Historiography in Modern India by Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (1967)

HISTORIOGRAPHY IN MODERN INDIA

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar

Heras Memorial Lectures
1967

Contents

I Historiography in Europe and its Influence on the
Writing of Indian History in the First Half of
the Nineteenth Century

II Development of Indian Historiography since the
Middle of the Nineteenth Century

III Shortcomings in Indian Historiography

First Lecture

Historiography in Europe and its Influence on the Writing of Indian History in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

It proposes to discuss in three lectures the development of
historiography in India since CE 1800. As in many other
branches of knowledge and departments of study, India was
profoundly influenced by Western ideas in the conception of
history and the principles of writing it, and the old ideas and
methods were changed almost beyond recognition. Tn order
to understand properly the nature and extent of this great
change it is necessary to begin with a brief account of the
origin and development of modern historiography in Europe,
and an analysis of its essential features which exercised great
influence on the writing of Indian history in modern times.

Historiography in the Medieval Age in Europe is represented by a number of chronicles. In the seventeenth century appeared a number of historical works which dealt with the events in which the author himself took some part, and/or those which happened in the immediate past, of which living traditions were still available.

In either case the events recorded from personal knowledge
of the author may be regarded as fairly authentic, subject to
those tests which must be applied to all such documents of all
ages in order to eliminate personal factors which may vitiate

or diminish its authenticity. But so far as the account of the
period anterior to the author is concerned —and this must
have been the case of the majority of historical works — the
principles followed in writing them suffered from several
serious defects, which may be enumerated as follows:

The first defect was the lack of critical spirit. More or less
absolute reliance was placed on whatever was recorded in any
older book. The authors never felt the need of examining
critically the authenticity of the sources from which they
derived their information. They were accepted without question,
and well-established traditions were regarded as authentic facts.
What was worse still, no attempt was made to distinguish
myths and legends from what may be reasonably regarded as
historical facts.

The second defect was the limitation of the scope of history.
The Christian church formed the main theme of historians
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Gradually
subjects of secular character were taken up, but even then
political history formed the main, if not the exclusive, subject
of study.

Lastly, there was a tendency to attribute important events to the interposition of Providence by way of vindicating religious and moral principles, and no attempt was made to look for natural causes of events.

A reaction against all these began with the Renaissance
which brought about secularization of thought. The brooding
asceticism was replaced by a pride in man and his mental
power, and speculations on his spiritual nature and future
prospects gave place to inquiries into his actual achievements
on this earth. This spirit had its repercussions on history.
Documents were critically studied and many were rejected as
forgeries. Traditions and legends were confronted with a
skeptical spirit. The great French publicist Bodin approached
history in a thoroughly scientific spirit and laid down the
principle that in judging of the views and values of a writer
due weight must be given to such factors as his personal
position, patriotic and religious bias, and above all, the opportunitynity he possessed of knowing facts about the topic he related. He also drew attention to the influence of geography, climate
and soil on the character of the people and history of nations.

With the progress of time greater attention was paid to a
systematic and exhaustive collection of source materials, and
a far more critical attitude was adopted in assessing their value.
Other improvements also followed. Attention was paid to
the literary excellence of historical narrative so as to make it
interesting to readers. The scope of history was widened so
as to make it the real history of mankind by describing not
only political events and political institutions, but also the
moral, social, economic, artistic and literary life of the people.
Serious attempts were made to survey civilization as a whole,
and there were various philosophical interpretations of the
progress of humanity as a whole on the basis of authenticated
facts.

Two great historians, Niebuhr and Ranke, may be cited as
the best representatives of the new spirit of historiographv
which reached its high-water mark in the nineteenth century.

Niebuhr (1776-1831) has been described by an eminent
critic as “the first commanding figure in modern historio-
graphy, the scholar who raised history from a subordinate
place to the dignity of an independent science.’’ Niebuhr
evolved some fundamental principles while writing the history
of Rome. ‘“‘ No one before him regarded Rome as above all a
great State, the institutions of which, political, legal and
economic, must be traced to their origin and followed through
their successive changes. He made a critical examination of
the sources and credibility of early Roman history and rightly
rejected much of the narrative that was then generally accepted
as history.” He laid down the first and the most fundamental principle which should guide the students of history, and any historian deviating from it, even with the best of
motives, can only do so at his peril. As J consider this to be
the highest ideal which an Indian historian needs to be re-
minded of every day and every moment in his life, I make no excuse for quoting his own words.

‘In laying down the pen we must be able to say in the sight
of God, ‘I have not knowingly, nor without earnest investi-
gation, written anything which is not true’.’ He was not
unaware of the risk involved in giving effect to this high principle.

Referring to the new points of view, sometimes radically
different from the current orthodox notion of long standing,
he said: ‘One could not have maintained these things in
earlier times without danger to life and liberty. Philologists
would have cried treachery, the theologians high treason, and
public opinion would have stoned one.”’> Unfortunately such
dangers are not altogether things of the past. We all know
how in his own country and other Fascist and Communist
countries, truth was the first casualty not only in times of war, as
always happens, but even in times of peace, and history has
been the worst sufferer. The disease has, however, proved
epidemic and in our own country there are ominous signs that
history is slowly deviating from the great ideal of truth in the
name of patriotism, communal harmony, national integration
and other such high-sounding phrases. I shall have occasion
to give concrete illustrations of this degeneration of historio-
graphy that is slowly taking place before our very eyes.

As regards Ranke, the other great representative of modern historiography, the beginning of the critical era of historiography is commonly held to date from the publication of his first work, Histories of the Romance (Latin) and Teutonic Peoples,
published in 1824. In his famous discussion of the authorities,
in an Appendix to this work, Ranke applied to modern history
the principles which Niebuhr evolved in regard to ancient
history. He adopted the maxims that the nearest witness to
the event was the best, and that the letters of the actors were
of more value than the anecdotes of the chronicles. To these
he added a novel method of assessing the value of a written
document, namely to determine the personality of the writer
and to inquire whence he derived his information. The value
of his testimony is to be judged by his intellectual make-up
and the motive by which he was inspired to write. By rigorous
application of this method he proved the absolutely unreliable
character of many source materials which were till then re-
garded as highly valuable.

Ranke has the same scrupulous regard for truth as Niebuhr, In his Preface to the book mentioned above, he says:

“I found by comparison that the truth was more interesting and beautiful than the romance. I turned away from it and resolved to avoid all invention and imagination in my works and stick to fact.”

Again, “history has had assigned to it the task of judging
the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of the ages
to come. To such lofty functions this work does not aspire.
Its aim is merely to show what actually occurred.”

This book — the earliest work of the greatest of modern
historians — constituted a distinct advance in the objective
treatment of European history. It is not necessary to discuss
any further the development of historiography in Europe as
enough has been said to indicate its general trends and
fundamental principles.

It is, however, interesting to note that strange as it may
seem, these advanced ideas of historiography were not altogether unknown in India, although lack of historical writings is the weakest point in ancient Indian literature. Kalhana,
the only historian that ancient India can boast of, indicated
in the introductory verses of the Rajatarangini (History of
Kashmir) composed in the middle of the twelfth century, that he
fully understood the fundamental principles of modern historiography. In the first place, we are told that he studied not only eleven existing historical books on Kashmir but corrected
errors in them ‘by the inspection of ordinances of former
kings and laudatory inscriptions as well as written records’.
Secondly, he held that a true historian should, like a judge,
recount the events of the past after having discarded bias as
well as prejudice. Unfortunately, not only these ideals but
the very idea of writing history seemed to have passed away with
Kalhana without leaving any trace behind. As will be shown
later, the Hindus at the beginning of the nineteenth century
had no knowledge of their own history and their early attempts
to reconstruct it were not only crude but almost ridiculous.
Consequently the first English writers on Indian history
possessed very little knowledge of Ancient India, and though
they had fairly developed ideas of historiography their accounts
of Ancient India were very poor and sometimes even ridiculous.

For all practical purposes, therefore, the history of Ancient
India, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, was treated
in a very summary way and mainly as background of the history of the Muhammadan and British periods. So far as political history was concerned the knowledge was very meagre, and as
regards the culture of the Hindus, not much was known to the
English writers of Indian history whose number was not very
small.

Things were somewhat different as regards Medieval India.
The Englishmen had a fair knowledge of the Indian histories
written by the Muslims, and had interest in and capacity
to write history even in recent times. Henry Vansittart,
Governor of Bengal (1760-64), employed Salimullah to write
the history of Bengal which was translated into English by
Francis Gladwin under the title of A Narrative of Transactions
in Bengal. In 1783 Gladwin wrote his History of Hindustan
during the reigns of Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzib.

Ghulam Husain Salim wrote in Persian the Rryazus-Salatin in 1200 A.H. (A.D. 1787-88) at the request of his English employer. It mainly deals with the history of the Muslim rule in Bengal with a short introductory section on the Hindu period which is full of absurd tales, myths and legends and worthless as history. A more important historical work, also in Persian,
was written by Syed Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai in 1780.
The scope of the work is best described in the full title of the
book given by the author, of which a part reads as follows:

“ Siyar U’l Mutakherin or View of Modern Times being an History of India from 1118 to 1194 (A.H.= CE 1707 to 1780). . . and in particular an account of the English Wars in Bengal to which the author has added a critical examination of the English Government and policy in those countries.”

This book may be regarded as the latest and at the same
time the best history of India written by an Indian before the
modern historiography made its influence felt in this country.
As such it is not without interest to quote the views of the
author about the nature, object, and importance of writing
history, which truly reflects the tradition handed down by the
Medieval or Muslim historians of India.

History, in his opinion, gives us a ‘ glimpse into the most glorious part of the Creator’s performance’, affords information about different races of mankind, an insight into their institutions and good
qualities of their principal leaders, as well as into the actions of their followers, so that examples of the meanness, of insolence and of oppression may put others on their guard and reclaim them
from their shameful conduct. As no one had still then written the history ot India since the death of Aurangzib (1709), the author selected this period in order to supply the missing link in the long chain of events in the past history of India.’

Unfortunately, there was no trace of this distinctive trait of Muslim culture, viz. an inherent tendency to record past events, In India, during the 19th century. The tradition
Was, however, kept up by Englishmen. The oldest work that
merits attention is A History of the Military Transactions of
the British Nation in hindosthan from the year 1745 by Robert
Orme (1728-1801). published in 1764. He was educated at
Harrow, came to Caleutta in 1742, entered the East India
Company’s service in 1743, became a member of the Council at
Madras (1754-58), and was the historiographer to the East
India Company from 1769 tv 1801. In addition to the book mentioned above, he published in 1782 another work named Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, of the Morattoes and of the English Concerns in Hindustan from the year M. DC. LIX. It may be added that to the first mentioned book of his was also prefixed ‘A Dissertation on the Establishments made by Muhammadan Conquerors in India’.

As he was a contemporary of the events recorded in the first
book, it possesses great historical value even today as a source
book, and many subsequent writers freely drew information
from it. His ideas on the Mughals and Marathas were derived,
partly from personal investigation but mainly from hearsay and
secondary sources. Heing a foreigner he could not form any
clear conception on the subject and Jus statements are not of
much historical value now. It is, however, worthy of note that
Orme Was iuspired by ideas of modern historiography and
collected consideraple source materials, in the shape of printed
books and tracts and manuscripts, wlich are now preserved im
the India Office Library. There is no doubt that he had
studied some of the chronicles written by Muslim historians
during the Medieval Age, for he gives a brief but fair outline
of the Muslim ruling dynasties in India from the invasion of
Sind by Muhammad ibn Kasim in CE 708. He had no idea of the Hindu period and his brief account is prefaced by the following remark: ‘‘ The Indians have lost all memory of the
ages in which they began to believe in Vishnu, Isvara, Brahma
and a hundred thousand divinities subordinate to these. … The
history of these gods is a heap of the greatest absurdities.’
This statement probably represents the general knowledge of
the history and culture of the Hindus possessed by Englishmen
about the middle of the eighteenth century.

Towards the end of this century an attempt was made by
another historian, William Robertson, to collect information of
Ancient India preserved in the works of the classical writers.
His book, Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge
which the Ancients had of India, was published in 1792. He
begins with Alexander’s expedition and refers to the rise and
fall of the Greek domination in Bactria and North-Western India.
He then adds that since that time the only intercourse between
India and the Western countries was through trade, and gives
some account of it. In an Appendix he makes “observations
upon the genius, the manners and institutions of the people of
India’’. It is needless to add that he possessed very little
authentic knowledge of India beyond what he found in the
accounts of the Classical Writers. Some idea of the archaic
character of his views may be formed from the fact that he
identified Palibothra, the capital of Sandrocottus, i.e. the
Maurya Candragupta, with the city of Allahabad, though there
is no doubt today that it occupied the site where stands the
city of Patna, capital of Bihar.

The first great historian of India was James Mill (1773-1836),
father of John Stuart Mill and friend of Bentham, Ricardo,
Joseph Hume and George Grote. He was a prolific writer,
held very pronounced views on political economy, utilitarian-
ism and other subjects, and is regarded as the founder of
Philosophic Radicalism, though he was definitely against the
application of his advanced views to India. He began his
History of British India in 1806 and completed it in 1818.
Few historical books on India have received such high
encomium or maintained popularity over such a long period
as this work. Macaulay referred to it as “ the greatest histori-
cal work which has appeared in our language since that of Gibbon.’” It earned a reputation as the standard history of
India immediately after its publication in 1818 and continued
as a textbook in Indian Universities for more than a century.
But it had its adverse critics also, both among Indians and
Englishmen. The former resented his denunciations of ancient
Indian culture, which were clearly due to both ignorance and
racial prejudice, and the latter did not like his harsh criticism
of the British rulers like Warren Hastings. Judging at this
distance of time, one cannot but admit that though Mill’s book
had great faults, it had also high merits, and he should justly be
regarded as a great historian with modern ideas of historio-
graphy, so far at least as the history of the British period is
concerned. His treatment of the history of the Hindu, Muslim
and the British period is of very unequal merits and must be
discussed separately. As this remark applies to many other
historians of India in modern times, it would be better from
this stage of our discussion to treat separately the histories of
the three periods of India even though they were sometimes
written by the same person, and included in one and the same
book.

So far as Ancient India is concerned, the knowledge of its
history even among the learned Hindus was not only meagre
but sometimes even ridiculous. This would be quite evident
from one or two examples. When the Fort William College
was founded in A.p. 1800 for giving instructions to the officers
of the East India Company on India, a teacher of the College
and Chief Pandit of the Supreme Court, named Mrityunjay
Sharma, prepared a historical text in Bengali which was pub-
lished in i808. Even a cursory glance at this work would
convince anybody that it has absolutely no historical value.
Leaving aside the legendary kings who ruled in the three
epochs known as Satya, Treta and Dvapara Yuyus for more
than thirty-eight lakhs of years, it refers to the royal dynasties
ruling during the four thousand nine hundred and five years
which had elapsed since the beginning of the Kali age. One
hundred and nineteen Hindu kings sat on the throne of Delhi
during the first four thousand two hundred and sixty-seven
years. Among these Yudhisthira and Mahanandi are referred

to in the Puranas. But among the names of kings that follow
and are said to have ruled for more than two thousand years,
only Vikramaditya is known in legends, and the last king Prthu
may stand for Prthviraja. But all the other names such as
Samudrapal, Premdevi, Hariprem Vairagi Dhisen, Dvipa Sena,
Jivan Simha, etc., are absolutely unknown from any other
source. In the detailed account that follows, Ballalasena,
known to have been a king of Bengal, is said to have sat on the
throne of Delhi.

The source of this curious history seems to have been a
Sanskrit manuscript which I found in the Dacca University
collection. Both of these are worthless from the point of view
of history, but their importance lies in the fact that they fairly
indicate the amount of knowledge or rather ignorance, at least
in Bengal, regarding the Hindu period of Indian history. In
view of this we need hardly be surprised at the ignorance of
Ancient Indian history displayed by Robert Orme and William
Robertson, the two oldest writers on Indian history. But
they clearly confessed their ignorance rather than rely on silly
legends like the two Hindu writers mentioned above.

The ground for a more accurate knowledge of Ancient Indian
history began to be laid towards the end of the eighteenth
century by European scholars. They followed in the foot-
steps of those who had made similar attempts to recover the
history and culture of Greece such as Winckelmann, Zoga,
Wolf, and a host of other scholars in the eighteenth century.
These scholars surveyed the art and antiquities as well as the
literature of the Ancient World in a critical spirit. They had,
however, one great advantage which was denied to the Euro-
pean Indologists, namely the existence of political history
written by the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, India had no
Herodotus or Thucydides; so, the European Indologists first
turned their attention to the study of the cultural history of
India. The foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in
Calcutta in 1784 by Sir William Jones marks the beginning of
an organized attempt in this direction which bore fruit. When
James Mill wrote his History of British India and prefixed to
it an account of the ancient period, Indological research in
Ancient Indian culture had not proceeded very far, but enough
had already been written to give a fair idea of the high degree

of cultural development of the Hindus in the ancient period.
In particular Mill had before him the carefully studied
writings of William Jones and his colleagues expressing a high
degree of admiration for Hindu culture and civilization. But
Mill had a supreme contempt not only for these early Indo-
logists but also for those European travellers who had first-
hand knowledge of countries in East Asia and highly praised
the culture and civilization of the peoples. He denounced
the Jesuit who visited China and propagated ‘‘ the most hyper-
bolical ideas of the arts, the sciences and institutions of the
Chinese ’’’. He was surprised that “even to Voltaire, a keen-
eved and sceptical judge, the Chinese, of almost all nations,
are the objects of the loudest and most unqualified praise ’’.1°

Similarly, regarding India he observes: “ lt was unfortunate
that a mind so pure, so warm in the pursuit of truth, and so
devoted to oriental learning, as that of Sir William Jones,
should have adopted the hypothesis of a high state of civiliza-
tion in the principal countries of Asia.”

He then advances two arguments in support of his rejecting the views of Sir William Jones. The first may be stated in his own words:

“ Beside the illusions with which the fancy magnifies the
importance of a favourite pursuit, Sir William was actuated
by the virtuous design of exalting the Hindus in the eyes of
their European masters; and thence ameliorating the temper
of the Government.’’!

This is a gratuitous assumption and not an argument worth
serious consideration. The second argument is_ positively
ludicrous. He points out the vast difference between the
professions and practice of the Hindus, as described by the
travellers themselves: ‘“‘In the same breath that they extol
the wonderful strength of filial piety they speak of the common
practice of exposing infants; the strict morality and cere-
monious conduct of the people are followed by a list of the
most gross debaucheries’’, etc.!° It is forgotten by James Mill that the existence of evils, which are of comparatively recent growth
or confined to small sections in a vast population, does not
necessarily detract from the high standard of morality for which
an ancient society might be justly famous. He also forgets —
and this is the more inexcusable — that Sir William Jones refers
to the dim past of a society from the evidence of authentic
literature belonging to a remote past, which is not affected by
the degenerate condition of the same society which we witness
today after the lapse of two thousand years. Following the
same argument one would be fully justified in dismissing as
myth the stories of the greatness of Greek and Roman civiliza-
tions by considering the condition of Greece and Italy in the
eighteenth century. But Mill was not prepared to believe that
like the Romans and Greeks of the present dav the Hindus were
formerly in a “state of high civilization.” He believes that
it was a “‘ gratuitous assumption’ and a theory “ invented to
preserve a pre-established and favourite creed ’’—“it was not
an inference from what was already known.’!4 In _ other
words, Mill, who probably had never studied the original
sources of information about Ancient Indian civilizations,
rejected the views of William Jones who did.

The following observations of Mill about the Hindus, to
which many others of similar import may be added from his
long rambling dissertation on the Hindu culture, serve as an
excellent illustration of the fact that in truth, the eminent
historian of British India fully lays himself open to the charge
which he has falsely brought against Jones.

“ Their laws and institutions are adapted to the very state
of society which those who visit them now behold,… such
as could neither begin, nor exist, under any other than one of
the rudest and weakest states of the human mind. As the
manners, the arts and sciences of the ancient Hindus are
entirely correspondent with the state of their laws and institu-
tions, everything we know of the ancient state of Hindustan
conspires to prove that it was rude.’’!5

Mill lays emphasis on the word ‘ know’ in the above extract
and it may be quite true if we assume that he knew practically
nothing of the ancient Hindus. But his colossal ignorance he
sought to cover under specious arguments like the following:

“ If the Hindus had ever been placed in this pretended state of civilization, we know of no such period of calamity, as was sufficient to reduce them to a state of ignorance and barbarity.”” This one sentence is enough to prove that if Mill had little knowledge of the ancient Hindus, he knew much
less of the mediewal and practically nothing of the Hindus of his own time.

In forming a comparative estimate, Mill declares that the
“people of Europe, even during the feudal ages, were greatly
superior to the Hindus’’.’? Proceeding further he observes:
“In truth, the Hindu like the Eunuch, excels in the qualities
of a slave.””‘8 A few lines further on he remarks: ‘‘ In the still
more important qualities, which constitute what we call the
moral character, the Hindu ranks very low.’’’® After all this,
it scarcely surprises us to be told that ‘it will not admit of
any long dispute, that human nature in India gained, and
gained very considerably, by passing from a Hindu to a
Mohammadan government.’’?

No comment of mine is necessary upon this extraordinary
anti-Hindu outburst of a British historian of repute. It would
suffice to quote a part of the comments of the great Oriental
scholar, Horace Hayman Wilson, who brought out a new edition
of Mill’s History with notes and continued Mill’s narrative from
the year 1805, where it ended, to the year 1835.

Referring to Mill’s views regarding the superiority of Muslims
to the Hindus, as mentioned above, Wilson added the following
note at the end of Volume II of Mill’s History.

‘This superior intellectual advancement of the Mohammedan
nations, so confidently asserted, as a fact, is no fact at all, nor
has any proof of it been adduced. The analogies upon which
it is based, have been shown to be inaccurate, and the com-
parison involves a total disregard of time and circumstance.
The question formerly discussed, was not what the Arabs,
Persians, Turks, and Hindus now are, but what thev were.
Admitting that the three former have attained since the eighth
century a level with the Hindus, it may most confidently be
denied that the Arabs before the time of the Khalifat, or
the Turks before that of Jangiz, were on a par with Hindu civilization. It would be equally consistent to assert, that because the progress made by the inhabitants of Great Britain, has left the Hindus behind; therefore the Britons in the days of Caesar were more civilized than the people of India.’’!

It is unnecessary after all this to consider in detail the views
expressed by Mill regarding the Hindus in Book II of his
History covering more than five hundred printed pages.
They deal with the chronology and ancient history, classifica-
tion in society, form of government, the laws, the taxes,
religion, manners, arts, and literature of the Hindus, and their
general purport may be guessed from the general reflections,
based on them, from which a few passages have been quoted
above. Mill has nothing but supreme contempt for those who
find any indication of civilization in any of these branches of
the achievement of the Hindus. It would be difficult to
nane another book, written by one possessing eminent quali-
fications as a historian, in which so much prodigious labour
has been misdirected to produce a historical work which by
any canon of criticism does not deserve the name. It is
specially worthy of note that while Orme and Robertson
confessed their ignorance and did not attempt the task, Mill
should have gone out of his way to prefix to his subject
proper a study, for which he possessed very poor equipment.
If Mill as a historian did not brilliantly shine forth in the main
part of his book dealing with British India, one might be
tempted to quote the well-known proverb — fools rush in where
angels fear to tread.

But Mill was certainly not a fool, and the question therefore
arises how to account for his voluminous dissertation on the
Hindus which brings such discredit upon his reputation as a
historian. No definite answer can be given — but the only
rational explanation seems to be that Mill suffered from a
strong dose of racial prejudice, and this sentiment, fed by his
ignorance of the subject, dissuaded him from acquiring or
appreciating even such knowledge as was within his reach,
however small it might be.

It is fortunate that the great defects of Mill in the treatment
of Ancient Indian history, as noted above, do not appear in the
subsequent writings of Europeans on Indian history such as

Sir John Malcolm’s Political History of India published in 1826.
Peter Auber, in his book, Rise and Progress of the British Power
in India, published in 1837, refers to the Hindu period, but
devotes only one page to it. He simply mentions Alexander’s
invasion after which we are told that India “ remained compara-
tively secure until the irruption of the Moslems… that scourge
of the human race.” It is significant that Auber who wrote
his book during the lifetime of Mill differed radically from him
both in his attitude towards the Muslims and his frank
ccnfession of ignorance about the history of the Hindus.

Two years after Auber’s book was published appeared the
History of India by Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859).
It was first published in 1839°* and dealt with only the Hindu
and Muhammadan periods. Elphinstone came out to India in
1795 at the age of 16 asa Writer in the East India Company’s
service and held many important administrative and diplomatic
posts in different parts of India till he retired from his off:ce
as Governor of Bombay in 1827. His History of India was
hailed as a great work, tor which he was called the Tacitus of
modern India.

Elphinstone had an intimate personal knowledge of the
Hindus and made an assiduous study of the available litera-
ture on Indian history. He was well acquainted with the de-
velopment of modern historiography and could easily distinguish
fables and legends from genuine history. He is the first histo-
rian of India who felt the need of a chronological framework
for the history of Ancient India. Unfortunately, the available
data were very inadequate, and the small success that he
achieved is truly remarkable. He dismissed the traditional
Hindu conception of the four vwgas extending over a period
of more than four million years and started the history of the
Hindus from the oldest fixed point known till then, namely the
compilation of the Rgveda, which he fixed at the fourtee: th
century before Christ, a conclusion which does not differ materially
from the general consensus of opinion on the subject held at the
present day. His attempt to fix the later chronology with the
help of the lists of kings given in the Puranas is also a charac-
teristically modern method, and for both of these he was indebted to the writings of Sir William Jones and Horace Hayman Wilson. He was also acquainted with the decipherment of Agoka’s inscriptions in 1837 by James Prinsep — an epoch-making discovery which for the first time placed the
chronology of ancient India on a scientific basis. This decipher-
ment, after a strenuous effort of seven years, was a direct
result of the development of historiography in Europe, which
at this time realized the importance of inscriptions in re-
constructing ancient history. Armed with all these contribu-
tions made by a group of Indologists, Elphinstone had no
difficulty in fixing approximately the date of Chandragupta Maurya’s accession towards the end of the fourth century BCE.

Then, counting backwards and forwards from this one fixed
point, he determined the approximate dates of the royal dynas-
ties mentioned in the Puranas from the Mahabharata War to
the age of the Guptas in the fourth century a.p. This very
process of fixing the chronology of Ancient India is followed
even today, and the approximate datings of Elphinstone are
not materially different from what is now generally accepted,
though some modifications have been rendered necessary by
archaeological discoveries of coins and inscriptions during the
long period of more than a century and a quarter that has
elapsed since the days of Elphinstone.

Beyond a bare enumeration of the succession of royal dynas-
ties on the basis of the Puranas Elphinstone has not made any
attempt to narrate the political history of Ancient India. It is
difficult to explain why he did not refer in some detail to the
conquests of Alexander, and the achievements of Chandragupta
Maurya and Asoka — important topics, a general account of
which is supplied by classical writers, Indian literature, and the
newly discovered inscriptions of Asoka, all of which were
known to him. His treatment of political history is very
meagre and somewhat uncritical even if we make due allowance
for the scanty data available in his time. But he showed a
deep appreciation of modern historiographical method by
laying great stress on the cultural achievement of the Hindus.
He has given long accounts of the administrative system,
society, religion, literature, philosophy, arts and_ science,
manners and customs, and trade and commerce, of the Hindus,
and has shown a true historical instinct by tracing their gradual changes in successive chronological periods. He also noted the
distinction between North and South India in these respects,
us Aryan culture penetrated into the south at a considerably
later date, and came into contact with the Dravidian culture
which was already a highly developed one. Elphinstone also
gives a brief outline of the political history of India south of
the Narmada river. What is still more interesting is the
description of the oversea trade and maritime activities of the
Hindus and their colonization of Java, Bali and other islands.

On the whole, it must be admitted that Elphinstone made
a critical use of the available historical materials, and the
foundations of the cultural history of Ancient India were well
and truly laid by him. This probably explains why, in spite
of its obvious errors of omission and commission, and the
archaic character of many of its statements, Elphinstone’s
History of India continued to be prescribed as a textbook
in the Universities for a long time. We may gather some
idea of the value attached to this book from a note in the
Historv of India written by John Clark Marshman. In the
preface to the edition of this book published in 1867
occurs a notice to the effect that the Syndicate of the
University of Calcutta intimated to the author that they
had adopted Mr. Elphinstone’s standard work in reference
to the Hindu and Muhammadan periods and desired the
present work to commence where he lett off, with the History of
the British empire in India. As a matter of fact, Elphinstone’s
History of India was prescribed as a textbook even when I
was a student in the first decade of this century, though as a
corrective and supplement, V. A. Smith’s Early History of
India, which deals only with the political history of Ancient
India, was added to it. The Hindu period in Elphinstone’s
History of India marks the end of the first stage of the de-
velopment of modern historiography and the beginning of
another which will be discussed in my next lecture.

It has not been possible, within the short compass of a
lecture, to refer to many British historians of India who were
contemporaries of Elphinstone or shortly followed him. In
spite of the defects and shortcomings of their works, more or
less common in those days, they have been of great help in
the development of historiography in the subsequent period.

In particular, many of them have noted new events and
supplied minute details of those otherwise known, from their
personal knowledge. Much of this valuable data has been
omitted from later historical texts, perhaps because they ceased
to be of living interest, or economy of space made it necessary
to omit it in order to make room for more recent events
which were naturally regarded as of far greater importance
in the lifetime of their authors. Thus even today many of
these books would prove very useful to those who would make
a special study of Indian history during the first half of
the nineteenth century. They also supply many interesting
contemporary views of men and things which we miss in later
writings, but seem to be of great value in making a
proper historical assessment of many events and personalities
associated with them.

These books may be divided into two classes, viz. General and Regional. To the first category belong:

Political History of India from 1784 to 1823, by Sir John Malcolm (1826), in two volumes; and the following three books by R. Montgomery Martin:

1. History of the Possessions of the Honourable East India
   Company, in two volumes (1837).
2. History, Antiquities, Topography, and Statistics of Eastern
   India, in three volumes (1838).
3. The Indian Empire — its History, Topography, Government,
   Finance, Commerce and Staple products with a full account
   of the Mutiny of Native Troops and an Exposition of the
   Social and Religious state of one hundred million subjects of
   the Crown of England.

To the second category belong a number of books which were long regarded as standard authorities on the subject and formed the main source of information of subsequent writers. Chief among these are:

1. Account of Assam, compiled by Francis Buchanan Hamilton (1807).
2. History of the Mahrattas, by James Grant Duff (1826).
3. Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, by James Tod (1829-32).

4. History of Bengal, by Marshman (1838).
5. Stirling’s History of Orissa (1846).
6. Cunningham’s History of the Sikhs (1849) which partially
   superseded two earlier books on the subject, one written
   by James Brown (1788), the first Englishman to write the
   history of the Sikhs, and another written by MacGregor on
   the same subject in two volumes published in 1846.

The list is by no means exhaustive, but is sufficiently long to show the keen interest taken by Europeans, mostly British, in the history of India, and to make us appreciate the deep debt of gratitude we owe to these foreign writers for the development of historiography in India before the middle of the nineteenth century.

Second Lecture

Development of Indian Historiography since the Middle of the Nineteenth Century

THE SECOND stage in the development of historiography ot
Ancient India was ushered in by more or less the same process
as that which had proved so successful in re-writing the
histories of Greece and Rome, and discovering the histories of
ancient Egypt and South-West Asia. The chief elements of
this process were:

(1) Critical study of the books and documents.

(2) Discovery and study of the old inscriptions and monuments by archaeological explorations and excavations.

As regards the first, organized attempts were made both by
Government and private individuals and institutions to make
regular search for old manuscripts and publish descriptive
catalogues of them. At the same time, the task of preparing
and publishing critical editions of important texts, and in
many cases their English translations, was seriously taken up
by individuals and institutions. Sir William Jones was a
pioneer in this field. He translated the Manu Samhita and
founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta in 1784 which
became the centre of organized research. Hundreds of articles
on Indian antiquities were published in the Journals of the
Society, and a large number of important books bearing upon
Ancient Indian history and culture were published in the Biblio
theca Indica series — both of which continue to this day.

A number of scholars followed in the footsteps of Sir William
Jones, among whom particular mention may be made of
Colebrooke, Wilson, and Burnouf. But the chief credit for
revealing the past history of India goes to the German scholars.
Though Colebrooke, a mathematician, made the Europeans
acquainted with the Veda as early as 1805, he failed to realize

its importance and thought that its study ‘“ would hardly
reward the labour of the reader, much less that of the trans-
lator.””‘ Burnouf traced the connection between the langu-
ages of the Rigveda and the Zend Avesta and demonstrated the
position of Sanskrit in the history of the Aryan nations. The
study was taken up by the German scholars, and Bopp, Grimm
and Humboldt established the intimate relationship arnong all
Aryan languages, the most primitive form of which has been
preserved in the language of the Rigveda. The editions and
translations of the different Vedic texts were taken up by
other scholars, but the crowning achievement was that of
Friedrich Max Miller, a German scholar settled in England, who edited the whole text of the Rigveda with the commentary of Sayana. He also wrote in 1859 the History of Sanskrit Literature, in which all the Sanskrit texts known till then were mapped out in chronological order. Another outstanding achievement
of Max Miller was the founding of the Sacred Books of the East
series which made «available in Enghsh translation the rich
store of source materials preserved in Sanskrit and Sanskritic
languages. His example was followed in later times by the
Pali Text Society and various other religious associations and
publishing firms.

The first attempt to utilize these newly discovered materials
in the form of a regular story of Ancient India was made by
Christian Lassen (1800-1876) whose great work, Jndische Alter-
thumskunde (Knowledge of Indian Antiquities), in four volumes,
was published between 1847 and 1861. He also founded the
famous German antiquarian periodical, Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde
des Morgenlandes, in 1837, and edited it till 1850. It is still current,
and along with Weber’s History of Sanskrit Literature and the
periodical publication, /ndische Studien (Indian Studies), made
the results of German research and scholarship tamiliar to the
learned world.

Side by side with the Brahmanical literature, Buddhist and
Jaina texts were edited or translated by Fausbdell and Jacobi,
and Oldenberg’s treatise on Buddhism held the field for many
years. A few Indian scholars also took up the work of
translating ancient texts. Rammohan Roy translated some

Upanisads, and at a later date Pandit Dayananda Sarasvati translated the Rigveda into Hindi, but they did not keep up to the critical standard of the European scholars mentioned above.

The influence of these studies on historiography is illustrated
by the work of Henry Beveridge, A Comprehensive History of
India, Civil, Military, and Social, from the first Landing of the
English to the Suppression of the Sepoy Revolt, including an out-
line of the Early History of Hindostan. It was published in
1865 and divided into three volumes. He claims in the
Preface that though a number of works relating to India have
appeared, his work differs from them in plan and was written
after due research and with strict impartiality.

This claim is not altogether unjustified. He had a very poor
idea of Hindu culture, but this was mainly due to ignorance
rather than racial prejudice. His difference from Mill will be
clear from the following passage in the Preface of the book:
‘Hinduism, though little better than a tissue of obscene and
monstrous fancies, not only counts its domination by thou-
sands of years, but can boast of having had among its votaries,
men who, in the ages in which they lived, extended the bound-
aries of knowledge, and carried some of the abstrusest of the
sciences to a height which they had never reached before.”

Even in dealing with the British period Beveridge followed
more faithfully the true principles of modern historiography
than even such noted historians as Elliot and V. A. Smith.
As will be shown later, he was free from the imperial senti-
ments which influenced the above two and many others, even
while writing the history of Medieval and Ancient India. In
dealing with the British period, Beveridge took the attitude
of a judge rather than that of an advocate while discussing
the merit of various actions taken by the Governors-General.
This is best seen in his attitude towards Hastings’s treatment
of Nanda Kumar and the annexation of Native States like
Awadh by Dalhousie. To these more detailed reference will
be made in my next lecture.

I may now continue the story of further discoveries of source
materials which introduced a new phase in the development
of historiography after Beveridge. While the efforts of scholars
brought to light the rich literary sources of Ancien: Indian history, another great source of materials was slowly revealing
itself before the historians. This is the discovery of inscriptions
scattered all over India. Such inscriptions came to light also
in other parts of the world, especially in Egypt and Mesopotamia,
but for thousands of years they remained merely obscure
symbols whose meaning and significance were absolutely un-
known. But here, again, European scholarship succeeded in
removing the obscurity after prolonged persistent efforts.
Lack of time would not permit me to tell the long and romantic
story of how Hieroglyphics in Egypt were deciphered by
Champollion in the twenties of the nineteenth century and the
last stage of the decipherment of the Cuneiform inscriptions in
Western Asia was successfully accomplished by Rawlinson in
1851, after endeavours of more than a century.

When scholars in Europe were busy with these tasks, James
Prinsep (1799-1840), Assay-master at the Calcutta Mint from
1832 to 1838, engaged himself in the study of a series of inscrip-
tions in unknown characters carved on rocks, pillars and rail-
ings of scripts. He had collected a large number of facsimiles
of these inscriptions in unknown alphabets, and for seven vears
it was his habit, every morning after breakfast, to spread them
an the table and to gaze and gaze at them — always haunted
by the fear that some German scholars would get the better
of the English, by deciphering them. At last the key to the
solution suddenly dawned upon him, and he deciphered the
Brahmi alphabet in which all these inscriptions were written.
As all the modern Indian alphabets were developed from this
Brahmi in regular stages of evolution, the inscriptions of all
ages and localities in India could be easily read. They not only
supplied valuable contemporary records of ancient Indian
history, hitherto almost wholly lacking, but also furnished a
good means of approximately dating them. Thus, for the first
time, the historians of Ancient India got a solid core of facts,
arranged in chronological order, and the evidence of inscriptions
was supplemented by ancient coins and monuments. All
these were mostly recovered by systematic archaeological
explorations and excavations undertaken by the Government
of India. These first took definite shape under Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893) who arrived in India as a cadet in 1833 and retired from the army as Major-General in 1861.

He was then made the first Archaeological Surveyor, and served
in this capacity from 1861 to 1865 when the Department was
abolished. When it was revived in 1870, Cunningham was
appointed Director and held this post till 1885. Cunningham
was not only the technical expert in carrying out excavations,
but his reports of annual tours contained notes and discussions
on many historical matters. Apart from this, he wrote the
Ancient Geography of India, published two volumes on the two
great stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut, and edited the Asoka
Inscriptions. The Archaeological Department was reorganized
and put on a permanent and much better footing by Lord
Curzon, and it is still carrying on its useful activities.

Although Cunningham and lis successors were not professional historians, they have contributed more to the development of authentic history of Ancient India than the latter by making available to them the materials dug up by spades from the bowels of the earth. It is a common saying that the pen is
mightier than the sword, but in the case of Indological studies even a spade, not to speak of a sword, has proved mightier than the pen. For much in the written documents has been discredited, disproved or cast into shade by the archaeological discoveries.

The critical edition and discussion of old literary works
bearing upon the history and culture of Ancient India, and the
study of inscriptions, coins and monuments of the period,
joined with the developed ideas of historiography imported
from the West, ushered in the third stage in the development
of historiography of Ancient India, the main feature of which
is an attempt to reconstruct the authentic history according to
the approved scientific method with the help of the new source
materials mentioned above. The early successful attempts
in this direction, before the end of the nineteenth century, were
made by J. F. Fleet and R. G. Bhandarkar in the domain of
political history of the Deccan, and by R. C. Dutt in the
cultural history of India as a whole. The Dynasties of Kanarese
Districts (1896) and the Farly History of the Deccan (1895),
respectively, by the first two, are still regarded as models of
political history, while these two, as well as A History of Civilization in Anctent’India by R. C. Dutt (1889), have been rendered somewhat out of date by later discoveries of new materials.

So far as the history of Medieval India is concerned, the
development of historiography shows a close resemblance to
that in Europe. For, corresponding to the Medieval Chronicles
of Europe there were chronicles of all the Muslim ruling dynas-
ties in India. The Tabagat-1-Nasivi by Minhaju’d-din, composed
in 1259-60. traced the history of Muslim rule in India up to
that period. Barani continued the history of Muslim rule in
India trom the point where Minhaju’d-din stopped till the sixth
regnal vear of Firtiiz Tughluq. For Firiiz Tughluq we have a
short history by the Emperor himself and another anonymous
historical work, Siv’at-i-Firtiz Shahi. For the Mughal period we
have either the biography or autobiography of the first six
Emperors, and official histories like dA’in-i-Akbari and Akbar-
nama. For the intervening period we have Tarikh-i-Mubdrak
Shahi, Tarikh-t-Sher Shahi, and a number of other chronicles.
There were also general histories like Futihu’s Salatin, Tarikh-
1-Ferishta, etc. There was thus a plethora of historical works
on Medieval India, offering a refreshing contrast to the striking
paucity of such books dealing with Ancient India. It is beyond
the scope of the present lectures to discuss in detail the value
of these medieval histories. It would suffice to state that the
conception of history by their authors was, generally speaking,
very high. Barani expressed his idea as follows: “ The
compiler of history must be a man of trust, veracity and
impartiality. If he records the virtues of a king or a celebrated
personality, he should not hide his vices and weaknesses.
The historian must, on the basis of religion, belief, truth and
conscience, be a recorder of truth and truth alone.”

How far Barani was true to his professions is another matter;
for like almost all medieval historians he deviated from this
noble ideal for fear of displeasing his royal patron and other
causes. To him, history was an element of divine truth, had a
didactic religious purpose, and was a branch of ethics. So
he twisted facts for moral reasons, and sometimes did not
regard the past as it was, but as it ought to have been accord-
ing to his own ideas. Similarly, Abi’l Fazl also professed a high
regard for truth, but has been accused not merely of flattery
but even of wilful concealment of facts.

The manuscripts of most of these books, written in Persian, were available to European historians in the eighteenth century, and Elliot’s monumental work History of India as told by its own
Historians, in eight volumes, published between 1867 and 1877,
made the English translation of important passages of these
texts available to the early English historians. Hence the
European scholars who wrote on Indian history had the means
of acquiring a far better knowledge of the history of Medieval
India than that of Ancient India. It was for this reason that
even the earliest English historian of India, namely Orme,
who was totally ignorant of Ancient India, possessed a far
ereater knowledge of the history of the Muslim period, as
mentioned above. That is why Mill’s treatment of the Muslim
period of Indian history marks a distinct advance over that
of the Hindu period.

As a matter of fact, the histories of Medieval India, almost up to the end of the nineteenth century, were all based on the Medieval Chronicles, specially Ferishta as translated by Alexander Dow (1768-72), Jonathan Scott (1794), and John Briggs (1829).

But in spite of great advantages it had one defect. The
English historians, having ready-made materials before them,
were less eager and active to look for new or first-hand source
materials, the need for which was thrust upon the historians of
Ancient India.

Thus the historiography of Medieval India at the beginning
of the nineteenth century had almost reached the stage which
that of Ancient India had attained only in the last quarter of
that century. But the further development of the historio-
graphy of both these periods ran on almost parallel lines. As
in the case of Ancient India, the progress in our knowledge of
Medieval India was rendered possible by the discovery of new
historical texts, critical study and interpretation as well as
English translation of these texts, and archaeological explora-
tions and excavations bringing to light coins and inscriptions
which enabled the historians to correct, modify, and supple-
ment the information supplied by historical chronicles. The
discovery and publication of the accounts written by foreign
travellers also enriched our knowledge of both Ancient and
“Medieval India in more or less the same Way.

But in spite of all the initial advantages, the historiography
of Medieval India did not show much greater progress than

that of Ancient India by the end of the nineteenth century.
No historical works on the political or cultural history of
Medieval India, comparable to those of Flect, Bhandarkar
and R. C. Dutt on Ancient India, appeared before the end of the
nineteenth century, though Stanley Lane Poole’s Medieval India
undcr Muhammadan Rule, published in 1903, shows some im-
provement upon Elphinstone’s history of the Muslim period.

It was not till the close of the nineteenth and the beginning
of the twentieth century that we come across a reaction to the
current historiography of Medieval India, which looked upon the
medieval historical chronicles as the main, if not the only,
source of history, and accepted its data without any critical
examination. The new school concentrated its attention on
the discovery and collection of original source materials,
consisting mainly of contemporary records. This great change
is associated with two names, Sir William Irvine and Sir
Jadunath Sarkar. Both were distinguished for the zeal,
industry, and critical spirit which they displayed in collecting
manuscripts and making full use of them. Irvine planned to
write the history of the later Mughals from the death of
Aurangzib in 1707 to the capture of Delhi by the English in 1803. He began the work in 1890 and was so conscientious in reading all available manuscript sources and _ scrutinizing
every detail that in twelve years he did not get beyond the
history of 1738, though he had collected materials up to that
of 1759. But he had to suspend the work in order to prepare
his monumental edition of Niccolao Manucci’s Travels in the
Mughal Empire which entailed seven years of hard labour,
and also to write his scholarly monograph, The Army of the
Indian Moghuls (1903). As a result, when he died in 1911,
the narrative had been brought down only to the year 1738.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar, who edited Irvine’s incomplete work (1922), himself continued the story of the Mughals from the point where Irvine left it, in his Nadir Shah (1922) and Fall of the Mughal Empire in four Volumes (1950). But his magnum opus was the History of Aurangzeb in five volumes (1912-24) which
is virtually a history of North India for nearly a century. A byproduct of this was his masterpiece, Shivaji (1919), which is regarded by some as the best of his books. He began his career as a historian, almost about the same time as Irvine, in the nineties of the last century. He had fortunately a long
life of 88 years from 1870 to 1958, more than six decades of which
he devoted to the pursuit of historical studies. He set a new
example in India of hunting for first-hand original documents
{rom various sources, and undertook long and tedious journeys
not only for this purpose, but also to make himself familiar
with the geography of the localities associated with his history.
He checked every detail and every document with meticulous
care. The tribute which Jadunath Sarkar paid to Irvine as a
historian? may be taken as a description admirably befitting
Jadunath himself: ‘‘ As a historian his most striking character-
istics were a thoroughness and an accuracy unsurpassed even
by the Germans. His ideal was the highest imaginable. A
historian ought to know everything, and, though that is an
impossibility, he should never despise any branch of learning
to which he has access. He brought light to bear on his
subject from every possible angle — English, Dutch, French,
Portuguese, Persian, Sanskrit, Rajasthani and Marathi records,
the State papers and contemporary or nearly contemporary
records of every description. As a conscientious writer he gave
exact reference for every statement.”’ Jadunath was a historian
of the Mughal Empire from Aurangzib to Shah ‘Alam II, and
also of the most brilliant epoch of Maratha history. He also
wrote on a variety of topics such as Economics, Religion, Art,
Military Art, and excelled in everything which he took up for
study. He has justly been compared with Ranke, Niebuhr,
and Mommsen, and hailed as the father of modern scientific
historiography in India. The credit for its development in
the twentieth century to which we shall refer later is justly
due to him.

Another contemporary scholar who followed the same line
of research was the Maratha historian V. K. Rajawade (1864-
1926). He, too, collected original sources and published 22
volumes of original materials for the history of the Marathas,
and corrected numerous errors in the current histories of the
Marathas written by Duff, Ranade and others. The mass of
gossiping Marathi bakhars which Duff contemptuously rejected
as worthless, formed invaluable materials in the hands of
Rajawade, Jadunath Sarkar and Sardesai.

So far as the Modern period, or to be more precise, the
rule of the British in India, is concerned, the writing of its
history started under good auspices. The earlier writers were
not professional historians and merely recorded contemporary
events or those about which they learnt from persons who lived
about the time of their occurrence. But although they never
intended to write either the general history of India or of any
particular phase or aspect of it, they furnished good materials for
the same. These, however, require careful scrutiny before they
can be accepted as authentic historical data, for their writers
did not always possess critical judgement, and not unoften were
either active participants or highly interested in the events
they related, and so looked at them from a partisan point of
view. Among writers of these types may be mentioned Watts,
Bolts, Scrafton, Verelst and Shore.

Of the professional historians reference has been made to James
Mill, Auber, Wilson, and Beveridge, and to this list may be added
Trotter, who wrote a comprehensive history of the British in India
from the verv beginning down to their owntimes. They had the
advantage of possessing a great deal of authentic information
on this period such as was lacking in respect of the earlier period
of Indian history, and profited by the development of historio-
graphy in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
to which detailed reference has been made in my first lecture.

The progress of Indian historiography in the twentieth century
is marked by almost all those characteristic features which formed
the basis of European historiography in its most developed stage.
As a matter of fact, it would be hardly an exaggeration to say
that the Indian historiography imbibed the highest ideals and
the best traditions of European historiography, though the
actual performance might not have reached the highest, or always
maintained the average, standard attained in Europe.

The notable features which characterized the development
of historiography in India in the twentieth century may be
listed as follows.

Collection of Source Materials

The archaeological explorations and excavations which had
begun in the nineteenth century and brought to light valuable

authentic materials for the reconstruction of ancient Indian
history were continued and became much more thorough,
regular, systematic and extensive in the twentieth century. Coins
and inscriptions of the Muslim period were also discovered in
large number and helped a great deal to correct the historical
chronicles and add to the information contained in them.

The most important archaeological discoveries in the twentieth
century were the ruins of Harappa, Mohenjodaro and many
other Chalcolithic sites which carried the history of India back
to the third millennium BCE., many centuries before the arrival
of the Aryans—~an event which had hitherto been regarded
as marking the beginning of Indian history and culture. Our
whole conception of the evolution of Hindu culture was
considerably modified by the knowledge of a highly developed
pre-Aryan culture on the soil of India.

The collection of manuscripts which had already commenced
in the nineteenth century became more systematic and organized,
and regular searches undertaken for the purpose in various
parts of India brought to light numerous manuscripts bearing
upon the culture and history of Ancient and Medieval India.
Critical editions and English translations of the more important
manuscripts enabled the historians to fully utilize them.
Reference may be made in this connection to a few well-known
series such as the Sacred Books of the East, Bibliotheca Indica,
and the publications of the Pali and Jaina canonical texts.
One of the latest and most remarkable achievements in this
line is the critical edition of the Mahabharata by the Bhandar-
kar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. So far as the Muslim
and the British periods are concerned, numerous original
records, both official and private, have been collected and a
portion of them has been published. The extent to which the
history of the Muslim period has benefited by such collections
may be judged by a comparison of the works of Sir William
Irvine, Sir Jadunath Sarkar and G. S. Sardesai on the history
of the Mughals and the Marathas with those on the same
subject written before them. As specimens of more important
works in this line may be mentioned, in addition to Rajawade’s
collection noted above, Selections from the Peshwa Daftar
completed in 45 volumes, edited by G. S. Sardesai and pub-
lished by the Bombay Government between 1929 and 1934,

and a new series by way of supplement edited by Dr. P. M.
Joshi; two volumes of Persian Records of Maratha history
translated into English with notes by Sir Jadunath Sarkar,
two collections of Marathi historical letters, originally published
by Sane and Parasnis, and a revised edition by Sardesai; and
the despatches, newsletters, etc., of several Maratha ruling
families and the Rajput State of Jaipur. Reference may also
be made to the collection of Assamese Buranjis (with critical
edition and translation) and Rajasthani Khyats and Ballads.
These are merely illustrative, and by no means exhaustive.

So far as the British rule is concerned, it is hardly necessary
to refer to the collection of records in the National Archives of
India in Delhi, and regional archives all over India, the Records
of various Residencies, Private papers of different Governors-
General, and high British officials, preserved in Britain, more and
more of which are now being thrown open to the public, the oldest
being Orme’s papers and the latest, those of Lord Curzon and Lord
Minto. Some valuable collections of State papers have been
published by G. Forrest and S. C. Hull, and a series of important
collections of papers are being published, under a systematic
plan adopted by the Indian Historical Records Commission.

Interpretation of the Materials

The collection of materials described above synchronized with
the efforts of a large number of scholars to study critically and
interpret the documents with a view to their proper use for
the purpose of writing the history of [ndia. These resulted in the
publications of books and articles covering the different historical
periods in almost all the regions of this vast subcontinent.
Generally speaking, the historians were inspired by the most
developed ideals of historiography, and though they are by no
means free from defects, these were not so much due to the
lack of knowledge and appreciation of these ideals, as to their
failure to act up to them due to various reasons. It is to be
remembered, however, that this is true not only of historians in,
or of, India, but of contemporary historians all over the world.
These defects will be considered later in some detail. Here it
is only necessary to emphasize two facts. First, the extensive
field covered by historians in the twentieth century, and

secondly, that the vast majority of them are Indians. Whereas
historians of India in the nineteenth century were mostly
Europeans, those of the twentieth century were mostly Indians.

Types of Historical Studies

An idea of the extensive character of historical studies in India may be obtained from the following brief statements about the different types of historical works in the twentieth century.

A. GENERAL HISTORIES OF INDIA

The first attempt of this kind resulted in the Cambridge History of India (1922-32). The plan was to devote two volumes each to the Hindu, Muslim and British periods, but the second volume,
which was to deal with the Hindu period after first century CE., has not been published. The last two volumes dealing
with the British rule in India formed parts of the Cambridge
History of the British Empire. These do not give any detailed
account of the Indian people and their culture.

The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan of Bombay has planned The History and Cutlure of the Indian People in eleven volumes, of which the first six, bringing the history up to CE 1526, and two of the last three volumes, dealing with the period from CE 1818 to 1947, are already published, and the last volume
will be out in 1969.

A Comprehensive History of India in 12 volumes, with
4 volumes to each of the three periods, was planned by the
Indian History Congress, but only the second volume dealing with
the period from 325 B.c. to CE 300, has been published (1957).

Reference may also be made to a plan _ initiated by
Dr. Rajendra Prasad to compile a history of India in 20 volumes,
but the plan was given up after the publication of only one
volume dealing with the Gupta Age. Another volume dealing
with the Nandas and Mauryas was subsequently published.
There are several textbooks dealing with the whole of India
written by British as well as Indian scholars. Far more critical
are several books dealing with the whole or select periods of
Ancient, Medieval, or British India. The best examples are,
The Dynastic History of Northern India by H. C. Ray (1932,
1936), and A Hztstory of South India by K. A. N. Sastri (1955).

B. MONOGRAPHS AND REGIONAL HISTORIES

Still more typical of the development of historiography and
of the new critical spirit which it introduced were the numerous
books dealing with prominent historical persons and dynasties
as well as regional histories. We have critical studies of
Candragupta Maurya, Asoka, Harsavardhana, ‘Alau’d-din Khalji,
Muhammad Tughluq, all the Mughul Emperors from Babur
to Aurangzib, Sivaji, Bajirao, Haidar ‘Ali, and Ranjit Singh,
to name only a few.

Less critical are the lives of most of the British Governors-General and many Indian political leaders including Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi.

Of the regional and dynastic histories reaching a_ high
standard trom every point of view, special mention may
be made of the following: Histories of Bengal, Assam,
Orissa, Bihar, Kanauj, and Vijayanagara; and of the Guptas,
Colas, Pandyas, Hoysalas, Calukyas, Rastrakitas, Caulukyas,
Gurjara-Pratiharas, Paramaras, Candellas, Rajputs, Marathas
and Sikhs.

C. THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT

The Centenary of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1957 led to a more
critical study of the subject and several books have been
written throwing new light on this very important episode.
The achievement of India’s freedom in 1947 has already
become a matter of history, and I wrote three volumes on this
subject during the years 1962-63, giving a general review of
the struggle for freedom till its attainment in 1947. The
Government of India has also sponsored a scheme for writing the
history of the Freedom Movement in three volumes. The first
volume, published in 1961, merely gives a general background
of political history and contains hardly anything concerning
the struggle for freedom from British yoke. The second volume
was published in 1967 just before these lectures were due to
be delivered, but no copy was available in Calcutta.

This volume ‘“‘ deals with India’s reaction to the British impact during the nineteenth century’”’ and, excepting an account of the ‘isolated and uncoordinated uprisings culminating in the tragic Revolt
of 1857’, contains very little having a direct bearing on the freedom Movement.

D. RESEARCH PAPERS

All these books as well as numerous learned papers read at
the meetings of the Indian History Congress, All-India
Oriental Conference and Indian Historical Records Commission,
or published in such standard journals as Journal of the Asvatic
Society, Calcutta and Bombay, Indian Antiquary, Indian
Historical Quarterly, and Journals of several Universities and
historical Societies, indicate the high-water mark of Indian
historiography.

But the outlook of Indian historians is no longer confined
mainly to political history as was the casein the nineteenth century.
The horizon of Indian historiography, like that of the West,
has been extended so as to bring within its scope allied branches
of study such as the system of administration, including consti-
tutional development in the case of British period, social and
economic conditions, and a broad view of cultural development,
specially in art, science, religion and literature. These subjects
have been included in the regional and dynastic histories as
well as in the three general histories of India, published in
Indiain the twentieth century, which have been mentioned above.
Special attention has been paid to the economic condition of
India under British rule. Following the footsteps of Digby
and Dadabhai Naoroji, R. C. Dutt initiated a regular and
critical study of the subject with his two books, India under
Early British Rule and India in the Victorian Age, published
respectively in 1901 and 1903. Since then a number of eminent
historians have written volumes on this subject, and it is
difficult to say whether, at the present moment, political or
economic history of India occupies the chief attention of the
historians of British India.

The conception of Indian history has been enlarged both in
width and depth. As regards the former, the Indian history
now includes the study of the expansion of Indian culture and
colonization beyond the geographical limits of India, more
specially in Central and South-Eastern Asia. This has led
further to the study of the cultural influence exercised by
India upon the rest of the world, and vice versa.

As regards depth, the gaze of the Indian historians not
anly peuetrates beyond the advent of the Aryans in the second miliennium 8 BC to the much earlier Harappa culture in the third or fourth millennium BC., but to the prehistoric period even beyond that limit. The study of potteries, a new branch of Indian archaeology unknown even in the first quarter of
this century, is now assuming greater and greater importance in this connection.

The evidence of pottery is of inestimable value for the
prehistoric period, of which no other evidence like coins,
inscriptions or architectural monuments, not to speak of written
chronicles, is available. As soon as human beings learnt the
use of fire for the purpose of cooking food, potteries became a
necessary article of their household. Being made of earth and,
therefore, not of much value, people never removed them
when they left their household, and broken potteries were,
of course, thrown away. So these remained where they were
used thousands of years before, as mute witness of human
settlements in those localities. Fortunately the arlistic instincts
and skill of men played a great role in the design and
painting of the potteries they used, and as these varied in the
course of ages, they supply means of roughly fixing the dates
when they were made. In this way it is possible to deduce
from potteries alone the earliest or latest date of human
settlements in deserted old sites.

A very interesting illustration of this, which has some bear-
ing on Indian historiography, is furnished by the potteries
unearthed at the site of the old city of Hastinapur (in Meerut
District, U.P.) by the archaeological excavation carried out
during the years 1950-52. It is narrated in the Puranas that
this legendary capital city of the Kuru kings of the Maha-
bharata was washed away by the Ganges, on the bank of which
it stood, and the ruling king, sixth in descent from Pariksit,
the grandson of Arjuna, shifted his capital to Kausambi. This
was hitherto treated as a mere legend, unsupported by any
reliable testimony. But the potteries found during the excava-
tion show that some time between 1100 and 800 BCE “ the
occupation of this site came to an end because of a heavy flood
in the Ganga which washed away a considerable portion of
the settlement.”’ Many modern historians who are inclined
to reject the evidence of the Puranas and Epics as mere legends would now be forced to revise their old opinions, and look at these literary sources from a new angle.

This is sure to influence the historiography of Ancient India.
We have here another illustration that even the spade, not to
speak of the sword, is mightier than the pen.

Third Lecture

Shortcomings in Indian Historiography

HAVING MADE a general review of the development of histo-
riography in india in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
I may now proceed to discuss how far it has maintained the
high standard reached in Europe. In order to avojd irrelevant
discussion on minor issues, it is necessary to lay down some
specific principles which in my opinion should form the basis of
judgement on the quality of historical works. I may mention
them one by one with short discussions on the validity of each.

The first thing necessary is to collect all the available data
on a subject on which one is going to write. It is, of course,
a counsel of perfection, and in actual practice nobody can be
sure that he has really studied all the materials relevant to
the discussion of a subject. But what is intended is that no one
should neglect, on any ground whatsoever, any particular class
of data, or deliberately avoid reference to them, when they
go against any preconceived theory or view. This may appear
to be a self-evident truth which nobody could possibly hesi-
tate to accept. But this is not always the case. I might cite
an actual case to illustrate what I mean. When an organized
attempt was made to write the history of Freedom Movement
in India, a directive was issued to research workers that they
should collect only such data about the outbreak of 1857 as
would prove that it was the first war of independence, and
not a mutiny of soldiers. The same authority also expressed
unwillingness to record the evidence of different groups of
revolutionaries on the ground that they would make confusion
and so only one particular revolutionary leader belonging to
his own group was selected to narrate his experience, while
no notice was taken of the rest. A still higher authority,
whose multifarious activities also embraced the writing of

history, at first refused to make the least mention of the acti-
vities of revolutionaries in connection with the history of the
Freedom Movement in India, for India, in his opinion, achieved
freedom only by non-violent means, and hence reference to
violent activities should not have any place in the history of
the Freedom Movement in India. These actual instances,
which may be easily multiplied to almost any extent, are cited
to show that even such a fundamental principle of history as
the consideration of all possible materials‘relevant to a subject,
before one proceeds to write upon it, is in practice not unoften
violated when one’s mind is obsessed with some preconceived
theories.

A far more difficult process is the allied problem of a
historian’s dealing with the evidence of facts collected in the
spirit of a judge and not of an advocate. As noted above,
expression was given to this view by the Indian historian
Kalhana, in the twelfth century, long before it was stressed in
modern historiography. This is now generally admitted to
be a self-evident truth, but history all over the world, as in
India, has perhaps suffered more from failure to observe it in
practice than from any other single cause. [Illustrations from
Indian history will be given later.

The next fundamental principle is to have a clear view
of the object of writing history. Here the question has been
much complicated by stressing quite different things as the
ultimate goal of history-writing. Apart from: less justifiable
aims or objects, such as the demonstration of divine justice,
triumph of virtue over vice, a process leading up to the
Christian revelation, ctc., even learned men have sometimes re-
garded history as unfolding a definite order, such as the story of
human freedom or a cycle of progress and evolution of mankind
according to a preconceived notion, and similar things, under
the influence of different views of the philosophy of history.
But whatever we may think of all these as legitimate objects
or purposes of writing history, it is necessary to stress the fact
that even admitting that there may be such a thing as
philosophy of history, the writing of history should not be tied to
its chariot-wheel and undertaken on a preconceived pattern —
that the one object it should always keep in view is to record
the doings of man with strict accuracy as to facts, and though

adequate and complete evidence is not available in all cases,
a historian must, in his reconstruction of the past, aim at the
nearest approach to the whole truth that he can attain.

i may express my own views in the matter by quoting those
of some eminent historians, regarded with estecm all over the
world.

As regards the philosophy of history H. A. L. Fisher, the great author of the History of Europe, sums up his view of it as follows:

“One intellectual excitement has, however, been denied
me. Men wiser and more learned than I have discovered in
history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These
harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emer-
gency following upon another as wave follows upon wave,
only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique,
there can. be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the
historian: that he should recognize in the development of
human destinies the play of the contingent and the unfore-
seen. This is not a doctrine of cynicism and despair. The
fact of progress is written plain and large on the page of
history; but progress is not a law of nature. The ground
gained by one generation may be lost by the next. The
thoughts of men may flow into the channels which lead to
disaster and barbarism.”

“This is a negative approach. But it clears the way for the
positive approach to the goal of history which is nothing more
and nothing less than that history must be regarded as an
eternal quest for truth. This is the primary consideration ~
the raison d’étre of history; everything else that may be regard-
ed as history is only secondary and subordinate to it. It is
much easier to accept this principle than to adhere to it in
both letter and spirit. As I have already mentioned, this was
laid down as the first principle of history by both Niebuhr and
Ranke, the two great commanding figures in modern historio-
eraphy. “In laying down the pen”, wrote Niebuhr, “ We
must be able to say in the sight of God, ‘I have not knowingly
nor without earnest investigation written anything which is not true’.

Ranke supplemented it by the following observation:

“History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of the ages to come. To such lofty functions this work does not aspire. Its aim is merely to show what actually occurred.’

I take all this to mean that truth, nothing but truth, and as
far as possible the whole truth, should form the steel frame
of history, on which you may build a structure according to
different plots, rhythms, plans or patterns in which you believe
according to your philosophy of history. Sir Charles Oman
seems to have found fault with Ranke. ‘A book”’, said he,
“must bear the impress of the author’s personality, and
inevitably of his moral judgement of men and things. The
attempt of certain worthy people to push self-restraint so far
that they merely record events without commenting on them
leads to the production of unreadable books.’ But this is
really not in contradiction with what Ranke says. Moral
judgement is welcome and even necessary, but only when the
facts are established with a scrupulous regard for truth,
without any influence of preconceived plan or judgement,
and afford sufficient materials for forming a valid judgement.

The last and perhaps the most important principle, which
is at the same time the most difficult process in the writing of
true history, is to make a purely objective approach like a
scientist. A historian must divest his mind of sentiments,
prejudices and preconceptions, and all kinds of human
emotions which are likely to distort his vision and judgement.
This is again a counsel of perfection, but must be held up as
an ideal, and the merit of a historian is to be judged by the
extent to which it has been possible for him to keep to this
ideal. As mentioned above, this ideal was also preached, in
theory, by the historians in Ancient and Medieval India, though
their deviation from it in actual practice is a patent fact. The
modern historians likewise fully accept the ideal, but have in
many cases violated it in practice.

(Preface to his book, On the Writing of History. But he agreed with
Ranke’s main standpoint. He had no faith, said he, in the “vague
theories of Progress and Evolution,’’ and held that ‘‘ history is a series
of happenings with no inevitability about it’ (ibid., p. 130).

It will now be my endeavour to deal in some detail with
deviations from the principles mentioned above, in the cases
of historians of India in the Modern Age, so that we may
form a general view of the merit of their performances.

Reference has been made above to the treatment of ancient
Indian history by James Mill who has violated practically all
the fundamental principles mentioned above. He has been
so much obsessed with prejudices against the Hindus, both
on racial and political grounds, that he has deliberately ignored
almost all the facts in their favour which were pointed out by
Orientalists like Sir William Jones, and has followed the
strange logic of judging their past history almost entirely by
a consideration of their abject condition at the time when he
wrote his history. Consequently he has argued as an advocate
and did not form his conclusions like a judge.

That such prejudices about the ancient Hindus influenced
English writers even a century later is illustrated by V. A.
Smith’s Ear/y History of India. It is an excellent history,
so far as the facts are concerned, and was justly hailed as the
first history of Ancient India written on the basis of the results
of the latest researches and archaeological explorations. But,
not unoften, when, following the principle of Sir Charles Oman,
mentioned above, he has passed judgement on the events, we
hear the voice of a British member of the Indian Civil Service.

At the end of the chapter on Harsavardhana he refers to the
subsequent history of the Hindu period as “ the bewildering
annals of Indian petty states when left to their own devices
for several centuries.”* Yet this period witnessed the growth
of the mighty empires of the Palas and Gurjara Pratiharas,
embracing nearly the whole or greater part of Northern India,
and that of the Colas which extended from Bengal to Cape
Comorin and also included overseas dominions across the Bay
of Bengal. He was not ignorant of these things, but wanted
specifically to impress upon the Indians the supreme benefits
of the British rule. For he immediately expresses the hope
that these bewildering annals of the petty states “may per-
haps serve to give the reader a notion of what India always
has been when released from the control of a supreme author-
ity, and what she would be again, if the hand of the benevolent

despotism which now holds her in its iron grasp should be
withdrawn.’ This is merely an enlarged version of the
laudable object which inspired Sir Henry Elliot to write his
history. Elliot, who stands midway between James Mill and
Vincent Smith, hoped that the materials he had collected for
the Medieval history of India in his eight volumes would
“make our native subjects more sensible of the immense
advantages accruing to them under the mildness and equity
of our rule.”? Comment on these is superfluous.

The spirit of British jingo imperialism is also manifest in the
genera! conception of V. A. Smith’s work as well as in stray re-
flections. In a book dealing with the early history of India from
600 BCE to the Muhammadan conquest at the end of the twelfth
century CE, 66 pages out of a total of 478 are devoted to the
Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, and this is announced
in the title of the book, evidently as a specific subject of great
importance. The reason for so doing appears from the follow-
ing observation on the whole campaign: “The triumphant
progress of Alexander from the Himalaya to the sea demons-
trated the inherent weakness of the greatest Asiatic armies
when confronted with European skill and discipline.” The
grotesque nature of this complacent superiority complex would
be apparent to anybody who remembers that the expression
Himalaya to the sea does not really mean the whole of India
as an unwary reader might honestly believe, but covers only
the Punjab and Sind, and the greatest Asiatic army which
Alexander had to confront in this region was that of Porus
who ruled over a kingdom probably not much bigger than a
modern district. The defeat of such a petty chief by one of
the greatest generals the world has ever seen, wielding the
resources of a mightv empire which included Greece, Western
Asia and Egypt, is held out by V. A. Smith as an evidence of
the inherent (mark the word) weakness of the greatest Asiatic
armies when confronted with European military skill.

But what is amusing, as well as instructive, is that the same V. A. Smith, while describing the discomfiture of Seleucus, the great, if not the greatest, general of Alexander, who ruled from the

Mediterranean to the Indus, at the hands of Candragupta
Maurya, draws no such inference about the relative inherent
weakness of the European and Asiatic armies, though the con-
tending parties were more or less on an equal footing on this
occasion. It is also worthy of note that while shining in the
reflected glory of European Alexander, his terrible and inhuman
massacres of men, women, and children in India are narrated
by V. A. Smith without a word of comment, far less condemnation.
A refreshing contrast is, however, afforded by another historian,
Henry Beveridge, whose Comprehensive History of India, Civil,
Military, and Social, was published in 1865. In the course of
his discussion of Alexander’s Indian campaign, kept within a
reasonable limit of six pages, Beveridge observes:

“The Indian expedition of Alexander cannot be justified
on moral grounds. It was dictated by a wild and ungovern-
able ambition; and spread misery and death among thou-
sands and tens of thousands who had done nothing to offend
him, and were peacefully pursuing their different branches
of industry, when he made his appearance among them like
a destroying demon. Such exploits, once deemed the only
avenues to fame, are now judged more wisely; still it is im-
possible to deny that conquerors were often in early times
pioneers of civilization, commerce following peacefully along
their bloody track and compensating for their devastation by
the blessings which it diffused. Such was certainly the result
of the Indian expedition of Alexander.’’ Difference between
earlier and later generations of British historians is also illus-
trated by their different attitudes towards the conduct of
Warren Hastings, specially in regard to Nanda Kumar, It
is well known how the early British historians severely con-
demned Hastings for having contrived the death of Nanda
Kumar on a charge of forgery, in order to save himself from
the charges of corruption brought by the latter against him.
James Mill says: ‘“‘ No transaction, perhaps, of his whole
administration more deeply tainted the reputation of Hastings,
than the tragedy of Nanda Kumar’’ According to Macaulay,
though the case against Nanda Kumar was instituted by
another man, “it was then, and still is, the opinion of everybody,
idiots and biographers excepted, that Hastings was the real mover in the business.’’! Beveridge also wrote articles in 1877-78 condemning Hastings. But in 1885 Sir James Fitzjames
Stephen, an advocate, published a big book in support of
Hastings and criticized not only Beveridge, who was then a
judge of the High Court, but also Mill and Macaulay. In reply
Beveridge published in 1886 his book, Trial of Nanda Kumar,
a narrative of judicial murder.

This controversy brings into limelight the difference be-
tween two generations of British historians, and also illustrates
the two distinct roles of the historian as judge and an ad-
vocate. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen was essentially a lawyer
and became the Legal Member of the Supreme Council. His
defence of Hastings shows him as an advocate at his best.
One of his arguments, which he elaborated at length, is that
when Nanda Kumar was tried and hanged, “the events
excited no disapproval. No one expressed even an isolated
opinion in Nun Comar’s favour. The majority of the council
contemptuously refused to stretch out a hand to save him.
Such public opinion as there was in Calcutta appears to have
been entirely against him.’’!

This is an ideal appeal to the Jury to wean their minds of
any sympathy towards Nanda Kumar. But, unfortunately,
the statements are not only absurd on the face of it but are a
string of half-truths or untruths. The real attitude of the
majority of the Council towards Hastings may be gathered
from their minutes dated 15 September and 21 November,
1775, which contain the following passage quoted by Stephen
himself on p. 251 of his book.

‘After the death ‘of Nanda Kumar, the Governor, I believe, is well assured that no man who regards his own safety will venture to stand forth as his accuser….

“Though he suffered for the crime of forgery, yet the
natives conceive he was executed for having dared to ‘prefer
complaints against the Governor-General…. This idea, how-
ever destitute of foundation, is prevalent among the natives,
and will naturally deter them from making discoveries which
may be attended with the same fatal consequences to themselves.

(Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey, Vol, 1, p. 249)

Punishment is usually intended as an example to prevent the commission of crimes; in this instance we fear it has served to prevent the discovery of them.”

As regards the alleged indifference of the public to the fate of Nanda Kumar, reference may be made to the following account of the execution by the Sheriff quoted on p. 240 of Stephen’s book.

“The howlings and lamentations of the poor wretched
people who were taking their last leave of him are not to be
described, I have hardly recovered from the first shock while
I write this about three hours afterwards.”

Captain Cowe’s evidence, quoted on p. 246 of Stephen’s book,
also refers to the excitement of the eight or ten thousand
people who suddenly dispersed crying ‘ Ah-baup-are’ (exclamation
when they are in great pain) and many of them ran into the
river from terror at seeing a Brahman executed in that igno-
minious manner. Again, Stephen’s book (p. 247) quotes the
following passage from a letter written by a native gentleman
to a Judge of the High Court. “I am told on enquiry that
Calcutta was looked upon with horror for several years after
the event, but the feeling died out long ago. The statement
however that a number of families left Calcutta and settled
in Bally in consequence of the execution is quite correct.”

Now, whatever might be the value of Stephen’s opinion about the legality of the sentence passed against Nanda Kumar, the attempt to prove that there was no public sympathy in his favour definitely relegates Stephen to the category of a historian of the type of advocate and not judge.

The histories of India written by British authors suffer from
this defect, particularly in relation to the annexation of the
dominions of Indian rulers by the British. The general policy
of the Government was to give the dog a bad name and then
hang it. This is best illustrated by the aggressive imperial-
ism of Governor-General Bentinck in respect of Mysore,
Coorg, Cachar, and Jaintia, of Lansdowne against Manipur,
of Dalhousie against Awadh and the Punjab, etc. Unfortunately, British historians blindly accepted the official version. V. A. Smith’s detailed account of the alleged sins and crimes
of the Raja of Coorg, and very brief reference to the annexation of Cachar, Jaintia, Manipur, and Mysore, are eloquent examples of suppression of known facts and misrepresentation
of events. In the Cambridge History of India the annexations
of Mysore, Coorg, Cachar, and Jaintia are all described in ten
lines. Here, again, there were one or two earlier British historians who told the truth, and this only makes the shortcomings of the later historians all the more inexcusable.

I have referred above to earlier and later British historians and emphasized the difference between the two in respect of their histories of the British period. The comparative superiority of the former is thus accounted for by two British historians, Edward Thompson and G. T. Garratt, in a bibliographical note to their book, Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, published in 1934.

‘“Of general histories of British India, those written a cen-
tury or more ago are, with hardly an exception, franker, fuller,
and more interesting than those of the last fifty years. In
days when no one dreamed that anyone would ever be
seditious enough to ask really fundamental questions (such as
‘What right have you to be in India at all?’), and when no
one ever thought of any public but a British one, criticism
was lively and well informed, and judgement was _ passed
without regard to political exigencies. Of late years, increasingly
and no doubt naturally, all Indian questions have tended to
be approached from the standpoint of administration: ‘ Will
this make for easier and quieter government ?’? The writer
of today inevitably has a world outside his own_ people,
listening intently and as touchy as his own people, as swift to
take offence. ‘He that is not for us is against us.’ This knowledge of an overhearing, even eavesdropping public, of being partibus infidelium, exercises a constant silent censorship, which has made British-Indian history the worst patch in current scholarship.’’!

There is a great deal of truth in this analysis, but there is
another factor of still greater importance. No Government
relishes being discredited in public, and therefore a free and
frank statement of historical facts provokes its wrath. No
Indian historian dared reveal the whole truth when it was
likely to offend the Government, and that accounts for the
virtual absence of true history of the British period written by any Indian. But even the British writers were not always immune from the wrath of the ruling authority. The fate of Cunningham, the author of the History of the Sikhs. is a classical example and may be stated in the words of Malleson.

“The work (History of the Sikhs) appeared in 1849. Ex-
tremely well written, giving the fullest and the most accurate
details of events, the book possessed one quality which, in
the view of the Governor-General of the day, the Marquis of
Dalhousie, rendered the publication of it a crime. It told
the whole truth, the unpalatable truth, regarding the first Sikh
war; it exposed the real strength of the Sikh army; the conduct
of, and the negotiations with, the Sikh chiefs.

“The book, if unnoticed by high authority, would have
injured no one. The Punjab had been annexed, or was in the
process of annexation, when it appeared. But a despotic
Government cannot endure truths which seem to reflect on
the justice of its policy. Looking at the policy of annexation
from the basis of Cunningham’s book, that policy was un-
doubtedly unjust. Cunningham’s book would be widely read, and
would influence the general verdict.** That an officer
holding a high political office should write a book which, by
the facts disclosed in it, reflected, however indirectly, on his
policy was not to be endured. With one stroke of the pen,
then, he removed Cunningham from his appointment at
Bhopal. Cunningham, stunned by the blow, entirely unexpected, died of a broken heart !’”

So far about the British historians. As regards the Indian
historians the chief defect arose from national sentiments and
patriotic fervour which magnified the virtues and minimized
the defects of their own people. It was partly a reaction
against the undue depreciation of the Indians in the pages of
British histories like those of Mill, and partly an effect of the
growth of national consciousness and a desire for improvement
in their political status. It is a noticeable fact that these
defects gained momentum with the movement for political
reforms, and later, in the course of the struggle for freedom.

An extreme example is furnished by K. P. Jayaswal. The
repeated declarations of British historians that absolute despotism was the only form of Government in Ancient India provoked Indian historians, who, following the footsteps
of Rhys Davids, emphasized the existence of republican and
oligarchical forms of Government. This reaction was, gene-
rally speaking, kept within reasonable limits of historical truth;
but Jayaswal carried the whole thing to ludicrous excess in
his Hindu Polity, by his theory of a Parliamentary form of
Government in Ancient India, which is a replica of the British
Parliament including the formal Address from the Throne, etc.,
and many other statements of the kind. Similarly, historical
discussions on social and religious matters are not unoften
coloured by the orthodox views on the subject. The recent
acrimonious discussion on the killing of cows shows how even
clearly established facts of history are twisted to suit present
views. A truly scientific spirit of history is often sacrificed
in discussions of such subjects as, “‘ Did the Aryans come to
India from outside ?”’, “‘ Was there a caste system in the
Kgveda ?”’, and conscious attempts are often made to explain
away, ignore, or minimize, the harsh treatment accorded by
the high caste Hindus to the lower castes, particularly Sidras
and Candalas.

So far as Medieval India is concerned, there is a distinct and
conscious attempt to rewrite the whole chapter of the bigotry
and intolerance of the Muslim rulers towards Hindu religion.’4
This was prompted by the political motive of bringing together
the Hindus and Musalmans in a common fight against the
British. A history written under the auspices of the Indian
National Congress sought to repudiate the charge that the
Muslim rulers ever broke any Hindu temple, and asserted
that they were the most tolerant in matters of religion.
Following in its footsteps a noted historian has sought to
exonerate Mahmud of Ghazni’s bigotry and fanaticism, and
several writers in India have come forward to defend Aurangzib
against Jadunath’s charge of religious intolerance. It is
interesting to note that in the revised edition of the Encyclo-
paedia of Islam, one of them, while re-writing the article
on Aurangzib originally written by Sir William Irvine, has expressed the view that the charge of breaking Hindu temples brought against Aurangzib is a disputed point. Alas for poor
Jadunath Sarkar, who must have turned in his grave if he were
buried. Tor after reading his History of Aurangzeb, one would
be tempted to ask, if the temple-breaking policy of Aurangzib
is a disputed point, is there a single fact in the whole recorded
history of mankind which may be taken as undisputed ? A
noted historian has sought to prove that ‘‘ the Hindu popula-
tion was better off under the Muslims than under the Hindu
tributaries or independent rulers.’”’ While some historians
have sought to show that the Hindu and Muslim cultures were
fundamentally different and formed two distinct and separate
units flourishing side by side, the late Ik. M. Ashraf sought
to prove that the Hindus and Muslims had no cultural con-
flict. But the climax was reached by the politician-czm-
historian Lala Lajpat Rai when he asserted “ that the Hindus
and Muslims have coalesced into an Indian people very much
in the same way as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes and
Normans formed the English people of today.’ His further
assertion ‘“‘that the Muslim rule in India was not a foreign
rule’’ has now become the oft-repeated slogan of a certain
political party. The pity of the whole thing is that history
books which do not incorporate these views are not likely to
be prescribed as textbooks, and any one who challenges these
statements would be included in the black list of the
Government of India.

Coming to the British period, national sentiments pre-
judiced a calm consideration of several episodes. Two of
these are, (1) the Black Hole Tragedy and character of Siraju’d-
daulah; and (2) the nature of the outbreak of 1857. Having
myself written on both these topics I would not like to dwell
on the merits of the different points of view. Reference has
already been made above to other episodes where historians
have been influenced by racial or national sentiments. To
these may be added many questions concerning economic
and administrative systems; in almost all of which the British
and Indian views have been influenced more or less by national or patriotic feelings.

To this long array of defects of modern historiography in
India, may be added another charge mostly levelled by
Indians in recent times. It is said that the historians merely
collect facts but do not make any generalizations or fraime
laws on their basis, while the real task of history is to reveal
the spirit of humanity and trace the course of progress towards
liberty. I do not think the charge is a legitimate one and
would try to rebut it by the observations of some eminent
scholars. The views of Fisher already quoted by me have
been rebutted by other eminent historians like Acton who
looks upon history as “the unfolding story of human free-
dom.” A. L. Rowse also refutes Fisher’s view and _ says:
‘No; there is no one rhythm or plot in history, but there are
rhythms, plots, patterns, even repetitions. So that it is pos-
sible to make generalizations and to draw lessons.’’’ On the
other hand, Sir Charles Oman in a way supports Fisher.

“History ’’, says he, “is a series of interesting happenings,
often illogical and cataclysmic, not a logical and orderly de-
velopment from causes to inevitable results. In short, history
is full of ‘might have beens’, and these sometimes deserve
as much attention as the actual, but by no means necessary,
course of events.’’!”

But whatever view we may adopt in this matter so far as
the history of Europe is concerned, our very inadequate know-
ledge of data in Indian history renders such generalizations
a difficult and risky process. I fully share the views expressed
by Sir Jadunath Sarkar in the course of his estimate of Sir
William Irvine as a historian. He observes: ‘Some are in-
clined to deny Mr. Irvine the title of the Gibbon of India, on
the ground that he wrote a mere narrative of events, without
giving those reflections and generalizations that raise the
Decline and Fall to the rank of a philosophical treatise and a
classic in literature. But they forget that Indian historical
studies are at present at a much more primitive stage than
Roman history was when Gibbon began to write. We have
yet to collect and edit our materials, and to construct
the necessary foundation — the bed-rock of ascertained and
unassailable facts —on which alone the superstructure of a philosophy of history can be raised by our happier successors.
Premature philosophizing, based on unsifted facts and un-
trustworthy chronicles, will only yield a crop of wild theories
and fanciful reconstructions of the past lke those which J. T.
Wheeler garnered in his now forgotten History of India, as
the futile result of years of toil.’’

During the post-Independence period, certain new trends
are noticeable among the Indian historians in addition to
those noted above. Strangely enough, these were foreseen
by the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun. He includes, in
a long list of defects of historians, “‘a very common desire to
gain the favour of those of high rank, by praising them, by
spreading their fame, by flattering them. by embellishing
their doimgs and by interpreting in the most favourable way
all their actions.’ He then justly observes that all this gives
a distorted version of historical events.This characteristic
is a growing menace to historiography in Modern India. The
evil is enhanced by the fact that the Government, directly or
indirectly, seeks to utilize history to buttress some definite ideas, such as the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, the artificial conception of fraternal relation between the two great communities of India sedulously propagated by him, and several popular slogans evoked by the exigencies of the struggle for freedom. These have been accepted as a rich legacy by the Government, even though it practically means
in many cases the sacrifice of truth, the greatest legacy which Gandhi meant to bequeath to mankind.

Thus the cult of non-violence is an ideal devoutly to be
wished for, but when historians of India seriously maintain
that this ideal has been followed throughout the course of
Indian history, one rubs his eyes with wonder, for not only
are all the known facts of Indian rulers against the assumption
that they were averse to war, but war has been recommended
by political texts as a normal practice and sanctioned by reli-
gion through the asvamedha sacrifice and eulogy of digvijaya.
The Court-poets flattered the patron king by giving him the
proud epithet of ‘hero of hundred fights’.

Such distortion of history can never be excused even in the name of Mahatma Gandhi. Similar distortions have been made on other topics mentioned above.

The net result has been that the oft-quoted phrase, ‘ History
is past politics ’, is likely to be substituted soon by a new phrase,
‘History is present politics’. The attitude of the British
Government towards Cunningham who dared include unpala-
table truths in history, has not quitted India along with the
British, and an Indian historian today is not always really
free to write even true history if it is likely to offend the ruling
party. I know from personal experience that any expression
of views, not in consonance with the officially accepted view,
is dubbed as anti-national, and is likely to provoke the wrath
of the Government.

No wonder that even eminent historians feel shy of, even if
not prevented from, telling the whole truth. Anapt illustration
is furnished by the official history of the ‘ freedom Movement
in Bihar’ (1957). Much has been said in it of Kunwar Singh
as the local organizer and a hero of the great ‘War of Indepen-
dence’ in 1857. But no mention has been made of a document
which shows that the local sepoys, who had already mutintied,
threatened to plunder his house and property if he did not join
them. It can hardly be excused on the ground of ignorance, for
it was the author of this Justory who first brought this document
to light and published it in a local magazine. Some other
documents of similar nature have also been withheld.

When I was writing out the first draft of this lecture, the
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress in 1964 and 1965
reached my hands. The Address of the General President in
the 1964 session contains an elaborate presentation of the
trends and concepts of history which appear to me to be a great
departure from the ideals and concepts of history which I have
outlined above. It may be reasonably assumed that these
trends and concepts dominate at least a section of Indian
historians today, and as such deserve careful scrutiny. ‘ His-
tory ’’, we are told, ‘has a mission and obligation to lead
humanity to a higher ideal and nobler future. The historian
cannot shirk this responsibility by hiding his head into the
false dogma of objectivity, that his job is merely to chronicle
the past. His task is to reveal the spirit of humanity and guide it towards self-expression.”?° Some concrete steps are suggested for achieving this noble end. History must not call
to memory “ghastly aberrations of human nature, of das-
tardly crimes, of divisions and conflicts, of degeneration and
decay, but of the Ingher values of life, of traditions of culture
and of the nobler deeds of sacrifice and devotion to the service
of humanity.”7! In other words, history should record the
spread of Buddhism by Asoka, but not the horrors of the
Kahlnga war, carefully avoid all references to the devastation and
massacre of Mahmiid of Ghazni, destruction of temples by
Aurangzib, the Jalllanwala Bagh massacre by General Dyer,
the holocaust during communal riots, and so on. The reason
for these omissions is that such things bring seme “ unhealthy
trends which militate against the concept of national solidarity
or international peace.’’?2 We are further told that “the
purpose of history was to trace the course of progress towards
liberty.”? To crown all, it is declared that even “‘ facts of
Indian history and the Process of its march have to be judged
by the criterion of progress towards lberty, morality and
opportunities for self-expression.’’?

So far as I understand, all these mark a definite departure
from the accepted principles of historiography. As a concrete
instance of the radical difference in the ideals of historiography
which animates the post-Independence era in India, I may
quote another passage from the Presidential Address:

“The most important subject awaiting the critical touch
of the historian, however, is the national movement, parti-
cularly the age dominated by Mahatma Gandhi, which
restored the independence of the country. The historian has
to get behind the external of the events and detect the spirit
which animated them, and thereby reveal the soul of India.
That approach alone will help to surmount the danger of pro-
voking communal, regional, linguistic and class hatreds which
unfortunately beset history writing.’’°

I must confess that in writing the ‘ History of Freedom Movement’ I have not kept all this high ideal before me. I have preferred to follow the footsteps of Ranke, and may say in his words: “My book does not aspire to such lofty functions as are laid down in the Presidential address. Its aim is merely to show what actually occurred, with such comments as are obviously suggested by it.”

For a similar reason, I demur to the principle that the purpose
of history is to trace the course of progress towards liberty,
and that even facts have to be arranged and judged by that
criterion. The real purpose of history is to report correctly
the progress of events, which did not in all cases mark the
progress towards liberty. When. all this is coupled with a
definite instruction for avoiding mention of violent deeds, or
even such fucts as militate against the concept of national
solidarity or international peace, we cannot but feel that
Gandhian philosophy, which sought in vain to regenerate
politics by infusing morality into it, has succeeded in inocu-
lating history with his moral ideas. It may be a laudable
project, but then, I would humbly suggest that history as a
subject of study be omitted from our curriculum and replaced
by books containing Gandhi’s philosophy and morality. The
lack of knowledge of history may perhaps be made good by
development of moral character.

I would cite only one more example which gives a forecast of
the shape that Indian history would take in the future. The
President of Section II (Medieval India) of the Indian
History Congress held at Allahabad in 1965 begins his address
by pointing out the chief errors of Sir Henry Elliot and other
Anglo-Indian writers of Medieval India. One of these is, to
quote his own words, “the wholly impossible and erroneous
conclusion that the Musalmans, as such, were a governing
class, while the Hindus, as such, were the governed.’”26 Another
error is that “while pointing out the crimes of the medieval
kings and their governing classes they quite overlooked what
was happening at the same time in contemporary Europe.’’2?

The President then refers to “India’s contact with Islam
which had a deep impact on social, cultural, political and
economic life of the country.’”The net result of this is reflected in the following successive stages in the evolution of
Medieval India. First, the Turkish State of the Ilbarites;
second, the Indo-Muslim State of the Khalji and the Tugh-
luqs, and third, the emergence of the Jndian State of the
Mughals. We are told that ‘‘ Akbar’s political outlook was
an outcome of the accumulated political wisdom of the gene-
rations that had gone by and was a logical development
inherent in the very nature of the situation.’ Unfortunately,
nothing is said about his successors, particularly Aurangzib,
though it is claimed that on account of the continuity in this
cultural evolution, the Mughal empire lasted longer than the
whole of the Sultanate period.

There is hardly any doubt that the modern trends of Indian
historiography noted above are inspired, or at least influenced
to a large extent, by the attitude of the Government in deli-
berately seeking to utilize history for the spread of ideas which
they have elevated to the rank of national policy to their own
satisfaction. They are not willing to tolerate any history
which mentions facts incompatible with their ideas of national
integration and solidarity. They do not inquire whether the
facts stated are true or the views expressed are reasonable
deductions from facts, but condemn outright any historical
writings which in their opinion are likely to go against their
views about such things as Hindu-Muslim fraternity, the
non-existence of separate Hindu and Muslim cultures on
account of their fusion into one Indian culture, etc. I mention
these particular instances, as 1 am in a position to substantiate
them by documentary evidence, but reference may be made
to many other illustrations, less susceptible to positive evi-
dence. Ali these things are done in the name of national
policy, which is at best the policy of a political party. But
it violates the only national policy, which cannot be challenged by any party, namely ‘Truth shall prevail’, the motto engraved on our national emblem. This policy also underlies
the most advanced ideal of historiography, as I have discussed
above, and was expressed more than fifty years ago by the
greatest historian of India, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, as chairman of a historical conference in Bengal. The following is a literal English translation of the original Bengali passage:

‘‘It would not care whether truth is pleasant or unpleasant,
and in consonance with or opposed to current views. I
would not mind in the least whether truth is or is not a blow
to the glory of my country. If necessary, I shall bear in
patience the ridicule and slander of friends and society for
the sake of preaching truth. But still I shall seek truth,
understand truth, and accept truth. This should be the
firm resolve of a historian.”

Later, when Dr. Rajendra Prasad launched a scheme to
write a comprehensive national history of India on a co-
operative basis and requested Jadunath to become its chief
editor, Jadunath wrote to him on 19 November 1937:
“National history, like every other history worthy of the name
and deserving to endure, must be true as regards the facts
and reasonable in the interpretation of them. It will be
national not in the sense that it will try to suppress or white-
wash everything in our country’s past that is disgraceful, but
because it will admit them and at the same time point out
that there were other and nobler aspects in the stages of
our nation’s evolution which offset the former…. In this
task the historian must be a judge. He will not suppress any
defect of the national character, but add to his portraiture
those higher qualities which, taken together with the former,
help to constitute the entire individual.”

In his reply to the above, dated 22 November 1937,
Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote: “I entirely agree with you that no
history is worth the name which suppresses or distorts facts.
A historian who purposely does so under the impression that
he thereby does good to his native country really harms it in
the end. Much more so in the case of a country like ours
which has suffered much on account of its national defects,
and which must know and understand them to be able to
remedy them,’

I solemnly hope and pray that these words would be re-
membered by the present and future generations of Indian
historians, for I see great dangers lurking ahead. I was
reading recently a book entitled Contemporary History in

the Soviet Mirror published in 1964. It was struck by many passages, a few of which I quote at random.

“The present official line in’ historiography is, if anything,
even more militantly partisan than it was in Stalin’s day.”

“The Soviet politicians have a narrow and utilitarian view
of the functions of scholarship.” ‘* Nothing could) be more
destructive of historical scholarship than the claim that the
party is the repository of supreme wisdom… In the Soviet
Union today historians, ike everyone else, are required to
believe that. by some mysterious process unfathomable to an
ordinary mortal, the party has been infallible.” ‘ The par-
tisan approach to lustory prevents the observer from recogniz-
ing the sanctity of objective facts and requires him, where
necessary, te deny the evidence of his senses; for there are
oceastons when he must subordinate lis own personal concept
of truth to that held by an individual or group of individuals,
namely the party.”

I hope it would be obvious to most people that these symptoms constitute dangerous impediments to the growth of true historiography. What is less obvious is that our country, dominated by party system, is rapidly moving towards the same tragic end.

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