Contested Indian History #5: "Secular History"

In the early 1960’s, the topic of national integration became the paramount concern of Nehru as communal riots, language-based secessionist movements, and regional demands exploded. To that end (national integration), terms like “religion”, “caste” and “language” became sociopolitical categories with specific definitions (set by the Center) and mandatory for states to follow, writes Shaan Kashyap in Who Owns History?

“Schools as an institution and school textbooks as site of knowledge were given the responsibility to fabricate national integration.”

 

History books had to serve an agenda (national integration). To give credibility to the books, respected historians of the day were called to help write history textbooks for schools. Many historians squirmed at factual accuracy being demoted to a secondary role. But other historians agreed – some because they agreed with the positive motive behind the ask, others opportunistically to gain brownie points with those in power. Historians were now stepping out of their closeted ivory towers to the public domain. The seeds for the vicious fights over history, the biases and agendas of historians had been sown...

 

In school textbooks, Nehruvian historians downplayed conflict based on those parameters (caste, religion, region). Instead, they emphasized consensus as the (historical) driving force. They spoke little of the role of cultural differences and overstated the power and economic aspects. Over time, the history in schoolbooks became what would be called “secular history” decades later. Others would call it leftist history. Ironically, the co-founder of Marxism, Engels himself had said that history is an interplay of multiple factors:

“The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure… philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into system of dogmas – also exercise their influence upon the course of struggles…”

 

Indira Gandhi would take this much further, integrating the intelligentsia into her administration as “experts”. Not surprising then that decades later, charges flew around that historians of the Nehruvian era were writing “courtier history”, i.e., whatever the ruler wanted. By the corollary, any attempt to rewrite “secular history” is branded “communal history”.

 

All this was standard practice, as Hans Morgenthau (from Ottomans era) said: governments either enlist historians or silence them or discredit them.

 

Non-school history books like Nehru’s Discovery of India and Tara Chand’s A Short History of the Indian People were promoted extensively from this period onwards as they aligned with the agenda (An excellent counterpoint here would be that Nehru wrote Discovery of India before this trend, under British rule. True. But then, Nehru admitted that one reason he wrote that book was because he could see the urgent need to present a “story” of India as a unified entity with commonalities lest the differences of religion, caste and region tore it apart as independence loomed). Chand admitted the same:

“The battle of minds will ultimately be won at the level of schools and colleges and for that the need of such shorter books is very great.”