Ramachandra Guha, delivered a speech on The Challenge of Contemporary History. In his talk, he explained that since there are no records kept for the public, the historians are restricted in their research on pre-independence era
August 15, 1947 is marked in the pages of history as the day that the British gave India its independence. But it also marks another, and perhaps a more serious issue on the same pages. “As soon as the clock struck 12, history ended and political science began,” said professor Ramachandra Guha at the recently held Spring Fever 2016 organised by Penguin Random House.
The historian was speaking on the context of the content of his latest book Democrats and Dissenters, soon to published by Penguin.
Guha talked about the paradox that India faces today. In his speech he mentioned that while India is one of the most interesting countries in the world, there is very little written record about the contemporary history of a country which has seen five revolutions — political, national, industrial, urban and social — almost simultaneously. He said that Indian historians have been obsessed with colonial history because there are plenty of primary sources available for that time period. “All the documents we have are from the colonial period because Britishers had a good habit of keeping all the records but since we don’t have such habits, there are very few records present in the National libraries or in the archives of the post independence era,” Guha pointed out.
Guha spoke about the four complicated challenges that a historian faces while writing or studying about the contemporary history of India. He elaborated, “Firstly, the reader is not passive anymore, but is an active, opinionated citizen of the country. We have our own assumptions about our recent leaders as we live in the consequences of their decisions. Nehru is an important figure in the making of modern India. He is not to be blamed for the sins of his descendants, even though the sins of his ‘seven generations’ have been placed on him.”
Secondly, a historian is also a citizen and has his own perceptions about the many socio-political vectors that are already in place.
Thirdly, there is a scarcity of reliable sources. Most of the sources that are available are of the colonial period. Our government has not had a proper system in place to maintain records. “Nehru wrote a great deal,” Guha added, “but his papers are in control of his family and are shared only with five or so historians.” Guha not being one of them. Papers of Vajpayee, Indira Gandhi and other prominent figures are not available to the public. This causes hindrance to one’s studies. But, there are places where you can find good sources. Nehru Memorial library, which is Guha’s ‘home away from home’, has papers from other individuals and newspapers from that era, a very important primary source for any historian.
Fourth, and perhaps the most important, is the truth about history turning into political science when the clock struck 12. According to him, “We say that post-1947, it is not an area of history but of political science. Hence, we don’t have individual biographies of great men — be it Sheikh Abdullah, Fizo or Chavan or on post-colonial Bengal or Karnataka. These histories can be written. 20 years of a gap is enough to classify it as history.”
We need conservative intellectuals, Guha stressed. Conservative intellectuals in India are lacking at the minute and to be a conservative intellectual is hard and rigorous work. We also need to be moderate, we need to look and understand the problem with a sober head, not say it is Hitler and the Emergency again. “As a historian, I’m privileged to be born here and India is the most daring political experience. It’s our own country, we need to know more about it,” Guha concluded.