History? Depends on who's writing it.
Rewriting history textbooks is a nice pastime, especially for those self-declared "preserve our culture and tradition" types. These types generally dwell on foreign lands that guarantee political equality, ie USA, Europe etc.
Distance, they say, breeds attachment. So Indian culture and tradition are suddenly more important than they ever were before crossing the border.
And as a yiddish proverb goes, "if you are a rich man, you also look good and write well", good finances are enough to make experts on Indian culture and its history.
So with enough money in the bank, close to retirement, nothing much to do except reading some partisan version of the Vedas, what do they choose to do ? - Join a Hindu society and lobby to change history or fund those who will change it at home in India, to put it rather bluntly.
And what happens to all of us, poor and rich families alike in India, indifferent to these changes ?
Before we know it, our children (and probably us, if we did not pay too much attention to history at school) are going to be learning that the Vedas are full of mathematics and science, that the Indus valley civilization is actually the very Hindu Indus-Saraswathi civilization,
Nor will you find a mention of Nathuram Godse and his membership in the RSS if you happen to forget the assassin of Gandhi.
( See "On Inventing the Past", The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen, if Prof Sen is to be believed)
Given the more urgent needs of poverty and other growing pains of development, one does not expect any but the reasonably well off to bother about this 'rewriting' of history.
Even for most of this bunch, all that matters is that their children score well in the final examination, how do a few lines changed here or there matter anyway?
History is just another exam.
After all, If they do well then they can go to America, earn money and maybe make their "mark" on Indian history too!
For more on Hindu nationalist revisionists,
http://abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=1534056
and an older reference to it on The Hindu, a national newspaper
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/03/25/stories/2002032500041000.htm
Distance, they say, breeds attachment. So Indian culture and tradition are suddenly more important than they ever were before crossing the border.
And as a yiddish proverb goes, "if you are a rich man, you also look good and write well", good finances are enough to make experts on Indian culture and its history.
So with enough money in the bank, close to retirement, nothing much to do except reading some partisan version of the Vedas, what do they choose to do ? - Join a Hindu society and lobby to change history or fund those who will change it at home in India, to put it rather bluntly.
And what happens to all of us, poor and rich families alike in India, indifferent to these changes ?
Before we know it, our children (and probably us, if we did not pay too much attention to history at school) are going to be learning that the Vedas are full of mathematics and science, that the Indus valley civilization is actually the very Hindu Indus-Saraswathi civilization,
Nor will you find a mention of Nathuram Godse and his membership in the RSS if you happen to forget the assassin of Gandhi.
( See "On Inventing the Past", The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen, if Prof Sen is to be believed)
Given the more urgent needs of poverty and other growing pains of development, one does not expect any but the reasonably well off to bother about this 'rewriting' of history.
Even for most of this bunch, all that matters is that their children score well in the final examination, how do a few lines changed here or there matter anyway?
History is just another exam.
After all, If they do well then they can go to America, earn money and maybe make their "mark" on Indian history too!
For more on Hindu nationalist revisionists,
http://abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=1534056
and an older reference to it on The Hindu, a national newspaper
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/03/25/stories/2002032500041000.htm
posted by Mohanakrishna C at 12:10 PM
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Actually the Yiddish proverb is
"If you have money, you are wise and good looking and can sing well too."
Az me hot gelt, iz men klug un shain un men ken gut zingen.
- From Yiddishe Chochma, illustrated by Kristina Swarner.
The final out will be not trusting anything written in the past! That's okay too.
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