History is not a mere incident but a particular interpretation of that incident. What we have now as ‘History’ (by the historians of all schools), in spite of all kinds of archeological, monumental, textual, edicts, and other such evidence, is that particular interpretation.
So when the recent dispute of giving Life time award to Nobel Laureate Naipaul in Mumbai and the subsequent TV debates (both in CNN-IBN and NDTV on November 5 & 6) on the issue turned to a dispute on the question of history as well as secularism, we lay people are left in dark grove not knowing what all these discussion were about. My point here is not about the dispute centered around the award given to Naipaul and an attack on him by Girish Karnad (who was invited to speak in theater, but used the forum to attack on Naipaul), but the way the issue was carried further in TV debates.
My main concern here is that all kinds of modern interpretation about our past history—dividing them as ‘secular’ versus ‘communal’ (or read ‘nationalism’) with a further category of Marxist view of history is not going to help us, simple lay people, to have a basic understanding about our past history.
If the understanding of past history is limited due to the availability of textual, archeological and document evidence, in future, any understanding of our past history will become a headache due to too many information based on the ‘interpretations’ of ‘secular’ ‘Marxists’ versus ‘Communal’ ‘National’ ideological lines. All the present debates are carried on minute level by hair splitting analysis on a particular ‘word’. So without understanding the context of these present day debates and interpretation on the past history will confuse the lay people than contributing them to understand our history.
This does not mean that I am against such hair splitting debates based on words and meanings, but suddenly our modern values are superimposed on our understanding of the past history. For example, one panelist (his first name is Anil, who organized that event at Mumbai to felicitate Naipaul) pointed out the lack of ‘democracy’ when he was silenced by the critic of Naipaul (Karnad) by not allowing him and others to raise some question on his attack on Naipaul. He was cent percent correct in his view on ‘democratic’ debate in every kind of dialogue. But these modern values of democratic debates are going to add too many contexts for one to understand the modern understanding of past history. In other way, all these kinds of hair splitting analysis based on words and ideologies are going to leave a huge volume of information to the future generation as the ‘historical evidence’ for them to understand about their past. All our present discussion and debates are the ‘history’ for the future. If lack of evidences is an impediment for us to understand our past history, too much of information (thanks for all modern facilities which could produce and leave unimaginable huge volume of information) that we now leave will become another kind of impediment for the future generation to understand their immediate past (our present time) and the distant past (our past).
But there is no solution for these kinds of issues. Because whether we like it or not, such debates based on ideological line that too with too much interpretation with a hair splitting analysis in text, electronic, internet etc. media is inevitably going to leave huge volume of information with which the future (also the present) generation has to learn to live [including this brainstorm]. Adding fuel to the fire, too many channels with 24 x 7 coverage, keeping TRP interest going to confuse several such crucial issues than providing any clarity. As their aim is making a ‘NEWS’ on every issue, like politicians making politics on every issue, once a keen issue serves their purpose of providing news for them, they are going to jump to the next hot news of another day. Anyhow, lay people never take these kinds of discussions seriously (thanks to the remote to change the channel immediately), all these crucial issues will continue to remain a part of entertainment for us and an issue of news for the TV channels and a historical burden for the future generation.
Db. November 6, 2012. Gurukulam.
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