A Characteristic concoction
'Rational vs National' screamed the headline of the new pall bearer of secularism, the magazine Outlook. 'Fresh evidence available with Outlook reveals that not only has the ICHR been packed with 'sympathizers' the story announced 'but a new statement of objectives or resolution has been added, changing certain key words from original memorandum of Association of 1972, legitimized by an Act of Parliament. While the original Memorandum of Association states that ICHR's aims would be to give "rational" direction to historical research and foster "an objective and scientific writing of history" the new resolution which will be included in the Gazette of India, states that ICHR now seeks to give a "national" direction to an "objective and national presentation of history". So "rational" has been changed to "national" and "scientific" too has been changed to "national"...
The charge rested on three bits of 'evidence', that the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR has been changed; second, that the word - 'rational' - in the resolution has been surreptitiously replaced by - 'national'; third, that while the original Memorandum had specified five objectives for ICHR, the new resolution cut out three of these.
Having been educated by 'The Hindu' that the 'nodal ministry' for the matter was the Ministry of Human resources Development, I rang up the secretary of the ministry. Has the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR been changed? I asked. No, he said. It has not been changed, he said.
I requested the secretary of the ministry: could he please request someone to look up resolution of the earlier years and see whether they contained anything different ?
The secretary was able to trace resolution going back up to 1978, that is, twenty years. Each of them carried the very same word.
The whole mystery has arisen from from a 'typographical error': some typist banging away on his typewriter typed 'rational' as 'national' and it was copied thereafter. The leftist inferred no conspiracy. But now that a BJP government was in power, inferring conspiracies - to use their favourite phrase - was a historical necessity.
I then rang up Vinod Mehta, the editor of 'Outlook' and president of Editors Guild of India. He promised to check and get back to me. [ But the 'change' was not substantiated ].
Exactly the same thing held for that fabrication of K.N. Panikkar: about five objectives having become two. In every single one of the resolutions- including the 1994 resolution under which Panikkar had himself been nominated to the ICHR , exactly the same sentences had been used.
Such forgeries, such allegations are the standard technology of this school. Fabricating conspiracy theories is their well practiced weapon. And they have a network: stories containing the same 'facts' about the ICHR had figured prominently in paper after paper. [The Asian Age, The Indian express, Hindustan times, The Hindu, Outlook, People's Democracy]
The associated charge, repeated in Outlook and all other publications, was that historians who had now been nominated to the ICHR were ones who supported the proposition that there had been a Ram Temple at Ayodhya before it was replaced by the Babri Mosque. Assume that charge was entirely correct. What about the members who had not been nominated ? They were the intellectual guides and propagandists of the Babri Masjid Action Committee. They represented it at the meetings Mr Chandrashekhar government had convened for settling the matter by evidence. The leftist historians had attended the initial meetings. They has put together for and on behalf of the committe document . it had been immediately evident that this pile was no counter to the mass of archaeological, historical and literary evidence which VHP had furnished. These historians, having undertaken to attend the meetings to consider the evidence presented by the two sides, just did not show up. it was this withdrawal which aborted the initiative thta the government has undertaken of bringing two sides together, of introducing evidence and discourse into the issue.
Not only were these 'historians' the advisers of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, its advocates in the negotiations, they simultaneously issued all sorts of statements supporting the Babri Masjid Action Committtee's case - which was the case they had themselves prepared ! A well-practised technique, if I may say so: they are from a school in which members have made each other famous by applauding each other's books and 'theses'!
For fifty years this bunch has been suppressing facts and inventing lies. How concerned they pretend to be today about that objective of the ICHR- to promote objective and rational research into events of our past ! How does this concern square with the guidelines issued by their West Bengal government in 1989 which Outlook itself had quoted -'Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned ?' But incorporating their wholesale fabrications of the destruction of Buddhist viharas, about the non-existent 'Aryan invasion', that is mandatory - to question them is to be communal chauvinist !
They are nepotist of the first order. How is it that over twenty five years persons from their school alone had been nominated to ICHR ? How come that Romila Thapar had been on the council four times ? Irfan Habib five times ? Satish Chandra four times ? S. Gopal three times ? The same pattern held for the post for the chairman.
A much favoured device: when caught peddling a lie. insinuate that the other man is previleged ! And that, as you are from the toiling masses, you can't ascertain whether the facts he has stated are true. Therefor, what you stated must stand as fact. QED!
Read also: http://www.nhsf.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=345:how-british-distorted-indian-history&catid=239:misconceptions&Itemid=233
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