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April      Last updated: April  8,  5:00 p.m.

Twisting history in the name of academic freedom

Kalyan Ray

Controversy over the ICHR project Towards Freedom has raised several issues like academic freedom, historical truth, etc., which the historians associated with the project seem to be committed to. A cursory glance at the publications under the project indicates that these are the last things that are believed by the academics who were associated with this project. Dust jackets of all the three volumes Towards Freedom (1943-44) contain a few lines on the subject matter of the books. These few lines summarise the official documents contained in three voluminous volumes. ‘The documents in this volume highlight the confidential reports on growing militant Hindu communalism and the indifference of officials to the ominous growth of communalized political parties’. Although there are only about four documents directly dealing with activities of RSS or other Hindu organisations, out of thousands of documents relating to other matters in the volumes, the fact that the authors of the project highlighted Hindu communalism as a menace to the Indian polity, instead of analysing the role of Khaksars and other para-military organisations like Muslim Guards, who were a part of Muslim League, highlights the peculiar Communist-Aligarh syndrome of a jaundiced view of the role of any pan-Hindu (pan-Indian) organisation, as Hindu chauvinism or Hindu militancy.

From the official documents, which have been published in the volumes, it seems that some of the Indian officials like Vishnu Sahay and G. Ahmed, were very keen on making the Defence of India Rules more stringent to ban all activities of RSS, as being dangerous to the British Government. They did not show any interest in banning the activities of Muslim Guards or other such para-military organisations, because they were not anti-British, but anti-Hindu. Servile activities of these officials have been sought to be lauded by the editors of these volumes, as sounding a warning bell for growing Hindu communalism. One British officer, Richard Totlenham, Additional Secretary, was honest enough to admit that any action at national level against the RSS will call for similar action against Muslim Guards, which was a para-military wing of the Muslim League, which was a part of the Government in different parts of the country. British and Indian officials, because of the anti-British and nationalistic activities of the Sangh, were eager to ban all its activities, whereas there was no such parallel zeal in questioning the activities of Muslim Guards and other such organisations, because they had no anti-British agenda. British and Indian officials were eagr to give a clean chit to Muslim Guards. The editors of the volumes, in their sketchy write-ups, have twisted the truth out of context to suit their particular line of thinking.

Towards Freedom project was started in 1973, when Nurul Hassan was the Union Minister for Education. This project, which was to be completed in 1978, did not make progress during that period, because the ICHR historians got busy in the Time Capsule project, which was of greater priority to the Government of the day. When the project does not make any progress, general editor has no option but to resign.

Selective documentation from Government and intelligence report does not constitute history. Intelligence reports of the British Government of that period are based on a particular mindset, which had no sympathy or understanding of militant Indian para-nationalism. A nationalist body does not require a certificate from the British rulers to prove their nationalism. The authors of the volumes should have gone to primary sources for their research, instead of bolstering their pre-conceived notions by selective documentation. Vincent Smith in his monumental work Oxford History of India has clearly mentioned the perversion of history by selective documentation. "But the story of the Muslim conquest as seen from the Hindu point of view was never written, except to some extent in Rajputana. Such narratives as that of Elphinstone, who worked entirely on materials supplied by Muslim authors, too often reflect the prejudices of the historians who wrote in Persian." (The Oxford History of India, Vincenet Smith). This process was sought to be repeated at enormous cost to the public exchequer by selective documentation of British Government papers in the project.

"History, as we wish it", seems to be the policy of the editors, instead of any objective analysis of the history of freedom struggle. History which is written with the toil and blood of the people, is too valuable in the life of a nation, to be left to biased academics.