New Delhi: The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) is striving to provide the much-needed corrective to distortions and speculations in the Indian history.
“Some of the colonial prejudices and stereotypes have persisted in post-colonial historiographies of India right up to this day, despite our claims of ushering in ‘scientific history’. The idea by some historians is to create a schism between communities,” ICHR Member Secretary Rajaneesh Kumar Shukla told Gulf News.
“We, at ICHR, are making efforts towards history writing in the right direction. I am not saying that past direction was wrong but righteousness as a concept should always be taken care of. We want to take a step towards restoration of history from the historians having colonial perspective,” Shukla said.
Last week, ICHR even organised a conference aiming to talk about distortion of Indian history and how it was mutilated by a colonial perspective and motivation to belittle the achievements of our civilisation.
“In the past, attempts were made to belittle our civilisation by those historians; damage was done before independence, after independence and continues till now. We want new scientific investigation and recent studies based on originals historical sources which will encourage us think in right perspective,” he added.
During the ICHR event last week, eminent historian and archaeologist Ramachandran Nagaswamy said there was an urgent need to study scriptures such as the Upanishads.
“It is important to study the teachings of Buddha, Asoka and Manu, among others, in order to understand the theories that permeate the country. When we talk of secularism in modern times, we mean only anti-Indian ‘ism’ and portray minority virtuosity. But all the great thinkers of India like Buddha, Asoka and Manu, for thousands of years, thought of equality,” he told Gulf News.
Nagaswamy said failure to grasp the real import of the ancient thought makes some influential historians say the Vedic system was caste oriented. He also talked about the paper he had written titled ‘Listen to the voice of your ancient leaders.’
The historian said secularism was an imported term presented to the casteist society of India.
“One of the greatest rulers of India was Asoka Maurya who lived in the third century and in whose time there was all round prosperity and humanism. In his edict he expressively states that they were not quite successful, so he reflected and decided to propagate Dharma among the people. However, the term was dismissed as a religious one and an imported term ‘secularism’ has been pumped into our minds,” he said.
