History is a statement of facts of the past, and its distortion an injustice to future generations. Still, over the generations, history often gets distorted to suit the whims and fancies of those in power.
Which is why, Oscar Wilde went to the extent of saying in a general sense that “History is gossip.” All history, however, is not gossip; but twists are one too many. What seems like one such distortion is the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)’s calendar and diary this year, in which Prime Minister Narendra Damodardass Modi’s figure replaces Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic image — the one of the Father of the Nation spinning cotton yarn on the charkha. What was a powerful symbol of the freedom movement has been brought down to a shameful level, where history itself would stand on its head. This is both scandalous and unacceptable.
Khadi has historic relevance. Its propagation formed a high point of the freedom movement at a time when cotton from India was purchased for a small price, shipped to Europe’s textile mills and clothes brought back to India for sale at high prices. India’s traditional handloom industry had almost perished as a result, and people in millions lost their means of livelihood.
Promotion of Khadi was a historic necessity, and Gandhi understood its relevance more than anyone else and made it the centrepiece of his Swadeshi movement. That phase is over and India today produces its own clothes and even exports them.
Khadi and the spinning wheel still revive nostalgic memories of the past, and Gandhi’s iconic image of sitting on the Charkha and spinning has become an integral part of Indian history. A major damage to that phase of history is done by the super-imposition of Modi’s picture in a similar posture both on the calendar and diary.
Tinkering with history is a dangerous game, also because one is not sure where such obsessions would stop. With these new images in circulation, the present generation of youths is bound to be confused, and future generations would be treated to a distorted understanding of history.
In future, one might not see the Gandhi-Charkha image anymore; what one would see is the Modi image. As Karl Marx noted in a different context, “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce.” Here, now, a farce is being enacted with tragic consequences. People tend to learn from history.
The mistakes of the past are lessons for the future. Societies learn from history and act with more care to avoid errors of the future — like a child being more careful after it has its fingers burnt from a burning lamp. It also goes to say every generation has a duty to preserve history in its true form. Distortions for personal benefits should not be a temptation, and more so for those in power.
Someone could propound a false theory, for instance, that Red Fort was built by RSS. As the Goebbelsian theory has it, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” We see this in our daily lives too.
Indian history narration has its fault-lines. Readers are deprived of a ground-up look at the past as those who write history had shown a penchant for presenting it from the rulers’ point of view; not from the people’s point of view that would have reflected the ground realities.
From the peak, they look down, and write. The result is that we have no documentation of the life of the people and their customs and practices of different periods in these historical texts.
Rather we have elaborate accounts of the rulers, palace intrigues, the fight between kingdoms, princely states and so on and so forth. This forms only a part of the real history of the people and the nation.
Khadi and Gandhi are inseparable. Only the irreverent and the irresponsible can meddle with historic truths and the images in public minds, or usurp it for personal aggrandisement. History, as Voltaire said, is “filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up,” and its import is all too clear in the present Indian context as well.
Narendra Damodardass Modi rose to power in Delhi in the backdrop of a mass upheaval against the corruption under the UPA and similar national crises. People expected a change for the better for the nation.
Today, after the note demonetisation and the chaos that it spawned, people are wondering what he or the government will come up with next. A sense of unpredictability also creates sadness in people’s minds.
Change is welcome, but going as far as to demolish sacred edifices and images that the nation holds dear to its heart is fraught with danger. Those in power would need to be wary of such actions.