Assignment #15: ‘How can we know the true version of past?’ For the Departments of English & Media Studies by Prof Dr Sohail Ansari
"History is
written by victors" saying argues that the victors overwhelmingly
influence historical accounts. BJP, therefore, can be justified in
saying that the (The Mughal
Emperors), overwhelmingly influence historical accounts.
"History is written by
victors" may itself be an example of history written by the losers! While
the quote is commonly misattributed to Winston Churchill,
it's origins are unknown and it might be inspired by Hermann Göring's quote:
We will go down in history either as
the world's greatest statesmen or its worst villains.
On a (perhaps) more serious note, the
aftermath of the Fall of Constantinople(1453) is a prime example of history written by the
losers. A wave of Greek scholars emigrated to the west after the event that
essentially marked the end of the Byzantine Empire,
bringing with them extremely biased accounts of Ottomanbrutality.
The vilification of the Ottomans was
the prevalent opinion in the Western world for centuries and served as
propaganda material as late as 1832, when the Greek War of Independence ended. Even modern attempts at identifying the historical
truth of the era, such as the 2011 "1821" documentary, are met with
controversy in Greece.
A more recent example would be
the American Civil War and the Lost Cause movement,
a term borrowed from Edward Pollard's 1866 book The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the
Confederates : Comprising a Full and Authentic Account of the Rise and Progress
of the Late Southern Confederacy--the Campaigns, Battles, Incidents, and
Adventures of the Most Gigantic Struggle of the World's History.
Lastly, a (perhaps controversial)
example of history written by the losers is the account of the Vietnam War.
Although whether the US lost the war is debatable they certainly didn't win it,
still the overwhelming majority of historical documentation for the war comes
from the US. One can read further
How to identify the historical truth?
Should villains define or statesmen define
Mughal period? "History that is written by victors can be the history of purple patches or purple passages and can be criticized for desaturating
the meaning by being extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and
draw excessive attention to rulers and their good work.
Paul West rightly says, "It takes a certain amount of sass
to speak up for prose that's rich, succulent and full of novelty. Purple is
immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating
angel of depravity’’
History that is
written by losers is the biased accounts of victors; it is the subjective
interpretation because of being fallen victim to subjective experiences those
are not limited to certain passages as to stand out from the rest and desaturates the meaning of the entire narrative.
Historical accounts of
losers are the brain representations of emotions and feelings.
Exercise:
·
BJP can justify its communalisation of history as an attempt to
restore past: past was changed and it is being presented as what it was.
·
Counter narrative: The attempt to create this narrative is
rooted in the sectarian reading of history, and betrays a political agenda –
which is to turn India into a Hindu nation.
Question: How can we know the true version of past?
·
History is written
by The Mughal Emperors as BJP
asserts so reading written by the
losers can help us to know truth?
Question: Would historical accounts in this case not
be overwhelmingly influenced by losers?
Comments
Post a Comment