 Hello and greetings. Communism Combat and New Sleek are very privileged today to have with us eminent historian of ancient Indian history Professor K. M. Shimali sir will speak to us about the discipline itself the challenges for the history teacher and the history learner In the midst of what India is facing politically and what we are all facing as citizens globally. Hello, Mr. Shimali Thank you so much. Thank you. My pleasure. There's so much to talk about when it comes to the discipline of history So where shall we begin? What are the immediate threats and challenges to the discipline in India today? I think the challenge that we historians have been facing in more recent past come largely from the specific conception of history that this present political dispensation has really imbibed and One on which this dispensation is working for many many years The crux of this dispensation vis-a-vis history is to kill the spirit of inquiry to suppress the dissenting voices to suppress alternative opinions and Make a serious attempt to homogenize Indian culture. That I think is the biggest threat that we historians have to combat in so far as Our discipline has always worked in the direction Which has sustained the idea of India through the decades that we know You're also working on three books at the moment. I'm told all of them coming out soon in Hindi and one of the books deals with Prachin Dharmokaitias, meaning ancient religions, religions in ancient India How does that and the project to homogenize India's culture work out? Obviously, that will question this very project. Let me try to define what I call the historian's Dharma And if you want to really comprehend the nuances of that, I would say that just as Tantric system Sustained itself on the Panchmakaras the five Mers Madhya, Maas, Madhya, Maithun, Mudra Talking about fish eating, meat, drinking, sex and physical gestures, etc Similarly The threat that historians are facing from the RSS position on history Strems from their five M's These five M's for RSS are Mil, James Mil, Makaleh, Max Mula, Marx and Muslims. I would say that in many ways these five M's have conditioned their view of writing history and And even the image of nationalism that they try to project Ironically comes from some of the fundamental postulates of the colonial view of writing ancient history in particular It's not Indian at all. To give you the first illustration The Periodization itself you talked about Hindu period the periodization itself The basis of that periodization on which RSS view thrives is Coming from James Mil Who tried to periodize Indian history into Hindu period Muslim period and Ironically again Not the Christian period but the British period the crux of this tripartite division is Resting on what Max Mula tried to defend of The numerous works at Max Mula did and produced. I Will take up just one small book Which is called India. What can it teach us? I am picking it up because that was a work based on seven lectures That it delivered in 1882 In Cambridge to those people who were aspiring to come to India as civil servants And it is in these seven lectures that he's trying to glorify What in modern terminology can be called? The golden period of the Hindus the glorious period The high heritage period of Indian history It is in this series of lectures That's Max Mula created what today we call the other his hatred for the Muslims His soul idea of India being understood in terms of Aryan superiority The darkness of the period of the Mughals the Muslims He called the period of the Muslims as the inferno He's the who he's the one who defined the parameters of us and they It is from such people That the RSS has derived its inspiration Take up the example of the notion of Aryans as indigenous people Who gave rise to that It is people like Colonel Lalkat and Madden Bravatsky of the Theosophist Society It is from them that they have taken up this idea so coming back sir to your work and your Expertise in ancient India in ancient period How does the postulates of the colonial historians? Appropriated now more viciously or vigorously by the RSS Actually sit with the historical Evidence we have which is completely to the contrary. Well, I would say that I Have been privileged enough to teach quite a few courses on history of Indian religions at the post graduate level and I've done that over a period of more than four decades More than four decades. Yes 44 years and The Isis that I have tried to imbibe through my teaching about the way in which one can understand Indian religions is To really see them in a historical perspective To see religion not as something which is Exclusively standing somewhere An autonomous institution such as that no It's very much part of the society and evolving all the time One notion that the colonialist handed over to us That Indian culture has always been spiritualist metaphysical and have nothing to do with this word That can be really put upside down completely Because if you try to understand the evolution of Indian religions It demolishes very convincingly The myth of the static society of India Which again was created by these colonialist writers Can you just illustrate that for the young listener? Well, one example that can always be cited is that Indra Who is supposedly the hero of the Rigveda? one who is described there as Gopati Lord of cattle He becomes Indra with a plow By the time of the later Vedic I Know for sure that for the RSS people The difference between the early Vedic and the later Vedic doesn't mean anything Because for them Vedas are Vedas Whether you are talking about the Rigveda or Satyar Prakash of Swami Dayanand. It's well homogenous whole but that's not true for a historian it is of paramount significance that Temporal and spatial differences are always kept in mind Without that you cannot understand the discipline of history so Indra who was initially supposedly a leader of the pastoral people is taken over as a deity par excellence by Agriculturalists and still subsequently with the growth of two type of land relationships The kind of land ownership that is vested in the kings Indra becomes Bhupati the Lord of land so that's how we can see the evolution of Indian religious So two queries one is about ancient India again ancient period the entire discovery of the Indus Valley civilization in the 1920s which suddenly catapulted us to on the world stage To civilization 2500 BC, you know, which was there was no evidence of that earlier And now the desire by the same forces who want to recognize culture to claim some Connection between the Vedic period and that how does that sit with historical evidence? Well Honestly speaking, this is one area which is very dear to the artist's point of view Because they are interested in pushing back the antiquity of Indian culture As they understand, I don't share their view of Indian culture. Anyway, so pushing back the antiquity of what they would say the Vedic civilization and for them Vedic civilization is the Hindu civilization and That is for them the Indian civilization and so on that forgetting about that equation for the time being But the manner in which these people have been trying to rewrite the paradigm of that phase Is to project the antiquity of the Vedas backwards, I Remember as soon as the present political dispensable came to power in 2014 There was a seminar organized in department of Sanskrit in the University of Delhi and The fundamental assumption of that conference three-day conference was That Vedas were written around 8,000 BC Conclusion had already been reached and There was no historical inquiry about it. It was already decided that this is what we are going to say so this is not the way of writing history and another classic example of how these people have tried to manipulate fabricate manufacturer facts to suit their convenience is the So-called horse play on which front line came out with a wonderful feature which said and firmer had written phenomenally how with the help of Computers they try to convert unicorn into a horse and try to say that the Harappans knew Horses That went to the silver screen with Mohenjo Dharo's Yes, yes, that's right. Where again you saw the corrosion on the horse. Yes So so the whole idea of pushing that the antiquity of the Vedic civilization Making it the earliest civilization earlier than that of the Harappans also is something which says obviously cannot be sustained By any specific material of this. It's only their assumption that They are trying to push forward that kind of an idea so the second query I had related to the ancient period relates to the some degree of perception different between the Aryan entire question of the Aryans whether indigenous or not and the Dravidian history and Dravidian cultures and the subcultures which Have also been explored to a large extent by historians And there seems to be an interpretation around around Dravidian cultures as well I don't know how developed that history has been become historically But there's certainly a lot of discourse around it if you look at the writing of Jyotiba Phule and Ambedkar and others How does that sit with the discipline of history in terms of how far it has been explored? I think it would be very unfair to for me at this stage to really talk about that kind of divide Because I don't subscribe to that kind of divide the whole idea of India of the Aryans and India of the Dravidians is taking some kind of a racist view of history, which is just not sustainable I think the moving forces in history of humanity Have been along the lines of the movement of people across the globe as they have known through the millennia and there have been Mixtures and intermixtures of people from different areas different regions of different values of different cultural systems so it is very very difficult indeed to really sustain that kind of Divide that is I am aware of discourses along those lines, but Discourses, which I think are not sustainable to a right kind of thinking historian So you mentioned this comment on the ICHR and what the ICHR is doing with the recent article that was published you had also Discussing the recent happenings in the ICHR you had even mentioned the fact that Out of the 18 people on the panel you have a couple of people who are very closely Involved with justifying the Babri Masjid demolition I think Gupta and Lal and there were another four or five who were kind of aggressively involved in discrediting other historians Were independent and who were recognized as good historians. What exactly is happening at the Indian Council for historical research a premier body founded for historical research in the country What is happening there just now? I'll put it very briefly To underline the point that under the present dispensation at the ICHR right from the chairman Down to the council It's a collection of people most of whom And I know them are not even proper historians and they are Shamelessly carrying out the agenda Which is the agenda of the RSS They are just not bothered about What people are saying or what professional historians have been talking about writing about They are indeed going ahead with that Two examples can be cited in that context One is as soon as the president chairman took charge of the organization He invited a gentleman called S. N. Bal Gangadhar to deliver the Abul Kalam Azad Memorial Lecture and it is in that lecture that the Speaker said What's the good use of having history as a discipline? It's a fetish If you have Raman and Mahabharat That's good enough. You don't need to study history. I am being told By some people within the establishment that the kind of books which are being purchased in the library nowadays Are also being monitored very closely And anything which is Not really in tune with the RSS point of view is not easily Purchased in the system there. How can this be reversed? I mean, this is a serious threat Very serious threat to as you yourself said to the discipline to thinking India To our future. I mean, how can this be resisted when you have a government in power determined on destroying the discipline? well I as a professional historian can only say that we'll keep on doing our work We can keep on questioning these people And I'll appeal to all my friends and colleagues and students Who would really be manning the show in the years to come To be up to the mark and be on their feet and resist such forces which are Against the voices of reason To my mind history is a discipline of reason not of faith See Within within within weeks of this government coming to power a couple of statements found in echo even in the election campaign of the Prime Ministerial candidate Just a few examples. I recall one is that you know and and they can be laughed away But they're very very serious for instance, you know where you look great Nalanda or Takshila whether you talk about Plastic surgery being present in ancient Indian times and give the example of Ganesha's head Lord Ganesha's head or you say that you know the fact that Kunti And and the way she gave birth to a children suggests that stem cell research was existing in ancient times now I'm You we can laugh at these because we've had the benefit of a more thorough historical Subject study, you know, I mean as a student of history, but what frightens me is that a man like Dinanath Bhatra Was part of that Shikshabh Bihar or whatever Shikshabh Shikshabh Chawandolan Who was also responsible for the getting Wendy Doniger's book pulped And also getting the removal of the SC of Ramanujan from Delhi University Exactly under a different political regime that this man is today has authored these nine part Supplementary texts in Gujarat which are reaching 400,000 students and similarly also Haryana These are two states where Bhatra supplementary texts are being used Now if you look at what the Prime Minister said these four examples I gave and You have a close reading. I've read those books in Gujarati. Look at those books That's exactly what Dinanath Bhatra is talking about stem cell research in ancient times plastic surgery in ancient times why you why you man that is Arrow dynamics in ancient India. So obviously, this is the history that is taught at the RSA Shaka, you know and What really worries me is 400,000 kids in Gujarat Thousands of students in Haryana tomorrow. It could be many other states in the country What will this do to critical inquiry and scientific temper that you're talking about very interesting question and It needs some detailed Explanation now, let us take the very recent development within the Ministry of Human Resource Development They have released not the full report of the new education policy But about 44 pages of what they called some inputs for the draft new education policy 2016 If you look at the preamble of that And some of the contents of the Inputs One is left with very little doubt as to where exactly are they heading? They do talk about The rich heritage They do talk about high values They do talk about national unity They do talk about glorious India's past Etc. Etc. And need to create space for the dissemination of Indian culture Very lofty ideals Nobody should have any dispute with that But the moment you ask certain questions Whose heritage Which past Whose past Etc. Etc. Then you realize that the cat is getting out at the back Because the moment you get into This act of seeking answers to this question The kind of hints that you get there in the preamble and the contents of that draft inputs You know full well that they are focusing only on the preservation of the Glorious ancient Indian past of the Hindus Only a section of the Hindus They are not concerned about what the medieval period did and And in their terminology it is the period of the Muslims Which is not to be seen anywhere Nalanda and Taxila are mentioned with inflated technology that a part Where would you find reference to Mother's side beader or Mother's side housecast in Delhi Don't you deserve a mention of the huge library of Dara Shikho Who was representative of the confidence of the Hindus in the Muslims through his numerous translations of the open etchats and the kind of Growth that Sanskrit literature had even during the times of the Mughals and so on and so on no reference to that Sanskrit is to be taught at all levels schools and colleges and universities and even in IIT's From Sanskrit they want to teach the development of technology and that's a kind of examples that come to our mind What kind of technology and science and scientific temper they would like to Inculcate and evolve and disseminate and if it all it has to be done through Sanskrit Isn't there a case for Arabic in Persian? Pali prakrit The kind of scientific developments that were achieved in the times of the Mughals in the times of the sultans and The Arabic writings and its contribution to science and mathematics They are not to be found anywhere at all so it's a very skewed version of history and skewed version of Heritage that they are trying to evolve and one can easily think that this is indeed an agenda Or they have always been concerned about one people one nation one culture Multiplicity of ideas multiplicity of cultures of multiplicity of people multi languages multi ethnicities Multilingualistics this is not the plurality of Indian culture the plurality Which has been the bedrock of the idea of India is not their view of India last two and a half years Cow vigilantism cow Taliban this kind of complete terror on the ground mobs and lesion the name of what you're eating What you're how you dress what you think and how you speak? And the love jihad garwapsi This kind of non-state actors with the full impunity granted by the state connecting it up to your Area of research and work ancient India particularly because of the whole discourse around vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism I Historians have said again and again that Locating vegetarianism in ancient India is ludicrous There is evidence to the contrary in the Vedas and yet you want to kind of impose a vegetarianism in the name of purity so how would you Locate this campaign against non-vegetarianism against beef eating protection of the cow, etc. Well obviously those who have been watching the scene over the years know full well that There's more politics in it than the actual concern about the cow protection per se and The beef eating is uncontestable as far as historians are concerned. There's no point in Reminding ourselves of phenomenal evidences that are available to us right from the Vedic text down to modern times And we know for a certain that Hindus eat be even today in different parts of India and that's the reason why The laws against beef eating is not for a cow slaughter are not available in Goa and Bengal and so on and so forth. So there is a lot there is there is obviously Politics behind old days Which to my mind is similar to the kind of politics that they did on the Ramzan boom is you where? Religion or faith was less of a factor and a position of power was a greater force To really mobilize people along the so-called nationalist urge. It was all phony nationalism it was a struggle for power that was being conducted and The cow vigilantism is part of the agenda which is being carried out like a typical Fascist establishment. I have no doubts about it. This has been an absolutely fascinating discussion So and I think we've covered a wide range of subjects if you think there's anything else that I have not brought up And you'd like to touch upon please Otherwise, I think we've covered a wide range of subject. Well, I think I hope people would be interested in Taking such ideas seriously and For me most important thing is That people should really imbibe not just those who are studying history But Indian people What they should really be imbibing From discourses such as this That you need to be inquisitive that you need to be asking questions That you need not be afraid of what is being passed on as religious and sacred That is fantastic and a very very good note on which to end the interview. Thank you Thank you