Don't View History Through Western Eyes

Indians were cautioned today against viewing history through the eyes of the West which ''neglect our'' contributions and gloss over such horrors as famines the British inflicted on India.

The warning came at an International Conference on Indian History, Civilisation and Geopolitics 2009 addressed by such historians as Prof B B Lal, Prof Shivaji Singh and Dr Sharad Hebalkar.

''Books on Indian history sold abroad deliberately neglect our ancient history so as to minimise and sideline its contributions,'' a United States-based engineer-turned-Indian history buff told delegates.

''At the same time, they try to whitewash the horrors that the British rule inflicted on India, such as the large-scale famines triggered by colonial policies,'' Dr Kosla Vepa said.

Dr Vepa is director of a US-based Indic Studies Foundation, sponsoring the three-day conference in association with Akhila Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Yojana.

Dr Vepa suggested ''changing the content of the text-books worldwide and especially in the West to correct these distortions.'' A retired Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, Dr Lal regretted schoolkids being fed wrong notions.

''There is absolutely no proof,'' Dr Lal said, ''that the Vedas were written in around 1200 BC and that the invading Aryans massacred the people of the Indus Valley.'' ''Unfortunately, these malicious distortions are still being taught in our schools as facts,'' he said.

Warning that new distortions in Indian history are being created even today, Dr Lal said Indian historians must set the record straight through cogent evidence and sustainable arguments.

Prof Singh, former Head of Gorakhpur University's Ancient History Department, rejected the frequent charge that Indians have no sense of history.

''Ancient Indians had a robust historical tradition that originated in the Rig Vedic times and continued to develop and proliferate till the end of the medieval period.

''This tradition has created a rich and huge mass of historical literature that is unparalleled in the world,'' he said.

Prof Singh explained that the Indian sense of history was unique, intended to help man's self-fulfillment and self-realisation, not furtherance of vague objectives.

''You have to understand that the Indian sense of history is grounded in Indian culture and it should not be judged by the yardstick of how the Westerners write their history,'' he said.

-- (UNI) -- 09DI71.xml

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