Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday came down heavily on the Centre for trying to politicalise historiography. Speaking at the Indian History Congress Banerjee launched a vehement attack on the BJP Government for “demolishing the real history of the country.” History is being rewritten with a political motive, she said wondering why political criterion should dictate historiography so to say.
“History is changing as a result of political interference,” she said. There seemed to be an unambiguous political agenda of a group of people — to distort history --- who wanted to look at the subject through a dogmatic prism, she said alleging these people were distorting history in utter disregard for the Constitution of the country. “I am always in favour of historians... and truth. Truth must prevail. To distort the history and fabricate facts is a big crime,” Banerjee said adding politicizing history was a result of “political vendetta.” If history was rewritten in the name of “political vendetta” then what would happen to the future generation she wondered asserting history is the study of the past to calculate the future.
“History is the truth. It touches our heart. You cannot distort recorded history. I know historians are unhappy. I know the present situation. Truth will always remain truth,” she added.
“I may come to power of go out of it but I have to respect Constitution,” Banerjee said adding there were some people who in their bid to rewrite history were not even sparing Mahatma Gandhi.
“Sometimes there is a calculated effort to distort history by telling that Godse and not Gandhi was a patriot,” Banerjee said.
Historian KM Simali, “the way these people are representing history as if there was no medieval India and there were no Muslims and only Hindus in the country. To them medieval India never existed in Indian history.”
leftist historian Irfan Habib said by disengaging facts from history what would remain was a fiction. “There has to be a difference between fact and fiction,” he said adding “there cannot be any history without the history.”
Meanwhile in an unrelated development the Bengal Government on Friday banned all kinds of armed rallies in Kolkata. There would be no rallies with unlicensed arms, a circular issued by Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said. No rally would be allowed with weapons like sword, bow and arrow, spear and even mace, the Kolkata Police circular said adding the order would remain forceful for one year from January 2, 2018 till the same day of 2019.