The Politics Of History

FIVE decades after the dawn of independent Indian academic research, History reigns as the queen of the Humanities. But never was a discipline of social sci-ence so racked by intellectual feuds, so ennobled by an efflorescence of research yet so beset by what younger academics call "academic feudalism".

Now behind redbrick facades and on rocky campuses eminent nationalist historians have built little empires. A non-resident scholar has created a school of analy-sis—the Subaltern Studies—that has led to sharp and often personalised divisions. And old-fashioned positivists have joined battle with more avant garde post-modernists over whether simply "de-constructing" a text is good enough. As far as senior common room intrigue is concerned, History is hot stuff.

"Academic politics," said Henry Kissinger, "are so bitter because the stakes are so low." But for History in the '90s, the stakes seem quite high. Now academics like Professor Gyanendra Pandey of Delhi University (DU) receive audiences of over 500 people when they lecture in the US. With over 100 uni-versities in India today, there are a far greater number of teaching positions than there were in the '50s or the '60s. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) in New Delhi is so up-to-date that almost any academic work on modern India is readily available. Articles pour in for historical andeconomic journals and a good academic monograph now averages a print run of about 1,000 copies. Works of high standard are beginning to appear from Shimla and Kurukshetra universities. And a number of Indian historians have found opportunities abroad. "A fantastic thing has happened," says Dharma Kumar, senior fellow at the NMML. "There exist a number of top flight historians in India today. In fact, Indian history has taken a quantum leap forward."

But the leap forward has not been without its pockets of discontent. New Delhi is the centre where, metaphorically speaking, a hundred schools of history have bloomed and a thousand debates have portended. In the process there have emerged a breed of cerebral czars, individuals with whom certain institutions have become far too incestuously associated, who not only have the power to hand out tenures but also send their followers abroad through several new fellowships.

Power elites, of course, have always existed in History. A couple of decades ago, Professor Irfan Habib's school of historians from the Aligarh Muslim University had,according to contemporaries, the power to deny posts—even those as far afield as the vice-chancellorship of Bombay University—to those who were not part of their group. More recently, a debate was sparked off by a letter written to the Economic and Political Weekly by Dharma Kumar which charged that the journal had become a prisoner of a small coterie of radicals. And in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)History Faculty, observers say that "insiders" are promoted to higher posts while top historians like Shahid Amin are kept out because they are "outsiders".

"Academic feudalism," says a lecturer at JNU, "is so acute in History because there are so many opportunities now." Academic feudalism—that is, the relations that develop between an influential professor and his proteges—takes many forms. Sometimes proteges are used by the feudal lord of the department as domestic help, to take charge of the cooking if the lord's wife is ill. Sometimes, proteges function as research assistants, helping to craft the trendy tome that will catapult the patron to a transAtlantic hall of fame. Sometimes, the feudal lord treats his followers as ideological allies to further the cause of liberalism or Marxism-Leninism on committees and in the university generally. And sometimes academic feudalism manifests itself as a power-sharing arrangement between a particular teacher and his students to keep "outsiders" out of the staff room.

"A chief characteristic of academic feudalism," says a JNU lecturer, "is that the protege must not be too good. If he is bright enough to overthrow the master, he cannot ever be anyone's protege."

 In JNU, an eminent nationalist historian, Professor Bipan Chandra, was so well known for placing his students in departmental posts that others did not even bother to apply if they did not have his support. Tripta Wahi,convenor of the Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA) and lecturer at Hindu College, DU, says that the appointments made by the senior historian could not be challenged by anyone because of his reputation. "Yet the people he has placed in my college are totally mediocre. In fact they are third divisioners whose only claim to fame is that they do not teach any school of History which is at variance with their teacher."

An important mark of academic feudalism here. The ultimate offering to the patron is intellectual independence. So if you owe your tenure to a nationalist historian, you can't, for example, teach Subaltern Studies.

A school of enquiry that aimed to get away from "elite history" or the history of leaders to "history from below" or the history of peasants and workers, SubalternStudies has transformed the study of Indian history. Yet this school is still not taught by the followers of nationalist historians. The founder of the school, Ranajit Guha, was based in Australia when he started his work. "Perhaps Guha was free to do what he did because he was away from the power structures of Indian academia," says a historian at DU.

Indivar Kamtekar, of the Centre of Historical Studies at JNU, says the difference between academic politics in England and in India, is that in England it is political rather than intellectual obedience that is demanded. As long as you vote with your patron on committees, you are free to write whatever you want. It is also possible for a right wing supervisor to examine the work of a left wing student. "But here the pressures are different. They are subtle but they are very real," Kamtekar says.

Examples of such pressures exist outside History as well. So strong is the monopoly of a Marxist professor at the Centre of Economic Study and Planning at JNU that no economic theory—non-Marxist economics and the type of economics that probably helps in securing jobs—could be taught at the Centre. So an entirely new course—International Economics—had to be created and be taught in the International Relations department to enable students to learn economic theory. Academic feudalism means that the truth is handed down fromgeneration to generation, uncontaminated by the marketplace.

Academic feudalism is often the result of doctrinal strife which sometimes spills over into bitter personal animosities. Neeladri Bhattacharya, also at the History centre at JNU, says that there have always been doctrinal differences in History. "But earlier there was a greater sense of camaraderie. There was no internal strife because there was a hegemony of the Marxist school. But now debates have broken free of any unifying umbrella and become much sharper."

The influence of the French thinker Foucault has divided the chroniclers of the past more sharply than before. The shift to the "de-construction" of "texts" as self-contained entities has seriously challenged older methods of Leftist history with its emphasis on historical context and the activities of classes. "A lot of people are apprehensive about the growth of post-modernist ideas," says Bhattacharya, "but it is sad when intellectual conflicts become tied up with personalised struggles. If this happens, it is a mark of an immature intellectual milieu."

Consequently, a student of DU complains: "We have to be very careful. If a post-modernist tutor thinks our work is too traditional he may not recommend us for a scholarship abroad. But if we happen to fall under the supervision of an old-fashioned Leftist who thinks us too post-modernist, he may give us a bad mark."

Nasir Tyabji, a fellow at the NMML who came to Delhi only a year-and-a-half ago, says he has been tremendously impressed with the level of scholarship here. "But as the number of trained scholars expands and the opportunities for research posts diminish, I suppose there is a temptation to find a patron who will be able to help in furthering careers." In fact, the process has already begun. Remarks an eminent scholar of ancient Indian history: "Within the field of History, little empires already exist."

 Academic feudalism exists in another form as well: in the attitude of university administrations to reformist researchers. Mahesh Rangarajan, a junior fellow at the NMML, says that in the struggle between Professor Mushirul Hasan and the Jamia Millia Islamia, a desire for reform was obstructed in the name of safeguarding culture. "Minority institutions," says Hasan, "have become the preserve of half-a-dozen families who have vested interests in land and property. They are hostile to those who have a different cultural background, who they perceive as 'outsiders'."

 Donnish duels have formed the subject of many a British novelist from Kingsley Amis to David Lodge. So perhaps one day the post-modern murder or the Subaltern saga will reveal the mysterious goings-on in our very own cloistered staff rooms.