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July 13, 2003
Review: Reliving history
HUMANITY’S connection to history is like a chain, according to Nietzsche. It creates us and gives meaning to our existence. Like a cord it grips us no matter how far we might go. However, history is often hijacked by those in power. Danger is unleashed when power mongrels attempt to glorify certain segments of the past to portray their historical events in epic proportions. Like the BJP government’s recent policies in India to create a parallel history by political command.
The suppression of analytical historical enquiry is a key issue in Githa Hariharan’s provocative book, In Times of Siege. The novel’s plot revolves around Shiv Murthy, a middle-aged professor of mediaeval history in an Open University in Delhi. Murthy finds out that a supposedly dead subject like history can prove to be deadly when controversy erupts over his lesson on a 12th century reformist, Basava.
Basava was a minister in King Bijala’s court in Kalyana who condemned all barriers to caste, creed and sex. Although a Brahmin, he disliked artificial distinctions and discriminations that infested the society. His revolutionary thoughts gained him a strong following, and a movement for social change resulted.
However, the dramatically tragic end came soon. Legend goes that massive destruction followed a marriage between a Brahmin and an untouchable. Orthodox found this wedding an unpalatable transgression. Violence erupted. Murder and mayhem followed. The bride and the groom were punished; their eyes were removed and they were dragged through the streets by elephants.
Basava’s democratic experiment that tried to give voice to low castes and women was in shambles. Utterance of dissidents no longer rose. Old, weary and disillusioned Basava left his city, never to be seen again. Some say he was murdered. Others speculate he committed suicide by drowning in a river. Eight hundred years later, the cauldron of religious hatred still boils the world over. While like a chain, Basava’s Kalyana remains connected to present day India.
This is beautifully portrayed in the book when Shiv Murthy’s essay on Basava incurs the wrath of an orthodox organization called ‘Itihas Surksha Manch’. A statement calling for an end to “tampering with our precious and glorious Hindu history” is issued. They demand the lesson should be withdrawn. The Manch is supported by orthodox historians who assert “Basava was not against Brahmins as such. All he wanted, like any saint, was that everyone should live in order and harmony”.
Murthy is accused of being disrespectful to a saint. The situation is highly ironical. The fanatics wanted the past glorified and Basava deified, without the onus of dealing with the issues raised by this unorthodox challenger. As Murthy says, “Let me put it this way: take a man who asked uncomfortable questions, a man who challenged the caste-ridden ground you walk on. Luckily the man cannot come back and snap his fingers at you when you speak on his behalf. So turn him into a saint-poet, into someone floating in a heavenly limbo. Turn a leader into a minor god; the man into a saint. That’s the only way to make him safely untouchable. Then his ideas and politics need not be understood; they won’t make your life uncomfortable.”
Time and again, this strategy is used by those in power! After all, as George Orwell said, “He who controls the past controls the present and he who controls the present controls the future...”
Readers of this book will appreciate the fact that the author skillfully intertwines the past with the present, the ordinary and the monumental. Murthy is a believable character. He lives an ordinary life, made extraordinary by the madness around him and through the presence of his ward, Meena. Although ostensibly dependent on Murthy as Meena’s leg is broken, she proves to be the most active source of moral support for him. Somewhat predictably, their relationship develops during their fight against the “self-appointed preservers of culture”.
In Siege of Time is a book that provokes complex questions. Like who owns the past and what makes a fanatic? A fundamentalist? What makes communities that had lived together for years suddenly discover a latent hatred for each other? These questions are extremely relevant to the present day situation in India and Pakistan, where text books are continuously being rewritten to support the prevailing climate of ultra-right-wing chauvinism.
One only wishes that there were more individuals like Shiv Murthy, who strove to critically analyze the past and had the courage to stand up against ‘thought-police’.
Then fabricated, violent identity-driven past could not be used to create painful memories, and communal strife, and there could be a reversal of militant tendencies in Indian and Pakistani politics. Thus we would have what Nietzsche wishes for, that history be used in the pursuit of life being lived, rather than lives dedicated to the perceived fulfilment of history.
In Times of Siege
By Githa Hariharan Viking/Penguin India.
For more information log on to www.penguinbooksindia.com
ISBN 0-67-004-949-2
206pp. Indian Rs295
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