The debates that arose in the aftermath of author William Dalrymple’s remarks in which he attributed the widespread acceptance and prevalence of a distorted and misrepresented history of India through platforms such as WhatsApp to the inaccessibility of Indian academic historians, has sparked a heated and important discussion about the ways in which historical knowledge is produced, how history is taught, and the roles of two imagined categories of historians: academic historians and popular historians. Dalrymple’s sweeping judgement is problematic on several counts and has been piercingly critiqued by several historians.
In his article on Dalrymple’s statement, historian Samyak Ghosh accurately noted that academic historians have not failed to reach the “public,” but rather are prevented from doing so through a variety of strategies that are a tangible manifestation of the Foucauldian assertion of power. There are also structural factors linked to early historical pedagogy as well as a (neo-liberal) socio-cultural disdain for a field of study that is neither “necessary” nor “useful.” Additionally, he argues that those who provide authors of such inaccurate, untrustworthy, and intellectually dishonest works in the field with a popular platform to reach a wider audience and gain more recognition only serve to reinforce the contentious (sometimes wholly incorrect and ideologically biassed) interpretations of historical narrative. A recent example is Vikram Sampath, who was supported by numerous media outlets and stages of literary festivals throughout the nation popularising his two volume biography of Savarkar, even though several professional historians criticised his work, including two whom he had cited and who both said that what he had done would be considered plagiarism in academic circles, three other academics Rohit Sharma, Audrey Truschke and Ananya Chakravarti- the latter two being prominent academic historians based in the US wrote to the UK Royal Historical Society asking his membership to be revoked after claiming that 50% of his book was either plagiarised or improperly sourced and were promptly sued by Sampath for defamation, with the Delhi High Court issuing a stay order on the three publishing anything further regarding their claims. On top of this, historians who challenge established nationalist and right-wing narratives can expect to deal with harassment, trolling, and actual threats to their lives and to that of their families, all of which takes a substantial mental toll apart from anything else.
A broader, encompassing term for this phenomenon is “WhatsApp University,” which was put forward by journalist Ravish Kumar. Kumar addresses the idea of “knowledge inequality,” which is pervasive in Indian society but rarely discussed, to explain the concept and efficacy of such an organised and strategic approach to (mis)information dissemination. He contends that although students nationwide lack access to classrooms and teachers (particularly in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities, and villages), they have a voracious hunger for knowledge. For these hungry students, who are at the bottom of the spectrum of knowledge inequality, the “WhatsApp University” thus turns into a reliable source of understandable information. It fills a systemic vacuum created by the political class with their deliberate disregard for educational institutions and their growing demands. As a result, there arises a disparity in not only education levels between people of different classes, but also in educational quality and credibility, which in turn affects their cognitive growth and analytical abilities.
Dalrymple argues that it was the failure of academic Indian historians “from about the ’50s through to the beginning of the present century” to reach general audiences and to only talk among themselves that led to the growth of WhatsApp versions of history. The problem with this is twofold- firstly it ignores the work of popular historians who have made an impact and reached wider audiences and secondly, it places the blame for the growth of misinformation via mechanisms such as WhatsApp University at the feet of academics, rather than the right-wing nationalist ecosphere, which is well organised with specific goals and is the body that actually produces such a discourse. We must remember that history is always by someone for someone, by which one means that it is always written by a particular author(s) with their own specific bundle of biases, intentions, and limitations and for a specific audience in mind, whether it is an academic clerisy or for a broader group interested in either the history of a particular religion, individual, political cause, or nation. One can think of at least three popular histories which have made an impact, not in the least with the amount of sales they have generated- and in a country where sales of 2,000 (in English) and 4,000 (in vernacular languages) is deemed a success, with 10,000 being considered a bestseller, they have achieved considerable success. Notably, all three seek to undermine established myths and distortions about the past which have been propagated, mainly by the right-wing Hindu nationalists. Govind Pansare’s Shivaji Konn Hota which has been translated into seven languages and sold more than a staggering 200,000 copies, seeks to recover the figure of Shivaji from the clutches of Hindu nationalists who have cast him as an anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic national hero and figure who stood up to oppressive Mughal rule and instead describes a charismatic leader who was far from bigoted in his religious views and was able to treat his followers from all religions with a remarkable degree of fairness, inspiring immense levels of personal loyalty. Pansare, it should be noted, was a well-known rationalist who was assassinated in 2015 by unidentified gunmen while out for his regular morning walk. The journalist Tony Joseph’s book Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From using pioneering genetic research, along with recent advances in archaeology, anthropology and linguistics provides answers to controversial questions such as: whether there was an “Aryan invasion,” what the exact difference between North and South Indians are and the nature as well as the evolution of the caste system. Joseph’s book which was critically acclaimed and won several awards, provided uncomfortable answers to these questions that challenged long-held cherished myths about the origins of Indian society and its composition and was also another huge bestseller, selling over 100,000 copies. Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth by Audrey Truschke as the title implies aims to remove the popular myths that colour perceptions of Aurangzeb, often cast as an anti-Hindu zealot and an Islamic religious fanatic who was an oppressive emperor; offering a more sophisticated and nuanced interpretation of the ruler, placing many of his more controversial actions within the contexts of his times. This volume too was a popular bestseller at over 75,000 copies.
What all these works have in common also, is the genuine popular debate they instigated across several forums and media — ranging from WhatsApp groups, Reddit thread, blogs, and other social media platforms — that debated, contested, many times in heated terms, over their findings, which despite the bad tempers occasionally on display shows that there is a receptive market for popular histories. So, contra to Dalrymple popular history writing is alive and if not thriving very much present as a genre in India.
There is moreover a symbiotic rather than adversarial relationship between the popular historian and the academic historian (of course oft-times the two are one and the same personage) as the popular historian Swapna Liddle notes the popular historian frequently relies on the scholarship and research of the professional academic historian and in most cases would not be able to write popular histories without being able to rest on such a foundation. As the academic historian Vanya Vaidehi Bhargava cogently states the difference between the two types of histories are that a popular historian “seeks to convey history accessibly to the public. An academic historian primarily aims to contribute originally to and advance a specialised body of historical knowledge.” The different nature of the target audiences in mind produce two very different kinds of texts: one writes for the broader public intending to collate and simplify a mass of primary historical research, knowledge and debates into a single easily understandable text while the other seeks to advance the boundaries of specialised knowledge by talking to other specialists in the field who will be familiar with the intricate methodologies, concepts and terminology used by experts to interact with each other.
Although the argument still centres on defining the different roles of popular and academic historians and, understandably, discusses the need for adjustments in teaching and knowledge-production strategies, a fresh viewpoint can be brought in by examining the problem from the perspective of history consumers and how they view the discipline. Over the previous decade, there has been a permanent shift in both perception and consumption of the subject, as well as its scholarship. Distancing from Ghosh’s argument that history remains a dud boring subject at the school level and is taught in a way that “kills its joy of learning,” which is, at least partially outdated, it must be noted that history has become, at the very least, an interesting, albeit intellectually misplaced, subject.
Interest in the discipline has been reinvigorated by the ruling regime’s use of “history and historical narrative” as a weapon for political control and ideological propagation. However, this interest is not in learning and rediscovering the discipline, but rather in validating ideological biases through a cycle of distorted socio-cultural and political recreation, reinterpretation, and propagation of a past that justifies the realities of the present. In this process, methods such as deliberate deletion of certain historical contexts and facts from standard textbooks, misinterpretation of historical debates, and rewriting of the narrative through the prism of populism were used, followed by continued propagation of these same ideas through mainstream media and the infamous IT cell, of which WhatsApp is a part. The hegemony of a biassed historical narrative is so strong in the minds of its readers that they either reject all other viewpoints outright or do not alter their thinking even after being corrected by facts and proof. Therefore, it is not a stretch to say that, despite all of its advantages and disadvantages, history has turned into a religious tenet in India. It has become less a matter of scholarship and evidence and more a matter of faith. This is a belief that one must cling to in order to not only defend the politics of caste supremacy, religious communalism, and patriarchal hegemony, but also to absolve oneself of any guilt and accountability for regularly taking part in the oppression and marginalisation of others.
Furthermore, as Ghosh has noted for Indians “history is what they have read in school textbooks,” and this is for most Indians their first and sole encounter with history as an academic discipline. This raises two issues: firstly, as the historical novelist Hilary Mantel comments “readers are touchingly loyal to the first history they learn – and if you challenge it, it’s as if you are taking away their childhoods.” First impressions count and those who can shape and control those impressions gain a significant advantage in the field. It is after all why America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, whose letters popularised the discovery of the New World, as opposed to the navigators John Cabot or Giovanni da Verrazzano who actually landed and explored the continent before him. The historical accounts imprinted onto young minds at such an impressionable age leave their mark and are difficult as Mantel notes to change or challenge. Nation-states know this all too well; which is why school teaching of history is a mix between pedagogy and propaganda that consists of nation-building- as the goal of the state funded school system is not to turn out professional academic historians, that is the task of universities, but to produce responsible and loyal citizens for the nation-state.
As Mantel further notes “Nations are built on wishful versions of their origins: stories in which our forefathers were giants, of one kind or another. This is how we live in the world: romancing.” In the era before nationalism, such romancing was akin to that of the traditional Freudian Family Romance, where the fantasy would be about having aristocratic connections or coming from a divinely blessed heroic lineage, in the modern era the fantasy of belonging took on that of another form: the nation. Nations, no less than individuals, do not like to be reminded of their faults and their mistakes; What is left out and what is put into historical teaching and narratives in the educational system is intentionally part of the nation-building project that every nation-state is involved in; and it is intended to yield very particular results. Most nation-states want a citizenry that is proud of their national identity and national past; it’s why the more dubious periods of a nation’s history tend to be excluded or obscured, with the attendant distorted historical perspectives that ensue- one reason why poll after poll has found that a plurality of British citizens regard the British Empire as a benign force with positive impact for the good, one of the most recent being the YouGov poll of 2016, where 43% held the former view with only 19% saying that it was overall a negative phenomenon.
Even in those cases where a defeated and occupied nation has to account for the trauma it has caused, the lessons are never really accepted or take a distorted form. Japan’s refusal to incorporate the excessed and war crimes committed by its armed forces during World War II and painful episodes such as the treatment of the euphemistically titled “comfort women” are an example of the former and Germany’s particularistic understanding of the Holocaust which elevates it to a unique event, for which Germany accepts historical and moral responsibility for and commemorates annually on the surface, appears to be an exemplar case of a nation-state coming to grip with its dark past but a closer examination reveals serious problems and absences in Germany’s “memory culture” where as part of it Israel’s security was declared an essential part of Germany’s Staatsraison (“reason for existing”) overlooking the brutal treatment of the Palestinians by Israel from the Nakba of 1948 to the ethnic cleansing and mass killing of civilians taking place in Gaza in the wake of Israel’s assault on the territory after October 2023. The absences are indicated by the still deep–rooted problems with racism and anti-Semitism Germany has. Recent high–profile attacks, such as the shootings in the German cities of Halle in 2019 and Hanau in 2020—targeting Jews and non-white ethnic minorities respectively—alongside the meteoric rise of the far–right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, suggest that Germany has done little to address present–day systems of oppression despite its extensive attempts to confront its Nazi past. This presents an obvious contradiction: a supposedly world–leading memory culture failing to address serious problems with racism and the far right in the present. Clearly, it is no easy task to integrate the lessons from the past to a historical awareness in the present.
Part of the solution must lie in not only the teaching of history but also the teaching of and understanding of historiography within the discipline, even at a school-level; which is to say a grasp of both the theory and philosophy of history and history writing. Much of which will enable the student to understand the background and motivations of different types of historian and recognise different types of history and well as reflect critically upon the historical narratives being taught. For any worthwhile history must inculcate a constant sense of self-questioning and leave room for uncertainty and doubt. A healthy dose of scepticism will enable to student to not only recognise both the weaknesses and strengths of history being presented but will also be an inoculation against propaganda masquerading as history both in its crude and subtle forms. It can provide a self-awareness both when reading history and also of historical traditions and prejudices which tend to persist in different national contexts over time, for example as the historian Kiran Kumbhar asks, “Why do so many of our compatriots like to claim that every great thing in the world originated ‘first in India’?!” which along with histories that seek to present the ancient Indian past as a glorious period of prosperity and scientific advancement when India was a major civilisational power with a proportionately large influence on global affairs are two common tropes that one encounters in a lot of popular and even academic history writing.
The answer, as Kumbhar outlines is provided eloquently by the doyenne of ancient Indian academic historians Romila Thapar in her 1982 essay “Ideology and the Interpretation of Early Indian History” where she argued:
“Historians such as H. C. Raychaudhuri, K. P. Jayaswal, R. C. Majumdar, R. K. Mookerjee, and H. C. Ojha, among others, continued to write political and dynastic history in the main, but their interpretations were based on a clearly nationalistic point of view. There was an unashamed glorification of the ancient Indian past. This was in part a reaction to the criticism of Mill and other writers and in part a necessary step in the building of national self-respect. The glorious past was also a compensation for the humiliating present…”
This ressentiment against colonial stereotyping of Indian history has had a long influence in Indian historiography both in the mainstream historical writing as attested to by Thapar and in its Hindu Nationalist incarnations which uncritically accepted the colonial periodization of an ancient ‘golden period’ (needless to say a Hindu one) followed by a slide into the medieval “dark ages” under Islamic rule, followed by the arrival of modernity under British colonialism. The communal implications of this narrative are quite apparent and have been utilized by Hindutva ideologues from Savarkar onwards in their account of Indian history. In a more complex vein, it leaves a type of sense of being wrongly denied one’s rightful place in history and of a fall from grace which has yet to be fulfilled (a task which Hindu Nationalists of course feel they are uniquely and timely suited to complete). As Ghosh notes plaintively “the tragedy is very few [of his students] know how to think and read historically!” Within this perspective, it is easy to see how Dalrymple’s latest book- “The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World” which seeks to show India’s influence through networks of trade, ideas, religion, goods as well as people had a huge impact in the ancient world from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and even into Europe is designed to appeal to its audience. The attraction of the central thesis of this history to a (nationalist of several hues) Indian audience does not need to be overtly stated and the intention of the historian who puts together such a narrative with its marketable impact, likewise does not need to be over-stated either. None of this in anyway detracts or questions the scholarship or findings of the work in question, all of which rest on solid foundations.
It does however behove us to be careful and critical readers of history: to be aware of who exactly is writing a history, for what purpose and for which audience. Only then will we both as consumers of popular histories as well readers of specialised academic ones, being able to arrive at a balanced understanding and assessment of the interpretations of the past we are being offered.
Conrad Kunal Barwa is a senior research analyst at a private think-tank, and a senior research associate at the Birmingham Business School. Abhinandan Pandey is a post-graduate researcher in History and is a published Urdu poet
