History stands still for confused historians
s History a static subject requiring no revision in the light of fresh research findings? The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) certainly seems to think so. And this is what it wants India's school children to believe.
After surviving the lies and distortions that fill almost every chapter in History texts the government schoolbook authority recently published, youngsters would also have to grapple with the irrelevance of the "facts" contained in them. These are works by historians caught in a time warp, utterly out of touch with reality.
The Class XII textbook, Contemporary World, would rank as one of the greatest works of pseudo history ever published. A 216-page affair, it is the labour of an apologist for the crimes of Communism and is intended to furnish young minds with a Nehruvian worldview. But since this is about irrelevance, sample one of the many passages, which speak of a "contemporary" world frozen in the early 1990s - evidently the last time its author, Arjun Dev, visited the manuscript.
After talking about Soviet military "intervention" (not invasion) in Afghanistan, he tells his beholders (page 176): "It is a different matter that the withdrawal of Soviet troops did not lead to the establishment of peace in Afghanistan and the civil war in (sic) that country continues unabated."
What about 9/11? It did not happen. The war on terrorism? The rise and fall of the Taliban, the coming to power of Hamid Karzai? Perhaps all that is too toxic, so better to "detoxify"it beforehand - just to save time. After dedicating thousands of words in admiration of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union (no mention of the Prague Spring, Imre Nagy, etc), the author forgets to mention that the "EEC" has evolved into the EU!
But why be fixated on Arjun Dev? After all, he is just a merit promotion scheme professor who retired as head of NCERT's Social Science Department in 2000. The high-priestess of Left academia, Romila Thapar, in her book for 12-year-olds, upholds the theory about Aryan migration which has long been rejected by most historians, including herself.
She writes: "We do not know where they came from; perhaps they came from north-eastern Iran or the region near the Caspian Sea or Central Asia". NCERT sources say that this book was originally written in 1966 when the Aryan migration/invasion theory was an axiom among historians. The least that one expected of NCERT's present denizens was a mere representation to the grand dame of Indian (Marxist) historiography to recall the passage from her own later works and make suitable modifications. But nothing of that kind happened.
In 2002, Ms Thapar wrote in Early India, from the origins to AD 1300 (Penguin Books): "Indo-European and Indo-Aryan are language labels, but in the nineteenth century, these were also incorrectly used as racial labels and this confusion persists. The correct usage should be "Indo-European-speaking people" and 'Indo-Aryan-Speaking-people', but the shortened labels, Indo-European and Indo-Aryan are commonly used. Language is a cultural label and should not be confused with race, which although also a social construct, claims that it has to do with biological descent."
The agenda is for all to see: deny to the young Indian any organic connection with his past and make him feel that India is an eternal receptacle for foreign influence. Since 99 per cent of Indians never touch a work of non-fiction history after the secondary school stage, this is what Ms Thapar would like them to recall for the rest of their lives. As for the small minority, which does learn the truth, they will be shouted out in the numbers game.
Plan falsehood is resorted to in describing the religion of the people of Harappa. Apart from concealing the latest findings about the Indo-Saraswati civilisation, her reticence about the resemblance of "a seated figure who might be a God" and the Hindu God, Lord Shiva, plainly shows a twisted political mind at work. And what about the Shiva Lingam, the bust of a woman with sindoor on the parting of her hair and countless other seals showing a certain continuity between the Indo-Saraswati people and ourselves? That, of course, would be "saffronisation".
Bipan Chandra's book for Class XII students, Modern India, devotes just about 300 words on Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA. It says with a certain finality: "With the collapse of Japan in the war during 1944-45 (sic), the INA too met defeat and Subhas Bose was killed in an aeroplane accident on his way to Tokyo." Exactly which reference material did the "eminent" historian use for this is a question his young readers would naturally ask at a time when the Justice MK Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry has publicly debunked the air crash theory as totally devoid of evidence.
Tomorrow : So what, this is "secular" history
After surviving the lies and distortions that fill almost every chapter in History texts the government schoolbook authority recently published, youngsters would also have to grapple with the irrelevance of the "facts" contained in them. These are works by historians caught in a time warp, utterly out of touch with reality.
The Class XII textbook, Contemporary World, would rank as one of the greatest works of pseudo history ever published. A 216-page affair, it is the labour of an apologist for the crimes of Communism and is intended to furnish young minds with a Nehruvian worldview. But since this is about irrelevance, sample one of the many passages, which speak of a "contemporary" world frozen in the early 1990s - evidently the last time its author, Arjun Dev, visited the manuscript.
After talking about Soviet military "intervention" (not invasion) in Afghanistan, he tells his beholders (page 176): "It is a different matter that the withdrawal of Soviet troops did not lead to the establishment of peace in Afghanistan and the civil war in (sic) that country continues unabated."
What about 9/11? It did not happen. The war on terrorism? The rise and fall of the Taliban, the coming to power of Hamid Karzai? Perhaps all that is too toxic, so better to "detoxify"it beforehand - just to save time. After dedicating thousands of words in admiration of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union (no mention of the Prague Spring, Imre Nagy, etc), the author forgets to mention that the "EEC" has evolved into the EU!
But why be fixated on Arjun Dev? After all, he is just a merit promotion scheme professor who retired as head of NCERT's Social Science Department in 2000. The high-priestess of Left academia, Romila Thapar, in her book for 12-year-olds, upholds the theory about Aryan migration which has long been rejected by most historians, including herself.
She writes: "We do not know where they came from; perhaps they came from north-eastern Iran or the region near the Caspian Sea or Central Asia". NCERT sources say that this book was originally written in 1966 when the Aryan migration/invasion theory was an axiom among historians. The least that one expected of NCERT's present denizens was a mere representation to the grand dame of Indian (Marxist) historiography to recall the passage from her own later works and make suitable modifications. But nothing of that kind happened.
In 2002, Ms Thapar wrote in Early India, from the origins to AD 1300 (Penguin Books): "Indo-European and Indo-Aryan are language labels, but in the nineteenth century, these were also incorrectly used as racial labels and this confusion persists. The correct usage should be "Indo-European-speaking people" and 'Indo-Aryan-Speaking-people', but the shortened labels, Indo-European and Indo-Aryan are commonly used. Language is a cultural label and should not be confused with race, which although also a social construct, claims that it has to do with biological descent."
The agenda is for all to see: deny to the young Indian any organic connection with his past and make him feel that India is an eternal receptacle for foreign influence. Since 99 per cent of Indians never touch a work of non-fiction history after the secondary school stage, this is what Ms Thapar would like them to recall for the rest of their lives. As for the small minority, which does learn the truth, they will be shouted out in the numbers game.
Plan falsehood is resorted to in describing the religion of the people of Harappa. Apart from concealing the latest findings about the Indo-Saraswati civilisation, her reticence about the resemblance of "a seated figure who might be a God" and the Hindu God, Lord Shiva, plainly shows a twisted political mind at work. And what about the Shiva Lingam, the bust of a woman with sindoor on the parting of her hair and countless other seals showing a certain continuity between the Indo-Saraswati people and ourselves? That, of course, would be "saffronisation".
Bipan Chandra's book for Class XII students, Modern India, devotes just about 300 words on Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA. It says with a certain finality: "With the collapse of Japan in the war during 1944-45 (sic), the INA too met defeat and Subhas Bose was killed in an aeroplane accident on his way to Tokyo." Exactly which reference material did the "eminent" historian use for this is a question his young readers would naturally ask at a time when the Justice MK Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry has publicly debunked the air crash theory as totally devoid of evidence.
Tomorrow : So what, this is "secular" history
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