True History For New India
During the early nineteenth century, the imperialist governments began deploying an assortment of writers, called specialists to work in conjunction with imperial administrators to lay down frameworks for classifying, controlling, and administering their colonial territories. This left one of the lasting effects on the colonies by leaving the colonies forever bound by the colonial frameworks unable to free their mind/intellectual resource. Thus, the large imperialist machinery of false knowledge creation has spread its tentacles far and wide. Its effects are most egregious in the Indian academic study of society and culture. What is even more distressing is that these early imperialist theories still continue to dominate Indian academia still exerting immense influence.
Assisted by the colonial administration and allowed to travel freely in the colonial domains, they used their intuition laying foundations for academic study in the areas of Social Sciences and Humanities, creating theories of races, languages. For the most part, their early work focused on discounting indigenous cultures and their traditions. They created terminology that labeled indigenous faiths (religions) as false faiths calling their repertoire of religious literature myths. The academic study of religions, Religious Studies, still uses this early terminology, which reeks of unbridled imperialist and racist tendencies of the origins of Social Sciences and Humanities. This tendency to discount indigenous peoples' understanding of themselves did not stop with falsifying their religion but spread into other subject areas such as sociology, anthropology, and history. Entire swaths of Peoples' languages and cultures were thus theorized to be alien through the creation of mythical theories such as Aryan invasion/migration.
To bring out the clearer history of India, we should first clearly understand the stereotypical methodical process in which the Imperial history machinery created it.
The following are some of the ways this imperial/colonial knowledge creation could be categorized and understood.
The constructions are so outrageous that it almost needs no pointing out. One knows it when one sees it. Even though generations of scholars are aware of the many shortcomings of Indian history, many of these assumptions and constructions continued unchallenged even after the independence of India.
There are a number of general patterns noticeable in the academic research on Indian history:
1. Solving the Puzzle: subjects of Indian history and religion are mostly treated as a puzzle. Indigenous knowledge and understanding were never accepted as authentic. For example, the whole hoax of the Aryan invasion is created this way. Even though no native memory or textual memory indicates any such thing, the researchers insisted that the invasion happened through assembling puzzle pieces.
2. Let’s make up a theory/ Apply A Theory: Indian history was frequently twisted by applying unrelated theories. The linguistic theory was appropriated, stretched, and applied to create race and regional divisions of history. Language is not a race and not a marker of race, however, that did not stop these theories and their application. Languages spread for a variety of reasons, race is not one of them in the ancient world. Another theory that was taken out of context and applied to Indian society is the psychoanalytic theory.
3. Philosophy or the semantics of language: even simple and clear terms are debated until they lose their real value. I recently came across a discussion- arguing the Pali sutta may have come from Sanskrit Sukta, instead of Sutra, which it was. Even though it was well established that Sutta comes from the Sanskrit word Sutra and it was also popularly known that another pali word suvutta is the equivalent of Sukta. Words are discussed and debated until they are completely embroiled in confusion and lose their original significance.
4. Let me tell you about my intuitions: Most of the classical stories of the epics are interpreted this way. For example, the event of Bhishma’s defeat with the help of Shikhandin in the Mahabharata was interpreted by some academic works as Arjuna hiding behind his grandmother, even though it was completely imaginary and not mentioned in the text. This imagination springs from the past life story of Shikhandin, even though it had no connection to Arjuna as such.
Another example of this is the speculative assumptions regarding the Jagannatha, Subhadra, and Balabhadra. Some scholars speculated that Subhadra in the Puri temple may have been Lakshmi, who had been later changed to Subhadra. Although there is no evidence that the Goddess in the Puri Jagannatha temple had been ever thought of as Lakshmi in classical texts or popular stories. The goddess of Puri temple is specifically known as Subhadra and worshipped as such always, which was established in historical research. Volumes are written arguing against widely held views in Indian society to judge Indian society as 'confused' about its own culture and civilization, while in fact, their agenda is clearly visible in the arguments/theories proposed, which are not based on fact, but only on intuition.
5. This historical figure was right: This type of historical research dominates Indian history, next only to theoretical constructions. Most frequently, works are written eulogizing this ruler or that ruler, for example, Ashoka, Akbar, and Aurangzeb, at the expense of other parallel historical events. This leads to twisted history as biographical sketches are presented as history rather than fact-based social and political analysis of historical India.
6. Tedious objection to an established view: lengthy works are written to argue the epic personalities of India such as Rama, and Krishna or the goddesses are somehow not what they were meant to be. This becomes even more stranger in analyzing the goddesses- they are called spouse goddesses as if being unmarried makes them less respectable. Outrageous claims on the goddess Durga Mahishasura Mardini under the disguise of research might be familiar to most of you. Unimaginable constructions and semantic exercises are undertaken to judge commonly held notions as baseless.
And finally, let me add the most prominent category of all the misconstructions in Indian history:
7. There is no evidence, yet I am sure it happened! Aryan invasion or migration theory is the greatest example of this category. Even though the recent genetic research has disproved any invasions/migrations from the Steppes some still continue to argue in support of Aryan migration. In this category of research, the most popularly used common words are lost language, lost population, etc. However, they began using the ghost population recently to refer to such imaginary constructions, which lack factual support. I have previously discussed my views on the lack of genetic evidence for Aryan migration elsewhere in my publications and lecture. Hence, I would not dwell on too many details here.
Alright, let’s begin, what do we have in place of history in India? Numerous constructed theories and a couple of biographical skulduggeries. History writing has a very complicated history in India. There is a peculiarity in the way Indian history was discovered, presented, and written from the beginning. Hence India’s history had been narrated from numerous perspectives other than its own perspective. It was always written by the outsiders for the benefit of outsiders. Hence, only represents a haphazard history according to the needs of the colonizer.
It is strange, but History writing in India still remains under the control of western academia as it had always been an international affair. Even the smallest of the historical issue of India can make international news and controversy.
The result of all these above-listed exercises is a travesty of Indian history, which is merely mythical as it stands now and not representative of India and Indian culture. What we have as history currently is haphazard and lacks a holistic approach to India. Methodically it lacks sound approaches to history writing due to its beginning under colonialist/imperialist regimes. As India is crossing 75- years of independence nearing a century of independence soon, it is necessary to take a closer look at the history currently and work on finding authentic sources to rewrite the clearer and holistic history of India.
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