Panel 1: Historical Interpretation – Dr Vishwamohan Jha, Dr Mubarak Ali, Dr Ayaz Naseem, Shreya Ghosh – moderated by Dr Garga Chatterjee
The discussion on history as a product of contemporary ideology across nations with a common past, chaired by Dr Garga Choudhury started promptly at 10 a.m. and despite a few technological glitches, an intense conversation flowed over the next hour. In conversation were Dr Mubarak Ali, Dr Ayaz Naseem, Dr Vishwamohan Jha and Shreya Ghosh.
Joining the conversation from Lahore, Pakistan via Skype, Dr Mubarak Ali traced the five phases in the historiography of Pakistan in the seven decades of its existence.
According to Dr Ali, confusion ensued immediately after the partition over the interpretation of the nation-state’s history and origin. There were arguments put forward in favour of 1947 itself, while some scholars believed Pakistani history should begin with the Arab conquest of Sindh in 711. Yet another group argued in favour of tracing the history to the Indus Valley civilisation. In the first phase the responsibility of defining Pakistan’s identity was given to Ahmed Ali, novelist, poet and scholar, and to the famous archeologist Motimer Wheeler. Prof Ahmed Ali, was convinced that the name India should be inherited by Pakistan since the river Indus flowed through the country.
The second phase saw the introduction of the two-nation theory in Pakistan’s historiography with Ishtiak Hussein Qureshi accusing Emperor Akbar of failing to tend to the concerns of the Muslims in the Mughal period, thus causing the decline of the Muslim community in India. This according to Dr Ali is a distortion of historical fact since Muslims who came to the sub-continent actually did retain their ethnic identities and their was no real ‘Indianization’ of the Arab muslim.
The third phase began post the 1971 partition of Pakistan and the establishment of Bangladesh when a strong anti-India sentiment had developed. The People’s Party of Pakistan came to power and encouraged the rewriting of history. Pakistani historians began to relinquish their identity as a member of the Indian subcontinent, claiming that it was only with the coming of the Mughals that they formed any connection with India and Bangladesh. They held that Pakistan was both geographically and linguistically different and identified more with the Middle East.
In 1989 with the collapse of the Russian state Dr Dani strongly proposed aligning with Central Asia and put forth the theory of linking Pakistani history with Central Russian history and declaring Persian as the national language.
Each of these phases Dr Ali said led to immense confusion and the interesting fact was that most of the historians were state sponsored. Pakistan, unfortunately, he said has no independent research institute or independent historians save a small group lamenting the ‘sorry state of history in Pakistan’ and trying to challenge the authorities and overpower the tyranny of the majority.
He then went on to discuss Pakistani Education Policy and textbooks. Post 1962 the subject of history was dropped in schools in favour of social studies according to the advice of American experts.
Islamic studies forms a strong component of the syllabus now while the Hindu Muslim divide is emphasised to a degree that plants and animals are classified according to religion. He states there is an urgent need to revise texbooks, strenthen the roots of History in Pakistan and abolish the divisive ideas that are poisoning young minds.
Focusing on the last phase of Pakistani historiography and building on Dr Ali’s argument, Dr Ayaz Naseem, who joined the conversation from Montreal, Canada, explored how ‘the other’ has been constructed in Pakistani textbooks. Dr Naseem, who has been working with Pakistani textbooks since 2002, reminded us that the last reform concerning textbooks in Pakistan happened in 2005. The textbooks now focus on creating a general identity which stems from perceiving the other as negative. The narratives use both normalisation and what Dr Naseem calls ‘mergilisation’ to create the figure of the Other. Normalisation occurs when people stop questioning the concept of jihads, infidels and such while mergilisation celebrates the pre Mughal Pakistan and India as one and the same. The only way out of this narrative according to Dr Naseem is to keep demanding denormalisation.
Dr Vishwamohan Jha then proceeded to explore the depth of the intellectual roots of communalism by concentrating on the periodization of history of India and what it entails. The periodization of the history of India is generally ancient India, a period of glory; Muslim India, the period of bigotry and ruin before Hindu India resurfaces to reclaim grandeur. This form of periodization was enforced by James Mill who divided the history of India into Hindu India, Mohammedan India and British India and these standards continue to this day. Nationalist narratives were mounted against Mill’s history of India but no questions were raised about the periodization. It was much later that this categorisation was superceded to begin early medieval India from the reign of Harshvardhan. Professor Romilia Thappar is of the opinion that Mill’s periodization was at the root of nationalism while Professor Shah is convinced that Mill’s division was at the seat of communal historiography.
Dr Jha then proceeded to point out the alterative narrative put forward in 1904 in the third edition of Vincent Smith’s Early History of India where he explained that it was the dominance of the Rajput clans that differentiated Medieval India from Ancient India as that phase saw a distinct change in living traditions. Unfortunately, Hindu and Muslim identities were foregrounded in favour of other identities in the periodization that followed. This trend was encouraged, he said, by the popular history constructed and abused by the Hindu chauvinists and activists of the country. The frequently used trope of the Muslim as a foreigner, as emphasised by this popular history led to further alienation of practitioners of Islam. It went to such a degree that the Muslim foreign traders of India themselves were seen as foreign.
Joining the conversation, Shreya Ghosh then went on to point out that though historically the existence of nation-states is a relatively new phenomenon, they appear to have always existed to citizens, a thought process that is produced by the narrative presented by nationalist historians. Textbooks thus perform the ideological function of producing believers of the nation/union.
Modern history is about associating the facts of the past in a narrative which has a definite beginning- middle-end, a characteristic which eludes chronicles and annuls which are thereby not considered history. It is the requirement of the end which brings narrativisation into a history which is merely associations of facts made by nationalist historians. She spoke about the four generations of history textbooks that have been created in Bangladesh since 1971. Focusing on the narrative of the 1905 Bengal partition as presented in the books, Ms Ghosh revealed how in 1973 the books proclaimed that Lord Curzon had decided in favour of the partition to uplift the economic conditions of Muslims. This led to protest by the Hindus which in turn led to communal riots. The same version can be seen in the second generation of textbooks that appeared in 1984 with the words ‘Congress’ and ‘Hindu’ used interchangeably. There is note of the terror driven agitation by the Hindus which may have historical validity because the oppressed peasants lived in the east. Just as the NCERT textbooks in India spoke about how the Muslim League was formed by the cooperation of the British and Muslims, the Bangladesh textbooks locate Congress as a representative of upper class Hindus. The structure of the textbooks changed to incorporate the divide and rule policy which had been bifurcated before. Pre 1947 history was all about communal rivalry between Hindus and Muslims and how the Muslims rose to political consciousness. Post 1947 history aimed at creating a Bengali Muslim identity. In 1996 the new generation of textbooks proclaimed the existence of the Bengali Muslim identity both pre and post 1947. The books still refused to represent the histories of the other communities which live in the country. It was only in 2013 that the textbooks have been rewritten and a chapter has been added on the tribal communities of Bangladesh. However, the content is purely from the old orientalist lens of the Other where the voice of the community is entirely lost.
In conclusion she lamented how history in Bangladesh is Hindu–Muslim oriented and refuses to acknowledge the other historical facts of migration, transportation or even other communities and instead focuses on these two communities in the form of nations.
During the following discussion Ms Ghosh explained that in the light of the idea of pre formed nations and pre formed subjects whole communities are excluded from the conversation. A nationalist ideological point of view percolates the entire community thus making them think that they were always a nation in the making. This view has strongly affected the Bengali Muslim-Bihari Muslim relations in Bangladesh according to her. Dr Jha stressed on the strong connect between politics and history while Dr Naseem questioned the ill intent of the creators of the textbooks. According to him the discourses prevalent in the global environment allow certain things not to be said and thus create enemies where there were none. A question was raised as to whether the organs of the state itself could work to subvert nationalism instead of small discourses, whether the historian could resist the putative state. The answer that emerged was bad histories do not have to be written in the name of the nation state.
-Anushka Halder