Many argue that recording History is a work of grey. Nuances combined with interpretations collectively make the arena more of an imperative exercise in negotiating time. While doing so, all of this has to be done with facts – and facts only, argued Sanjeev Sanyal in the debate, stating that it is essential to re-write our history. The Economist, historian and author was part of the debate held at St. Xavier’s college in Kolkata with the house in a motion arguing that it is necessary to re-narrate our History.

Speaking in favour of a need to re-write our history, alongside Sanyal, were Scientist Anand Ranganathan, Desh Ratan Nigam, Lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and Lalitha Kumaramangalam, Former Chairperson of the National Commission for Women. Speaking against the motion were a bunch of Congress loyalists and leaders including Mani Shankar Iyer, Manish Tiwari, Sanjay Jha and Jawahar Sircar, Rajyasabha MP from the TMC who tried hard to uphold their integrity towards the Nehruvian-Marxist Intellectual Ecosystem. At the end, when the moderator asked to waive their mobile flashlight to record their support for either of the panels, lights glittered over voices asking to re-write our history unequivocally.

Panel speaking for the motion

Sanjeev Sanyal started his premise by arguing that the history written in our school textbooks, is not our history at all, but that of the invaders. It is the history that our Colonial masters wanted to tell us, he stated. “Have you ever wondered, whenever there is a battle in our textbooks, the Indians lose it always? The three battles of Panipat, The battle of Buxar and that of Plassey every time the Indians lose. Surely, there must have been some battles that we won, for we are here for the last 5000 years,” he asks.

Here is the full recording of the Fr. Joris Memorial Nihil Ultra Debate in Kolkata this evening on the topic: “It is necessary to re-narrate our History?” Spoke for the motion. We won with with a big margin; it was not much of a contest in the end. https://t.co/Gv0OE8tIM0

— Sanjeev Sanyal (@sanjeevsanyal) March 12, 2022

“The problem lies, Sanyal pointed out, “in repeating the same history for 75 years even after our colonial masters left us.” Illustrating the examples of Raja Prithu who defeated Bakhtiyar Khilji in Assam to Marthanda Varma from Travancore whose army was the only one to defeat a major European power like the Dutch, Sanyal highlighted how little we know about leaders from our own soil. He argued that a space must be carved for these lesser-known characters in Indian History.

It was now for Desh Ratan Nigam to address the house, who stepped on the podium confessing that ‘History met him’ in the dark corridors of the college asking to be re-narrated and not ‘repeated’. Quoting late nationalist historian RC Majumdar, he argued, “The history of India is not the story of how she underwent foreign invasions, it is about how she resisted and eventually triumphed over them. In a true sense, the work must be the story of the people inhabiting a country, it must be a record of their life from ages. The central purpose of history must be unfolded to inspire the inhabitants to develop their collective will,” Nigam argued that such history is still yet to be written.

Nigam argued that before you narrate a history, it is important to be recorded in facts correctly and truthfully. He argued that the concept of law and constitution weren’t given to us by the colonialists but years ago in our spiritual texts including the Upanishads and the Vishnu Purana.

Bringing in Feminine perspective to the debate, Lalitha Kumarmangalam, the ex-national spokesperson of the BJP made it clear that she was not on the dais as a politician, but as an Indian woman whose representation in the current versions of history has been abysmal. She argued that throughout her left-liberal schooling, the historical studies did not include much literature on Indian women. “Indian history has always revered women, beyond politics and religion. However today, it is not doing justice to Indian women,”

She asked, “How many of us know the names of 15 women in the constituent assembly. Why don’t we know that democracy existed in India more than 3,000 years ago?” Arguing that Indian queens do not have the space they deserve in historical narratives, she referred to tribal queen Durgawati who married a king of her wish and ruled his kingdom 20 years after he died. Before the house, she posed, “Don’t you think we as Indian women deserve as a right to be mentioned in our history?” while quoting many examples of women warriors from Indian history.

It was time for noted Scientist and commentator Anand Ranganathan to make his arguments in favour of the motion. Starting off on a lighter vein by taking a dig at his opponents, Ranganathan said the Panel is comprised of four people of which one is suspended in animation by the Congress (Sircar), the other is suspended by the Congress (Jha), the third one who wants to be suspended by the Congress (Tiwari) and the last who doesn’t remember whether he was suspended or not (Aiyar).

As I remarked in my opening yesterday: what a wonderful bunch these three make – the first is suspended by the Congress, the second is itching to be suspended by the Congress, and the third is so drunk he can’t remember if he has or hasn’t been suspended by the Congress. WDTT https://t.co/0mIWjGalP9

— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) March 13, 2022

Dr Anand Ranganathan said that such emphasis on history amuses him. “You see, as a scientist, the time scale that interests me is not 100 or 500 years or 1000 years but 1 billion or 10 billion years. And on that time frame, I am not Indian, but a descendant of an Ethiopian. I am not a creation by design but a conspiracy hatched by light, thunder, water, ammonia, hydrogen and methane combined.”

“Nothing really matters if our ancestors were brilliant or not, whether our culture is ancient or not, whether our religions are better or not. We are but a bunch of inconsequential cells,” he argued. “Yet History still matters,” argued Ranganathan, “because like Science it has to be built on truthful observation of facts and the understanding of it helps us survive. Nations weaken not because of their past but rather how they are taught it.”

He further argued that we have been taught to forget the historical injustices inflicted upon us – be it from Babarpur to Bakhtiyarpur, from Somnath to Kashi Vishwanath, from Allahabad to Aurangabad. These injustices have been deliberately made visible to lionise the debasement of existing cultures, argued Ranganathan.

Arguments against the motion

After a diversity of views from the non-left on the matter, Congress Veteran Mani Shankar Aiyar refuted the fact the history so told until now was not that of the colonial masters. He remarked that it was Savarkar who championed the two-nation theory, which was refuted by Dr Ranganathan by stating that it was Sir Syed Ahmed and not Savarkar who drafted the idea of a two-nation theory. He argued that while foreign invaders like Mahmud of Ghazni attacked Somnath, it is also true that many resident Indians were also attacking each other.

Quoting Romila Thapar, Aiyar asserted that Somnath in Gujarat was an ‘object of treasury’, he argued that Somnath was on Ghazni’s agenda only because of his exercises in loot in politics, and not because of religious bigotry.

Congress leader Manish Tiwari asked over what it meant to re-narrating History. “This endeavour of trying to open a quarrel with the past is a path which is laden with pain. Just because today there is a dispensation which holds a certain view of History, it does not give them the right to try to obfuscate history in order to set a narrative that serves their political predilections of the day,”

RS MP Jawahar Sircar argued that the present dispensation has not changed history because they do not have facts at their disposal. “You have changed the face of India from a liberal, plural, democratic society to a graveyard of democracy,” Sircar made a snide at ‘Hindu history’ calling it a conspiracy of silence. He commented that Alexender’s invasion in India was not mentioned in the contemporary Matsya Purana and Vishnu Purana of that time,”

It was now time for suspended Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha to say that we are insulting our history by even discussing this topic. He argued that certain portions from the current mainstream version of history can be debated over or questioned, but there are always ‘two-sides’ to any proposition.

The audience decided

The 28th Father Joris Memorial Nihil Ultra Trophy National Debate which took place on Saturday this week resulted in the churning of ideas in the arena of understanding history, culture and politics. Needless to say, the audience tilted in favour of the motion arguing that history does need to be re-narrated and needs to be liberated from the Nehruvian-Marxist biases. The debate in a sense has recorded the mood of the nation, trying to assert its cultural identities in every sphere including the intellectual one.