History and Violence: Challenges and Solutions

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History and Violence: Challenges and Solutions

By: R.S. Mooshahary

A few days back, a young army officer next to my seat aboard a flight got talking to me as he was slyly glancing at the article
I was preparing on the internal security issues on my laptop (which he ought not to have). By and by, he told me that when he
was in his teens in high school, as part of history lesson, they learnt that Emperor Aurangzeb imposed jajia tax on the Hindus,
which deeply agitated their young minds. He said he was still bitter about that insult and discrimination based on religion. I
told him that many Muslims would view the same historical fact in a different perspective. They might admire Aurangzeb as the
purest upholder of their faith among the Mughal emperors. In this conflict of perception both sides are likely to overlook the
finer attributes of a ruler like Akbar who attempted a fusion of religiosity through eclectic harmonization of the noble
teachings in them. In the demolition of Babri Masjid, likewise, a section of the Hindus feels it was justified � that demolition
and reconstruction of the places of worship being a historical process, it was bound to happen. But for the Muslims, it was an
outrageous vandalism calling for violent reprisal.

This clash of perception over historical fact is emblematic of the medieval mindset that governs the thinking of the adherents
of faiths and that is at the root of challenges to our internal security. It is an irony that history often incites violence by
reminding us of the past events of war and destruction rather than uniting us with the glory of our culture and civilization. I
am no historian but I am alarmed at the impact of history on the common people. The intellectuals may scoff at it and term it as
ignorance of history, but can anyone change this perception, which for many is right?

The truth of history is that it has many interpretations, many truths � a mixture of myth and factuality. It has the capacity to
arouse highly flammable situation because people understand it, as they want to and not as it really is. The raging controversy
on the existence of the characters of the Ramayana, which is quite avoidable, is another example of contentiousness that
inhabits the domain of history. On this the distinguished historian of ancient India, Romila Thapar, posits in an article,
��Where fusion cannot work � faith and history��, which was published in The Hindu (September 28, 2007): �What is at issue is
not whether Rama existed or not, or whether the underwater formation or a part of it was a bridge constructed at his behest.
What is at issue is a different and crucial set of questions that require neither faith nor mythology but require intelligent
expertise; questions that are being wilfully diverted by bringing in faith.�

Historicism is not always an accurate account of human activity. Its assessment and analysis of events are not entirely objective
and free from bias. Nevertheless it presents us with the only window through which we view the past in the present and we try to
shape the future. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That explains why wars, bloodshed and destruction
continue to haunt the humankind in every age. Throughout history human society has remained conflict-prone and not conflict-free;
and history is partly responsible for it. At times even a small and isolated incident can flare up into a conflagration because of
divisions in historical lines. India is primed for such violent disruption of social order because of two key ingredients that the
country incites anger to snowball into group-driven violence � an environment that encourages people to associate themselves with
specific historical identities and a sense of frustration stemming from perceived denial of rights to them. The other factor that
allows violence to spiral out of control is the environment that fosters group identities � a situation in which the people tend to
associate themselves with a particular group � an ethnicity, religion, caste or a social class because of historical heritage.

It is said that politics has no roots without history and history has no fruits without politics. We create history continuously
and in doing so we create the roots that will produce the future fruits. While we cannot alter the past, we can certainly help
produce sweeter fruits for future by planting the roots of tolerance, fraternity and understanding in the soil of contemporary
politics. Let not the future generations of Indians live in bitterness but with unity and understanding of each other. India will
not disintegrate because of external forces intervention. The danger of aggression of one country by another for colonization is
remote in the current context of history. But in the historical perspective only geography is permanent; not the boundary of nations.
The nations can disintegrate because of internal dissension as is evident from the examples of former USSR and Yugoslovakia. Nearer home,
Pakistan lost its eastern limb because historically the two parts had always been different. There history has defied religion in
creating a new nation.

He dynamics of history tend to create repetition of events. India today is on the threshold of repeating the golden age of the
times of the Mauryas and the Guptas. The turmoil that we see today in the forms of insurgency, terrorism and extremism are but the
process of nation making � ripples above the invisible undercurrents of shared aspirations. We need bonding of hearts and the
conviction that our well-being lies in our diversity to impel us to journey together.

In one of the stories in the Puranas, a sage asks his disciples: ��When does the night end?��

The disciples reply: ��At dawn of course.��
��I know that,�� says the sage, ��but when does the night end and the dawn begin?��

The first disciple who is from Pragjyotishpur in the eastern part of India called Kamrupa in the days of yore replies: ��When
the first glimmer of light across the sky reveals the dome of the sacred Kamakhya temple atop Nilachal hills on the banks of
the mighty Brahmaputra, that is when the night ends and the dawn begins.��

The wise sage says, ��No.��

So the second disciple who is from the desert land of our west, ventures: ��When the first streaks of sunshine brighten the desert
sands in its endless vastness against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, that is when the night ends and the dawn begins.��

The wise sage says, ��No, my sons. When two travellers from opposite ends of our land meet and embrace each other as brothers, and
when they realize they sleep under the same sky, share the same dream under the same stars, and when they resolve to tread the same
path together � that is when the night ends and the dawn begins.��

Let us vanquish the enemy of divisiveness within us, remove the bitterness of historical aberrations and wake up into a new dawn.
It will be our history remade.

(The writer is Chief Information Commissioner, Asom)