Peanuts: I wonder what teachers make?
Peppermint Patty: They make a difference!
Charles M. Schulz
In my college days, History was one of my favourite subjects and still is. When, recently, I attended an online session on select historical figures by Anindya Mukerji, 56, I was instantly drawn into his web of panoramic knowledge. A raconteur with a difference, he gives your mind a real jog with his hard-hitting facts. He affirms that History too is used in a potent manner to make us colonies once ruled by the Whites feel inconsequential. Hence, if we want to find ourselves, we first need to de-colonize our own minds, goes his deep revelation.
His pointers are real provocateurs that prompt you to contemplate. Here are some of his gems: Countries that gained independence in the 1930’s–50’s overwhelmingly turned totalitarian or suffered military rule, but not India. Why? Why is Rajasthan, which never suffered the long depredations of the British (as Bihar), in a cluster of backward BIMARU states? How did a handful from a backward, windy isle come to lord over the vast and far more advanced Indian sub-continent? Or speaking more globally, the million-dollar question: If attending school is education, how did millions from a country with high literacy stand aside, remain silent or actively collaborate in the heinous actions of the Third Reich?
When Anindya Mukerji is talking, you can never be bored. He makes History sound like a Sherlock Holmes mystery! A raconteur par excellence, he conjures up dramatic images, piques the interest of his audience with little-known facts, makes them think by asking pertinent questions and prompts them into spaces hitherto undefined to them. Often, the lesser or little-known facts give better perspective to a subject. As he rightly contends, "evidence-based History is a great teacher, giving us far superior perspectives, enabling wiser and much more informed choices and radically reducing the possibility of repeating mistakes". Note : anybody can join his sessions.
Now, to the question: Who is Anindya Mukerji? I have known him for over two decades since the time he was a high-profile corporate executive, living in upscale South Mumbai.
Raised in the steel city of Burnpur, West Bengal, his academic track sports a gallery of acclaimed institutions: IIM, IIT, St. Xavier's and St. Patrick’s (along with an award of the prestigious National Talent Search Scholarship immediately after school). Inspired by Mark Twain, he maintains “I never let school either interfere with or define the outer boundaries of my attempts at education”. But, thankfully, he is not just into academics. From cooking to scuba diving, reading, skiing, singing, travelling...
Thanks, to his varied interests, exposures (meeting at least thousand new people every year) and consequent curated experiences, his profile of a founder-teacher only gets better.
Yes! Despite a comfortable life in Mumbai, he left his job, relocated to Pune and started a socially- responsible endeavour, aptly named The Ekalavya Initiative. "Through its ‘Bindaas Bol’ and ‘Pagaar Bhi. Padhai Bhi’ developmental programmes delivered across 137 locations spread over 13 states of India seeks to enable tens of thousands of orphaned girls, single mothers as also the resource-challenged from deep rural or urban slums achieve ‘escape velocity’: permanently exit their erstwhile stations, through quality career commencement with reputed firms, options which otherwise are available to only the affluent", he maintains.
Anindya Mukerji at the National War Memorial, Southern Command, Pune, India, made solely with contributions by civilian citizens and
is the only one of its kind in South Asia.
As I, Sudeshna Chatterjee, take this online interview, the encyclopaedic knowledge and riveting replies of Anindya Mukerji light up those muted corners of History hitherto hidden with cobwebs of negligence for several decades and at times, deliberately camouflaged with convenient contents by the unscrupulous powerbrokers.
Q and A
How relevant is history as a subject?
Let me start with a story.
In 2013, my flight from Cairo to Aswan had, to my surprise, taken fully an hour and twenty minutes. Neither is at the extremities of Al Misr (Egypt) - the 876 km distance between the two being less than two-thirds of the shortest route from Alexandria in the extreme north to Abu Simbel in the deep south.
Africa, in my mind, had always been the same size as the British Isles, since each had been devoted exactly the same one page in atlases published by Oxford; Egypt, only a tiny fraction of the size of England. The said atlases had also imprinted in mind the impression Edinburgh was light years away from London, while in reality they are only 630 km apart: less than half the length of Egypt.
European countries, much smaller than the nations they colonized, have over the past three centuries deployed many insidious means to make millions on multiple continents feel eternally inferior. Cartographically diminishing us was one of them, resulting in us: the erstwhile colonized, considering ourselves, as well as countries previously colonized by the White Man, dismissively, as being insignificant and irrelevant.
Maps were weaponized, yes, but History too was used in a potent manner to make us feel inconsequential. Only events and personalities from the Occident were considered ‘History’ despite the Khmer Empire being by far larger than its celebrated contemporary Byzantine Empire, ‘History’ books don’t mention it.
I do subscribe to the oft-cited reasons for the relevance of History as a subject, especially the maxim ‘Those who do not learn from History are condemned to repeat it’. As Albert Einstein said, "Two things are infinite : the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe". History provides the opportunity to learn from a treasure-trove of others’ stupidities.
History also provides innumerable instances from across the ages to recognize true wisdom viz. chasing only hard power ensures neither security nor longevity, as Aurangzeb realized too late, nor lead to wide appeal – note the near-absence of Sinic cultures across SE Asia while Indic influence flourishes from Bagan (Myanmar) to the Champa kingdom (Vietnam) and finally, the enormous price to be paid for hubris, as in the wiping out of the glorious Vijayanagar kingdom because of the mindless arrogance of Krishna Raya.
However, I am an avid reader of History for a host of additional reasons:
To try find answers to questions: While many nations that gained independence in the 1930’s–50’s subsequently suffered totalitarian or military rule, why did India not do so? Why is Rajasthan, which never suffered at the hands of the British as Bihar, in the cluster of backward BIMARU states? How could millions from a country with high literacy rates actively collaborate with the despicable Third Reich?’
For often delightful answers from our past to the foods we consume today: the manner of processing of grains and spices by the residents of Dholavira or Rakhigarhi 4,000 years ago to the impact of intense trading contact with the world resulting in the mind-boggling variety of Bengali cuisine –‘sambals’ and ‘malai curries’ to the use of cottage cheese in sweets.
To be able to call out ‘fake news’ – highly motivated versions of events, such as the manufactured one of the Battle of Talikota in 1565 with Vijayanagara being the last bastion of Hindus, holding out valiantly against marauding Muslims (Robert Sewell, 1900) or a recent video on social media that breathlessly peddles the fiction that a certain King from a medieval South Indian dynasty was ‘the greatest emperor, ever…….Ruling over Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia and Indonesia’.
For practical uses on a day-to-day basis : being able to trace back the full universe of causative factors behind current events. From Stalin’s actions in the 40’s and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, to recognizing truly worthwhile projections - China’s likely actions because its long-standing civilizational drivers, and analogous situations - the rise today of world-class Indian track and field talent to that in the US 90 years ago.
But for me, an Indian, the biggest motivation is that ‘History’ as written by the West has, till rather recently, been a travesty of the rich. Globally inter-connected tapestry that the story truly is, it being reduced to pointless details of endless European battles, while interesting accounts of the trading connections of Mapungubwe or the Great Zimbabwe in Africa with places as far away as India, China and Egypt are ignored.
Muted mention of extraordinary, millennia-old edifices (the exquisite carvings on the 9th-century Banteay Srei in Kampuchea) and en passant passages on remarkable personalities (Sundiata Keita, founder of the massive Mali Empire or his wealthier-than-Augustus Caesar nephew Mansa Musa - the one who established Timbuktu as a great center of learning), while waxing eloquent on obscure knights and their ‘great exploits’.
Outright racist versions (Henri Mouhot ‘discovering’ Angkor Wat in 1860) being solemnly passed off as ‘History’ combined with deeply divisive accounts designed to enable the White Man rule at will viz. the ‘good’ British ‘liberating the helpless Hindus of India’ from oppressive Muslim rule by ‘gifting’ them the kingdom of Mysore with a picked-out-of-obscurity Krishnaraja Wodeyar III in 1799 at its head.
As Chinua Achebe said, unless told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. So, to go past the slanted, self-serving accounts of the occupying ‘hunters’, I read evidence-based History, written by a growing tribe of brilliant young historians from the East. To discover a grand universe of the many ignored till date in ‘History’, as also to evict the Occidental squatters of the real estate of my mind.
For to truly find myself, I first need to de-colonize it.
Which parts of History, National and the World, interest you the most? Why?
The areas of special interest to me are –
1. India from 1707 (death of Aurangzeb) till 1947, especially 1875 onwards till India achieved Independence and the influence of events in different parts of the world on this period.
2. The history of medieval Deccan ( the area South of the Narmada ), and
3. Accounts of travellers to India, especially the Europeans in the medieval period.
A. I find many things fascinating about this period –
a. How dynasties or regimes, however strong they are, will inevitably collapse and being able to spot the early signs of their impending decay and often, sudden implosion.
b. How a far less developed set of much smaller nations came to lord over vast tracts of land, overthrowing much older and unfathomably richer empires.
c. The manner in which the world shrunk in an accelerating manner post the 1880s because of a series of inventions and how as a result, events across the world entered our consciousness and informed our actions, leading to independence.
d. The emergence of a hallowed gallery of incredibly far-sighted women and men : from Maharani Chimnabai, Savitribai Phule and Kamladevi Chattopadhyay to Joseph ‘Kaka’ Baptista (associate and confidante of Tilak), Chamarajendra Wodeyar X along with CV Rungacharlu (the far-ahead-of-his-times Dewan), Vithal Ramji Shinde and Dewan T Madhava Rao, with truly outstanding leadership qualities, because of whom we have the country that is India today standing tall 75 years later, while even an erudite Dewan of a celebrated princely state was of the opinion that the nation would not last more than two years.
B. For the simple reason that Indian historians had considered the account of dynasties in Delhi to be the history of India and, till recently, had glancing acquaintance with the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Yadavas, Kakatiyas, Hoysalas, Bahamanis – empires that have made extraordinary contributions in multiple fields : architecture, literature and linguistics to name but three.
I live in the hope there will be more extraordinary historians of the class of Radhakrishna Choudhary with his work on the history of Mithilanchal, so that one gets worthwhile works on the history of the North-East, pre-medieval Bengal (including current day Bangladesh) and Burma (Myanmar).
C. Medieval India accounted for about 25% of the world’s GDP and Bengal for more than 40% of this: effectively, more than 10% of world GDP.
Pliny the Elder, in the 1st century CE, had complained of India being ‘the sink of the world’s gold’. The country had been both the seat of a long-standing civilization as also the source of prized manufactures and commodities - the wealth accreting out of gold sent back to pay for these goods exported to far-off lands both by maritime routes as well as overland.
By the mid-1300’s however, the riches enjoyed by the masses and the opulence of its cities had risen to such a level that those who visited this land were incredulous at the sights.
To me imagining life in this period by reading these accounts of visitors, especially from Europe, who talk of immeasurable wealth and architectural marvels as also the contrast they pose against the reality of India that I grew up in 50 years ago is something I find engrossing.
Name historical figures and events that struck you the most? Why?
Three, off the top of my head, are –
1. Sayaji Rao Gaekwad of Baroda (as very much his second wife, Maharani Chimnabai):
a. For a shepherd boy, picked out of an obscure village near Nashik and installed on the throne at no notice, to rise to become one of the most far-sighted visionaries, ever, of this land.
His views on the caste system or the need for democracy and the will of the masses to replace the ‘constellation of Princes’ was articulated by him more than a 100 years ago.
"Men are good and bad according to their virtues and capacities, not parentage. Our country’s prosperity is greatly hindered by the institution of caste. Social reforms are more important than political rights. The system which divided us into innumerable castes is a whole issue of injustice, splitting men equal by nature into divisions high and low, based on an accident of birth" (1893).
"The first thing you'll have to do when the English are gone is to get rid of all these rubbishy (Princely) states. There'll never be an Indian nation until this so-called Princely order disappears. Its disappearance will be the best thing that can happen to India - the best possible thing" (1908).
b. For the wide number of areas he acted on and the long-lasting impact of these : from founding the Bank of Baroda to textile mills to irrigation canals to educational institutions.
c. His work on social areas : free education for all ( per capita expenditure in the state of Baroda was 50-times that of British-ruled India ), standing up against child marriage, standing up for women’s education. I could go on and on...
d. His nationalism, rising above parochial considerations : ethnic or other narrow identities, and his refusal to bow to the King Emperor at the Delhi Durbar of 1911.
As Sultan Mahomed Shah (Aga Khan III) said of him, “For Sayajirao, India always came first”. This at a time when divisive pulls and tendencies were widespread and the concept of India as ‘nation’ was still in its nascent stages in the minds of millions.
2. Dadabhai Naoroji
"Whether I am a Hindu, a Muslim, a Parsi or of any other creed, I am above all, an Indian". That was the ‘Grand Old Man of India’ and a seminal foundation-layer of India speaking in 1893.
One revered by millions, regardless of background. Feted by Muslim Qazis, Hindu Priests and Sikh Granthis at the Golden Temple alike, one who as much moved half a million people to turn out on the streets of Mumbai in protest as mill workers in Ahmedabad or labourers on the streets of Lahore.
His inclusivity, nationalism, selflessness, being the first voice to bring up the drain of wealth from India to England, contributions as a Dewan of Baroda, social reforms amongst Parsis, founder of the first Indian company in England, mentorship of Baptista, Tilak, Gokhale and MK Gandhi, contributing to the rise in popularity of Raja Ravi Varma – I could go on endlessly...
We Indians would do ourselves a favour by trying to understand better how much of where we stand today is because of the contributions and legacy of Sayaji Rao Gaekwad and Dadabhai Naoroji.
However, there is another reason why this extraordinary gentlemen is an icon I think of dearly.
India to me is the non-xenophobic, natural homeland to the world, welcoming, over the ages, all, from every corner of this earth, and making them part of our own.
I see this when I walk down the streets of Calcutta past an ‘Armenian College’ or the ‘Chinese’ fishing nets along the coast near Kochi, read of the 5,000-odd Polish Jews being provided a safe haven in Jamnagar during World War II or see ‘dhansak’ being eagerly devoured by gourmets.
This making our own refuge-seekers, of caring for the invisible and unquestioningly making all an inalienable part of our identity as a nation is to me at the root of the phenomenon : Dadabhai Naoroji.
Centuries ago, the Zoroastrians came to India fleeing from persecution. A millennium later, one from amongst the very same, once fear-fraught people – one that now considered India its own motherland, had yielded up from amongst them this powerhouse – one who kick-started the galvanizing of de-humanized millions into evicting the rapacious, illegitimate occupiers.
And in that story lies the greater unspoken one – of the unique magic of a civilization named India.
3. Ibrahim Adil Shah II ( known as Jagatguru Badshah of Vidyanagri - current day Bijapur)
One of the reasons India captured the imagination of the world, as also achieved to heights in multiple fields, is its syncretic culture : welcoming one and all and making them an integral part of ourselves. For me, Ibrahim Adil Shah II who called Saraswati his Mother and Ganapati his Father, shows what heights can be achieved to out of true syncretism. In addition to his contributions to building (including temples), art, poetry, literature and music, accounts of travellers speak glowingly of his times.
Events :
a. Battle of Adwa (1896), where the Ethiopian army defeated the invading Italian army
b. Russo – Japanese War (1904 – 05), where the Russians were routed by the Japanese
c. The victory of Mohun Bagan over East Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield finals (1911)
d. The ouster of Tsar Nicholas II as a consequence of the First Russian Revolution (1905)
The first three brought home the message that the White Man could be defeated.
The news of the fall of the mighty Tsar travelled to all corners of the earth. For the masses, it meant someone considered powerful beyond measure could be brought down by the common man - a never before phenomenon. Even the Bhils of Mewar made this event part of their battle cry in their rebellion against the redoubtable Fateh Singh, Maharana of Mewar.
Each of the above provided serious impetus, at a mass level, to the till-then heretical thought that the White Man could be thrown out from India.
What is the difference between history and mythology? Do they complement each other?
History : ( should be, if not ideologically driven) evidence-based accounts of events and personalities
Mythology : stories / fabrications / fiction / urban legends
There are of course instances when historical figures have modelled themselves on mythical figures or on mythological narratives. There are a host of negative examples of consequences - Aryan supremacy and Aryan purity come to mind immediately. Citing ‘Robin Hood’ as an inspiration for looting the helpless is another. There might possibly be examples of positive actions too. Did Harishchandra model himself on Lord Rama? Bhumibol Adulyadej, the highly respected King of Siam, actively did.
Between faith and logic, which gets precedence in historical events : local, national and world?
Wars have defined the shaping of geographies and destinies of men for a great part of human history. While faith has been cited as the reason to start many of them, I would posit that this has been used as an excuse - the ostensible cause - in a lot of cases to provide a moralistic cover for indefensible acts. While the real cause would have been greed for money or lust for power or greater lands or to project power, faith would have been the publicly cited reason for establishing justness of the cause.
I find it difficult to believe that even the most blood-thirsty, revenge-seeking general or ruler would, at a personal level, be anything less than driven by cold logic, that they’d be unaware of the terrible costs of war and the toll they take. Ashoka Maurya would have been completely in his senses before deciding to ride on Kalinga. Or for that matter, Adolf Hitler while sending those who swear by the Talmud to the gas chambers.
Exceptions that immediately spring to mind : the Crusades (though I am not sure data will not surface in the future that shows it is not faith that truly underlay these Quixotic transcontinental forays) as also Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) and his inflicting unspeakable atrocities on his own countrymen in Kampuchea.
Your favorite historian? Why?
Possibly, William Dalrymple. Read his latest work ‘The Anarchy’. It is ‘un-put-down-able’, a riveting read.
This is how history needs to be narrated – a canvas, grand in scope, connecting events from very different parts of the globe, thereby showing their interplay and for all these hitherto disjointed pieces to become a cogent whole, stories that come to life because of a detailing out of events with their unpredictable twists and turns like a suspense-ridden thriller, brought to light because of thorough research, compelling us to read on further, passages that pull us in, with our getting fully involved with the personae involved : travelling into their worlds, sighing at the follies we can see but invisible to them, anger at their depredations and, at times, exhilaration at their successes.
I consider Anirudh Kanisetti too to be part of this tribe as also Ramachandra Guha of the timeless tomes’ fame.
And arguably, Amitav Ghosh, because of the meticulous research into historical events that underlie his works, including the rather recent ‘ The Nutmeg’s Curse’.
How can history prepare youth to be a better generation?
Youth: more than 50% of the Indian populace, can have a huge bearing on public discourse as also the choice of representatives in our democracy. The long years they have ahead require them to have a greater stake in the policies adopted by such representatives. History can enable superior choices.
Travellers to the Vijayanagar kingdom from abroad used to be dazzled by its riches as also the scale of its cities, Hampi in particular. Given the rocky terrain, patchy rainfall and poor soils of a large part of the territories it controlled, how did this empire accumulate so much wealth?
The answer : learning from the radical transformation of the Deccan by the Chalukyas (of Vatapi, Lata, Kalyana) and the Rashtrakutas through vigorous encouragement of wide trading networks – Swahili coast to Guangzhou, besides actively attracting talent from varied parts of the globe.
Empirical evidence from History shows closing doors and looking inwards guarantees penury. Entrepots and empires, from across the globe as also the ages, have lifted millions out of misery by choosing openness: ‘plugging in’ through global trade, as also drawing in talent of all denominations, regardless of background.
Youth could learn this as a key lesson from History and to make this an active factor in their choice of representatives and support for policies. This is important at a mass level for India at this juncture.
How history can be taught in the classroom today?
Amol lived in the cluster of unauthorized shanties in Pune, just outside of the complex I reside in.
With an alcoholic father, who worked on construction sites, school meant perfunctory attendance in an institution run by the Municipal Corporation. Amol found neither interest nor utility in pursuing studies.
When he was in Class VIII, their regular History teacher took seriously ill. The school asked their instructor for Physical Training to step in.
In all his years of schooling, the only thing Amol absolutely loved were the lessons that this makeshift History teacher delivered : epochal events from history narrated by him as riveting stories that flowed into each other, with dramatic use of voice and movement, evoking vivid images, inscribing indelible memories. Amol eagerly waited for his History classes, while all the other subjects bored him to death.
Amol had attended school more than two decades ago, when there was no internet, no videos of historical events on You Tube, no projector or computer with audio speakers in his classroom.
Yet, an instructor of Physical Training, with no prior background in teaching History and with no available technology-enabled teaching aids had made the subject come alive to such an extent, that Amol, who had no interest in any subject at any point of time in school, can even today repeat from memory almost every lesson delivered by this incredible teacher.
As Dalrymple and a host of other historians have done, this teacher too had made a supposedly dry subject like History become what it truly is : a suspense-ridden thriller.
#Mark Twain#Chinua Achebe#Albert Einstein#Adolf Hitler#William Dalrymple# The Anarchy#Amitav Ghosh#The Nutmeg's Curse #Sayaji Rao Gaekwad of Baroda#Dadabhai Naoroji# Ibrahim Adil Shah II#Anindya Mukerji#Sudeshna Chatterjee
