People's Democracy

INDIAN HISTORY CONGRESS

65th Session At Bareilly 

From A Correspondent

THE Indian History Congress (IHC) held its 65th annual session at Bareilly (UP) on December 28-30, 2004, with the MJP Rohilkhand University as the hosts. Over 1100 delegates attended the session and about 500 papers were read at its five main Sections and at the different panels that were held alongside its Sectional meetings.

The main purpose of the IHC is to be the clearing house of historical research carried out in the country. The Proceedings of each session, published annually with much attention paid to quality, are an index of the current interests among historians and the directions of new historical findings. The Proceedings Volume of the 64th annual session alone runs to over 1,500 pages, and contains the full texts of 126 papers. Side by side with this immense academic endeavour, the IHC has acquired the status of a watchdog for the preservation of the nation’s cultural legacy and defence of the rational and scientific approach to History. In recent years, it won much acclaim for its opposition to the BJP’s saffronised CBSE syllabus and textbooks. In the general elections the Indian people upheld its stand and threw out those who were bent on spreading rank communalism among our children.

THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS

A minister in the UPA government who has spoken boldly against saffronised education and taken some positive steps to do away with the “toxic” textbooks, Arjun Singh (minister for human resource development) was invited to deliver the Inaugural Address at the General Session of the IHC. Owing to the national mourning following the death of former prime minister Narasimha Rao, Arjun Singh was unable to be present at the IHC session, but his address was read in absentia.

In his address Arjun Singh paid tribute to the role played by historians in “preserving the true meaning of the idea of India and confronting the challenges to our civilizational values and the Republic.” He went on to recall that in a recent address at Ahmedabad he had drawn attention to a deep-rooted conspiracy to undermine our national vision. This was reflected in the removal of the Preamble to the Constitution from all NCERT textbooks, so as to hide the fact that the Constitution requires our republic to be “socialist, secular and democratic”. Another measure was the removal of all mention of Gandhiji’s martyrdom in the Modern India textbook, otherwise full of petty detail. He revealed that the Director, NCERT, with the then HRD minister in the chair, had declared it “pedagogically” unsuitable to tell children what ideology Gandhiji’s assassin was associated with.

Arjun Singh expressed his “solidarity” with the endeavours of the IHC on behalf of a scientific approach, and assured it that his ministry was committed to “preserve the primacy and the integrity” of the discipline of History.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, the general president, delivered an address devoted to the theme of Colonial State in Theory and Practice. He traced the notion developed in Western Europe of international law applying only to “civilized” states, a notion that deprived states in Asia and Africa of any sovereign rights when confronted by European powers. (Traces of this doctrine are today obvious in the US-UK aggression against Iraq!) Out of this theory was developed the claims to “extraterritoriality”, creating islands of external colonial authority within formally sovereign states. In essence, this amounted to a “legitimation of the colonial states’ authority... accompanied by the delegitimation of precolonial authority”. Professor Bhattacharya traced the process of the denigration of the status of Indian rulers and princes, ultimately creating “protectorates”, which were really nominal states – in the words of the US Supreme Court (1831), mere “dependant nations” in “a state of pupilage” to the white power. Once British supremacy was assured, the actual exercise of authority was accompanied by a subversion of old customs and invention of new ones to emphasise the distance between master and subject.

Professor Bhattacharya called for a proper examination of the different aspects of the colonial state. For having a correct perspective, he recalled the question asked by the first president of the IHC (1935), Professor Shafaat Ahmad Khan in his address: “Should history be tied to the chariot wheels of perverted sectionalism which ... is now acting as a most serious abstacle to the growing nationalism of India as a whole?”

What Professor Bhattacharya said about the colonial state tied in closely with what Professor Shireen Moosvi said in her presidential Address at Section II (Medieval India), devoted to a scrutiny of the Pre-colonial State. She argued that the recent trend of depreciating the role of the pre-colonial State, initiated by Burton Stein, and taken up by the Cambridge and the Subaltern schools, must be viewed in the context of the simultaneous attempt to project the colonial State, as similarly weak and ineffective, and thereby absolved of any guilt for the growth of poverty and backwardness of India. Moosvi insisted that all such speculations must be tested by solid historical evidence, where, indeed, these uniformly fail.

The other addresses of Sectional presidents took up other aspects of history. Professor Ravi Korisettar presiding over Section V (Archaeology) discussed the geological evidence for land-forms relevant for the archaeology of hominid settlements. Dr Annapurna Chattopadhyaya, president, Section I (Ancient India), discussed a rich range of data about the diverse ethno-cultural elements traceable in ancient Bengal. Professor Adapa Satyanarayana, in his address to Section III (Modern India), gave a survey of the emergence of the dalit-bahujan consciousness in late-colonial Andhra. He claimed that “Dalit-bahujan organic intellectuals and leaders have paved the way for a relatively more equal spread of secular power in modern society.”

SC MISHRA MEMORIAL LECTURE

The growing interest in the genesis of anti-caste ideologies was also responsible for the choice of the theme of the SC Misra Memorial Lecture by Professor JV Naik. (This is the main public lecture at the IHC sessions.) Professor Naik examined the various aspects of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule’s theory of social justice. He showed that Phule’s ideas arose not only out of his own inner revolt against caste inequities, but also out of his reading of modern radicals, especially Tom Paine. This gave him the confidence to demand equality for women as well as the depressed castes. Although Phule denounced Brahmanical domination, he had supporters among castes as well, who came to him through intellectual conviction. Phule was suspicious of high-caste social reformers and was appreciative of British rule as opening the doors to modern ideas. Professor Naik reminded his listeners of the wise response given to this from the nationalist side. R G Bhandarkar, the scholarly Moderate, said: “If we [Indians] ask England to remove our disabilities, we must as a necessary preliminary show that we are worthy of the favour by removing the disabilities of the oppressed classes of our society”.

SYMPOSIUM ON FORMS OF SERVITUDE

On December 29, the IHC held a symposium on Forms of Servitude in Indian history in which Dr Vivekanand Jha, and Professors Irfan Habib, G Subbiah and Utsa Patnaik made presentations. There was a natural emphasis on slavery while it was acknowledged that caste-constraints and contractual bondage also created other varied forms of servitude. Professor Patnaik took the larger issue of servitude inherent in the system of colonialism. Unfortunately, the question of how far the servile classes were able to resist the imposition of servitude could not be given much consideration.

One very heartening feature of this session was not only the further increase in the number of papers presented and their improved quality, but also the large attendance at the meetings of the five sections throughout the three days of the session. The institution of many prizes for the best papers presented on various themes or in the different Sections has certainly helped to attract younger talent. Seven such prizes were, in fact, given away at the Inaugural Session.

Alongside the Sections, the IHC organised a well-attended Panel on Education and Society, presided over by Professor Arjun Dev. The Aligarh Historians Society held a Panel on State in Indian History where a number of substantive papers by distinguished scholars were read. Professor Prabhat Patnaik in a manner concluded the discussion by calling for a true ‘nation state’ to meet the present-day challenge of imperialism and finance capital. There was a panel on the History of Rohilkhand, organised by Professor UP Arora, and another on Persian historical manuscripts, organised by Dr Imtiaz Ahmad, Director Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna. The Centre for Third World Studies,  Jamia Millia Islamia, held a panel on India and Central Asia, under the guidance of Professor Mushirul Hasan. The Urban History Association also held a symposium on December 30.

BUSINESS SESSION

The History Congress held its business session on December 30. It passed two resolutions. The first condemned the attack on the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, Pune, and the vandalism conducted there. The second, printed here separately, expressed great concern at the state of affairs at the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and demanded a number of changes to secure its proper functioning. It is, indeed, strange that so much time has passed since the UPA government took office, and it has yet done nothing substantive to improve the functioning of the ASI.

Professor DN Jha was elected general president for the next session which is to be held at Vishwa Bharati, Santiniketan. Dr O P Jaiswal (Patna) was elected President, Section I (Ancient India); S L Barua (Dibrugarh), President, Section II (Medieval India); Prof. Himadri Banerji (Kolkata), President, Section III (Modern India); Dr Kamal Sheel (BHU), President, Section IV (Countries other than India); and Dr Nagaraja Rao (Mysore), President, Section V (Archaeology).

Professors Dwijendra Tripathi and Irfan Habib were elected vice-presidents. Professors Vijay Thakur, K K Sharma and A Bobbili were re-elected Secretary Treasurer and Joint Secretary respectively. R P Rana was elected Joint-Secretary (Permanent Office) to succeed R C Thakran, whose term expires shortly.

A 20-member Executive Committee was elected, committed to continue the independent, academic and secular orientation of the Indian History Congress, each of the successful candidates securing an overwhelming number of votes.

A special feature of the session, held in UP after ten years, was the very friendly and hospitable reception given to the IHC both by the faculty and students of the host university and by the citizens of Bareilly. It does not detract from the warmth of the reception that the new situation, with a state government committed to secularism being in office, has also had its effect. A raid by a small number of ABVP “activists” was condemned by all concerned, including V P S Yadav, Secretary of the Students Union of the University. The arrangements made for the stay and meals for such a large number of delegates were impeccable and much of the credit for this goes to the vice-chancellor, Professor M.H. Zaidi, Professor U P Arora (local secretary) and Professor A K Sinha, and their colleagues, officials and staff of the University and the numerous attentive student volunteers. Professor K M Shrimali in the closing session spoke for all delegates when he thanked the hosts most sincerely for so perfectly arranging everything.