The history rewrite: Orientalism to religion

ON a cold, rainy winter morning on December 28, 2024, when it would have been prudent to sit by the fireside, more than a thousand historians gathered at Punjabi University, Patiala, for the 83rd session of the Indian History Congress (IHC), the largest association of historians in India. Started in 1935 in Pune with about 50 participants, the IHC now boasts about 35,000 members. Its annual sessions across India are the most visible statements on the state of history-writing in our country. Scholars, like Amartya Sen and EP

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Thompson, have presented papers in various sessions of the IHC. In the recent session, Prof Gautam Sengupta delivered the general presidential address, while US-based Prof Richard Eaton was a special invitee.

The inaugural session of the IHC was a result of the energy and enterprise of scholars from Maharashtra. Some of its participants were Father H Heras from Mumbai, Surendra Nath Sen from Kolkata and SR Sharma from Lahore. Its first president, Sir Shafaat Ahmad Khan of Allahabad, insisted that historians should be guided by canons of objectivity and science. The IHC was to rise above prejudice and racial pride.

A cursory look at the Proceedings of the Indian History Congress in the following years brings up names like Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Tara Chand, RC Majumdar, Mohammad Habib, PV Kane, Nilakanta Sastri, HD Sankalia, RS Sharma, Satish Chandra, Bipan Chandra, Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar and Sumit Sarkar — legends in the canons of Indian history-writing.

At the time of the founding of the IHC, the dominant historical narratives were Eurocentric. India was considered merely a geographical expression consisting of a confused congeries of languages, ethnicities and religions, which neither was nor could be a nation. Indian political systems were supposedly characterised by ‘Oriental despotism’. Another argument, that India was spiritual as contrasted with the material West, served to justify European rule over the subcontinent.

The IHC was part of a larger intellectual movement that was trying to prove that Indians were capable of democratic self-rule. Indian historians developed ‘drain of wealth’ arguments against British colonialism. They excavated textual evidence that showed presence of non-monarchical polities (ganasanghas) in early India. They demonstrated that the medieval period was not an era of darkness and that Islam ushered in many positive changes in Indian society. They recognised that India was a nation in the making and that diversity of languages, cultures and religious traditions was the strength of India’s unique nationalism.

However, nationalist historians persisted with the colonial understanding privileging dynastic history. They even embraced the idea that Indians were spiritual while the West was materialistic. It seemed to soothe their bruised nationalist ego. We Indians still carry this idea like a badge of honour, although no Indian source had ever made such claims. Using sources composed by upper-caste/class writers, the nationalists believed that the varna system minimised economic competition and created a harmonious society based on a friendly division of labour. However, the most pernicious survival of the colonial tradition was the periodisation of Indian history into Hindu and Muslim eras. This was based on the notion that religious identities are unchanging as well as eternal and they define everything about human communities. This understanding was reflected in the Partition wherein nation-states were defined by religious identity.

The patriotic reverie of the nationalists could not wish away caste oppression and the incredible poverty of peasant communities. It denied agency to Dalits, Adivasis and women. Faint murmurs of protest about nationalist history began to be heard in the IHC in the 1950s.

There was a shift in focus from kings and conquerors to common people. There was a conscious attempt to integrate polity with economy, society, religion and art. Processes of change and causality were woven into this new history. Thus emerged the grand narrative of feudalism that punctured the earlier idea of equating medieval India with the arrival of Islam. The medieval period, in this reading, began long before the coming of the Turks. Historians of the modern period began to examine the composition of India’s anti-imperialist movements. They pointed out that India’s failure in removing stark poverty and caste discrimination was connected with the upper-class/caste leadership of the national movement.

The IHC has always been a site for dissent and innovative research. By the early 1970s, Buddhism and Sufi-Bhakti traditions were being analysed as responses to the needs of emergent merchant and agricultural communities. Religion was now seen as a series of multivocal responses to social needs, not an entity that was frozen in holy texts.

History-writing also learnt from other disciplines. Sociological concepts critiqued the idea of an unchanging caste system. Powerful groups like the Rajputs used Sanskritisation to acquire a higher caste status and legitimise their control. Historical enquiries showed that that there was a continuous shuffling of caste orders in history. Anthropology showed that hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads, shifting cultivators and peasants represented radically different social formations. It was seen that the society mirrored in the Vedas was a chiefdom society that was different from state societies of the subsequent period. Thus, the processes of the emergence of the state and the monarchy were explored. Similarly, realising that cities did not always exist, historians began studying the emergence of urbanism. Other historians explored gender histories to understand the power of patriarchy today. Historians have also begun exploring the history of environment.

The possibilities and range of questions are endless. Historians, too, cannot escape the gaze of Chronos. Histories will continue to change. Historians at the IHC have never minced words about mutual disagreements. However, there is an overlapping consensus on scientific history-writing. Unfortunately, the last few decades have witnessed a conflict between religious organisations menacingly insisting on their version of the past and professional historians who value canons of historical method. It matters because it will define not only our past but our future too.