History- does it make sense?
The teaching of history in schools or colleges does indeed make one ask the question- is history relevant for me? And in a country that boasts of such distinguished writers on history as Amartya Sen, Romila Thapar, K.N.Panikkar, and Ramachandra Guha among others, it is indeed pitiable that the teaching of history is so pervasively pedantic.
But is that all there is to history? Is history a sheer mass of insignificant data as to how many wars were fought and won, how many taxes were imposed and when etc? That would be a grossly blindfolded and pedestrian conclusion. I confess I am no scholar in history. But from what I have understood of history, it is much more than what is taught in schools or written in textbooks. And I am sure the historians would agree. The focus of teaching history in schools is directed towards obtaining maximum marks. That, however, does not mean history itself is meaningless. And history does not merely involve study of where one and one’s ancestors have descended from.
The academic discipline called history may attain different levels of relevance in different places at different times. But history as a phenomenon, a movement, a truism is inherent to human social life.
Sir Isaiah Berlin, arguably the greatest historian of ideas, wrote: “the human species alone have the curiosity to know how they have come to where they have.” And Berlin is right. One may not wish to know who ruled where a thousand years ago but everybody certainly wants to know the phases their own lives had passed through in reaching the current stage. Friedrich Nietzsche, much reviled for his ahistorical style of writing, wrote in his ‘On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life’: “the point of studying history is not to discover the ‘truth’ of past events. We need history for life and action”
History is an observation and explanation of how things happen. And when it comes to human observation, there will always be a multitude of perceptions. That is the ingenuity of the Homo sapiens. Yes history is a tale of victors. Yes European history is most widespread. But there has always existed and there shall always exist, alternate histories, recorded or unrecorded, if only we are willing to look for it. And I do not merely refer to Orientalism or subaltern history alone but also to heritages, folktales, oral history and myths. Yes myths too! Myth may be an antonym of history but myth is an incontrovertible part of the history of a specific time and place.
This is social history- the intercourse of sociology with history, a sequential understanding of how people, across time and distance, have responded and reacted to situations in their lives, both as individuals and as groups, and in doing so, how they have created newer situations that demand newer responses. Isn’t this history? And don’t we all, without exception, want to study this?
So where is the line of discord? In the educational system in the country! The teaching of history requires a new focus, method, orientation and approach. Till then, history will be irrelevant and we will see people manipulate and distort the nature of history. To blame his acts of genocide on history is baseless, for as Marx said, “men make their own history”, and not the other way around. So it is time for us to take control of our own history. George Orwell’s words from his “1984” echo resonantly here: “Who controls the present controls the past. Who controls the past controls the future”.
And unless and until we individually and collectively, take control of our present, Marx would sing happily: “History repeats itself; the first time as tragedy; the next time as farce”.
Doesn’t history make sense now?
