Teaching history in a complex country like India

 I have written quite a few blog posts on India and its history, whether it is rich or poor depends on one's perspective.

One cannot deny it’s a civilizational state with a constant occupation and change and being a country linked by land to both Middle East and Europe has a long history. In fact each and every region of the country has history going back by a thousand years if not more. To top that curriculum designers must account for nation building and highlight the history from Delhi centric perspective too. Last but not the least is the freedom struggle itself which technically started with first war of independence in 1857 and ended with 1947.

Keep in mind, we cannot ignore the world history which is shaping our contemporary world affairs also, at the least world wars 1 and 2 followed by Cold War to fall of Soviet Union to the present day conflicts and the dictatorships and so on.

I am only talking history and haven’t even touched the geography or the constitution/law or what we used to call Civics.

I truly pity the NCERT people for their job is not easy.

While I stated the problem statement here are some suggestions to make it slightly better.

1. Add history and others as a compulsory subjects for grade 11 and 12, adding 2 more years to the system of education helps a lot
2. Like they do in this country, dedicate a year worth in high school to learn about local history meaning in my case history of Karnataka. Dedicate another year on the world history and so on
3. Eliminate switching to Sanskrit or even English as first language in grade 8 and stick to local language or Hindi as first language from beginning to end, advantage is that students would have had great mastery over language and can digest complex literature and I myself learnt a lot with studying Kannada literature which otherwise I would not have learnt. Example : Jhansi rani Laxmi Bai is mentioned in history books but Kitturu Chennamma or Keladi Chennamma were learnt through kannada literature which were part of the curriculum.
4. Stop teaching history as dates and events but focus on drawing parallels and finding what Google likes to call “system analysis” for example how being religious zealots destroyed empires time and again across the globe with no exception. Or my favorite, any kingdom especially the big ones get destroyed by inner rot and court room politics than an external invasion
5. Its been 80 years since independence, at the rate of 12 years of education umpteen batches have passed through, time to teach real history be it about Jihad of Aurangazeb or Inquisitions by Spain in Goa or the Naval revolt of 1947 or how bankrupt England was at end of WW-II that it couldn't really control its "colonies"
6. Constantly I heard that "History is dead subject", this has led to people thinking it is set in stone and cannot be changed and more I have learnt over time, if anything its the opposite. It is as alive as Science and probably as fascinating

Of course all these require systemic changes in thinking and might need new ways of drafting curriculum and training teachers and probably a generation or two to go through.

My fundamental problem with the way I learnt history was, it was sorry to say completely Delhi Centric and sadly when I read Nehru Discovery of India, he was so freaking light on south of the Vindhya’s I was flabbergasted.

As one famous person once said, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

Shivaji, Sambhaji and Maharani Tara

 Having read the 2 books and listened to one book by Medha Deshmukh Bhaskaran, I have to admit her story telling skills are amazing. She has the ability to put things in right perspective and not amplifying things beyond required. I picked up her books for Shivaji has been a fascination since early childhood and no history book actually depicted the same properly. To that extent Medha's books are the best for anyone looking for a good clean reference to understand that time and part of history.

I agree Shivaji or Chatrapathi Shivaji Maharaj was a thorn in the flesh of Mughals starting from Shahjahan to Aurangzeb. Yes our history book dedicated a 2 page chapter on him and the highlight was the title bestowed by Aurangazeb of “Mountain rat” and it was glorified and was called master of guerrilla warfare. Without mentioning any details about his great cavalry or his system of tax collection. I still remember reading about Sher Shah Suri and his tax systems but not about Shivaji and his system and more importantly how his family resisted the Mughals for almost 30 odd years. In context, Aurangzeb ruled for 45 years and 2/3 of the time he spent in southern India either personally or through his generals and one can say the empire got destroyed because of the “Deccan Campaign”.

The entire book of both Sambhaji and Tara (wife of Rama Raja) reminded me that 400 years ago any life unless you are a nobility had no value, you were expendable and animals for sure suffered worse. To an extent if one sees the movie Black Hawk down, one can relate to it. Since nobility was placed so much higher than the rest, it was lot easier to make them corrupt with bribe of a rank or elevation to the next level.

Apart from Aurangazeb’s military tactics and cunningness which one can argue is his sharp mind, it was the buying out of nobility with respect to Bijapur and Hyderabad that led to their defeats. I have to give Bijapur its credit for they did stand against but Golkonda was literally surrendered without much of a fight. One thing that I am not able to understand is the fact that Aurangazeb’s hatred of Shia Muslim was known and even then the Bijapur and Hyderabad surrendered trusting the emperor will keep his promise, which he had time and again had broken. If you want to get an idea of Aurangazeb's cunningness one needs to see how he killed the prince of Mewar with smallpox.

This brings to the important aspect of history, we read all stories of how one army was better in war tactics and so on, my take is if the empire or dynasty was rotten from the inside meaning the top talents are either eliminated or have fled or the king is a rotten soul, all the external force has to do was to give a small nudge and it all falls apart. I need another post to justify my argument and maybe I will do that. Sadly, history only records the outcome of a war or event and leaves out details that led to that outcome.

Another salient aspect that came from reading the books is the fact, again not told in our school books was the fact that no Mughal emperor succeeded without a blood riot and killing his brothers and kin and some times in case of Jehangir, his own son. In a way one can argue it would lead to survival of the fittest but the cost of lives is beyond imagination. Although the Mughals were big emperors in India, the Muslim heirarchy, recognized Caliph who was in Persia and time and again the Caliph used to send reprimands to the Mughal emperor and one of Aurangazeb's son did escape to Persia hoping to get help from Caliph himself to over throw his own dad.

A thing to note, several European historians have noted that Mughals carried their harem and wives along to the battle fields and in case of Deccan campaign it was a total of 18 years when Aurangzeb came down, I am sure there must be kids born through that time and what would happen to them? I am sure someone has done a study of those.

In a way one can say Maratha's survived the Aurangazeb's onslaught for they were not a city but hill forts and hundreds of them all over Maharashtra. if they were like Bijapur or Hyderababd it would have been completely a different story.

Lastly one points to the fact that Sambhaji’s son Shahu was a weak emperor and eventually led to Peshwa’s taking over but the fact that is not told is that poor guy spent his formative years as a captive in Mughal prison.

ps: We all know Talikota war Viijayanagar was destroyed and how come we never learnt about Gilani brothers who placed religion over their kingdom loyalty.

Google says - just trust me

 If you are like me then you do use Google maps for distances that needs timely arrival like school drop off or band pick up and so on. Time and again I have tried to use my brain instead of blindly trusting Google and the success rate of me beating Google is going lower and lower.

Last night thanks to weather patterns. the high school football match ended pretty late and while picking up kid after the match I asked Google to map my way home and its suggestion was to go around town and reach home in 23 minutes and I was like, no my other way would be easier for I could cut across I-35 and hit Mopac and will be home in about same time. I took my route, over rode Google only to get badly stuck in downtown traffic and there was an event that attracted stream of audience that it blocked my way and I had to come back to I-35 and go back towards downtown again for I knew before hand that I-35 south had an accident and was blocked badly. after about 45 minutrs on the road we reached home completely tired.

Yes, Google had the last laugh and yes I could have saved time and energy had I listened to Google Maps in first place :).

More historical ramblings …..

Another one on history and hopefully the last one on this row. The way history is taught in schools is about facts, at 1757 battle of plassey happened and that led to British foothold in the country or that Aurangzeb defeated Sambhaji in 1689 and so on.

The devil is always in the details, in the case of Siraj us Daulah he barely ascended the throne, lasted for a year and was killed in that time and his own general and the finance person took revenge on him. The general was also an old man by those days standards and for the army which pretty much was a decentralized structure back then to back him and not the king is something that is not explicitly stated. On other hand Sambhaji was crowned right after Shivaji death and lasted almost a decade and led successful campaigns against his other Deccan rivals. He and his people stood strong against the might of Mughal ruler Aurangzeb. And for a fact he was backed by the army, which was led by his step mothers own brother when some ministers in the council decided to place his 10 year old step brother on the throne.

There are ample such stories when the ruler didn’t take people to confidence he lost the throne in no time or in a short time. Case in point our own Mysore kingdom, Hyder Ali managed to keep the throne for he at the least placed if for name sake ruler from wodeyar family and while his son wanted to do away with it and thanks to his fanaticism for Islam he eventually lost it. Or the Nayakas of Chitradurga when the Dalavayi’s tried to take over the throne as shadow rulers.

Go to the present to Wikipedia you will see exactly opposite, both Siraj ud Daulah and Tipu Sultan are freedom fighters while Sambhaji was a useless son of great Maratha ruler.

Again, it’s not their fault for they quote sources and in case of Sambhaji who are the sources, the Portuguese of Goa for they were forbidden from fanatically spreading Christianity in Goa. Irony is, folks who were happily engaged in slave trade by shipping people of India across the globe blamed Maratha for unthinkable things. Even our own “historians” like Jadhunath Sarkar quote directly from the Jesuits documents without taking it with a few grains if not a load of salt. Or the fact that the same is probably missing or not available in British documents who were right there in Bombay.

Since I am reading about Sambhaji, a hero made famous to me by the movie Chavva and if one looks at mere facts, he defected to Mughals for a year and fought in a battle or two with them and he came back.

But the details of how he was sent away either for safe keeping or what ever else by his own father who was heading on a southern campaign. How he lost his mother at a very early age and father was busy with nation building. The jealousy of the step mother who became even more powerful in the royal household after his grandmother’s death.

The fact that some of the ministers for whatever reason didn’t trust him to be the next king and really wanted to place the young Rajaram on the throne, this begs the question who will be the regent on behalf of the king, the king maker?