The two debonair cognoscenti Dr. Shashi Tharoor and Dr. Vikram Sampath appeared on the India Today Conclave a few days ago for the purpose of a conversation. The atrophying but mammoth intellectual ecosystem of old and its partisans — let us call them altogether the ‘Edifice’ — expected the former to ‘win’; the nascent but burgeoning bohemianism and its partisans expected the latter to ‘win’; and others presumably looked forward to imbibing the perspectives of both. At any rate, all seemed unified in their animadversions against the host, the relatively more impetuous Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai.

To the Edifice, however, Dr. Sampath was blasphemous in his objective assessment of the derelictions of India’s post-independence historiography. Unlike the complaisant eminences with whose credendum he dared differ, he had primary sources with which he lent credence to his illuminations. There was, on part of the host, the prosaic characterization of Hindu nationalists as troglodyte Neanderthals — after all, their respect for great men of weltanschauungs different from theirs must necessarily be the odious act of ‘appropriation’, whereas the respect of ‘liberals’ for great men of thoughts differing with theirs, if they could be so liberal as to profess such respect, must be an act of ‘gentilesse’. As if one sees within the Hindutva groundswell the pervasive claims of Bhagat Singh or Subhas Chandra Bose as proponents of Hindutva; it does not occur to Mr. Sardesai that the Hindu nationalists respect these freedom fighters regardless of their non-Hindutva political perspectives; purely for their patriotism and sacrifice for the cause of Indian freedom.

The more mediagenic event, however, is not the exhibition of the now-predictable prejudices of Mr. Sardesai, but the obloquies to which Dr. Sampath has since been subjected by the Edifice. He has evidence from primary sources, but his credentials are ‘dubious’ and his objectivity is ‘fiction’. A discerning mind is hardly nonplussed at such doublespeak. The truth is under assault — not, it must be emphasized, by the coattails of those whom Abhijit Iyer-Mitra might term ‘hillbillies’ who form today’s political executive, but by the mondaine class which has for long been regarded as an intellectual syndicate, and its political patrons who claim to defend the ‘idea of India’. And it is the restoration of that truth which is an uphill battle.

In happier times, we would have been predominantly concerned with the manner in which we would have made history enthralling to students, and with the logical flow of its brook across the fields of time, but we must at present be content with belying the numerous lies, and adding perspective to the numerous oversimplifications, that constitute current history.

In the conversation, Dr. Tharoor claimed that after a sanguinary Partition, it was only reasonable for history to be employed in “a nation-building project”. To us, this is a euphemism at best and chicanery at worst; a ruse to eclipse the politically unpleasant events of history, that the frail emotional-intellectual constitutions of particular communities may not be offended; and that the almost apocryphal narration of the ‘high virtues’ of a pre-independence political entity may enable its domination of the free country’s government. It is no wonder that school history is so insipid. However, to the circumspect, this contention is sensible, for there is at play an unfortunate conjunction of two factors: the one is the precarity of explaining these unpleasant episodes to the innocent minds of children; the other, the phlogistonic potential of disregarding that precarity, and proceeding nonetheless to honest expatiation.

The adult mind may succeed in the delicate act of balancing on the rope of nuance, but it is not axiomatic, for instance, that a child shall not recoil in terror on seeing a Muslim today, should the vivid descriptions of Islamist violence in the mediaeval era, evoke within him a subconscious fear of and aversion towards Muslims in general.

This is a challenge, and there are no easy solutions. It shall require much industry to write honestly but carefully. That, however, must never be a pretext to not undertake the project. Dr. Tharoor made the tenuous claim that old wounds had already healed, and that they were now being re-exposed designedly for odious political purposes. History and politics, regardless of the perspicacity and prescience of historians and statesmen, are ever slightly miscible, and it is only natural that history should sooner or later be employed for political purposes. Dr. Tharoor, however, does not appear to realize an obvious error in his argument, namely, that wounds cannot be said to have healed with mere concealment thereof with discriminatory narration of history. For, should new research oppugn that which has authoritatively been passed off as history, such questions as, “Why did my government, composed of the disciples of Gandhi’s precepts of truth, lie to me?” are very naturally posed. This is a very obvious precursor to amplifying social animosities.

It is in this background that Dr. Sampath’s recommendation of a ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ appears reasonable. We may not impose a facsimile of the South African model; the modalities of our own may be left to the wisdom of academic, political and social eminences. To make peace with history and to move on is of inestimable importance, and objective historiography is a major stepping stone in the consummation of that quest.

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