[sacw] on Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR)

[aiindex@mnet.fr]

From: Kamala Visweswaran <kvis@m...>

To those of us familiar with the appropriation of the past by right 
>wing extremists for political ends, it will come as no surprise that 
>the present government of India has been making substantial moves in 
>this direction in the past year. 
>
>We write to appeal for your help in petitioning the government of 
>India regarding one issue in particular, which arose in June of 1998 
>and continues to escalate. This concerns the sudden 
>reconstitution of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) 
>by the BJP-dominated government of India. This whole process 
>reverses the critical and democratic procedures through which the 
>Council has worked in the past - procedures which reflected more 
>accurately the debate between different perspectives on the past and 
>which gave rise to the democratic allocation of resources for 
>intellectual labour on the past. The current appointees represent an 
>extremely narrow range of views in political terms, some of them 
>being open supporters and/or advocates of the broader aims of the 
>anti-secular communal forces in the country.
>
>This latest step, of attempting to control the ICHR, is just 
>one move in a much wider series of actions in the realms of 
>knowledge, education and the past by this government since it 
>came to power, and through which they have sought to redefine those 
>realms in line with their own interests.
>
>The current government of India is a coalition of various groups led 
>by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This party, in conjunction with 
>allied organisations the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the 
>Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has been mainly responsible for a 
>new wave of Hindu fundamentalism since the 1980s. This 
>fundamentalism has been geared towards advancing the interests of 
>certain groups of economic and religious elites in the face 
>of perceived preferential treatment of the less advantaged in Indian 
>society. In some situations this has resulted in extreme forms of 
>nationalism where 'the nation' is equated with a particularly narrow 
>understanding of 'Hindu'. Other groups, such as Muslims, Sikhs, 
>lower-caste Hindus, and tribal workers are derided, discriminated 
>against and attacked. This 'religio-national' fervour has been 
>whipped up by activists and leaders around several foci, such as 
>historic monuments and, in the past year, attacks on religious 
>minorities. For instance, immediately after and on the first 
>anniversary of the destruction by a Hindu crowd of a 450 year-old 
>mosque in 1992 at Ayodhya, thousands of people were injured or killed 
>in rioting. 
>
>
>What can be done?
>At the moment, the workings of the Council are stalled as a result of 
>court action against it by the Member-Secretary, a liberal who had 
>been sent to the Council on deputation by the University of Delhi. As 
>a result of the ideological re-alignment of the ICHR in its 
>reconstitution, the Member-Secretarty was targeted as a liberal and, 
>more particularly, as a supporter of the fight against communal 
>forces in the Ayodhya issue. He obtained a stay against a resolution 
>by the other members of the council to have him repatriated and 
>returned to his university. That stay has subsequently failed. 
>Several historians in India are fighting this and other actions of 
>their government by writing papers and newspaper columns, and 
>appearing on talk shows, but there have been malicious press 
>campaigns against them in the Indian media. They urgently need and 
>have asked for support from other historians, archaeologists, 
>academics and left-aligned groups. Anyone can do this by writing, 
>emailing or faxing: 
>
>1. The Prime Minister of India, A.B. Vajpayee 
>2. The Human Resources Development Minister, M.M. Joshi 
>3. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha (India's primary legislative body)
>
>· expressing concern at recent developments with regard to the ICHR,
>· asking for the reinstatement of all five objectives of the 
> ICHR, as they were originally laid out in its Memorandum of 
> Association (see below). 
>· requesting a reconfiguration of the council on the basis of 
> these original objectives i.e. in terms which would represent 
> the reality of the debates between the variety of positions 
> on the past of India.
>
>The five original objectives are:
>
>1. To bring historians together and provide a forum for exchange of 
>views between them. 
>2. To give a national direction to an objective and rational 
>presentation and interpretation of history. 
>3. To promote and co-ordinate research in history with special 
>emphasis on areas which have not received adequate attention. 
>4. To promote a co-ordinated and balanced distribution of research 
>effort over different areas. 
>5. To elicit support and recognition for historical research from all 
>concerned and ensure the necessary dissemination and use of results.
>
>Contact addresses are provided at the end of this document. Further 
>details and the locations of relevant web sites follows:
>
>The details of the case: What has happened?
>In the past, the Council was a forum within which different 
>theoretical positions on the past and a broad spectrum of political 
>positions in the present were represented, selected by the 
>chairperson in terms of this variability. The term of the previous 
>Council ended in 1997. The BJP-led government, through its Ministry 
>of Human Resources Development, set in motion the reconstitution 
>process this year and appointed 18 new members. In addition, the 
>original aim in the 'Memorandum of Association' of the organisation, 
>legitimated by an act of parliament in 1972, has been changed so that 
>the ICHR is now to give a national direction to 'an objective and 
>national presentation of history' (our emphasis), rather than an 
>objective and rational presentation. Three of its five objectives, 
>pertaining to the dissemination and debate of findings were left out 
>of the government's statement, when it reformed the council. 
>
>The ICHR is an important organisation in the context of Indian 
>history as it is one of the two funding agencies for professional 
>historians in the country. It directs academic research on the past 
>and may advise the government on certain issues. Newspaper reports in 
>India suggest that the aim of the ICHR reconstitution is twofold: 
>firstly, it represents a move to reward many of those who have 
>continually supported the BJP RSS-VHP communal triumvirate; secondly, 
>it is a move to take control of the historical agenda, allowing the 
>state leverage in socio-religious decisions. 
>
>Most of the present appointees are known to have argued publicly for 
>the existence of a Hindu temple under the 16th century Babri mosque 
>at Ayodhya, said to have marked the birthplace of Rama, and to have 
>suggested that this temple had been violently destroyed in order to 
>construct that mosque. The possible temple under the mosque became 
>the focus for a bitter series of anti-Muslim sentiments and actions, 
>orchestrated to serve the politico-economic interests of the extreme 
>right wing. One of the election pledges of the present government, 
>for instance, was the reconstruction of a Hindu temple on the site. 
>Some of the ICHR appointees are also said to have supported what the 
>South Asia Citizens' Web calls 'the massive fascist spectacle of 6th 
>of December, 1992': the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya. 
>
>At the plenary session of a recent World Archaeological Congress 
>meeting in Croatia in May 1998, held to discuss these events in a 
>world-wide context, a group of Indian historians and archaeologists 
>(some of whom are now members of the ICHR) walked out before a 
>resolution was passed condemning the destruction of the mosque. The 
>World Archaeological Congress itself became embroiled in this 
>political battle when it held its third archaeological congress in 
>New Delhi in 1994. The WAC executive had attempted to ban all 
>discussion of the Ayodhya issue under pressure from that conferences 
>Indian organisers. The plenary session of the congress descended into 
>anarchy when one of the organisers disabled the public address 
>system during the proposal of a resolution by a group of left-aligned 
>historians. Again, some of the Indian historians/archaeologists 
>associated with the organisation of WAC 3 are now members of the 
>ICHR. 
>
>Some of the appointees to the ICHR have maintained that they are not 
>politically aligned, arguing instead that the ICHR had previously 
>been a left-liberal organisation, which in recent years had been 
>'packed' with Marxists. Left-wing historians have replied that 
>left-aligned scholars operated within the democratic procedures of 
>the organisation which, in fact, was made up of liberals, 
>conservatives, Marxists, feminists and others. They have also 
>pointed out that those scholars labelled 'secular' or 'Marxist' by 
>the BJP continue to maintain a rigorously critical stance on 
>mainstream politics and their own work, whilst the appointees to the 
>Council are notable for their support of one particular party. One 
>of the appointees, B. R. Grover, was one of three historians who, in 
>1990, was an advocate for the VHP during discussion on the existence 
>of a temple under the mosque at Ayodhya. He also appeared, along 
>with other appointees, at the inter-congress organised by WAC in 
>Croatia where he again argued for the existence of a temple at the 
>site. 
> 
>We list below two web sites where people can follow up this debate 
>for themselves. There is a growing literature on the involvement of 
>the World Archaeological Congress in the Ayodhya debate, and with the 
>politics of the Indian sub-continent. The December 1998 Antiquity 
>contains a discussion of the most recent events by Willy Kitchen, 
>with a reply by the Secretary of WAC (Antiquity 72, no 278).
>
>Contact Addresses:
>
>The BJP:
>Bharatiya Janata Party, Central Office, 11 Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110 
>001, India Tel: 91-11-338 2234 Fax: 91-11-378 2163 Email: 
>bjpco@b...
>
>The Speaker of the Lok Sabha:
>Shri Ganti Mohanachandra Balayogi: Amalapuram, Distt. East 
>Godavari-533126, Andgra Pradesh, India Fax: 0884 51791
>
>(fax and phone numbers will require relevant international codes)
>
>The South Asian Citizen's web (groups of activists against 
>fundamentalism and communal politics): http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/ 
>The web site for pre-circulated papers at the Croatian Inter-congress 
>of WAC: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~jmg296/croatia
>
>We thank you for your time.
>
>Maggie Ronayne (maggie_ronayne@h...)
>Matt Leivers (mal2@s...)(Department of Archaeology, University 
>of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK)
>Willy Kitchen (W.H.Kitchen@s...)

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