Opinion The embattled historian: Who gets to speak for India’s past?
Are historians meant to clear up questions of what lies beneath Mughal-era mosques? Historians don’t tell the nation what to think about a particular issue but how to begin to think about it.
Is history about definitive truths? Is there a ‘correct’ history — are there wrongs to be righted? 
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If a non-earth being had landed in January 2024 in New Delhi, stayed the year and returned to their planet, and been asked what the humans they encountered on their sojourn thought of history, they would probably have a lot to say. They might start with the fuss around the opening of the Ram Mandir depicted by many as a redressal of historical injustice. They might point to the harassment of many historians deemed “left” or “left-liberal” for any number of sins — from joking about religious idols to their research topics to the vague but dangerous accusation of lacking sympathy toward Hindutva history. They would certainly mention the regular controversies around inclusions and exclusions in undergraduate history and school history syllabi. They would not have failed to notice the fever pitch to which debates on structures allegedly underlying Mughal-era mosques, have reached this year. The year has ended with tumultuous scenes in the Parliament over the historical context and relevance of the Constitution.
In all this, it’s likely that this non-earth being would be unclear as to what history as an academic discipline is actually about and what professional historians are meant to do. Is history about definitive truths? Is there a “correct” history – are there wrongs to be righted? Is it meant to have a single conclusion or many conclusions? What is to be its relationship to uncertainty or the lack of evidence? Are historians meant to clear up questions of what lies beneath Mughal-era mosques? What counts as historical evidence? Who are historians’ audiences? Fellow academics? The public? Politicians? The many publics that make up the public? What should they teach in the classroom?
The non-earth being would also be very confused as to whether anyone needs to be a historian even to talk about history. The most popular YouTubers on Indian history, and let’s be clear that WhatsApp University has been replaced by YouTube University, barely have a history degree between them. Historians (the ones with a full CV of history degrees) have no say whatsoever in most of the popular discussions on history, be they on mandirs, masjids, or the Constitution. While some of these YouTubers post fair and considered POV-s, even providing links to sources cited, others tomtom their recognition by the state and its leaders. Gone are the days when historians refused state awards understanding their role to be one best exercised at a certain distance from the state and political patronage.
This has been the year of a deep existential crisis for the discipline in a society where “living history” makes life dangerous for many. On the face of it, this argument that India’s glory lay in ancient discoveries, forms of polity, society and language is a seductive one. The subcontinent offers an embarrassment of riches for any social scientist or humanities researcher, and certainly for a historian. However, the same argument can become a dangerous pretext for ongoing social conservatism of various kinds — caste, gender, class and more. “Living history” suggests that history is unbroken and unchanging. This is akin to the kind of dogma that the colonials upheld — the more apparently unchanged, old and unthinking a social practice, the more authentic did the colonials hold that practice to be. This is at odds with the idea of modernity itself which posits a historical dynamism based on reason. And equally troubling is the fact that this argument justifies a thirst for “revenge” and “destructive retaliation” for perceived historical wrongs as though there is an unbroken line between Hindus of history and Hindus of today, Muslims (and other minorities) of history and Muslims (and other minorities) of today.
Though history as a discipline is a product of European Enlightenment, history became an important subject in emerging colonial-era university departments around India. Indian historians, archaeologists, Indologists took up the challenge of their European forebears while also responding to the nationalist movement. As the nation came into its own, historians were faced with the demands of greater democratic inclusion and social justice. They responded with a greater focus on the subaltern, attention to multiple language sources and multiple archives in order to deepen our knowledge of different historical actors and communities. It has also resulted in transgressive histories of faith, identity, ideas and region. The work has been done and is being done all the time.
At the end of the day, academia is only one of three sites of historical discourse in India – the other two being the school textbook and the popular sphere (social media, the play of politics, community and identity assertion). It’s in the interplay of these three that we as Indians arrive at their sense of history. But perhaps more than ever before, in this age of violence and authoritarianism, it is important for academic historians to keep doing their work. The projects of inclusion, social justice and progressive values — in sum, the future — depends on this labour. It is important to teach students how to think like historians – how to sift evidence, how to build an argument based on evidence, how to read critically, and how to live with counter-arguments, with uncertainty and with complexity, and how to retain a sense of joy and play and humour about it all. Our job is not to tell the nation what to think about a particular issue (though we occasionally try), but how to begin to think about it. The rest is just noise.
The writer teaches history at Jindal Global Law School and is the author of Democracy’s Dhamma: Buddhism in the Making of Modern India, c 1890-1956
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