Discerning readers following the current controversy over the Indian Council of Historical Research’s decision to submit two volumes of the Towards Freedom series for review can be forgiven for thinking that it seems like much ado about nothing. They may wonder why camp followers and intellectuals of the Left have to be hustled into morchas over academic tomes that are supposed to merely compile history and are not part of the prescribed syllabus in schools or universities. They constitute, at best, only part of the plethora of reference material future scholars may access in the course of their research. What then, is all the brouhaha about?
Liberty is a good starting point, as some scholars have posed the issue in terms of the absolute academic freedom to impose their interpretation of history upon the nation, without the right of rebuttal. But there is a world of difference between liberty in the sense of freedom to espouse one’s views, and mandating one’s beliefs upon a whole society. This, in fact, is the crux of the current conflict.
Partisan interests and ideologies are politicizing history writing in an attempt to browbeat society into accepting their claims without demur; believers in an open society must pick up the gauntlet. Recent work by archaeologists and other historians has made gaping holes in the ethical roofing of the Leftist fraternity. Self-righteousness and offensiveness are no longer adequate defenses; the Leftists must answer charges leveled by their interlocutors, or concede the case.
What they are doing, however, is leveling wild charges and running away when confronted with uncomfortable facts. Critics emphasize a princely sum of Rs. four crores has been lavished on a gravy train of like-minded scholars (sic) over twenty-six long years; yet this is the least of my concerns. Even the short shrift given to Mahatma Gandhi does not bother me, as he is too tall to be diminished by the private agendas of small men.
What does concern me is the venom being poured into the social and political fabric at a time when the nation is struggling on multiple fronts to measure up to its glorious past. One of the disaffected writers, for instance, speaks recklessly about the “thought police out there,” an unwarranted allusion to Human Resources Development Minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, but avoids discussion on the project’s original objectives, changing guidelines and shifting deadlines.
The chief editor of the series, Dr. S. Gopal, resigns in 1977 owing to the lack of progress (or perhaps due to the changed political environment), but returns in 1988 after Comrade Irfan Habib, the then ICHR chairman, drastically re-structures the project. Gopal defends the impugned volumes because he personally cleared them, claims sole authority over the project, and castigates ICHR’s proposed review on the ground that it alters the terms and conditions under which the scholars worked. This is a specious plea, and in the recent controversy over the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), the High Court rejected the contention that the funding agency can be denied accountability.
Even if we accept this plea for argument’s sake, Gopal owes the nation an explanation for the volume submitted by Dr P.N. Chopra. Unlike other scholars involved in this interminable project, Chopra submitted his volume (for 1937) in just three years. We need to know if Gopal approved it, and why he maintained a deafening silence when Irfan Habib withdrew the volume from the market, damaging Chopra’s professional credibility and causing him untold mental agony, besides inflicting heavy losses on ICHR?
This brings us to the delicate, yet pertinent, issue of Gopal’s health, and the extent of his involvement in the project. The published volumes show that even the Preface was drafted by Vasudev Chatterjee, a Left historian appointed as ‘coordinating editor.’ Critics point out that the series for 1938, which runs across three thousand nine hundred pages, contains utterly irrelevant documentation on films, primary, higher and, women’s education, the progressive writer’s movement (surely a Freudian slip), and even Palestine! It is difficult to understand how such material can legitimately fit into a documentation of the freedom struggle.
Another historian proclaims that the government fears the volumes “might contain incontrovertible evidence about the collaboration of Hindu communal forces with colonialism. And that is likely to damage forever the possible projection of the RSS leaders as freedom fighters” (The Hindustan Times, 20 Feb.2000). Amazingly, he feels no embarrassment that there is no such move to rewrite history. In fact, it is well known that while founding the RSS in 1925, Dr. Hedgewar explicitly stated it would not participate in the freedom movement.
Such outbursts are evidence of a powerful bias, and this brings us to the deeper issues behind the present fracas. The authors admit that the controversy centres on whether they should have followed a ‘thematic’ or ‘chronological’ approach. In a previous volume, an editor (since deceased) has categorized organizations as nationalist, pseudo-nationalist, communal and separatist. Thus, the Dravida Kazhagam is grouped as communal and separatist along with the Muslim League. It it may be borne in mind that the categorization pertains to the pre-independence period.
Understandably, ICHR finds this approach subjective and unwarranted in a mere compilation of documents. The mandate of the series was to redefine the British view of independence as a ‘transfer of power,’ and give the struggle an Indian perspective for the sake of posterity. It was to cover the last ten years of the freedom struggle, from 1937 (the year provincial autonomy began) till 1947. The work was clearly intended to be ‘pure history,’ not ‘subjective history,’ and ought to have followed a chronological approach. This would enable the reader to study events and trends as they emerged through the gates of history, and form his own opinions, conclusions, and even biases. A thematic approach denies this freedom of thought and alters the very character of the compilation from ‘history’ to ‘interpretation.’
Critics of the BJP chuckle that the real reason behind ICHR’s concern for the purity of historical narration is the fact that one volume has labeled the Hindu Mahasabha and Syama Prasad Mukerjee as ‘communal.’ It is hardly a secret that Mukerjee, as founder president of the erstwhile Jan Sangh, features prominently on the BJP pantheon of heroes. But given his historic role in appreciating the logic and inevitability of Partition at that critical juncture, and helping Congress make the transition to freedom, for which reason he was also included into the first Cabinet at Mahatma Gandhi’s instance, it is highly dishonest to label him ‘communal.’
Yet this is not the only injustice in the series. In an effort to read back into history, space has been devoted to the RSS, which was then a little-known force. What is truly inexcusable, however, is the diminution of stalwarts like Jai Prakash Narayan, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Achyut Patwardhan, the heroes of the underground movement which inspired and kept alive the nationalist sentiment in those troubled times when most of the Congress leadership was incarcerated. Yet we are asked to accept the utterly depraved depiction of the Forward Bloc and Congress Socialist Party as “fifth column.” At the same time, separate chapters are devoted to peasant movements, the CPI (naturally), and even the Radical Democratic Party, which was openly on the rolls of the colonial power. If this is history, pray, what is fiction?
The Pioneer, 29 February 2000