Thapar and her friends like Panicker, S Gopal and other historians of the pink hue have distorted Indian history beyond repair. Arun Shourie has exposed these ideological evil people. The crime committed by these pinkos is proven beyond reasonable doubt from the hundreds of excerpts Shourie published in his series of articles from the text books, reports, scandals in ICHR. I don't know why Rediff is sharing a platform with her while denying it to Shourie. I have no inclination to read anything from these pinkos herein after. While Rediff does not forget to mention that T V R Shenoy is a BJP sympathiser, it forgot to mention the charges against these worthies in the article. Mukund Kute
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 13:49:35 -0500 The same question for Romila Thapar as to Amberish Diwanji. Is she going to publicly take on the Jama Masjid's Naib Imam, Ahmed Bukhari who doesn't want Salman Rushdie in the country? Is she going to tell him "You can't have a situation where the country is going to be held to ransom by a bunch of fascists?" Trashing screenings of Fire is not much different than banning the Satanic Verses. So did Romila voice her opinion when that took place? Hey! even Bal Thackeray and Salman came to terms a few years ago about his earlier writings. Romila should know better. History is, has been, and will be written by the winners and misinterpreted and embellished by 'historians' according to what they perceive is the politically correct and acceptable viewpoint of the day. The point is to get published and sound off. The only point of history worth taking home is: "If you want the same undesirable result, make the same mistake" -- try and grant a particular community or communities special privileges, selectively enforce laws and muffle the voices of the majority -- you'll get a backlash. Romila's huffing and puffing about setting the country back a century would be more credible if she had been as vocal in condemning the attacks on Hindu Pandits in Kashmir. Your interviewer was so deferential (and reading from her notes), that the interview was fluff as well. Arvind Rajkumar
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 11:14:40 PST If the educational system set up before the Hindutva tampering is so good, why does the average Indian suffer from an inferiority complex? Why is it that the average Indian student is totally ignorant of his heritage? Why are we so shamelessly aping the West? When India has provided some of the greatest innovations in mathematics from the numeric system, the concept of zero, the decimal system, the basic algebra etc, why is it that the average Indian student is not even aware of it? Why is that we read of only Pythagoras and Archimedes? Why doesn't Aryabhatta or other Indian mathematicians or scientists figure in our books? When even Goethe salutes Kalidasa in his Faust, how come our students read only Wordsworth and Keats? Why not Ashvaghosa instead of Shakespeare? Why not the Panchatantra instead of the Canterbury Tales? When Sanskrit, accepted by most linguists as the perfect language ever and the only language to posses a scientific grammar till the 17th century, is taught in a Christian school in central London in the traditional way using Panini's Sutras, why are Indian youth shamelessly taking pride in talking English perfectly? When we have such a brilliant tradition in philosophy, why do universities offer only Western philosophy in their curriculum? Why not a Nagarjuna instead of Kant? Or a Adi Shankara instead of a Hegel? Isn't it accepted world over in philosophical circles that they taught exactly what their European counterparts did, only a millenea earlier? The only weak link in the chain is the caste system. Even that has a sociological reason and value behind it, than the oppressive trap that our communist friends blame it to be. OK, even if it is perceived that it has no relevance in the current scenario, there's ample scope for reform. And in the last few decades we've had a steady stream of reformers from Raja Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda, Gandhi, Vinobha Bhave etc who have interpreted our culture in a wider spectrum. Is there any justification in throwing the baby out with the bath water and trying to adopt an alien culture in toto? Yet, in that lies the reason for the existence of the communists and the "leaders" of the oppressed. Modernity? Progress? With such a shallow base that the current educational system builds, there's no point in progress, as it'll never last!
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 14:59:25 -0800 Yes it was interesting. Especially an historian accusing history of being slanted by whoever tells it. So how and why would anyone believe any history written by anyone? Kumar
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 09:20:52 +1000 Do not teach history at all. Do DNA profiling studies, establish things scientifically. Maybe we could learn much from doing good science, civics than history. History is always written by a successful regime. The failed ones hardly write. Rama
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 23:54:53 EST Here we go again, another one of those one-sided, Hindu-bashing, anti-BJP, distorted views of one with a colonial hangover. Vishaal
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 23:03:43 -0800 Your interview with Romila Thapar is an insult to the intelligence of your readers. She claims that incidents like "attacks on Christians" have not happened in India's history on the scale they have happened lately. I do not know how to respond to her idiotic statements. Three Christians have been killed recently, but are we sure that those involved in their killings belong to the "Sangh Parivar?" Why is there a big noise being made by "secularists" like Romila Thapar for such minor incidences? Where is their sense of moral outrage when victims of the violence are Hindus as in Kashmir, Pakistan and Bangladesh? Nowhere in her interview has she made a mention of the millions of non-Muslims (mostly Hindus) who were butchered during the Islamic regime in India. I bet in her view, it was a period of "peaceful co-existence" between Hindus and Muslims. We do not even need to go that far back in history. Does not she know about the atrocities being committed on Kashmiri Hindus (and Sikhs)? Does not she know about thousands of them who have been kicked out of their homes and countless others who have been killed in the name of "religion of peace?" I am glad I did not have to read her books in school. She uses words like "proto-fascists" and "fascists" against eminent journalists like Arun Shourie who disagree with her view of history. That is nothing new, these are the kind of the words Marxists use to describe their opponents. About the issue of beef eating in the Vedic times, why cannot "historians" like her mention the chapter and verse of the Vedic literature in which the reference is made to beef-eating? We will be better off without "historians" like her who are engaged in the perversion of truth.
Satinder Trehan
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 14:23:10 +0530 Very good, clear and lucid. Subhashini Ali
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 17:08:50 +0530 Today, from the layman's perspective, the debate on history is hinging on two issues: one, that those who have come to be associated with the Indian historiographical establishment have selectively interpreted history viewing it through their Marxist ideological blinkers. Two, that this establishment has flourished so brazenly at the expense of the state that it has actually gotten away with financial misconduct. In Archana Masih's interview of 'eminent' historian Romila Thapar, the first issue was only half-heartedly touched upon, and the latter was not raised at all! A classic example of the interviewer and interviewee colluding with each other. No questions were asked on the cited instances of distortion of Indian history by Marxist historians. No specifics were mentioned and discussed. Instead, when Thapar accuses -- and heaps abuse -- on her ideological opponents, she was not challenged. To what extent this ridiculous exercise was carried on can be gleaned from the following facts: 1. Thapar says that the 'Hindutva' historians do not want any references to acts of benevolence by Aurangzeb and Ghazni to be stated in school text-books. But it is the Marxist historians who are accused of quoting and emphasising only these and nothing else! It is they who are accused of presenting the exception as the rule and vice versa! Very cleverly, Thapar turns tables, and the interviewer was only too willing. 2. Thapar goes on to say that historical incidents must be viewed in various angles. Would the interviewer want to know whether the Marxists do so? For example, when Marxists cite instances such as Aurangzeb granting largesse to temples, do they insist that these are examples of the Mughal regime's munificence and benevolence, or do they accect that they could have been acts of tactical or political expediency? Archana Masih isn't hypercritical, for the interview seems to have been meant to be conducted only at a superficial level. 3. Absolutely no questions on distorted versions of history being taught in West Bengal. To Thapar, what matters are only states where BJP or a BJP-led coalition is in power. It appears that the interviewer agrees. 4. Absolutely no questions on Marxist historians having taken money for projects for which no deliverables were made. 5. Absolutely no questions on the issue which started the recent controversy: the "rational-vs-national" issue. Since it has now been proved that no effort whatsoever was made to alter ICHR's charter, what does Thapar have to say on Marxist historians' claim that it was indeed sought to be altered? Too difficult a question to answer, and it seems the interviewer was kind enough to spare the interviewee the agony of answering it. 6. Absolutely no questions on the proven instance of one of their camp plagiarising the work of another historian; a plagiarisation which gets the tacit endorsement of one of their own in the form of a preface to the plagiarised work. 7. And then, abuse of Arun Shourie. Later on, Thapar accuses the rival party of not showing any inclinations towards reasoned debate. Here's a whole book written by Shourie and he gets no debate from the eminent historian, only abuse. The interviewer, once again, doesn't deem it fit to challenge the interviewee. What a happy convergence of minds... 8. Thapar is asked to enumerate instances in history of "incidents like the attacks on Christians." Thapar lists "the moments of intolerance," -- alleged attacks on Jains, Buddhists etc. No mention of systematic persecution of Hindus by the likes of Aurangzeb! The question and the answer seem so well- scripted... The point is not in the omission: the point is that since Hindutva didn't exist in ancient India, what relevance do these incidents have to those occurring now, if, at least for argument's sake, accepting Thapar's contention that Hindutva is responsible for the latter? If the underlying theme is not Hindutva, then why only the alleged intolerance shown to what are minority groups today gets mentioned? Clearly, when it suits her agenda, Thapar doesn't distinguish between Hinduism and Hindutva. Perhaps this was too subtle a point for the interviewer to notice and ask supplementary questions on... 9. At last, a question on the fact of recent historiography having been monopolised by Marxists -- but no mention of State patronage. Thapar answers in the usual manner -- by pouring forth more abuse on "fascists" and "proto-fascists", yada yada. Not challenged, as usual. The fact of ICHR having been in control of Marxists from its inception is not mentioned. That numerous projects awarded by ICHR went to a coterie was not alluded to. 10. As is to be expected, the Babri Masjid is brought into picture. But no question on the fact of Marxist historians having withdrawn from a debate, facilitated by the Chandra Shekhar government, on the historicity of the Ram temple, while the other party was quite willing to take it forward. In short, a wholly worthless interview. An article by Thapar stating her well-known position could have served the purpose just as well. If an engaging interview was indeed planned, then a journalist whose ideological predilections lean towards Thapar's opposition must have been commissioned to interview her. An interviewer who will not merely record what the interviewee has to say, but will actually challenge the latter. Archana Masih could have been sent to talk to, say, Arun Shourie or Sita Ram Goel. And both kinds of interviews must be published. Appeasing the political reader, while letting the likes of Thapar get away with their delegitimisation and demonisation of an entire school of thought, is no balancing act. Rediff editors often take pains to assert that their magazine is unbiased. Yes, the magazine does present a wide spectrum of opinion and I am thankful for the small mercy. But what about interviews like this, and what about the none-too-inconspicuous slant in news reports? I'll have no beef with Rediff if it makes no claims of impartiality, but when it does make such claims and fails to live up to the implied promise, one wonders if one is being taken for a ride. Sikhivahan
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:06:07 -0800 The interview sounds routine, bland and unprovocative. It sounds as if the interviewer agrees with Romila Thapar and is asking very leading questions. Sandeep
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 16:29:49 -0500 I think the historian fails to understand the cause for the rise of Hindutva forces. I wish this very historian had made a few comments on the evils of minority appeasing which was rampant in the country. And besides, the history of India we read is what the British had documented in their times which covers up many gruesome deeds of the British and paints a pale picture. For these very historians were staunch advocates of issues like Aryan invasion etc... (which have been proven as a farce by some new Indian historians...) by the British then which was compliant with the divide and rule policy, and sadly that policy seems to work in the form of the Western media even today. And India's own intellectual class has very strong Western leanings partly because of the mindset they were brought up in.
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 13:16:35 -0600 Thapar is guilty of the same charges she accuses Hindutva historians. She never bothered to engage in debates with Hindutva historians such as the great late Ram Swarup, for example despite being challenged. Her charge that Hindutva historians are close minded and averse to debates with her ilk is baseless. Who did she ask to debate, and when? Why doesn't she challenge Arun Shourie's writing page by page, if she is sincere? As is the lefty wont, when lies don't work, be a good cry baby. People are no longer fooled. Pradip Parekh
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