This course traces the distortions in the historiography of medieval and modern India, discernible since the Independence of India. Students will learn about the historical background, key events, and trends that remain influential today. In particular, we will take a close look at the phenomenon of “Negationism” or the systematic and mostly willful denial of facts of history. It will also evaluate the scholarly and political impact of the various forms of history manipulation and the prospects for their correction.
The literature on the Left’s willful distortion of communal history in India is limited: S.L. Bhyrappa, Sita Ram Goel, K.S. Lal; Koenraad Elst; Arun Shourie; Meenakshi Jain, D.K Chakrabarti. By contrast, the so-called secularist literature on Hindu communal historiography is plentiful but extremely repetitive: Sarvepalli Gopal, Gyanendra Pandey, AG Noorani, and many other academics and journalists, both Indian and foreign. Since we are specifically interested in how this phenomenon impacts contemporary political discourse and practice, we will concentrate on the former but will also take cognizance of a sample of the latter. We will also remain alert to the possibility that the attempt to diagnose the errors in historiography can themselves introduce new kinds of history distortion.
12 noon – EST to 2 pm – EST (2 hours per Class session)
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Faculty
Dr. Koenrrad Elst
Koenraad Elst obtained his doctorate in Oriental Philology & History from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in 1998. This was based on his MA degrees in Sinology, Indo-Iranian Studies and Philosophy, and a research stays at Banaras Hindu University. He worked mostly as a foreign desk journalist, both freelance and in employment, and served as a foreign policy assistant in the Belgian Senate.
