Attempts to alter history part of a colonial mindset: R. Mahalakshmi

Calling the purported “attack” on textbooks through controversial revisions as part of the State-sponsored propaganda, the historian said sectarian and exclusivist ideas were being propagated under the garb of “lightening school bags”

Eminent historian R. Mahalakshmi has raised caution against the alleged efforts being made by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led dispensation at the Centre to ‘Indianise’ history by pushing a narrative of exclusive Hindu identity.

She said the narrative was borne out of a European colonial mindset that had entrenched Islamophobia. The former secretary of the Indian History Congress was inaugurating a seminar on ‘Erasure of History: Myths in the making; Confronting the challenges’ organised by the Kerala chapter of All India Save Education Committee (AISEC) here on Sunday.

Prof. Mahalakshmi, a professor of the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, accused the Centre of adopting institutional methods to achieve its goal of ‘Bharatiyakaran’ (or ‘Indianisation’) by utilising various statutory bodies including the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), University Grants Commission (UGC), and the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) to push its policies.

Calling the purported “attack” on textbooks through controversial revisions as part of the State-sponsored propaganda, the historian said sectarian and exclusivist ideas were being propagated under the garb of “lightening school bags”.

“School textbooks are being revised to percolate ideologies and to instil a certain set of values. But, are these the kind of values that were envisaged by those who fought for the country’s freedom,” she asked.

Prof. Mahalakshmi was also critical of “ideologically propelled and self-proclaimed” historians who distorted history in the name of filling gaps in the existing narrative. “We fail to recognise how insidious this kind of commentary is, when we tend to consider gaps in historical narratives and distortions as similar,” she maintained.

Kerala History Congress general secretary Sebastian Joseph, Kerala Council for Historical Research executive committee member P.P. Abdul Razak, and Indian History Congress executive committee member Malavika Binny delivered presentations during the seminar. R. Gopinath, former head of the department of Malayalam, Government Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram moderated the programme. AISEC state president George Joseph and State secretary E.N. Santhiraj also spoke.