By: Shankar Sharan
March 11, 2005

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Book review: “Marxism and the writing of Indian history”
Book is in Hindi, published by India First Foundation, New Delhi 110001
Author: Shankar Sharan

Following is the gist of this book sent by the author:

1. The Problem - Indian sense of history has been different. No tradition of having historical records and narrations. Hence no authentic details of kingdoms, periods, events etc. This situation have been exploited by Islamic, Christian Missionary, Imperialist and Marxist scholars alike. That is, they all felt free to present Indian history as they wished, with no great fear of being contradicted by authentic historical accounts of yore.

2. Marxist theory of History-writing - General principles of Marxist history writing. Samples of Soviet, Chinese and Indian varieties. They all have some common traits deriving from the Marxist view of history. The materialist interpretation of history and what it entailed in practice for Marxist historians everywhere. That is: a superstitious, a priori belief in the ‘scientific’ value of Marxist theory, emphasis on class struggle, mode of production, base and superstructure, economic first and fundamental, party-mindedness, falsification, exaggeration, concealment, propaganda and political activism, etc.

3. Karl Marx’s view on India and Indian history - Marx’s view of India, on Indian history, on Islamic rule, Hindu character, British role. His unalloyed contempt for Hinduism and the self-sufficient village society of India, because it were a hurdle for the socialist and ultimately world revolution. Most of the Marx’s views on Indian history have been ignored (or carefully concealed) by the Indian Marxist historians for the sole reason of being politically incorrect.

4. Romila Thapar and the image of India - How she has distorted the image of ancient India out of ignorance or/and her leftist, anti-Hindu political conviction. Her propounded Theory that ‘Hindu kings too destroyed temples, it was indeed no less than a tradition, and Islamic rulers later only followed them’ is a case in point. Study shows that she never investigated the issue, but propagated it with full vigour all the same. Other Marxists in India and historians, scholars abroad repeated it with confidence due to her signature under the theory. But, it is established that she NEVER studied the issue and repeated it because of political expediency. Such an attitude distorted India’s image, especially the Hindu past, because of Thapar’s great stature in academia, with big and foreign publishers, etc. Everybody simply believed her, even though she was propagating a politically useful concoction.

5. Alignment for falsification of Indian history – How the Congress leadership in post-independent India tried to ‘shape’ medieval India history according to their political line. The tendency to whitewash unpleasant facts and episodes emerged in early 1920s. However, after independence it was sought to be enforced in all history writing among the historians with the help of state power – pressure, reprimand, black-listing of uncompromising historians (like R C Mazumdar) etc. Since early 1960s a new breed of Marxist historians saw the opportunity and quickly aligned with the Congress leadership for the purpose. A mutually beneficial political-academic alignment that continues till date. In the process history related scholarship has become the casualty all along.

6. Self-appointed experts of communalism – It is note-worthy that the Marxist historians have become the foremost, nay, the only experts of ‘communalism’. Though it is a political problem, the Marxist historians usurped the subject for reasons political. For the subject is directly related to the historical experience of the Muslims rulers of India in the 12-18th century. Falsifying that experience is somehow felt to be essential for the Marxist history writing in this country. Which is why they do not let the issue even defined and deliberately keep it vague, as Bipan Chandra did so stubbornly. To use it according to exigencies. Nor they let others define or analyse the subject and cry ‘communal’ whenever someone tried to put communalism in perspective.

7. Indecent style in polemics – Whosoever criticizes the propositions, narrations etc of the Marxist historians always gets a very insulting rebuke by them. It is a rule. Whether a scholar, analyst, journalist or a great historian himself - every critic of Marxist historians is branded negatively and severely abused by them. Thus our Marxist historians never allow genuine debate on any issue, but try to stifle it by name-calling, distortion and political deflection etc. Fear for being exposed? Or just a Marxist trait to abuse a critic, but the fact is that in polemics the Marxist historians are generally uncivil.

8. Islamic crimes on Brahmins’ account - In white washing various deeds of the medieval Islamic rulers the Marxist historians have tried so many techniques. One of them is to blame Hindu society, especially the Brahmins, for some infamous acts of the past. For instance, the destructions of Buddhist and Jain temples are frequently put on the account of Hindus, without, of course, a shred of evidence. Killing several birds by one: concealing Islamic record of brutal iconoclasm; demonstrating the Hindu ‘intolerance’ instead; creating rift between Hindus and Buddhists, Jains on the one hand; and within Hindus on the bases of caste differences, etc on the other. It is all very helpful to left-wing politicking at present.

9. Marxist intervention on Ayodhya - The Marxist historians intervention in the Ayodhya dispute in 1989 was an act of pure political activism. The entire episode, still continuing, demonstrated that the eminent historians are political activists first, then anything else. Their intervention began in the ruse of presenting ‘the historical evidence’ regarding the dispute. It soon became clear that they were astonishingly poor on the very historical evidence. They wrote a highfalutin pamphlet with the signature of 25 historians, and the official publisher being the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU. But as soon as the pamphlet was examined by knowledgeable individuals the very historians became champions of secularist politics saying ‘evidence or no evidence’. That their home work was so poor speaks volumes of the quality of their scholarship. Besides, they botched up the entire issue, encouraged the Muslim side to become uncompromising and vitiated the socio-political atmosphere by their childish political adventurism, and later, escapism. A good specimen of the worth of their eminences.

10. Enmity with Hinduism – In their writings, speeches and activism a distinct streak of anti-Hindu attitude is always discernible. Whence it comes from may be varied, but the fact remains that most of the Marxist historians do not even conceal their hatred for Hindu tradition, deities, ethos, etc. Their contempt of everything Hindu is apparent in their work. In some cases it is their only guide to explain or explain away things. May be it is just in line with the left-wing politics than anything else.

Shankar Sharan

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