‘Ambedkar is too great a man and his contribution is recognised. How is his reputation going to be lowered by a textbook cartoon?’

Mushirul Hasan: In the context of the work I’ve done on 19th and 20th century cartoons (Wit and Humour in Colonial North India and Wit and Wisdom: Pickings from the Parsee Punch),I regard cartooning as form of comic consciousness,which is extremely creative—both in its conception and articulation. What one cartoon can do in elucidating an idea,even 300 words may not be able to communicate. Some four to five years ago,I was fascinated by this wonderful newspaper which came out from Lucknow called the Awadh Punch (1844-1932),modelled on the London Punch.

It was an anti-colonial paper and so it was very critical of British policies. In those times,humour had top priority. My most recent book,out last week,is on the Parsee Punch and focuses on one year,1884,on cartoons in the context of the Indian National Congress. The idea is to indicate with the cartoons,the political,economic,ideological,cultural and social trends when the Congress came into existence,through the eyes of a community which is enlightened,liberal,affluent and forward-looking. It is interesting that not once did the British government seize or forfeit issues of either the Awadh Punch or the Parsee Punch. I’m not suggesting they had a high level of tolerance but there is documentary evidence to suggest that British officials thought that Indians had no sense of humour. However,illustrations (in the Avadh Punch) demonstrated that the humour there was more sophisticated than the British sense of humour. I have a few essays that actually point out how wit and humour can be an educative medium.

Coomi Kapoor: Do you think they are suitable for textbooks? Our parliamentarians don’t seem to think so.

Mushirul Hasan: The parliamentarians may not see many things comic,except perhaps the comical scenes within the House. But if they had seen the cartoons of Shankar and the ones from the National Herald,which in its early years had some very good cartoonists,they probably wouldn’t react in the way they have. It is very unfortunate really,making an issue out of nothing very significant. These textbooks are written for children between seven and 15-16. If they are so immature,they shouldn’t be reading textbooks at all.

Seema Chishti: These are prescriptive textbooks which the state has decided for a particular age group. A Dalit or somebody else may see this differently. They can say, ‘don’t remove the cartoons from the face of the earth,but remove them from prescriptive books’.

Mushirul Hasan: This is a completely false representation. A sense of hurt emerging out of a simple cartoon makes very little sense. All of us share the hurt and the slight suffered by the Dalits but feeling angry about it? That is stretching it a bit too far. The spaces for representation of our history have to be allowed. In this case,the outlook is not even contentious. Ambedkar is too great a man and his contribution is recognised. How is his reputation going to be lowered by a textbook cartoon? Preparing a curriculum for NCERT textbooks is a very rigorous process. Many,many people at many different levels scrutinise it. You can’t just change the content of the textbooks every now and then. What upsets me most is that there is a process of withdrawing something that you don’t like. This effort takes four to five years but in this case,someone in Parliament gets up and says look,here’s something that we should withdraw. It has to be a decision that you arrive at by talking to the students who have read these textbooks and their teachers. If you discover that it does damage the reputation of Dr Ambedkar,then you are free to do it. But some process has to be followed.

Dilip Bobb: There’s a lot of intolerance in art,cinema,be it MF Husain or Salman Rushdie. Is this intolerance growing?

Mushirul Hasan: Yes,absolutely. We are being overwhelmed by incidents of these sorts. You ban a book here,withdraw a film there,prevent someone from entering his own country. What is saddening is the acquiescence in this. I think a decade ago,we would have all marched on the streets to protest against the treatment of M F Husain but today nobody does it. So even the liberal spaces are unfortunately shrinking fast.

Vandita Mishra: One of the arguments politicians have used against the cartoons is that the ‘sab politicians chor hain’ feeling should not be inculcated. Has the argument made in civil society movements over the last year,the kind of intolerance we saw there,set off a competitive intolerance?

Mushirul Hasan: I don’t personally agree with the lampooning of politicians. I don’t think it is a helpful discourse. I think that the electronic media got it all wrong. Politicians are absolutely indispensable to the system,either in Parliament or outside. So the competitiveness is a contrived discourse,which I think will lose its appeal.

Rakesh Sinha: Do you think the government’s response to the protests against the cartoon was one of panic?

Mushirul Hasan: Well,I don’t think there was any response because even when you panic,you think before taking a decision. Here,I don’t think there was any thinking. And if somebody thinks that it’s going to get them some votes,then that’s only wishful thinking.

Seema Chishti: There was the earlier incident of a Danish cartoon on Prophet Muhammad which had very serious consequences in Europe. There is a debate between sentiment and freedom of creativity. Where do you draw the line?

Mushirul Hasan: In this context,what is offensive? I have the greatest regard for Ambedkar and as a historian,I have respect for his historic role. I’d simply interpret it as a cartoon where Nehru is saying to him as the President of the Constituent Assembly,that “get on with the job”,because three years had passed. There is documentary evidence that there was impatience on the part of many other Constituent Assembly members,including Sardar Patel. At another level,we know that Gandhi had serious differences with Ambedkar who had made some remarks about him as early as 1930—somebody might be offended by those remarks. So what do you do,then? Expunge them from the works of BR Ambedkar? As far as religious sentiments are concerned,I’m not even certain that those who head such campaigns are necessarily convinced by what they are doing. There are all kinds of reasons why people use religion to masquerade their vested interests. But the State cannot chicken out. It has to play the role of arbitrating between these different positions. It has to rise above giving into emotional blackmail.

Suanshu Khurana: It is often said India does not have a sense of preserving history. We have not preserved our old films like Raja Harishchandra and Alam Ara. How do you rectify this?

Mushirul Hasan: The problem started from the beginning. We didn’t invest enough in these areas. And that is one of the reasons why we were not able to create the infrastructure. The second problem was that the bureaucracy played a decisive role. This was not a very good idea because the administration,conception,and the projects should be done by professionals. Moreover,these institutions are very elitist. They cater to the urban elites,they have not been able to reach out to the provincial capitals. Most people don’t even know they are allowed inside the National Archives,but they are. There’s a perception that we hide some great secrets here and that we’re guarding those trade secrets. I wish it was true.

Amitabh Sinha: One criticism is that a lot of what should be in the National Archives is in museums like the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library.

Mushirul Hasan: There is no clear division. We have records. When the Nehru Memorial Museum was established,there was a clear understanding with the government that we were the custodian of records and the Nehru Museum was to specialise in private papers,though we have a collection of 155 private papers and records. So most of the private papers of nationalist leaders were sent to the Nehru Museum. The Nehru Papers were already there. The post-’47 period would be accessed by only those who had permission from the Nehru family,now from Mrs Sonia Gandhi. But in the Archives,there is absolutely nothing which is closed or is inaccessible.

Amitabh Sinha: We’ve heard a couple of times recently,that a file or a record has gone missing or is lost. What happens when it is lost—is it permanently gone or can it be replaced?

Mushirul Hasan: This began when the British left. They carried a lot of papers to England. During the transfer of power,a lot of papers were burnt or destroyed. We have only what we inherited and that is a problem.

Amitabh Sinha: When a government minister says in Parliament that a record,some 15 years old,is missing,how is that possible?

Mushirul Hasan: We only get files after 25 years,so if at some stage,a file has been removed,we are completely unaware of that.

Amtabh Sinha: Is it possible to have a record missing forever?

Mushirul Hasan: Absolutely. The records of the Holocaust,for example. Of the 1857 revolt,there are many dark areas. But we have some good work being done. Shyam Saran,when he was at the Ministry of External Affairs,had created an archive. It’s accessible with the permission of the secretary.

Dilip Bobb: History is becoming unfashionable,nobody talked about the context in which the Nehru-Ambedkar cartoon was drawn. All they saw was a Pandit and a Dalit.

Mushirul Hasan: I think when passions run high,you lose your sense of proportion. But in general,I think history is gaining greater legitimacy. The average Indian has a greater interest in historical events or landmarks. And there are lots of writers who write very beautifully and strike a chord with the urban middle class.

Rakesh Sinha: The declassification of documents is discretionary or is it a matter of routine after 25 years?

Mushirul Hasan: It’s done in a systematic way with government guidelines. We are asking for a revision of those rules because most of the rules were framed by the British. Now that the British have relaxed and revised their rules,we’re saying please change ours. We’re saying declassification should be after 20 years. We have transferred nearly five lakh files from different ministries and now you have access to them. They’re very important files,relating particularly to the rehabilitation in 1947-48 and to many other government policies. But in the same section,18 to 19 lakh files await transfer. There’s so much that’s waiting to be retrieved. The condition of the state archives is appalling. I don’t think that state governments are particularly keen on archives.

Suanshu Khurana: There was a recent debate on who should be heading the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library. Who should be heading it—a professor of modern Indian history or a social scientist?

Mushirul Hasan: We already have a director in place and he is a very bright man and he has many years to go,so I think we’ll leave it at that. But possibly the principle,which has unfortunately not been established,should be that universities be headed by academics and professional institutes should be run by professionals. I couldn’t be expected to run a bank. Similarly,a general isn’t expected to run a university and I think it’s alarming and unfortunate that this is the case.

Muzamil Jaleel: Are you referring to Aligarh Muslim University?

Mushirul Hasan: You may draw your own conclusions.

Raj Kamal Jha: In the last two decades,there have been more regional political parties and so in a sense,there has been a broadening of the liberal space even as it contracts.

Mushirul Hasan: To a certain extent the widening of this space is connected with the democratisation process,with the empowerment of Dalits and other socially backward classes. But it can be divisive and polarise sentiments as the reservation issue did. When I spoke of the shrinking of liberal spaces,I mean the taking of positions on global issues,on issues which collectively or individually affect each one of us. I think we’ve become so cynical that we don’t even see merit in such things. Today,students’ unions don’t exist. Teachers’ associations are virtually defunct. There has been a depoliticisation. It’s very important for a country like ours going through a major democratisation process to be aware of what’s going on around the world,very important to take positions,which we have stopped doing.

Shiny Varghese: Have we become a country of trivialities where we spend time on small matters instead of major issues?

Mushirul Hasan: I wouldn’t say that. There are wonderful people around who are doing wonderful work. But yes,we’re trying to catch up with globalisation and in the process,some degree of distortion has taken place.

NP Singh: As a historian,are you comfortable with the state of modern Indian history? Is it being taught well at the university level? Is there any political interference on how post-Independence history is being interpreted?

Mushirul Hasan: There is no political interference in the Central universities. I don’t know about the state universities. You must have followed the controversy at Delhi University recently (on the Ramanujan essay) but it’s an internal matter. In the formulation of a curriculum there is politics but that is good. There are different ways of looking at historical events so you will have a Marxian or a Gandhian perspective. Let’s have all perspectives in order to enable the student to gain the right answers. I think the quality of history writing is excellent. I think apart from economics and sociology,history writing is one of our major achievements after Independence.

Transcribed by Prajakta Hebbar & Shantanu David