Opinion Is history dead?

In India,history has been relegated to a forgotten past,as though it’s devoid of value. Even senior management seems uncomfortable when I include it in my coaching sessions,suspecting it may be “non-actionable.” If I show black & white pictures as authentic historical testimony,they ask for colour pictures to “make it exciting.” It’s difficult to explain that being true to history,when only black & white gravure existed as in this case,is important.

We need disciplined documentation to ensure the wheel is not re-invented. Has India mined and stored our rich ancient heritage of practices from different centuries as a repertoire? The West follows a strict grid for documentation. People still play Handel’s 17th century or Mozart’s 18th century music compositions using modern instruments,sound and interpretation as the written notation is unchallenged in posterity. In Indian music’s guru-shishya tradition,the finer points may get altered with multiple non-grid interpretation,depending on how the disciple captures it.

Historical data,facts and figures in human or natural evolution,socio-cultural,technical or entertainment areas define how society’s emulsion in every epoch generates incredible invention. Let’s look at a few examples of how and why certain inventions took place and became a part of our daily lives.

The early,mid-1860s history of The Nestlé Company was Henri Nestlé’s search for a healthy,economical alternative to breastfeeding for mothers who could not feed their infants. This trained Swiss pharmacist’s first customer was a premature infant whom physicians had given up for lost as he could not tolerate his mother’s milk or conventional substitutes. After Nestlé’s new formula saved the child’s life,people quickly recognised the new product’s value. Nestle’s ultimate goal was to help combat the problem of infant mortality due to malnutrition. Their focus today is on responsible nutrition.

As a youngster,Louis Pasteur showed no special ability,but in high school he became interested in science. He had five children,three of whom died of typhoid fever. This was a cause that motivated him to develop the germ theory of disease to save people from diseases. Eventually,Pasteur solved scientific mysteries such as the generation of ailments like rabies,anthrax and chicken cholera,and contributed to the world’s first and most significant of vaccines. He died a national hero in 1895.

“Research fuels technology and superior technology leads to superior performance,” is the philosophy of Amar Bose,founder of Bose speakers. As an MIT graduate student in 1956,Bose bought a high-end stereo system but was disappointed when it failed to meet his expectations. He later began extensive research to fix the fundamental weakness plaguing high-end audio systems. Today,the Bose brand that stands for “Better Sound through Research” has become the most respected name in sound,from the Olympic Games to the Sistine Chapel,from NASA space shuttles to the Japan National Theatre.

The Internet was designed 1973,and up and running by 1983. Developed by Vinton Cerf and others,this international network of computers delivers information “packets” such as e-mail from one “address” to another. Tim Berners-Lee became a part of the Internet’s complex history of innovation by inventing the World Wide Web in 1989-91. With mathematicians as parents who worked on the first commercial computer,Berners-Lee used the Internet to provide universal access to a comprehensive collection of information in word,sound and image,each discretely identified by UDIs (universal document identifier,also known as URLs) and interconnected by hypertext links. Berners-Lee made it easy for people with Internet to contribute and collect information when he gave specifications for HyperText Markup Language (HTML,the code in which websites are written),HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP,the code by which sites are moved in and out of the web) and URLs. He continues to promote the web as an open,accessible,interactive and universal community,and his book,Weaving the Web is about his creation’s past,present and future vision.

American Caucasian history is recent,compared to Europe,but they have meticulously preserved it. Take their film industry. You can experience how films are made at the entertainment park of Universal Studios in Hollywood. The real atmosphere is re-created here,from cinematography to acting and editing. You can enjoy how different scenes of the film Psycho were shot,and feel that you are directing the film along with Alfred Hitchcock. This is an outstanding way of bringing back a sense of history by making people experience it.

I’d love to hear from you,dear reader,about how we in India can bring living substance into history,and drive the grid of knowledge to help future generations benefit from history to invite India to invention.

Shombit Sengupta is a creative business consultant to top management. http://www.shiningconsulting.com