Padmavati controversy once again exposes history's Achilles Heel

The current controversy over a Hindi film called Padmavati reminds me of something that happened 46 years ago. It was winter and some of us were sitting around in the cafe at the Delhi School of Economics waiting for a tutorial to start at 5 pm.

We had been joined by a visiting historian from Cambridge – the one on the Cam, not on the Charles. He asked us what we thought of the proposition that economists create more myths than historians.

Evidence-based economics had not yet come along and we had been taught that mathematical proof was enough. In the absence of data, abstractions served just as well.

So as befits bored and cold 20-year-olds, we defended economics as best we could. The historian listened to us patiently and then concluded the debate with a simple statement: proof is not knowledge.

Given the current intellectual turmoil in India, it seems appropriate to apply this test to historians. Historians, like other social 'scientists', demand absolute proof.

That is fine, except that like economists, they also reserve the right to certify what is acceptable proof and what is not. There is no objective method for proof certification.

So now it's like what the Black Panthers used to say in the 1970s: "Hey man, if you belong to the solution, join us; if you belong to the problem, we will take care of you."

It is this approach of India's academic historians that has led to the current unseemly scuffling between two sets of historians. Till 2014, the Left 'took care' of the Right; now the Right is 'taking care' of the Left.

Both sides are providing 'proof' but neither is providing knowledge.

History's weakness

In history, knowledge needs to answer a very precise question. In addition to providing 'proof' from stones, documents, etc, it must also say what really happened. The problem, as we shall see below, is there is no foolproof way of knowing.

One part of the problem comprises the minute detail that determines an eventual outcome. A second part comprises the process by which something happens. And the third part, because of these two, is spin.

England broke with the Church of Rome in 1535 because Henry the VIII was a sex manic. But that is not the received wisdom.

The Cabinet form of government evolved in England in George I's reign because as an imported King from Germany, he could not speak English. He just handed over the running of government to his first minister. 

Jinnah broke with Gandhiji because he felt insulted at the Nagpur Congress in 1920 where Gandhiji made fun of his approach to battling the British. But this too is not the received wisdom.

Few know that the Chauri Chaura incident was caused by a policeman shouting to the tail-end of the procession, ‘Gaand phat gayil?' Historian Shahid Amin has documented these historic words in a discreet footnote in his book on Chauri Chaura. They are part of the court record.

Nehru lost a golden opportunity to stymie Jinnah when, in 1937, he imposed inflexible conditions on Khaliquzaman to break with Jinnah. But this is also not the received wisdom.

Until recently it was not known what a racist ghoul Winston Churchill was, comparable in this respect to Hitler. Even now, despite the definitive book by Christopher Bayly on the role of Indians in the British war against Japan during 1942-45 everyone still thinks it was fought largely by Australians and New Zealanders.

In India, the extent of KGB funding of the Congress, as revealed by Vasily Mitrokhin, has been glossed over entirely. Ditto for the role of the CIA.

Fact and spin

And so on ad infinitum. The list is endless. All we have are the outcomes and the spin and that passes for history. The short point is this: No one knows why certain things have happened in the inexplicable ways they did. No one ever will, except within a margin of error of 90 per cent.

Your left break becomes my off break and no one can read the googlies bowled by politically-aligned historians.