History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G. S. Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and their Quest for India's Past: A Review

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G. S Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh and their Quest for India's Past\
T C A Raghavan
New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2019

Dr T C A Raghavan, a noted diplomat, historian and public intelelctual has written an outstanding book which covers the territory upon which Dipesh Chakravarthy has grazed in his Calling of History. Charkavarthy was concerned only with the writings of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Ragavan has traversed a much larger chunk of Historiography. He has situated his examination of the three historians whose work he has analysed in great depth, at the intersection of their individual lives, their collaboration in the pursuit of historical documents and the deep personal bonds of friendship that bound them. Their quest for India's past took them to remote villages, towns and cities all over North India and Mahrashtra and thye uncovered significant troves of historical material which were carefully edited and published. All three of the scholars were pioneers in that they were historians who had to locate, collate and edit the documents on which their histories were based. And for the Maharatha Period and the Post Mughal Era this meant a mastery over a number of scripts and languages: Mahrathi, Persian, Arabic, French, Dutch and Portuguese. The three historians collaborated with each other as Dr Raghavan has shown in the most intensnse and academically fruitful manner. It is interesting to learn that Sir Jadunath Sarkar's reconstruction of the Battle of Panipat, 1761 was based on a contemporary record. The Hafta Anjuman a post Mughal history was located and used by Sarkar in his Fall of the Mughal Empire.

The History Men is an important work of historiography as it deals with the intellectual climate in which Indians began to explore their past. This quest was particularly difficult as it coincided with two very huge popular movements: the Freedom Movement and the Partition Movement, both at times collaborating and at times confronting each other. Politically the times were charged with the high voltage current of identity politics, the Moslem and Hindu one aimed at carving a holemand for the Muslims and the other aimed at preserving the unity and integrity of India as a nation and Civilization. Sir Jadunath Sarkar himelf was a victim of the Partion Movement as his eledest son was killed in the riots. And as Raghavan points out he did not recover from this tragedy. The substantial work of Sir Jadunath revolved around Aurangazeb and his reign. His five volume History of Aurangazeb was based on the original letters and Court Documents which were located in Jaipur, Gwalior and other places. Sarkar used the court documents judicially and his account of the rise of the Maharathas as the most powerful challengers to the hegemony of the Mughals was essentially an analysis of Mahratha documents. The collaboration with G S Sardesai was important as Sarkar though conversant with Modi had his transcripts of the Mahrati documents checked by Sardesai.

In his Shivaji and His Times, Sarkar provided a balanced and nuanced account of Sivaji but the Poona Scholars associated with the Ithihasa Samshodaka Mandala like Rajwade were quite hostile to the work. Raghavan expalins the hostility as stemming from the intrusion of a Bengali in Mahrashtra and its history at a time when the cult around Shivaji was becoming the defining element in the identity of Maharashtrians. There is also the growing assertion of a caste identity during this time and Shivaji and his legacy were deeply contested. Rughubir Sinh, the scion of the Sitamau Princely State located in Malwa wrote his D Phil thesis on Malwa in Transition a work which was much appreciated by Sarkar. Later Raghubir Sinh became a memmber of the Lok Sabha and served two terms and established a Research Institute at Sitmau.

Raghavan has done a splendid job in ressurecting the memory and contribution of these early pioneers of Indian Historiography. One of the unfortunate developments of post Independence Era was the appropriation of Indian History by an ideologically committed group of historians, some would even say cabal of histry peddlers, who with the patronage of the Indian State drove these pioneers into obvlivion. Their pamphlet Communalism and the Writing of Indian History published by the Peoples' Publishing House became the manifesto for a kind of History thatn pitted Historians into hostile camps. Anyone disagreeing with the High Priets of the New Creed was  "Communal" :\"Reactionary" "Anti Modern" etc. The climate of free and dispassionate reconstruction of the past was vitiated by the personality clash betwee the pioneers like Sarkar, Sardesai, Majumdhar, Nilakanta Sastri, H C Ray chowdhury and others with Mohammad Habib and later his son and successor, Irfan Habib. That this clash has not ended is made amply clear in the recent public brawl in which Irfan Habib prevented the Governor of Kerala from continuing with his Speech. An ugly episode which would have been unthinkable in the civilzed days of Sarkar and friends.

Harbans Mukia and his Critique of Indian Historiography

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books In the Hindu dated 27th October 2015, Professor Harbans Mukhia published a scathing critique of Indian historiography and with the hyperbole that comes naturally to the Left Liberals he terms the present political situation as a threat to "historiography". Is there any substance to this argument? It has become a fashion to decry the nationalists in and out of season and even if the nationalists are absolutelu quiet, it appears that the liberals would like a dog fight. For the past sixty five years, India has not seen any major shift in the paradigm within which History is debated: Communal versus Secular, Marxist versus the rest. Such contrived debates do little either to the profession of History or to the tasks that Historians have to perform in their societies. As memory keepers, Historians play a vital role in ensuring that the past does not become a victim of Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness. In India, we have seen a concerted attempt at rewriting the past keeping the objectives of the Nation State of 1947 in mind and as a consequence Indian Historiography is truncated and distorted. Can we study Kushana History without taking the larger context of Eurasia into consideration. Similarly can one study the Delkhi Sultanate without taking the Mongol context and how can one study the so called "Slave" dynasty without looking at the fact that the same Selujek Turks ruled Persia and Anatolia around the same time. My argument is simple: Indian historians rushed in to manufacture a so called National Secular Historiography and enshrimed that in the portals of the University and any attempt to question it was lampooned as "communal" and "reactionary". Can we forget the manner in which stalwarts ofIndian Historiography like Sir Jadunath Sarkar and R C Majumdhar were deliberately set aside as "Rankean" and "Reactionary". Mercifully Dipesh Chakravorthy has in his Calling of History studied the towering work of Sarkar. The need to satisfy the left of Center regime that came into power with Indiara Gabdhi in 1971 resulted in a virtual moratorium on debate in Indian History. The agenda of Historical Research was now set by the Left which was keen on looking at social and economic history to the exclusion of Political History. R S Sharma's highly original intervention in Indian Feudalism made historians discover feudalism everywhere. The appropriation of Indian Historiography entirely by the Left made meaningful debate impossible. For example, at the theoretical level, one must investigate the notion of feudalism as a metaphor for the medieval period as a whole. It has become passe to invoke James Mill and admonish anyone who seeks to ask searching questions as a blind adherent of the "colonial" school. The Left Liberals captured the UGC through Professor Satish Chnadra, the Ministry of Education through Professor Nurul Hassan and theICHR through Professor R S Sharma and his students. While the House of History has many rooms, Indian Historians stated letting out the rooms only to their shosen tenants and turned the MANSION OF HISTORY into a mere appartment block. The fall of the Congress Government has created the climate for new questions to be asked and these questions have remained ignored for the past several decades. For example is the Arayan/ Dravidian dichotomy a valid premise for early history of India. Similarly, did Sanskrit as a language serve only the instruments of religion and power or was there as Sheldom Pollock points out, there was a Sanskrit Cosmopolis. These question remain unanswered inspite of nearly seventy years of socalled research. The Left Liberals were guily of hounding the dissidents to the point of death. Harbans Mukhia himself was a victim of the intolerance of th Left and he should remember. The manner in which the Bhatariya Vidhya Bhavan series was ridiculed by these scholars goes to prove their intolerance. The Let Liberals have finally realized that sarkari historiography with a post colonial flavour will not wash.