It Is Time To Rewrite History

About the Speaker

Narayani Gupta has been an indifferent student of history for the past sixty years. Being unadventurous, she has limited her research largely to Delhi. She has spent her Sundays exploring the archaeological treasures in the city. For a few years she was engaged in helping write school textbooks, and at present is Editor of a children's series on Indian World Heritage Sites.

Abstract

'Rewriting history' is a term generally used for sporadic suggestions to modify chronologies and political histories. I am using it as a plea for sustained engagement with the histories being purveyed within formal education and as popular literature.

Report

The very nature of history and the process of its recording has often been consigned solely to the auspices of historians trained in the art of traditional historiography. In her talk, Dr. Narayani Gupta revealed the multifaceted nature history as a discipline ought to possess, as well as the role of the layperson vis-à-vis the recording of historical events.

The first key point Gupta mentioned in her talk was the perception of history as a distant, “foreign country” which only an expert could traverse. As such, any historical work done by an individual not formally trained in the discipline is automatically denied the status of “real” history. Gupta argued that the lack of teamwork as well as curiosity saps the life-essence of conducting research. Without researchers collaborating with others in their work, and without truly possessing a genuine interest in their subject matter the probability of them achieving their highest potential is very low. Furthermore, the lack of options to switch one’s discipline in traditional Indian academia has bound researchers to a field they may not particularly love.

Gupta also states that harnessing the role of the non-traditional historian such as the antiquarian and binding it to the discipline would increase the pool of available knowledge in the field. By denying antiquarians the right to write history due to not possessing a degree in the same, we are denying ourselves a veritable fount of knowledge. As Gupta stated in her concluding remarks: communicating history is a skill which not everyone possesses. Therefore, further limiting the conduit through which knowledge is collected will inevitably result in the diminishing of the subject.

By Akshaj Awasthi, Undergraduate Batch of 2021