A Propasal on Resolving Thapar Controversy

[Guest guest]

This is from an academic forum (closed and moderated) by one North

American academic, with the interest of Hinduism close to his heart.

 

Namaste.

Ashok Chowgule

 

 

The debate over criticism of Romila Thapar's appointment to The Kluge

Chair has begun to move through familiar grooves on this list with

some

members

denouncing detractors of Thapar in choice "F" words: foolish,

fundamentalists etc. Since most detractors are not members of Risa-l,

this debate is likely to

remain one-sided and unproductive.

I therefore wish to suggest a potentially more productive alternative:

Request the Government of India (under the auspices of the UNESCO, if

you will) to

establish a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian History."

The mandate and terms of reference for such a commission could be

worked

out based on a model that Paul Ricoeur has suggested in an article

"Reflections on

a new ethos for Europe," (see Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of

Action,

edited by Richard Kearney, 3-13, London: Sage Publications, 1996).

The identity of a group, culture, people, or nation is not immutable

or

fixed. A rigid and arrogant conception of cultural identity prevents

people from

reconfigurating their past or restructuring its transmission.

Entrenched

and vested interests freeze the collective memory and history of a

nation rendering it

incommunicable. It is not in their self-interest to allow plural

reading

of history.

Ricoeur argues that 'recounting differently' is not inimical to

history.

Because the inexhaustible richness of a 'founding event' in a nation's

history is usually

honoured by the diversity of stories, which are made out of it, and by

the competition to which that diversity may give rise.

It is therefore in the mutual interest of both 'secular'

and 'communal'

historians of India to help each other to set free India's history

that

has been held captive in

the versions that have been transmitted by the tradition as well as in

versions that have been generated after India's independence.

Transmission is living, Ricoeur points out, only if a tradition is

open

to innovation and reinterpretation. The past is not only what is

bygone--that which has taken

place and can no longer be changed. Past continues to live in the

memory

of succeeding generations thanks to the arrows of futurity which have

not been fired

or whose trajectory has been interrupted.

"The unfulfilled future of the past forms perhaps the richest part of

the tradition," reminds Ricoeur. I think it is on this point that the

battle is being fought today in

India: What is unfulfilled future of India's past? Who writes about

it?

What must be the criteria of a historiography that will be required

for

such a task?

The controversy over Thapar's appointment therefore is not altogether

a

negative development. Her appointment cannot be rubber-stamped without

finding out

(1) What was the job description, (2) What were the criteria of

selection and screening? (3) Who were the other candidates in the

field.

Liberating the unfulfilled future of India's past and releasing the

burden of expectation are the two national debts that the course of

history has bequeathed to all

Indians. We need a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to devise the

means to repay that debt.

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