Memory is embellished and owned, history is interpreted, especially in India
India is passing through a time of tension, and this is not entirely related to present deprivation. All of us continue to live with food shortages and fuel inflation, with the harassment of tax authorities and omnipresent corruption. The tensions I refer to, however, are all related to the past.
To use a shorthand, they are related to history and memory. Everyone has a memory — we all remember pleasant scenes from our childhood and growing up, but we usually suppress the painful recollections.
This means that memories are usually doctored, embellished and not entirely true to reality. And family reminiscences, most of all. So, what is the relationship between history and memory? In brief, memory is owned, history is interpreted. Memory is passed down uncritically through generations; history is revised again and again.
Bottom of Form
Memory often coalesces in objects, sites and monuments; history seeks to understand contexts in all their complexity. Although individuals may have a “personal history,” the word “history” is used more with reference to groups and collectives.
Everyone has a memory, and it is usually fragmented, highly personalized and subjective. History, by contrast, seeks to be objective and engages in authoritative interpretation.
But increasingly today, even history cannot shake off the claims of alternative points of view — of oppressed groups and of those who aren’t male or white.
In India today, certain political parties are engaged in a colossal exercise of readjusting memory and calling it a rewriting of history
This means that, historically speaking, there is no longer one authoritative voice, but rather many competing voices, each one contributing to the whole picture.
Historical memory, or collective memory, then refers to the fluid way by which groups of people create and then identify with specific narratives about historical periods or events. It is also associated with familial memory, religious memory and national memory.
In India today, certain political parties are engaged in a colossal exercise of readjusting memory and calling it a rewriting of history.
As we have said before, memory is selective and looks for facts that suit the veneration of the object of its desire.
Certain groups of Hindus, having identified with particular religious narratives of the past, are determined to reclaim their heritage from “aliens” who, it is held, once dispossessed the original owners. The demand is for restoration.
Thus, the restoration of Lord Ram’s birthplace in Ayodhya, and Hindu temples in Mathura and Kashi, are some instances of this restoration.
In centuries gone by, so it is claimed, Hindus were dispossessed of these sacred places by Muslim conquerors, and the present agitations are meant to set the religious memory right.
It is true that nation states traditionally envisaged a uniformity of language, culture and economy. But this is exactly why today the nation state is in jeopardy and is breaking up under regional and global pressures
However, it does not occur to these very Hindu groups to give back to the indigenous people, to Jains and to Buddhists, similar holy sites which in centuries much earlier were wrested from them by victorious Hindu rulers, and whose plinths form the basis of what is proudly displayed today as Hindu architecture.
As we said earlier, memory is selective and manipulative. History, by contrast, seeks to analyse and criticize. Historical memory is based on evidence, and facts will always complicate both identity and community.
For one thing, when one talks of a Hindurashtra (Hindu nation), which is the nation being spoken of? India as a nation and as a civilization is much too vast, too diverse and too complex to fit into a “one size fits all” Hindustan, with one language, one memory and one way of eating.
It is true that nation states traditionally envisaged a uniformity of language, culture and economy. But this is exactly why today the nation state is in jeopardy and is breaking up under regional and global pressures.
Or as the historian Daniel Boorstin once said, it is “too large for the small problems, and too small for the large problems.”
So, when the next controversy breaks out over rulers like Akbar or Rana Pratap, Shivaji or Aurangzeb, keep in mind that it will not be an argument over history, based on fact and evidence, but a tussle over memory — subjective, distorted and usually ending in destructive violence.
* The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.