By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Indolink on April 4, 2007
Our vision of the future is determined by our perception of the past. Our place in history and often our very identity is a reflection of what we have learnt from history, more specifically what we have been taught about our history. The legacy of colonialism in India was manifold but its full impact is still being revealed.
To rule the Indian empire efficiently the British East India Company needed few British officers and a large Indian workforce. A concrete manifestation of this was Macaulay’s famous ‘Minute of 1835’ that asked for the formation of a class “who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, -a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”
History was taught to the natives with a three-fold division into a ‘Hindu’ period, a ‘Muslim’ period and a ‘British’period.
Indian history from the pre-historic era to around 1000 AD (with the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni) was portrayed as the ‘Hindu’ period of history. ‘Hindu’ for the British did not mean everyone who belonged to the land of Hind or Sindh (the name given by the ancient Greeks after the river Sindhu or Indus); rather it denoted a certain religion.
Indologists linked Sanskrit to other Aryan languages (like German) and pointed to the Caucasian origins of the Indo-Aryans. Ancient Indian history, Hindu history, was portrayed as the ‘Glorious Past’ before the decline under the Muslim invaders. The British portrayal of history could not, and did not, identify their own rise to power as the ultimate decline of India.
The ‘Muslim’ period was shown as the period of India’s decline. Muslim rulers, starting from the Arab invasion of Sind and Mahmud Ghazni’s invasions, were mainly represented as invaders concerned with looting temples, converting Hindus and then returning to their Central Asian homelands.
Alauddin Khalji’s cruelties and Aurgangzeb’s bigotry were highlighted more than Iltutmish’s justice and Akbar’s syncretism. Revolts by regional elites, like that of the Marathas against the Mughals, were given a religious tinge. Jadunath Sarkar’s multi-volume classic on Aurangzeb and Shivaji reflected this view.
It was conveniently forgotten that the vast majority of Muslim rulers stayed on in India and established long-lasting Indian empires. The legacies of these empires can be seen to this day – in political, administrative, social and cultural spheres. Indo-Islamic art and architecture covers all of South Asia – from Kashmir to Malabar and from Dacca to Sind.
The ‘British’ period of history was shown not for what it actually was – a racist colonial rule- but for what it purported to be – ‘saving’ the Hindus from the Muslim rule and restoring past glory to an old Indian civilization. Bankim Chandra’s classic ‘Anand Math’ (1882) depicted the Sanyasi rebellion of 1700s as mainly against Muslim rule and portrayed the British as saviors.
The legacy of this ‘division’ of Indian history led to a division of Indian identity along religious lines. Hindu rulers were portrayed as tolerant and enlightened and Muslim rulers presented as intrinsically bigoted persecutors. There were many causes for the division that emerged between the two main religious groups in India but one of the underlying factors, and one which is not fully understood, was the way history was portrayed under colonial rule.
The Indian political elite of the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries grew up learning this history. Their views were often framed by what they had studied in the British schools even while being critical of British rule.
After Independence nationalist history provided a rebuttal to the colonial narrative. The new division was non-religious– Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Each era talked about the various dynasties and their contributions to India. Marxist influence led to the importance of economic and social history and not just political and dynastic accounts. Art and architecture were given prominence under cultural history.
It is said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. This applies to intellectual liberty as much as political liberty. Leading British historian Eric Hobsbawn said in a lecture in 1992“I used to think that the profession of history, unlike that of say, nuclear physics, could at least do no harm. Now I know it can….. We have a responsibility to historical facts in general, and for criticizing the politico-ideological abuse of history in particular.”
As inheritors of India’s great civilization and as the citizens of a great country we too have a responsibility – to ourselves, to our country and to the future generations. We have the responsibility to read history and seek our identity for what it is and not what the ‘political forces’ of our time want it to be.