New Delhi, November 6
‘Communalisation of education’ has been the talk of symposia in the country for some time. Eminent historians, who assembled in the Capital today, once again blamed the Vajpayee government of giving a leeway to communal forces and accused the government of launching an onslaught on the country’s history.
Speaking at a one-day seminar on “Communalisation and History” organised by SAHMAT, a socio-cultural body, the historians said that history should not be written in a wrong light.
In a joint statement given at the end of the seminar, they said: “A movement is called for to defeat the present communal onslaught on History.”
Noted historian Bipin Chandra accused the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) of attempting to “rewrite history in an unscrupulous and unscientific manner and added history has to be based on facts and nothing else”.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof Amiya Bagchi said, “ I am a disturbed man, as any other citizen today. For fundamentalists, education is the most natural way of spreading communalism. It is nothing, but falsification. Fundamentalism and communalism rely on muscles and state and media power. It must be checked.”
Quoting Mahatama Gandhi, Mr Chandra said, “Religion is a private affair and shouldn’t be mingled with public life.”
Among those who attended the one-day seminar were Arjun Dev, Prof Irfan Habib and Prof K. N. Panikar.
The seminar was divided into two segments, “Communalist Subversion of History” and “Communal Onslaught on History: Teaching and Textbooks”.
