Seventy Years of Secularism: Unpopular Essays on the Unofficial Political Religion of India

by Sandeep Balakrishna

Enter ICHR But Majumdar’s banishment was only the foundation but an incredibly firm foundation. One of the first structures to be built on top it was the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR). The distinguished archaeologist and scholar Dr. D.K. Chakrabarti provides an explanation of this episode: I find [Romila] Thapar’s emphasis on ‘freedom of expression’ very intriguing. The historical group of which Thapar is an eminent member came into being in the early 1970s “to give a national direction to an objective and scientific writing of history and to have rational presentation and interpretation of history”, as the [then] web-site of the Indian Council of Historical Research declared. To argue that there was no “objective and scientific writing of history” till this group moved into government-sponsored power to control the funding and job-opportunities of historical research in India was distinctly reminiscent of a dictatorial streak in itself. By then historical research in the country had flourished for about a century and to argue that the previous historians were unaware of ‘objective and scientific writing of history’ was a vicious piece of self-aggrandisement on the part of this group. In fact, since the coming of this group to power, the world of Indian historical studies has been largely criminalised. When Thapar preaches in favour of historical tolerance, one does feel amused.[89] [Emphasis added]