The Free Voice by Ravish Kumar

Author:Ravish Kumar
Language: eng
Format: epub

There are many ways to falsify history. During the West Bengal elections of 2016, we saw new wonders of the national curriculum unfold. In no time at all the ‘Netaji files’ were exhumed from the central government archives and aired, and an impression was created that one of the icons of our freedom movement, Subhas Chandra Bose, had been denied his place in history until now and that he would now be given his due. It did not matter that almost every child in India knows of him, that he has found a prominent place in the national narrative and in textbooks across the country for decades, and his pictures have adorned millions of homes and offices. For days we heard of Netaji from his new champions—many of whom had never bothered with him before. Sometimes he was pitted against Nehru and at other times in opposition to other leaders. There was a chorus of concern for Netaji. but once the BJP lost the state election, he was consigned to oblivion.

This kind of misuse of history must be avoided at all cost. By all means, visit a library to know more about the ups and downs in the relationship between Nehru and Bose. However, if you look towards a television studio debate to learn more about their equation, be warned that numerous pitfalls await you—prime among them being an anchor who doesn’t have the time to read two newspapers a day or a single book in an entire year but becomes a historian by night, destroying your mind on a daily basis.

This is not an issue that is limited to our times but concerns future generations as well. We have managed to come this far without much mishap. But how many will now fall into the many pits being dug all around in front of our eyes, I cannot say. What I can say is that it is not you and I alone who will fall into these traps; we will be condemned to seeing our children being ensnared and injured—the children we dandle on our laps, wishing them a bright future.

There are many new heroes who emerge these days, fully formed, with entire mythologies of physical bravery and success, and make a grand entry into politics, dressed to kill. They want to wipe out the past, rewrite it in their own image. They think they are creating history in the present, whereas history has scripted the present of the likes of them a long time ago. Try as they might, they cannot change it. They will be exposed, we only need to keep our eyes and ears open.

If we learn to negotiate the past, we will no longer be perplexed or fooled by the present. For instance, there was no need to invoke the name of Sardar Patel during the Gujarat elections of late 2017; his name had already been used during the Lok Sabha elections of 2014. Except that this time around his name was being used liberally to placate the disgruntled Patel community of the state.

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