The Hindutva takeover of ICHR

The reconstitution of the Indian Council of Historical Research giving positions of authority to three VHP luminaries betrays a deep political design on the part of the BJP-led Government.

SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN
in New Delhi

The force that separates most is a particular view of history. Groups and communities are formed principally through the view they hold of what has happened. Hindus and Muslims of India hold separate views of their common history. ...The Hindu and Muslim views of their common history have differed in the past as they do today and that is a cause of their separation in identity and action.

- Ram Manohar Lohia, The Guilty Men of India's Partition.

MEETING at Brac in Croatia in May, the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) adopted a resolution denouncing the infusion of "racial, religious or national chauvinist claims" into the profession. It specifically condemned the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, deplored the failure to prevent it, and resolved that WAC would "turn its attention to the malicious destruction of archaeological heritage in the world."

In attendance at the WAC session was an array of participants from India, notably B.B. Lal, former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, B.R. Grover, former Director of the Indian Council of Historical Research, and S.P. Gupta, former Director of the Allahabad Museum. When the resolution was put to vote, all three chose to walk out. They had made a futile effort to contest the relevance of the resolution, but finding themselves outnumbered, chose to vote with their feet against it.

ANU PUSHKARNA
Irfan Habib.

Earlier, they had sat through an extended session of the Congress which dealt with the ramifications Ayodhya had for the archaeological profession. K.M. Shrimali, Professor of Ancient Indian History at Delhi University, made an impassioned plea for introspection by the community of archaeologists. The saga of the community's participation in the Ayodhya controversy was one of persistent violation of all the canons of field archaeology, he argued. Shrimali ended with the fervent hope that Indian archaeologists would steer clear of the course their German counterparts had adopted in legitimising Nazi notions of racial and cultural superiority in the 1930s.

The substantial gathering of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)-sponsored archaeologists and historians sat through Shrimali's presentation with little substantive interventions. Devendra Swaroop of the Deendayal Research Institute, Delhi, only chose to question whether Shrimali really had the credentials to call into question Lal's professional record.

V. SUDERSHAN
K.M. Shrimali.

LESS than a month later, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) reconstituted the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). Featured in the list of members were Lal and Grover. Although Gupta did not figure in it, his influence in drawing up the list was palpable to all who follow these matters.Three luminaries of the VHP campaign for the demolition of the Babri Masjid, who had left WAC in some disrepute, were, with little lapse of time, triumphantly assuming positions in the premier body of research sponsorship in India.

Lal and Gupta were among the principal organisers of an earlier WAC session held in New Delhi in December 1994. A group of historians and archaeologists had then urged WAC to adopt a resolution condemning the "fraudulent manipulation of evidence and the destruction of historical structures" carried out to further the "infusion of racial, religious or national-chauvinist claims into archaeology." Rather than permit a discussion, Lal and Gupta had contrived to disrupt the WAC session. The Congress ended in disarray and chaos, causing enormous damage to the professional image of Indian archaeology.

The rehabilitation of the VHP luminaries in positions of authority betrays a deep political design on the part of the Union Government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is an agenda over which the HRD Ministry has not sought even to maintain an appearance of subtlety. Four of its 18 nominees in the ICHR were part of the VHP's panel of historians that sought to establish the existence of a temple at the site of the Babri Masjid. Another five were actively associated with the effort to discredit opposing viewpoints.

M. LAKSHMANAN
K.N. Panikkar.

A further factor is the preponderance of superannuated historians in the newly constituted council - no fewer than 10 of the nominees have retired from active academic engagements. This is an unprecedented situation, not merely in the severance of an active linkage between sponsorship and research, but also in the influence that outmoded habits of historical thinking will have in funding decisions.

The first Chairman of the ICHR and an eminent historian, R.S. Sharma, sees two departures from convention in the reconstitution of the council. First, he says, it has been a convention with the ICHR that a degree of continuity is ensured by renominating certain members for a second term. And second, there has been a practice of accommodating different viewpoints in the council. Today, the ICHR presents a picture of doctrinal homogeneity - even if alternative viewpoints are expressed, they are likely to be drowned out in the numerical preponderance of the VHP camp-followers.

V. SUDERSHAN
R.S. Sharma.

One of the newly nominated members of the council, K.S. Lal, challenges this perception. The ICHR has always been dominated by historians of a Left-wing persuasion, he argues. This situation has been reversed by the present Government. The current controversy is, says Lal, merely the outcome of an exaggerated sense of pique on the part of the excluded Left wing.

Irfan Habib, another former Chairman of the council, is not quite convinced. Aside from the question of ideology, he says, there are fundamental reasons of a professional nature, to object to the constitution of the ICHR. The practice is to have historians of stature as members and there is little of that commodity on view today, says Habib. K.S. Lal may have written a worthwhile work of history in the distant past, but his more recent works - which have focussed almost exclusively on the supposed historical injuries suffered by Hindus - have been tendentious, communal and deeply objectionable.

Habib also seeks to debunk the notion that historians of the Left have had undue dominance in the affairs of the council. "Grover was a senior Director of the ICHR for ten years," he points out, "and M.G.S. Narayanan was Member-Secretary under my chairmanship." Both these individuals were associated with the propaganda campaign over Ayodhya on behalf of the VHP. And neither has shown the slightest hint of a Left-wing commitment in recent years.

V. SUDERSHAN
B.B. Lal.

Jawaharlal Nehru University historian K.N. Panikkar points out that the council as it existed till recently, was a body of distinctly mixed views. "The last council, of which I was a member, had in it practitioners of almost all trends within the discipline," he says. "It was chaired by a liberal historian and was composed of liberals, conservatives, Marxists and also supporters of the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign."

ICHR chairman S. Settar chooses to put things with a certain measure of delicacy. "Yes," he concedes, "the council ,as it is constituted today is tilted towards older scholars, or scholars of greater maturity - however, you would choose to put it." The ideological influence, though, is not likely to be decisive in his estimation. "B.B. Lal's recent commitment to the Ayodhya issue," says Settar, "is of no consequence to his professional integrity." And whatever fears there may be over the possible skewing of scholarship is unfounded: "Not more than four or five of the members have links with any political party. And I am sure that the profession of historical scholarship will be strong enough to resist any invasion into their liberties."

Normal practice in the past has been that the Chairman initiates the process of reconstituting the council. Habib recalls that he used to send a list of over 20 names, of which a good number used to win the assent of the Government. This time around, it is learnt that of Settar's list of 18 sent to the Government, only two names were approved.

V. SUDERSHAN
S.P.Gupta

The Hindutva takeover of the ICHR comes at a time when the organisation is passing through a serious crisis. Of a grant of Rs. 2 crores that it receives every year, over Rs. 1.25 crores is utilised in overheads, leaving relatively a paltry sum for research sponsorship. A regional centre has been established in Bangalore, in accordance with a decision made in 1974. But the character of the centre departs from the original conception and entails a further heavy drain on the depleted resources of the ICHR. The second proposed regional centre at Guwahati may well have to bear the burden of adjusting to the heavy financial demands that Bangalore centre has been placing on the organisation.

"Cultural nationalism" is the unique political platform of the BJP, which few others share in the omnibus coalition it heads. And if culture is a lived-in ensemble of social practices and traditions, history is the quarry from which the elements of this nationalism have to be assembled. If Hindutva is a manifesto of cultural exclusion, then its buttresses have to be crafted by a sectarian interpretation of history. The ailing institutional framework of scholarship is clearly designated as the first target in this quest.

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