History Writing in the Subcontinent - 2
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
Historiography flourished under the Mughals, and learned men cherished and cultivated it as an independent discipline. With the official policy of writing histories and recording the administrative measures by clerks and secretaries, a change came over history in “form, content and spirit alike”.
The richness of the historical writings of this period has infused a sense and awareness of the past. It reflects a new direction towards the development of knowledge in the life of the Indians. Jagdish Narayan Sarkar writes in History of History Writing in Medieval India Ch. I, “The advent of the Muslims and the establishment of Turkish rule in India constituted a seminal age in Indian history. The Muslims introduced fairly well-developed ideas of historiography in India’s intellectual history”. Similarly, Sisirkumar Mitra writes in The Vision of India, “The appreciation of the religion and culture of the Hindus by the Arabic and Persian scholars shows the breadth of their outlook and the sympathy and care with which they tried to understand things Indian…These revealing utterances of the Muslim scholars show how deep was their insight into Hindu life and thought and how correct was their understanding of the Hindu character. They only can build up unity who can appreciate the culture of others as well as they do their own, for it is on mutual understanding alone that unity can thrive.”
The Muslim writers of the history of the medieval era may be placed in two categories. First, they were those to whom history writing was very sacrosanct. For instance, Alberuni considers history and the Ilm-ul-Hadis as twins, and so he believes that history should reflect only truth with no exaggeration and verbose language. In support of the truthfulness in one’s writings, Alberuni quotes the moral authority of the Qur’an and the Bible in the Preface of his book, “It has been said in the Qur’an, ‘Speak the truth, even if it were against yourselves’ (Sura, 4,134); and the Messiah expresses himself in the Gospel to this effect: ‘Do not mind the fury of kings in speaking the truth before them. They only possess your body, but they have no power over your soul’ (cf. St. Matt. X,19, 28; St. Luke xii,4). In these words, the Messiah orders us to exercise moral courage”.
Similarly, Babur writes in Babarnama, “I have not written all this to complain: I have simply written the truth. I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself; I have simply set down exactly what happened. Since I have made it a point in this history to write the truth of every matter and to set down no more than the reality of every event, as a consequence I have reported every good and evil I have seen of father and brother and set down the actuality of every fault and virtue of relative and stranger. May the reader excuse me, may the listener take me not to task”.
Babur and Jahangir, as well as some other writers, seem to be forthright in their writings. They do not take everything for granted and express their doubts on matters of which they are not convinced. For instance, while writing about date trees, Babur says, “They say that among plants the date tree resembles animals in two ways. One is that just as animals’ lives are ended if their heads are cut off, the date tree too will dry up if its head is cut off. The other is that just as animals cannot propagate without the male, the date tree too will not bear fruit unless a branch of a male date is brought into contact with the female. The truth of this statement is not known”.
The historians of the other type were those who were generally attached to the court. They belonged to the aristocratic class and all of them came from that community which was the possessor of power. They were living in an age when men’s minds were dominated by religion. It will not, therefore, be surprising that such a historian wanted initially to act as the representative of his community, aiming at its glorification. The court historian especially had, first, to compete with other court writers and poets in eulogizing the monarchs, and secondly, had to prove the devotion of his patron king to Islam. In order to negate the influences of the mullahs, he had to show that the sultan was making life difficult for the infidels. He had, therefore, to paint occasionally his master as the destroyer of temples, and slayer of infidels. This explains why such court historians indulged themselves from time to time in gross exaggerations and rhetoric.
The writings of Amir Khusrau and Barni, for instance, revolve around the kings and nobles. Specially, Amir Khusrau is not only all praise to the worthy sultan, Alauddin, but also to his worthless successor. For him, anything bad, associated with a prince, did not merit a mention. But Amir Khusrau himself never claimed to be a historian. He admits that he wrote on historical topics either on the suggestion of, or for presentation to, the reigning sovereigns. But even then such writings provide some basic facts about the history of the time. These writings need to be sifted to find out the underlying truth.
Many of the later-day British history writers have indulged themselves in similar types of writings. Being administrators, they did not concern themselves with the life of the people or the social conditions of the time but dwelt mainly upon politics and administration, eulogizing the British rule, on the one hand, and helping to implement the British policy of dividing the nation into seemingly incompatible groups. These writings have made such a deep impact on the minds of successive generations, that even today, on the one hand, many of the native historians are unable to free themselves from its unhealthy effects, and on the other, the hatred spread by them has sapped the foundations of self-respect of the Indians.
It may be mentioned that the first systematic attempt to collect manuscripts and prepare ‘partial’ translations of the various Muslim histories was initiated in the first half of the 19 th century. That initiative was taken by an official of the East India Company H. M. Elliot (1808-1853), who became Foreign Secretary to Government of India in 1847. In the Preface of Volume 1 of The History Of India As Told By Its Own Historians, Sir Henry Elliot says: “Under such rulers (Muhammadan), we cannot wonder that fountains of justice are corrupted; that the state revenues are never collected without violence and outrage; that villages are burnt, and their inhabitants mutilated and sold into slavery; that the infidels, so far from affording protection, are themselves the chief robbers and usurpers; that parasites and eunuchs revel in the spoil of plundered provinces; and that the poor find no redress against the oppressor’s wrong and proud man’s contumely….We should no longer hear bombastic Babus, enjoying under our Government the highest degree of personal liberty, and many more political privileges than were ever conceded to a conquered nation, rant about patriotism, and the degradation of their present position. If they would dive into any of the volumes mentioned herein, it would take these young Brutuses and Phocions a very short time to learn, that in the days of that dark period for whose return they sigh, even the bare utterance of their ridiculous fantasies would have been attended, not with silence and contempt, but with the severer discipline of molten lead or impalement”.
To quote Jagdish Narayan Sarkar again, “In their books the advent of Islam in India was too closely associated with the conquests of Turks, the Afghans, and the Mughals; military and political contentions amongst the rulers were generally presented as religious issues and the offensive character of Muslim rule was given a false prominence and described as tyrannical and oppressive. The wealth of culture and spiritual values that came in the wake of the conquests and by non-militant Muslim immigrants were relegated to the background and the catalytic effects of Islamic institutions on the existing social and intellectual conditions were overlooked, the significance of their endeavors and contributions to synthesize Hindu and Muslim legacies were minimized, and the fact that it was the joint efforts of the Hindus and the Muslims that gave rise to one of the greatest civilizations of the world was almost completely ignored ”.
EndNote : After about seven decades of Independence, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of India is presently trying once again to re-write the history of the Subcontinent with the intention to inflict a wound on the past historical tolerance. Little do they realize that the historians of today are writing their own rule as the darkest period of history, seething with bigotry, hatred, discrimination, and persecution, such that the Subcontinent has never seen before.
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