Touchstones: Rewriting new histories
Anyone who has watched the shenanigans over the past few days inside and outside our Parliament will agree that the time has come to stand up and publicly shame our political parties and their representatives. What their strategists and leaders hope to achieve by opting to shout down their opponents rather than debating in a mature and civil way is something only they can enlighten us about. As viewers who tuned in each afternoon to hear a tribute to our Constitution and the outstanding men and women who spent long hours drafting it, the sight of sloganeering and crude insults was a betrayal of the mandate they were given by the citizens of India, that is Bharat.
A commentator wisely observed that we did not need Nehru explained by the ruling party or Savarkar by the Opposition. We wanted an acknowledgement of their contribution to the making of this nation. As for the fisticuffs exchanged over Ambedkar, the less said the better. Any respect for the founding fathers or the perfect roadmap they had placed before a new nation was the least of their concerns. ‘My Daddy strongest’is what their understanding of history is all about. From pre-historic myths to lies and falsehoods about the present, these ill-educated representatives betrayed their essential idiocy and arrogance. As an Indian voter who was born the year India received its Constitution, I regard with utter disgust those who were handed it. ‘Bandar ke haath nariyal,’ as my mother would say: a coconut placed in the hands of a monkey. The outcome is so predictable that it does not need any explanation.
However, I have come to the conclusion that this is the result of the Indian attitude to history in general. In a country that grew out of an oral tradition, myths, mythology, religious and superstitious beliefs often constitute a version of ‘history’ that is widely regarded as Truth. I remember an old article that the late Sharada Prasad (Indira Gandhi’s long-time press adviser) had written as an aside in an obituary for a distinguished colleague. He wondered how we can recall the rishi we have descended from (our gotra), but cannot trace the ancestry of our family beyond three generations. Is this because civilisations that cremate their dead raise no graves or memorials, or do not have a parish church (as Christians do) with records of births and deaths that go back many generations? Or is it because our belief in rebirth never really regards death as a final end. The soul is simply born in another home and family.
The rigour of research and documentary evidence is less important in such cultures than the store of memories preserved in lore and epics. That a man can be a complex personality of many attributes and that preserving just one aspect of his character while deliberately suppressing the uncomfortable truths that must also be accepted, is not in our national character. Added to this is the fact that history teaching, as also literature and other liberal arts, no longer enjoys the importance it did in an earlier generation. Economics, commerce, mathematics and management studies are the stars alongside engineering and computer science. A certain side of the brain is largely underdeveloped. Education is now more attuned to these rising areas that encourage learning by axioms and laws. The spaces for questioning and debating have been steadily receding.
In a country that has a large and growing population under 18, even Rajiv Gandhi’s time appears to some as ancient history. William Dalrymple has correctly observed that our academic historians are more concerned with polemical debates among themselves, often written in such abstruse and dense jargon that people prefer the simple (often naïve or mischievous) history offered by WhatsApp university. I must say he has a strong point. History itself is now written from narrow specialisations divided among gender, caste, economics, human rights, or even climate issues.
I want to turn now to remember the great Zakir Hussain, tabla maestro, great human being and a performer who took his audience to rapturous heights. I was fortunate to spend some time with him when he came to Chandigarh as a Spic Macay guest; his sessions with the students were truly memorable. Each time he shook his curly head, the girls swooned. He was a young, handsome man and had a strong sense of appeal across generations. He invited himself over to have aloo paranthas at my house and half of Panjab University followed him there. Each time he came to Punjab, whether on a Spic Macay tour or for the Chandigarh Sangeet Sammelan or the Harivallabh in Jalandhar, he never failed to go to the village where the Punjab Gharana he followed was situated. He blended the best of this country’s syncretic culture and took tabla playing to heights even his renowned father Alla Rakha never could. What a performer and what a delightful human being!
The other person I wish to pay homage to is Kanta Saroop Krishen, one of Chandigarh’s most venerable citizens. Although she was best-known for founding Chandigarh’s Blood Bank Society, along with Dr Jolly, there were other activities she espoused as well. The Indian National Theatre set up by N Khosla, Guddo and Naveen Thakur, the Saboos and Kantaji filled a cultural vacuum that is an abiding legacy. With her death, the last Grand Dame of Chandigarh is gone.
— The writer is a social commentator
