George Santayana once said, “Those that do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” This wise saying fits appropriately to the actions initiated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who is bent upon rewriting the history of our country. The UP Government, which has a record of renaming cities, roads, and other institutions, has now decided to rename the Mughal Museum, which is being constructed near the world-famous Taj Mahal complex in Agra.
It has now decided to rename the museum after the Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The decision smacks of a high level of animosity towards Muslims and Muslim rulers in the country. The decision has been widely condemned by several intellectuals and eminent personalities. This is seen as an attempt to rewrite the history of India based on concocted beliefs and not based on accurate historical events.
The Government of UP earns a huge chunk of its revenue from the various Mughal monuments spread all over the State. However, its attempts to malign Mughal rulers and Muslims continue unabated. This displays blatant hypocrisy on the part of the UP CM, who wants revenue from Mughal monuments but does not want to acknowledge them. Rather he is actively promoting hatred for Mughal rulers through his speeches and actions.
MUGHAL MUSEUM PROJECT
The Mughal museum project was conceived and initiated by Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party Government in 2016. The Museum is expected to come up on a six-acre plot near the Taj Mahal complex and is estimated to cost `170 crore. It was a part of other developmental projects such as Agra Heritage Centre and Taj Orientation Centre among others. The objective was to throw light on the history, culture, values, paintings, weapons, dresses of Mughals and other artifacts for the benefit of tourists who visit the Taj Mahal in large numbers.
HISTORIANS ON NAME CHANGE ROW
Many well-known historians and eminent personalities have criticised the UP Government’s move to rename the Mughal museum. Farhat Hasan, a Professor of Delhi University, has said, “This is extremely sad. It is sad that our political leadership is bankrupt and has no vision of a shared historical heritage and the significant role the Mughals played in building the composite culture of India that we are proud of.”
She has further added, “They are interested in creating an exclusive nation-state in which other cultures, other perspectives, and other visions have no place. It is an attempt to create an exclusive nation which is very intolerant, so homogenous that it cannot engage with a wide variety of perspectives, a wide range of outlooks and the diversity that constitute India.”
Sohail Hashmi, a Delhi based historian, has also criticised the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for projecting history from a Hindu-versus-Muslim perspective. He said, “The BJP sees history as Hindu versus Muslims and everything Adityanath does is guided towards accentuating this religious binary”.
Some other eminent leaders consider this move as a political gimmick. Ram Dutt Tripathi, a political analyst, opines, “Adityanath is personally obsessed with Hindu-Muslim binary. He uses the religious divide as a gimmick to please his hardcore majoritarian constituency. Hindu-Muslim binary is the only electoral strategy the BJP has”.
Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, feels that renaming a museum meant for Mughal artefacts in a city that was the seat of the empire for centuries, after a Hindu ruler “flies in the face of reason, logic and history.”
Mridula Mukherjee, another historian, sees this as a move blindly following the British legacy. She said, “The Hindu nationalist rhetoric of getting rid of Muslim dominance through name-change goes back to the divide and rule policy of the British colonisers. The colonial scheme involved creating a religious divide to strengthen imperial rule, which culminated in the partition of India in 1947.”
OPPOSITION FROM JATS
The Jat community in UP is unhappy with the proposal of the Yogi Government to change the name of the Mughal museum to Shivaji Museum. They have called this move illogical and demanded that the museum be renamed after their ruler Maharaja Surajmal, who along with his son Jawahar Singh was instrumental in giving a tough fight to Mughals. A delegation of Jat leaders was expected to meet the UP Chief Minister to impress upon him to rename the museum after their leader who led the Braj region after defeating Mughals.
History plays an important role in education and development of people in the country. It helps in drawing lessons from the past events, which can enrich our present and brighten our future. Moreover, reading and understanding of history develops certain life skills such as critical thinking, analytical ability, interpretation and comparative analysis. These skills will shape people’s life and career. Stressing the importance of history, Robert Denning, a faculty lead for history at Southern New Hampshire University, feels: “Everyone benefits from historical knowledge because it explains humanity itself and how we arrived at where we are today.”
DISTORTION OF HISTORY
Distortion of history leads to prejudice, dissention and animosity among people in the society. If history is distorted by people with vested interests to fulfil their ulterior motives, future generations will suffer. What they get as the legacy will not be more than a fiction. The prevailing animosity and fissures in society today can be attributed to the distortion of history during the colonial era.
Sanjeev Sanyal, an internationally acclaimed economist, environmentalist, urban theorist and author, has said, “The official history contained in our textbooks simply does not ring true to most Indians.”
Ashok Swain, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden, feels: “Nowhere else in the world is the fault-line so volatile between religious and ethnic groups as in India and it is becoming increasingly dangerous by Modi Government’s obsessive desire and forceful plan to rewrite country’s history and manufacturing an interpretation, which suits its agenda for majoritarian politics.”
Expressing strong disapproval of the attempt to distort history, Prof. K.M. Shrimali, President of Indian History Congress and a former history Professor of Delhi University, has observed: “It is a matter of concern that the space for reason and debate is shrinking in India. We have never witnessed such a disturbing trend. Those with little knowledge about history are trying to fabricate and thrust their idea. It is a terror of a different nature”.
He further asserts: “History is a discipline of reason and cannot be written with fabricated truths, imagination or myth-making.”
Considering the immense importance of history as a discipline to educate people, it becomes critical to preserve history in its actual form based on the authenticity of events. Any distortion of it will harm the peace and stability in the society and the nation. Hence all enlightened minds in partnership with concerned historians must do everything possible to protect and preserve the history of India from distortion. There should be more fact-based research work and publication in the discipline of history to develop more interest among people.