History, Politics and Best Sellers….
You know what I regret most? I regret
that Valmiki and Ved Vyas did not copyright their works. I wish that the
intellectual property laws had been invented back in 2000 BC or thereabouts so
we don’t have to suffer the torture inflicted on us- the reading public- by
half-baked re-imaginings of timeless classics in the name of re-interpretation.
Gods and devils, devas and asuras- none have been spared from being filched and
“re-imagined” horrendously. Every other writer nowadays "borrows" of
the Puranas and Itihasas and makes a mash of them in the guise of modernity.
If you are wondering what has riled me
so much let me give you the story behind my irritation. I recently got my hands
on a book which was purported to be a retelling of God Shiva's story - a book
tom-tomed as the fastest selling bestseller on on-line retailers.. If you have
not had the misfortune to read that novel please don’t spend your hard earned
money and buy it believing the marketing hype. But if you like me had bought it
already, then i am sure that we kindred souls can commiserate with each other for
wasting time and money on such a pathetic rendition of what a novel should be.
There are lots of people out there who
trash Chetan Bhagat (after secretly reading his novels) as a boring and
ungrammatical writer. I for one consider Chetan Bhagat as the best Indian
contemporary author. Want to know why? Because he is original and imaginative.
He doesn’t simply filch the Ramayana and Mahabharata and just modernize the
characters. He has written progressively about college life, call center life,
small town life and such other facets of contemporary.
Now compare Chetan Bhagats competition
on the bestseller list. The other
bestsellers on the contemporary Indian fiction list are Bankers Ramayana
series- not a patch on the previous versions of Valmiki, Tulsidas, Kamban or my
favorite, Rajagoplachari's. And then the execrable Shiva series I mentioned
earlier written by Amish Tripathi and the Krishna series written by Ashwin
Sanghi- an eminently forgettable addition to the list of Indian writers- as
forgettable as their books. And somehow marketing hype, catering to the lowest
common denominator has brought these books onto the bestseller list too.
The reason, in my opinion, these books
are making the bestseller lists is the rising tide of fanaticism in the country.
Our people are getting better educated but are simultaneously growing more
parochial. Such people don’t read or trust history, they get all their
historical knowledge from reading trashy novels which retell history to reflect
their authors mindset. Mores’ the pity for a real historical knowledge is as
essential for a good citizen as any professional training. A professional
degree gives you the skills for a job; history teaches you your place in
society. And that’s the reason why rulers have fought over it traditionally -
the right to teach their own version of history.
Throughout human life we can see that
history has always been a weapon in the hands of the ruling elite. In India
real historical knowledge was first propounded by the ruling British, people
like Alexander Cunningham who excavated Monhenjadaro and formulated the Indus Valley
civilization theory and the Aryan Dravidian divide. After independence history
passed on into the hands of those Marxist parasites who ruled the roost under
Nehruvism- people like Romila Thapar- who decided that Marxism was best served
by reducing Indian history to a nonentity until the Arab invasion of Sindh. For
the Marxist historians Indian history attained its high point and ended with
the Mughals. For how else could they justify their accepting handouts from the
modern day nawabs who ruled from New Delhi. And this state sponsored glossing
over the historical atrocities committed by the Islamic invasion has produced a
natural backlash in the rise of hindutva fanatics who have swung the pendulum
of history to the other end.
The right wing rise in India has
coincided with bestselling novelists who have cleverly played on the sentiments
of people who want to believe that theirs was a glorious past which was
destroyed by foreign invaders starting from the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols
and then the British. For people like Amish Tripathi, the highpoint of Indian
history is the Aryan reign in the Indo-Gangetic plain. That is why in the Shiva
series he has Aryanised the Indus valley culture by referring it often by the
historically inaccurate name of Indo-Saraswatic culture. Every theory of the
yet to be deciphered Harappan script refers to the astonishing similarities it
shares with Dravidian, more specifically the early Granthan Tamil script known
as Vatteluthu.
But to these new age authors, people
like Ashwin Sanhghi or Amish Tripathi, everything starts with Manu their patron
saint and so they appropriate the Dravidian heritage of the Indus valley
culture and make it Proto-Aryan - as a degenerated form of the great Aryan
civilization as exemplified by Manudharma. Archaeological evidence of a 150
years - right from the original digger Cunningham- is discarded in favor of a
fanciful interpretation to suit new age India which demands a hoary past of
immense scientific progress and cultural status.
For these people everyone in ancient
India ate gold and shit diamonds and all the knowledge of the world was inside
India and the rest were mere barbarians. This exalted view of Indian supremacy
must have existed historically too or how else can you explain the fact that at
one point of history ancient Indian society specifically excommunicated people
who traveled by sea? Even the father of
the nation Mahatma Gandhi suffered this fate as late as the 19th century when
he went to England to study law and this when there was clear historical
evidence from coins/potsherds/books (Indica by Megasthenes?) that other ancient
civilizations were bold seafarers who regularly visited India to trade?
This parochial view of the false
greatness of Indians alone when compared to the rest of the world is the same
view being perpetuated by these bestselling authors to prey on gullible
youngsters who skipped their history lessons at school. For example in the
Shiva series there is an hilarious explanation of the alcoholic drink somapana
as an antioxidant drink comparable to modern day juice boosters but with
miraculous effects like the elixir of life. I accept that authors have a
license to use their imagination and write fantasy but in this case they are
merely playing into the hands of politically motivated fundamentalists who will
take these books as literal facts and boast about our "rich" heritage
now gone to dogs.
And so we come back to my original
premise, about my regret on not allowing the Ramayana and Mahabharata to remain
as they are without these frequent re-telling. I wouldn’t bother if any of
these translations were halfway interesting purely from a writing (or plot)
point of view. But the truth is they are not. They are neither enjoyable nor
truthful. And they are not even like chetan bhagats books which at least
address today’s issues instead of raking up old and historical feuds and
prejudices.
And what’s more scary, these books are
being used as part of a larger agenda to increase contempt for our contemporary
scientific society (which is far more egalitarian than any in historical India)
based on a fanciful image of ancient India and its omniscient greatness. Is
this accidental on the part of those authors? Or are they being used or
co-opted against their knowledge? Or is it all a part of the growing
radicalization of society to the Right of the polity as a backlash to being
force fed fifty years of Marxist (leftist/Communist) history by the JNU
Jolawalla types?
I leave you to decide for yourselves
and ask you to share your opinions with me in the comments section. I have a
final plea to you, please read history for history sake. Read it neither as a
leftist nor as rightist but as a seeker of knowledge and you can see the truth
minus all fanciful lies and politics. And finally a novel is just a novel, it
is not history and ancient India did not have streets paved with gold- that was
El Dorado. Enough said?
