Teaching of History

-- by Acharya Vinoba Bhave

Prejudices Due to False History

Though there are many flaws in the modern education, one big flaw is that in the name of history, many ideas are forced in the minds of the people. The biggest danger in education is created by this teaching of history. "Itihaas" means "iti ha aas", i.e., it happened this way. But these days, something that did not happen is also written as history. Even the imagined stories are not as false as history is, as the story-writer makes it explicit that all stories are imagined. At least this is the element of truth in them. But a historian claims, "I have written the complete truth, and others write falsehoods". Do you think that what is taught in the name of history is anything worthwhile? Two world wars have been fought, their history must have been written by the Germans in one way, and by the Russians and English in another. Who committed a crime, who did some injustice, what event happened and when, this is all falsely stated. Important documents are destroyed and fake documents are produced as evidence.

Read an interesting news in the papers recently that the Russian history will be corrected and rewritten. What do they mean by rewriting? Stalin has died, but will they write that he has not died? Stalin created a big name for himself in his lifetime. All that will be denied and rewritten. Mahatma Gandhi was against violence, this used to be written about him in history. Now it will be written that he was a saint. Thank God, they do not write that he never existed. They do not change the history so much, it is their kindness.

In short, history is written as per one's wishes. In order to influence people's minds in a particular manner, old events are doctored and presented to them. Such history will be taught to the children. Historians have died and the minds of the students are dying under the excruciating weight of their stories. What is the sense in memorising the names of kings? Which event happened when, there is no need to hear that. There have been countless kings. You see the leaves on these trees, there have been so many kings. What is to be gained by reading their history? In the name of history, people's minds are being moulded. As a result, the masses become prejudiced.

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History highlights evolution. About two to two and a half thousand years ago, founders of religions were born. Buddha, Mahavira, Confucious, Lao-Tse, Zoroastra, and then Christ! All almost in the same era. Everywhere you find the ideas of founding religions. They did not even know of each other. Later, this feeling of founding religions abated, and saints emerged everywhere. There were saints in Maharashtra, and all over India. When I read the history of Europe, I found that similarly they also had saints like Francis. First there was the age of giving importance to religion, later bhakti (devotion) gained importance. Later there was a wave of nationalism. During the last one or two centuries, the feeling of independence for their countries is visible everywhere, and is still continuing. All over the world, you see a wave of independence.

What next after independence? What will be the next age? The next age will be a global age. For that, we will have to give up our narrow-mindedness. We shall have to give up the pride of Marathi, Gujarati, caste, religion, and even that of India. The new age requires "Jay Jagat". The universe as one country, India as its one state, Maharashtra its one district, this will have to be the new scale. Such broad-mindedness should come in the teaching of history.

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In the teaching of history, we should discard the stories of battles between kings that were due to their jealousies, etc. It is a mistake to treat history as the chronology of the lives of the kings. Punjabis today do not know the kings who ruled Punjab, but everybody knows Guru Nanak. Nobody knows the Sen and Pal kings of Bengal, but everybody knows Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Who can ignore the names of Dnyanadeva and Tukaram in Maharashtra? Therefore, give importance to these great people in history, and make only cursory mention of the kings. But it does not happen this way.

Shivaji maharaj's father's name was Shahu. He was blessed by a fakir, and was subsequently called as "Shahji". That fakir was a sufi saint of those days. In those days, the sufi saints taught Islam to people. Kings only indulged in violence. They had nothing to do with religion. They destroyed the temple of Somnath and looted. Koran repeatedly states that religion cannot be spread with force. But nobody teaches this. Samarth Ramdas Swami saw that the sufi saints were reading out the "Karima" of Sheikh Sadi, and the people were getting attracted to that. Then he wrote his "Manache Shlok" on the same pattern. For example: "Mana Sajjana Bhaktipanthen Chi Javen". Now how many of us know that the "Manache Shlok" of Marathi is based on "Karima"? Therefore, I say that either history should be written in a new way, or we should just give up.

I got a specimen of the kind of history that is taught today. The education minister of Maharashtra came to me and asked what kind of changes should be made in the teaching of history. I said, "First let me see what is being taught currently, then only I can give my comments". He gave me the history textbook, which had 622 pages. In these 622 pages, initially there is a brief introduction to Buddhism. After that Sultan-shahi, Khilji dynasty, Lodi dynasty, the pillars of Muslim rule: Babar, Humayun, Jehangir, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb, and then Chatrapati Shivaji, Rajaram, Tarabai, then the Portugese and French, and then Hastings, Minto, Bantics, Dalhouji, Harding, Dafrin, Canning, Curzon, etc. It is like, "Keshaway namah, Narayanay namah", etc., namaskar to all 24 names.

Most surprisingly, in such a big book of 622 pages, the lives of Dnyanadev, Tukaram and Namdev have been covered in just seven lines. It says: "From Dnyanadev to Tukaram-Ramdas, the saints in Maharashtra created religious, social and political awareness. It strengthened the belief among the masses that there is something like "swadharma" (my religion) in the religious discourses of the saints and that they should follow it. It should be defended. Though the result of this increasing awareness was not immediately visible, when Shivaji took upon himself the task of establishing an independent state, and thereby protecting their religion, he immediately got the support of the masses". That is all there is about the saints of Maharashtra in those 622 pages. The Maharashtrian mindset has been greatly influenced by the great men like Dnyanadev, Eknath, Tukaram, Ramdas, Moropant, Mukteshwar, Shreedhar, Mahipat, etc. Even today, lakhs of people dance, chanting Dnyanadev-Tukaram, Dnyanoba-Tukaram. And still, only so much description about them!

This is followed by the chronology of which important event happened when. It does not state when Dnyanadev was born. When Dnyaneshwari was written, there is no mention of that. It accurately describes when Edinborough came, when he was born, when famines hit various states, when the meeting with Prince of Wales took place, etc. Such history is taught to the Marathi-speaking children. Indeed, it is a mentality of slavery. When will the teachers revolt against this?

(Translated by Pradyumn Sharma)