Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 01:09:17 -0800
From: "C. J. S. Wallia" <cjwallia-AT-indiastar.com>
Subject: The old ICHR (Indian Council of Historical Research)



Here are  excerpts from recent writings by Arun Shourie and by
Konraad Elst on the doings of the old ICHR (Indian Council
of Historical Research.)
In the first excerpt Arun Shourie explains why the old ICHR
needed to be reconstituted.

The Author:
Arun Shourie is among India's best-
 known commentators on
 current and political affairs. His writings
 are backed by rigorous analysis and
meticulous research. He has been an
 economist with the World Bank,
 a consultant in the planning commision
 and the editor of Indian Express.
 Among the many honours and awards,
he has received the Magsaysay Award,
the International Editor of the Year,
the Dadabhai Naoroji and the Astor Award.

Complete text on this and related articles by
Arun Shourie can be accessed at:

http://www.indiaconnect.com/ashourie.htm


"But these [the former members of ICHR]  are not just partisan
'historians.'  They are nepotists of the worst kind. I had documented
several years ago the doings of some of them in regard to the appointments
in the Aligarh Muslim University. Their doings in the ICHR have been true to
pattern. How is it that over twenty five years persons from their school
alone have been nominated to the ICHR ? How come that
Romila Thapar has been on the Council four times ? Irfan Habib five times ?
Satish Chandra four times ? S. Gopal three times ?....
The same goes for the post of Chairman.

"Not only are these 'historians' partisan, not only are they nepotists,
they are ones who have used State patronage to help each
other in many, many ways. Let me give two examples, and make four specific
proposals for the Ministry -- that "nodal Ministry",
remember -- which has been their instrument in all these entrepreneurial
ventures.

By a brain-wave a milch-cow was thought up : it is no use having books only
in English, these worthies, dedicated as they were to
the cause of the illiterate downtrodden Indians, argued; we must have the
works of leading historians translated into our regional
languages. And which were the "historians" whose books -- old, in many
cases out-of-date books - got selected for translation ? R.
S. Sharma : five books. Romila Thapar : three books. Irfan Habib : two
books -- one being a collection of articles. Bipan Chandra :
two books. Muhammad Habib : three books. D. N. Jha : two books. S. Gopal :
four books. Nurul Hasan : two books.... In a word, the
"historians" discovered, I am sure much to their embarrassment, that they
were themselves the leading historians ! All these, but
not Professor R. C. Majumdar ! Even sundry leaders of the Communist parties
got the honour -- E. M. S. Namboodripad, P. C. Joshi,
even Rajni Palme Dutt, the leader of the British Communist Party who
functioned as the controller and director of the Indian
Communists in the forties. As a result, the books and pamphlets of these
fellows are available in all regional languages, but the
works of even Lokmanya Tilak are not available except in Marathi ! And that
too because of the Kesari Trust, no thanks to the
ICHR.

My query is : did these persons get royalties paid to themselves, if so how
much, for the honour they had conferred on themselves
of having their books translated on the ground that they were the leading
historians of the country -- a ground which they had
prepared so well by arranging reviews of each other's books?!

Second, in 1972, almost simultaneously with the establishment of the ICHR,
a project was launched to collect and publish a record
of the Freedom Struggle from the Indian point of view. The British had
launched their Transfer of Power Documents series --
which deliberately made out that the British were ever so ready to leave,
and it was only the cussedness of and discord among
Indians which delayed their doing so. The project was to be based on Indian
documents. Its budget was to be a few lakhs. Ten
volumes were to be brought out in five years.

The scholars who were to undertake the job ? Yours forever : S. Gopal,
Bipan Chandra, Ravinder Kumar, Sumit Sarkar,
Parthasarthi Gupta, Mushirul Hasan, K. N. Panicker etc. -- in other words,
the same lot of like-minded friends !

Twenty seven years have gone by. Not a few lakhs, instead two crores of
Rupees have been spent. The project is lost in the
wilderness -- one of the major scandals of Indian academia.

Not just that. These were leftists. At various stages, the leftists had
done their best to thwart the Freedom Movement. Salivating at
the thought that by doing so they would attract Muslim youth to their fold,
the Communist Party had supported the demand for
the Partition of India. And so, the dedicated historians who had been
conveniently handed the project, did everything to suppress
documents, and derail volumes which could not but have brought the facts
about the left on record.

That is history. That is objective history. Not to take these fellows back
on to the ICHR is to colour it saffron.

So, my query to the Ministry is : who has got how much of the two crores
which are said to have been spent on the Towards
Freedom Project ?

Third, the ICHR has been the funnel for a larger amount of largesse than
most other academic bodies. Will the Ministry please
furnish how much money has been paid to whom under the guise of National
Fellowships and Senior Fellowships ? And against
each project for which the grant has been disbursed, will the Ministry
please indicate what happened to the project -- with the name
of the scholar in capital letters, if that is not too much trouble ?

Fourth, the ICHR has been the conduit for patronizing scholars through
travel grants. It isn't just the foreign trip that the grants get
one. More important are the impressions that are created : the "scholar"
gets known abroad as a leading historian of India, his
drivel comes to be regarded as the Voice of Indian History; and back home,
each trip redoubles his influence -- for one thing, by
confirming the fact that he is close to the sources of patronage. So, my
query to the Ministry is : since 1972, who has got how much
of these travel grants ?

The fabrications show that this 'secularist' tribe is on its last legs. The
answers will speed the funeral.


================================================

"NEGATIONISM IN INDIA -
CONCEALING THE RECORD OF ISLAM"
http://www.voi.org/voi/books/negaind/
The author:

Koenraad Elst (Leuven, 1959) grew up in the Catholic community in Belgium.
He was active for some years in what is known as
the New Age movement, before studying at the famed Catholic University of
Leuven (KUL). He graduated in Chinese Studies,
Indo-Iranian Studies and Philosophy. He took courses in Indian philosophy
at the Benares Hindu University (BHU) and
interviewed many Indian leaders and thinkers during his stay in India
between 1988 and 1992. He has published in Dutch about
language policy issues, contemporary politics, history of science and
Oriental Philosophies; in English about the Ayodhya Issue,
and about the General Religio-political Situation in India.



"Negationism usually means the denial of the Nazi genocide of the Jews and
Gypsies in World War 2. Less well-known is that
India has its own brand of negationism. A section of the Indian
intelligentsia is still trying to erase from the Hindus' memory
the history of their persecution by the swordsmen of Islam. The number of
victims of this persecution surpasses that of the Nazi
crimes. The Islamic campaign to wipe out Paganism could not be equally
thorough, but it has continued for centuries without
any moral doubts arising in the minds of the persecutors and their
chroniclers. The Islamic reports on the massacres of Hindus,
destruction of Hindu temples, the abduction of Hindu women and forced
conversions, invariably express great glee and pride.
They leave no doubt that the destruction of Paganism by every means, was
considered the God-ordained duty of the Moslem
community. Yet, today many Indian historians, journalists and politicians,
deny that there ever was a Hindu-Moslem conflict.
They shamelessly rewrite history and conjure up centuries of Hindu-Moslem
amity; now a growing section of the public in
India and the West only knows their negationist version of history. It is
not a pleasant task to rudely shake people out of their
delusions, especially if these have been wilfully created; but this essay
does just that.

"This essay was started as an expanded translation of a Dutch-language book
review of Sitaram Goel's Hindu Temples: What Happened To Them, which could
not be published in its original form due to pro-Islamic pressure; and of
an article on Islamic
negationism published in the Septemeber 1992 issue of the Flemish monthly
Nucleus."

------------------------------
C. J. S. Wallia,  Ph.D.
Publisher, IndiaStar: A Literary-Art Magazine
http://www.indiastar.com
Phone and Fax: (510) 848-8200
P.O. Box 5582, Berkeley, CA 94705, U.S.A.
--------------------------------




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