Why bother to study History?

                                                 Why bother to study History?

Tipu Jayanthi is the last straw on the communal camel’s back.  A totally unnecessary celebration has been organized by the ruling Congress party that has ensured that Congress will not have a presence south of Vindhyas in the next couple of years. Whether Tipu was a good king or a tyrant is basically a debate among historians and scholars who are today polarized on ideological grounds. What the left historians had maintained all these years has become untenable to the new right-wing group of historians, and the latter has promised to come out with a new narrative. Time will tell how well the new narrative will stand the test of authenticity and research. The clash of historians is to be seen as a clash initiated by new scholarship that looks at the past from the prism of its partisan understanding of historical facts and seeks to straightjacket history within the framework of its ideology. Unless propped up by facts, history will end up as his/her story(that of the new narrator), a creative falsehood, fanciful than real. A historian has to have both historical sight and insight to render the past objectively and as an authentic narrative.

Why do we need history? The present day student who finds it difficult even to remember the mobile numbers of his close friends wonders why he should attempt remembering historical dates. Many others in different professional fields argue why dwell on the past when that time can be spent on working out solutions to the many problems that beset them in the present? In this age of Science and Technology, when everyday is an advance on the previous day, when obsolescence is more of  a welcome than a pejorative term, what is the use of history and more so, that of the  quarrel between a historian of the left and a historian of the right? Apart from unseemly wrangling about factual truth and fictional falsehood between the two contending groups of historians, the conflict has touched abysmal depths with a bright and scholarly rightwing zealot denouncing the past historians of repute as “the pall bearers of Indic civilization”.  The fanatic attempts to adopt history to one’s persuasions make one suspect the authenticity of historical writings. The difference in the writing of History is also to be viewed as the difference between a historian and a historicist.  A historian tries to reconstruct the past but he is aware of his limitation to reconstruct the past in its wholeness or completeness.  But a historicist constructs theories out of the past and believes that historical awareness is crucial for adequate understanding in general or in a particular field.

History is the essence of human evolution and civilization. History is not a ‘dead’ subject for it provides the link between the past and the present, whether it relates to culture, tradition, religion or technology for nothing is created in the present out of a vacuum. Penelope Corfield writes that “All people and peoples are living histories.” History connects us to our roots. A lack of a sense of our roots-that of being rootless- brings in its wake a sense of un-belonging and disturbing questions “who am I and who are we”-questions that do not ever lend for a  wholesome, logical and satisfying answer. If there is no awareness of inherited legacy, there will be no sense of belonging to a society or a community or a group and this gives license to individuals to shape their lives with no commitment to fellow beings. History is absolutely basic for understanding the condition of being human. Penelope concludes “All living people live in the here-and-now but it took a long unfolding history to get everything to NOW. And that history is located in time-space, which holds this cosmos together, and which frames both the past and the present.” The ideas of the past and its linkages with the present help us to make the necessary modification to life in present times. If we fail to understand Hitler, how can we abhor the path of tyrannical dictatorship and arrogance of assumed racial superiority?  If we know nothing about the two World Wars of the last century, we may not be able to avert the occurrence of yet another World War in the 21^st century. If we do not learn from the tragedy of the 1947partition, we will be re-igniting religious and communal fires to inflame religious and sectarian passions. If the World forgets the coming together of the Allies to defeat Hitler and his Nazi forces, it will not be able to collectively stop the ISIS cruelty unleashed today.  Failing to understand history is at Man’s own peril.

It is true that when a historian writes, he does so with the awareness that the past is fundamentally different from the present and he looks at the past for its own sake and not to use his knowledge of the past to illuminate the problems of the day. A historian is not a compiler of facts, but he is a historicist, one who contextualizes the available information and interprets it and thereby rejects universal and immutable interpretations that lie outside the context. Hegel, one of the first to define Historicism was of the view that society and human activities are defined by their history as everything is built up on what had been done in the past or through rejection of that which is viewed as undesirable or as an impediment to human progress. “To understand why a person is the way he is, you must put that person in a society; and to understand that society, you must understand its history and the forces that shaped it.” Even in the study of literature the concept of new Historicism is being applied where the literary text is placed parallel to non-literary texts and when the texts are read together, they constantly inform or interrogate each other. New Historicism is defined as “ a combined interest in the textuality of history, the historicity of texts.”(Louis Montrose) It is not a question of just putting down details as stated in the archival documents- words, phrases and references -but going beyond the available facts to place them alongside the context, culture and background of that period.

The clash today is about Tipu Sultan’s legacy- whether he was a benign ruler who funded and preserved the temples in Karnataka (including the famous Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangapatna) and who was a secular king and fought the British or whether he was a tyrant who massacred 700 brahmins in Melcote and killed many innocents in the adjacent territories of Kerala and Tamilnadu. The historical prespective demands that this unseemly controversy triggered by the Congress government in Karnataka is to be seen  not by sticking  to details but by decoding those facts and placing them in the context of the 18^th century when territorial annexure was a legitimate action of a King.  The Hindu editorial says: “History shows rulers governed by the order that prevailed in their times, one that involved the persecution of enemies and the plunder of conquered territories. Kings can be judged either by the quality of their administration and the reforms, if any, they brought in, or by their conduct and conquests. Just as such kings will have descendants vouching for their good governance and personalities, there will be descendants of their victims testifying to their ruthlessness and intolerance. It is unacceptable for this divided legacy to be used to divide people.” What should be a debate among historians has now become a handy political weapon for the two contending parties in Karnataka. It will be a matter of time before  this political wrangle assumes national proportion and creates communal clashes.

Tipu controversy has not credited the Congress government with foresight,  with ability to predict the damage of the after consequences of raising a toast to Tipu and with the sense of timing to celebrate an event that had been dormant for more than two centuries. Whatever can be said in defence has been said by Girish Karnad who has written a play on the controversial 18^th C king, but that does not explain the sudden veneration of Tipu especially when there is a sweeping intolerance spread across the nation. For the BJP, backed by RSS and Sangh parivar, this is a god-sent opportunity to claim their patriotism by painting Tipu in the vilest possible manner. Both the Congress and the BJP lack a sense of history to evaluate Tipu as a secular and just king, a freedom fighter or as an expansionist, a despot who converted people to Islam. This is a debate for historians, researchers and scholars  to argue by placing the facts in the context of the 18^th century political context.

WE see the lack of historical sense on the global level. The brutal ISIS acts of horror and terrorism show that it has neither read history nor learnt from it.  ISIS ,Boko Haram and Al-Queda have been barbaric in their actions, killing thousands of innocents very much like the brutality unleashed by Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, by Hitler inspiring fellow Germans  with his Aryan myth against the Jews, by Napoleon Bonaparte with his appeal to Nationalism, to name a few terrible events from the 20^th Century global history. Studies in history of the 20^th century alone will enable  us understand that these were the cruel and barbaric acts of a few fanatic tyrants  whose passionate appeal to emotional issues tugged at the heartstrings  of people and made them blind to reason and humanity . Seen in the backdrop of history, we realize that the present ISIS war is not a war where the Muslims of the world have united against Westerners, Christians, Jews and non-Islamists, but a war by a few ruthless leaders who have worked upon the human psychology that applauds aggression using the toxic ideology of religious passion. To polarize the world into Muslims versus the rest is to be bankrupt of historical sense.

We need history to remain sane. We need history to learn and unlearn the positives and negatives it teaches us. We need history to understand the evolution of Man and his civilization. We need history to bind us as humanity cutting across all geographical boundaries and man- made shadow lines. We need history to build upon the foundation of the past and where necessary to modify and change and adapt to be in sync with human progress and development.. We need history to honour and remember all those whose significant contribution to this world is the legacy that we have inherited. We need history to leave behind for the future generation our own history as a reference or a model to them. Summing it all up, we need history because - in Sharon Presley’s words - “we live in a context of time and culture, not just of the here and now. We can gain, both personally and as a society, from contemplating lessons from the past.”

 Hope our two national parties are  listening.