Jingoism in history

History is a field that should teach us a lot - provided that we are willing to learn. The fascination of history itself lies in the simple fact that no one really knows what happened. As my favourite historian once said "There is no fun in really being there, the fun comes from sifting through available materials and coming to a conclusion, but still not knowing whether you are right or wrong."

So how is everyone so convinced that history is one-sided? I remember how in school, all the history books would give historical information based on the political climate. I mean, how does it matter what is going on now? It has absolutely no bearing on what happened before. Even if politics is not kept out of schools, history is! Jingoism does not go along with history. We might be a great nation, but distorting facts or interpreting them on a tangent is doing a disservice to our heritage.

Jodha Akbar was a bad movie historically, but Akbar did have several Rajput wives ... why dispute it? Hitler might have been the cornerstone of evil done to Jews, but why conveniently forget that the majority of the people of Germany, Poland and Austria supported him? Alexander might have lost his final war, but why forget that he connected Europe, Africa and Asia? Historical figures are people, and hence have several dimensions.

Nationalistic history or history as something unshakeable is a pet hate of mine, and hence this blog to kick off my first contribution. Discussion is what keeps history alive, so let's go ahead and do it!

Why blast from the past?

I started this blog to meet people who are just as passionate about History as I am. Since early childhood I started growing up listening to stories of Shivaji who established the Maratha kingdom against the grain of Mughal dominance. The stories were exciting but incomplete was the idea of what it probably took a small chieftain to establish an empire during the 1600s in India. As I grew up the interest in history increased thanks to very amateurish chapters in our history books in school. Life in ancient times was coloured as idealistic and simplistic. Someone invaded someone because they had a lust for power and that was enough reason.

Now that I am much older and have more resources than just amatuerish books for reading up on Hisotry, I must say I am enchanted by it. I think we have lessons to be learnt from History...

The main lesson we need to learn in my opinion is our parochial and provincial ego which rears up and holds on to some distorted parts of history. A few months ago I read a excellent article online which was raising this point if Emperor Ashoka was truly as Great as he is potrayed. The points raised were simple; What is the proof of Ashoka's acehivement except his brilliant piece of Public relations effort of putting up monuments, pillars and edicts writing his story in stone. But who wrote this ? Another poignant point was did'nt Ashoka's Mauryan empire crumble within 2-3 years after his death. Does it mean the Mauryan empire already had provincial power centers and a sense of disenchantment?

Once I tried to put these points across to some friends who lambasted me as being a radical, pseudo secularist and sometimes even a Muslim pacifist. But no one could tell me with absolute certainty as to if there were any real documents to prove other than Ashoka's own edicts that things were exactly the same in those days as is claimed.

That is when I decided to start this blog. Let people correct me or make me think of alternative theories. If we have to learn from History that asking difficult questions is a good virtue rather than a unacceptable one. Lately we have seen many historians being silenced in the name of culture and sometimes because they have raised unacceptable questions. Confront these questions as even if the historical heroes we so love, they still were human and lived amongst humans. They obviously made mistakes.

I am not a historian and my knowledge is at best amateurish. I welcome any comments and if you want to write on this blog, do comment to this post. Please do keep your comments sensible and non-abusive. This blog moderates the comments and hence any abuse will never make it to publishing anyways.

thanks

Ancient Rocks