Nationalists, Hindu or just Early 20th century Historians

As a teacher I always face this dilemma of putting historians and their writings in an ideological straight jackets. For more committed to a certain ideology it may be simpler as all they have to do is to toe the party line. They may not feel that the historians of other schools are as bad they are portrayed but then the party line or own 20-30 years of research may be under threat. Accepting another view or another angle to view may negate the work of their lives. So they become Viking Warriors to protect Thier skin and turf. In most cases there is little substance. It may be plain stupid reductionism. The so called Nationalist or Hindu nationalist historians like Sir Jadunath Sarkar or historians of Allahabad school has been condemned as nationalists or Hindu nationalists by these ideological vikings who had to establish their brand of history writing. In the process they had to debunk the whole lot of historians.
These so called nationalist historians were the first scientific historians who made large scale use of original sources, wrote on various aspects of Indian history and gave us an updated history to be proud of. They certainly were inspired by the Congress and national movement for independence and genuinely believed in the greatness of Indian society, culture and people. And that included Indian rulers. they felt the need to paint a glorious picture of Indian past. They were right then as the urgent need was to create a nation in India which can look up to common ideals, glorious past and admirable heroes as the colonial rule had systematically destroyed all that was good in the country and had painted a very bad picture of Indian past. The official colonial historians, anthropologists and other academics had an agenda and that was to denounce Indian history, culture and traditions and underline the inevitability and superiority of the British rule in India.
To achieve that they started chronicling Indian history with intention to demoralise the Indians and they were hugely successful in that. Indians lost the sense of history and pride in themselves. They were constantly told about being native, uncouth, uncultured, despotic and at best exotic east full of Rajas and snake charmers. they were kept out of public spaces and were educated to become lowly clerks and helpers. The government was run by the British for their limited colonial interests. Historians like W.H.Moreland, Col. Tod, Grant Duff, Vincent Smith and lane Poole all had similar brief: to prove the goodness and inevitability of the British rule in India.
The English educated first generation Indian historians like Jadunath Sarkar, A.L.Srivastava, B.P.Saxena, R.P.Trpiathi etc. were too influenced by the national movement, Congress programmes and the personna of Gandhi to be untouched. But the research methodology of the colonist historians and the very handicap of using the colonial language forced them to model their writing on their British predecessors/contemporaries. Also the strict Imperial/colonial rules also would not have allowed them to chart an independent course. There was lots of censorship and state control over intellectual pursuits. Therefore the Indian historians had to write cautiously and yet they created heroes like Ashok, Akbar, Rana Pratap and Shivaji in who Indians could find inspiring leadership. They also gave a fairly scientific and reliable account of all periods of Indian history.
But the later generation of historian debunked them and very simply labelled them as Hindu nationalist historians. This was uncalled for and most unfortunate. The whole school and their valuable contribution was negated. It is true that living and working in independent India, the new bunch of Marxist historians had better access to sources and had exposure to Marxist tools of social historical analysis and hence could produce reliable history, but in their enthusiasm for their own works they did a disservice by debunking the early 20th century history writing. I would loathe to call it nationalist as if they are called so what do we call Marxist historians: anti national?
The best nomenclature for the so called nationalist historians would be early 20th century historians or Liberal historians. historians writing such histories in west have been called liberals and not been condemned. There are stages in the development and growth of any discipline. And as when the access to sources become better and linguistic sophistication influences the scholarly writing, a new school emerges. Like the way slowly but surely Marxist school of History writing in India is past its prime. The road is open for travel, only Marxist historians have run out of gas. History is repeating itself. And it must, in order to remain alive.

Need for Honest Book Reviews

There is an urgent news to purge the book review industry of motivated reviews. Most book reviews are being done on the request of author/publisher. It is a cancer that is spreading. Friends review books of friends and I would not be surprised to be told that spouses review each other's books! Such dishonesty has prevented us from becoming an intellectual giants that we can. the book review editors patronise their coterie as reviewers who in turn do favorable reviews of his/her friends' books. It is so disgusting. A simple survey of academic journals will prove this suspicion.
and this has gone on in India basically because we don't buy books after reading reviews. Much like film critics whose panning a film has never harmed the box office prospects of the films, in the academic world we purchase books by visiting book fairs, book distributors and the book sellers who visit colleges and universities. book reviews are read for amusement not for making up mind to buy them. As it is many book reviews are done years after the book had hit the market and hence such reviews are important only for academic interest. This is why journals and reviewers get away with murders.
But with the speed of online publishing all that can change. And today's academic freedom and transparency demands that too. So we would expect all our reviewers to declare that that they do not know the authors of the book under scrutiny and that they will not let their biases influence the reviews. We owe it to the nation and owe to to ourselves. Till then the book reviews will be treated with disdain they deserve
Please register and send message to me with books in mind and then we shall decide what to do.
mean while the first book review meeting is slated next week of a classic and then you will get to read the post about it too.
Till then happy reading!

This Blog!

There is an urgent need for independent book review. Most book reviews are motivated or sponsored. In most cases the reviews are solicited/motivated by the publishers. many a times authors get them reviewed by people closely associated with them. This blog intends to review books mainly on Indian history and allow students, teachers and book buyers to make up their minds regarding these books.
I and the group of reviewers would meet once a month and review all kinds of books on Indian history: old and new; classics and outdated. The idea is to be able to visit and revisit a book that has been done on Indian History. new generations of students would not have read say a book by R.P. Tripathi or Sir Jadunath Sarkar or a Lane Poole. We may have missed a book in our area of interest or say in modern India or Ancient Indian history if our specialisation is medieval Indian history! so we can catch up with books in those areas and empower ourselves in teaching and research.
we solicit books for review from all sources: authors, publishers, distributors or donors. but we are since we are just a few academic in South Asia, we are not in a position to return them or pay them the cost. The books will be given to us on this condition. obviously we are no obligation to do their kind of review. Till we are able to get books from independent sources, we shall source them from libraries or purchase ourselves.
The people intending to have the books reviewed may write to us through this blog and we shall respond soon.