“I have found authentic documentation to be the best medium for protest against injustice and exploitation.” Mahasweta Devi
Dr Quleen Kaur Bijral
It is exceedingly limiting to propose that history is a mere tracing of the past. A written record on a piece of paper or a canonised text or an official text book. Strangely enough, it is this myopic impression of history that circulates in the mainstream while those at the helm realize the power of history as a decider, provocateur and saboteur of future.
Pertinently then, it is high time that in India, the general public is empowered to read, scrutinize and apprehend history as a political, social, and economical weapon of power than as an innocuous document to be studied and taught as formality. An immediate overhaul is needed as neglecting history and history writing invites peril which fosters prejudices, bigotry and stereotypes from one generation to another. Besides, as this sacred piece of information can be doctored with, misrepresented and tainted with a racist, misogynist, or communal ideology, it is paramount to arrest its epistemic errors. Consequently, history which we find before us in the textbooks, newspapers, official documents is not to be accepted as Truth but to be vigilantly read for exposing any provincial or separatist or monopolised version of truth.
Mapping History: Exclusive or Inclusive Documents?
While tracing an authentic account of the past, one cardinal question emerges – should the interpretation of history be served by a master discourse or a singular text or should it be an inclusion of multitudinous histories? An encompassing model or a homogenised/one-sided model?
Consider this, history which is written from the vantage point of ruling Government, if it is granted absolute authority, then any step to rectify, correct or expose its errors would be strategically deterred. Under this state of affairs, the voice of the millions of common people out there would be bypassed and even buried as crass noises in the real world. Pertinently then, a homogenised or universal draft of history is a dangerous contraption of the ruling class as it tactically seizes monopoly to speak for the general public in its own words – irrespective of the concerns and issues of the public. Further, if any attempt is made to apprehend this ennobled historic document, that would invariably provoke accusations of anti-nationalism, lack of patriotism, and so on.
Ascertaining the cause and effect of one-sided history, it is then paramount that history ought to be encompassing, inclusive or multitudinous than a singular artefact established as Gospel Truth. However, in order to establish this powerful notion of inclusive histories, where to find the truth?
Truth is not only to be found in officially backed books, documents or media but in the individual accounts as in oral sources. As Sartre claimed: Truth comes from the people. It is no longer a question of giving ideas to the masses, but of following their movement, going to search them out at their source and expressing them more clearly” (White Mythologies 17). The tribals, the rural peasants and low castes in India for instance do not have the agency to speak or write about their history of exploitation – which mode of articulation is then available to them? Oral medium. In India, truth is not only to be found in written words but in voices of the oppressed castes and only by including their version of the past, an encompassing model of history can be ushered in.
History as A Nexus Between Power And Representation
History is a weapon, as reiterated earlier – a fact which can substantiated by tracing why the colonials and as well as nationalists in India strategically tampered with it thereby asserting its importance.
The colonial empire justified its invasion of the non-western world through a conquest by education. While drafting official records to represent India, history of the country was fallaciously framed to validate the need to civilize it. Oriental books to research articles which served as legitimate historical records were produced to cement such gross misrepresentations and thereby justify the tyranny of the elite. This is one example to deduce the weaponized form of history which in the wrong hands can serve as propaganda of warranted violence.
In the post-Independent India, on the similar vein, one can cite the case of the peasant rebel Titu Mir who had been firstly undermined in his role of pioneering India’s freedom struggle, secondly branded as a communal fanatic and lastly his revolt being labelled as a mindless response. These misrepresentations attest to the need of separating academic knowledge/history from the clutches of power. As Guha, critical thinker, has claimed:”The historiography of Indian nationalism has for a long time been dominated by elitism-colonialist elitism and bourgeois-nationalist elitism”. (Transnationale 95)
Memory as an ally of History – Remembering the Past
Crucial as it is, memory is a personal vindication, personal evidence, a personal truth against the onslaught of the official or polluted version of the past. What happened during Partition? What transpired during the riots? What is being said and not being said in the aftermath of an event? Which source can serve to corroborate the official version in the printed books? It is memory of the people living in the midst of the turmoil. The memory of the victims suffering the stab of political stratagems. Yes, the memory of the oppressed, the forgotten, and the unsung in the wake of mainstream hullaballoo.
Memory as a survival strategy of the silenced traces the truth of history which needs to be excavated, resurrected and recovered. During any unfortunate conflict, crisis or backlash, the common people are under a threat to remain mute, most of whom however fight it, “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against being forgotten”(Oral History 2013). Not to be forgotten but to be recorded, hence should be the aim while recording the past.
Left or Right, History should seek Social Justice
It is not ornamental, history writing. Nor it should be especially when it comes to documenting the voices of the oppressed. Its misrepresentation can assault an entire community to hate the other over generations to pass. Its monopolised versions can destroy the histories of our country’s diversity. Its rigid structure of seeing oral sources as illegitimate can bury the truth indefinitely. Under such harrowing ramifications, history hence is not just a piece of paper but power that can either bring social justice or a violent spate of tragedies in the times to come.
Violent histories and their aftershocks do not get subdued with time, but only cemented, hence the need to immediately arrest any perversion of it is vital. It is power. A weapon. An agency of voice. If used justly, it is humanity’s elixir, and if not then it is its apocalypse.
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