Why History? And Three Tales to Wrap Around It
Some years back, when I shared my decision to do a Masters in History with someone, he asked. “But why? Doesn’t studying history only make you want to exact revenge? Best to ignore all those things so that you will have no bad feelings.”
I was baffled.
There were multiple reasons why I wanted to study history: to learn about different parts of the world so as to temper, trim, or burn away my nationalist urges using the reminder that all regions have produced greatness worthy of awe; to revel in the ‘foreign country that is the past’—in the strange customs and beliefs, swords and battle fields, rulers, heroes, and myths that made up the world that came before us; and to learn about the historical processes that shaped us… that led us to where we are today… so that, as John H Arnold says, when conflicting paths appear before us, and someone points to a path as the only one, we can say, “No, this way leads to perdition. Choose a different path.”1
Studying history to initiate blood feuds, or for blood libel, had not occurred to me.
Yes, feel free to laugh at my ignorance.
Because that person was right. Since the 1920s if not before, Hindu Supremacists have used history—irrespective of its accuracy—for just such a purpose.2 To evoke feelings of revenge towards the Muslim rulers of our past, which was then used to brutalize the marginalized Muslim people of our present even if the difference in their statures is that between the elephant and the goat.3 Incomparable.
Regular Western style Islamophobia is not enough for us. We need to justify the violence using our past. Because we need victimhood to victimize those we otherize. Without that, we might have no ground to stand on.
Setting aside the accuracy of this history, is that good ground to stand on?
There is a story that I read as a ten or eleven year old.4
Once, a son got angry at his father. He got so furious that he beat the old man down, grabbed his hair, and dragged him out. Out of the door, through the steps leading up to the door stoop, to the gates of the house. There he left his father, asking him to be gone from his sight.
His father said from where he lay. “Son. In my youth, I did the same to my father. I beat him and dragged him out and left him at the door of our house. At the time, my father told me that he had done the same to his father. Beat him, and then asked him to leave. My father only beat my grandfather. I beat my father and dragged him to the door. And now, you drag me to the gates. For every action of the past, interest was added. I wonder what your son will do to you.”
Is that what we want for us? A never ending cycle of abuse?
Is past injustice a justification for perpetuating injustice?
How about when the people involved were long dead and gone, and then as now, only a miniscule part of the population. How about when most people are not just innocent of the action for which revenge is exacted but are in a relative position of powerlessness with respect to you?
You might say that the tale is reductive and simplistic. The position of the people is more complex. Don’t the descendants of the enslaved and colonized in the US and elsewhere use the past to ask for reparations?
The black people and native Americans occupy the bottommost ladder in terms of economic wealth in the US, and there are historical processes—rooted in racial dispossession (enslavement, theft, murder, and rape)—that led them to this position.5 They are those that are most injured by racist attacks, and social and political history point to the development of white supremacist antipathy towards them. The study of the past serves as an explainer here. (Not to mention that reparations is not an ask for retaliation but restorative and redistributive justice. You don’t see black people in general going around gunning down white people in the US. You see the reverse. You don’t see native Americans claim land that doesn’t belong to them. You see the reverse.)
Can the upper caste humans in India point towards the power and socio-economic structure in India for the past two hundred years, or even seventy five years, and say that this has been the case for them?
As for Dalits and Adivasis, and Other Backward Castes, their powerlessness has been an effect of the caste system and the powers that upper castes held, not otherwise. By the way, how about them destroying the temples that never allowed them in until a few decades back, and in some cases, still don’t? Can they do that?6 Are they allowed to destroy the homes of the rich that had been built with ill gained wealth and discrimination? Are the Adivasis allowed to destroy power grids given that they have been and are being dispossessed of their lands for coal mining?7
Yes? No?
Why history then? How are you using it?
History has been and is many things.
It is the torque that hung around a ruler’s neck and the staff of office that they held. The scholar’s claim to fame and the unlettered person’s cherished path to ancestors.
The hall of mirrors that has deluded many. The mirror that reflects the viewer back to themselves. And the stars that have and continue to guide many through the present.
The fascist’s spear and the anti-fascist’s shield. Liars’ toy and truth-seekers’ dream. And the fibre for a good spinner of tales.
It has been used by the colonizers to claim their right to colonize. By the supremacists to bolster their claims to supremacy.8 By the marginalized— workers and peasants, white and upper caste women, enslaved and colonized people, Dalits and Adivasis, and queer people and disabled people from every group—to claim their place in a world that would not give it to them.
History is and has been a story of all the things that humans are and have been.
What history has rarely been is a moral compass.
Yet, we are using history—contested, uncertain, fragmented—to claim rights and hegemony over peoples. As proof of an ethical right to territory, arms, and culture. And also, as a counter to these same claims as if hoping that the counter will reduce the violence or make people see the truth (when all you are doing is cede the ground9).
How can that be?
Maybe history like myths—be the facts accurate or not—teaches us that death comes to everyone. To democracies. And to fascist dictatorships. And history—where the facts are accurate and interpretation not abstruse—tells us what processes lead to these deaths.10
May be it tells us that the difference is how lives are lived in the meanwhile.
And may be, the meanwhile needs other stories as guides.
Here is the second tale for you.11
Once up on a time, there lived in Kerala a mud clod and a dry leaf. They were friends, allies, accomplices. There were many differences between them: in their cultures, lives, dreams. But they still lived with one another in peace.
One day, they decided to go to Kashi. For the mud clod it was a pilgrimage to Kashi Vishwanath temple. The dry leaf who was of a different faith probably had other reasons. Maybe they wanted to visit the Gyanvapi Mosque. Or maybe, she was a person who loved touring historical places and wanted to see Benares at least once. Whatever the reason, they set out.
On the way, they bickered about where to stay, what to eat, and how to stay safe. The dry leaf didn’t want to stay under a tree because what if she got lost in all the leaves there. How will the mud clod find her?
The mud clod didn’t want to stay near the river because what if they dissolved?
Still, they had each other’s backs when it mattered.
Once, a heavy rain pelted down on them. The dry leaf covered the mud clod, at some pain—because who wants to stand in such heavy rain—, to save them from death.
At another time, a strong wind blew, and the mud clod rolled onto the dry leaf so that she won’t be blown away. It did not matter that the mud clod might waste away in the wind. It was important to keep the dry leaf safe from certain death.
And in the meanwhile, they saw the sights and lived the dream.
One day, a storm came bringing wind and rain. And in it, the dry leaf blew away and the mud clod dissolved.
And here is the third.
A monkey in Balusserry angadi (market) once chanced up on a water snake.12 Perhaps the monkey was bored. Maybe it wanted to show its might to the world. Or perhaps it was scared that the snake might hurt it. Whatever be the cause, it caught the snake by the head.
The snake died crushed by its hands.
But the monkey was too scared to let it go. So, there it stayed with the dead snake in its hands… For days and days… Until it died of starvation.
These are tales of the meanwhile. What do they tell you?
That death comes to everyone.
That if you want to live like the monkey,13 well, death will still find you one day.
And that history will most likely consider you a statistic or a footnote. If it mentions you at all.
All you will have achieved is a life lived in hatred and fear.
Thank you for reading.
If you have thoughts on this, whether in agreement or not, please comment. I am not aspiring for a soapbox but a discussion and a community. One bound together not by commonality of thoughts but a convergence of values.
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Arnold, J. H. History: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. The past is a foreign country is from this book. The last bit of the paragraph, in double quotes, is not (it is my own writing but based on the idea in this book).
Note: The title of this post is a play on the work on historiography by Donald Bloxham. OUP, 2020. (Which I have not yet read.)
Lal, Vinay. The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005. Reading this book made me question the importance we give to history. Lal considers it a modern imposition by the Western world.
If you would like to read about historiography, Arnold’s, while focused on Western, Anglo-American History, is an engaging introduction to the subject. And Vinay Lal is a good introduction to how history was used by colonizers, Indian nationalists, and Hindu nationalists continuing into the early twenty-first century. It is India focused; for global historiography, there are other works.
Ajagajantaram. (If people were wondering where I got that comparison. Instead of the fruits people usually use.)
In an issue of Ambili Ammavan, the Malayalam imprint of Chanda Mama. Chanda Mama sometimes had these open ended stories that never told you what the lesson is. Probably why they disturbed me and remained with me for a long time.
Liz Mineo. “Racial Wealth Gap May Be a Key to Other Inequities.” Harvard Gazette. June 2021.
Why do people who claim that God is everywhere need temples built on land taken from mosques, anyways? Will your prayer be unheard if you don’t go and pray in that particular place? How constrained is your God? (If your argument is history, read this post again).
Sumedha Pal. “Hasdeo: Protests Against Tree Felling Continue.” The Wire. April 2022.
Read about Trads or Traditionalists; those among the Hindu Supremacists who draw inspiration from the White Supremacists in the US. And how the victims of the crimes they perpetuate are never brought to justice.
Cede the intellectual ground; because by trying to correct false history you are agreeing to the contention that if the claims are true, then that is grounds for taking vengeance against Muslims today. Irrespective of history, it is immoral to destroy a mosque to build a temple; to discriminate against Muslims and use violence to subjugate them; to act like an occupying force in Kashmir.
Jason Stanley. “The Genocidal Identity.” The Project Syndicate, April 2022.
Unless otherwise stated, all tales here are ones that my father told me. :) But maybe not exactly as given below. A better version of the video is here.
Achan (my father) says the snake was a neerkoli, a tiny non-poisonous water snake. So I have edited the story as per new information. :) A poignant part of the tale is that the monkey was too scared to look at it after catching it. That is how it died. Turned away from the snake but with the snake crushed in its hands.