There is a big discord between the past as it was and as it is constructed in the history of a nation: GN Devy

Scholar and linguist Ganesh Narayan Devy has just launched a new book, The Indians: Histories of a Civilisation on the past 12,000 years of Indian civilisation and histories. He spoke to Down To Earth about the discipline and how it became contested ground. Edited excerpts:

Rajat Ghai (RG): The word 'histories' in the book's title — Is it a conscious effort to emphasise the great diversity that has always existed in India?

Ganesh Narayan Devy (GND): No. It is very thoughtfully and intentionaly used, not to point to the diversities as we understand usually.

In history, timelines are very important. For instance, we think of when did the ancient period end and medieval start? When did the medieval period end and the modern period start?

In the context of India, these timelines are not uniform for all regions in the country. For example, Kolkata and the neighbouring districts of Bengal got modernised. But the districts closer to Jharkhand took another 100 years to arrive at that point.

So, in order to show the variance in timelines for different historical changes and transformations, we had to use the term ‘histories’ rather than ‘history’.

We can say ‘French history’ or ‘history of France’ in the 19th century. But in the context of India, it is not meaningful to use ‘history of India in the 19th century’ because some parts of India during the chronological 19th century were still in the 17th century.

Some other parts had moved along with other nations in the world to the 19th century. Hence, to focus on the wavy, uneven timelines throughout the entire country, we had to use the term ‘histories’.

RG: Coming to the word 'Civilization' in the title, was India ever a single civilization or several civilizations? Also, how do you see that in the context of today when efforts are being made to enforce the former view?

GND: The term ‘civilization’ came into wider circulation in the English language and also other European languages with the publication of The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon’s best-selling book of the 18th century.

That book was all about the amazement in the minds of modern people regarding ancient times and how advanced those people (the Romans and others) were. So, the term ‘civilization’ came into use to indicate an appreciation or respect by modern people about ancient people.

But in the 20th century, particularly the second half of the 20th century, this term got used to certain shifts in man’s progress, such as the term ‘industrial revolution’ being replaced by ‘industrial civilization’.

Now, in the case of India, when we use the term ‘civilization’, one meaning would be what the ancient Indian people were according to the older meaning of the term. The second meaning would be the major changes in Indian society.

So, the history of the first would be different from the history of the second. And therefore, histories of a civilization also have such changes — this concept of civilization can be viewed in the context of India from different angles — when we look at our modern, medieval and ancient periods.

Thus, civilization is not used in the title to talk about just the Vedic period. In fact, the chapters in the book focus a lot more on Buddhism, Jainism, Pali, Prakrit and Dravidian culture to balance off the undue emphasis on just Sanskrit and Vedic culture.

RG: The book talks about the paleoclimatic histories of India and South Asia. What are the broadtakeaways on these?

GND: The takeaways are that the human population is primarily dependent on the environmental situation. The human population and other species dwindled in numbers during the Ice Age.

But with the onset of the Holocene Epoch, the temperature started rising and it became congenial for the growth of first plant species, then animal species, and because of that, Homo Sapiens.

Hence, only when we get a full picture of the climatic history of India, do or shall we get a proper picture of the history of the people of India. The book actually gives a very large and sharp signal that history is not just about humans. It is about humans in the context of their environment.

RG: History has always been a battleground. Is it because history is about humanity’s past, about its origins?

GND: About identity, certainly. It is like this. History became a discipline after (German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, particularly in Europe.

There were accounts of the past in all cultures and civilisations because humans are capable of remembering and therefore, accounts of the past were written in various forms. There were the Puranas in South Asia and Qasidah in Persia as well as various other forms of memoirs and myths.

But Hegel made history into a science of memory and one of remembering. He introduced the principle that the explanation of something leading to something else is history. The explanation of change is history.

The timing of Hegel formulating this principle was also a period when a new spirit of nationalism was emerging in Europe.

The struggle to unite the various Italian states into one country (under Giuseppe Garibaldi) had started. As had the movement to unify the various German-speaking states and kingdoms. Both led to the creation of a unified Italy and Germany in the second half of the 19th century.

Because this pursuit of the past as encouraged by Hegel’s science of history and the rise of nationalism coincided, it became an intellectual belief, almost a blind faith that a nation can be a nation only if it spells out its history, not otherwise.

And so nations which did not have a very long history, also started making claims towards having one. So just as a nation has a flag, territory and autonomous, sovereign government, nations started believing that they must have their own history as distinct from the history of the neighbouring nations.

This, of course, is the set belief or mood among nations. If you were to define a date, you can take it back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 when the international community of nations became the protector of interests of every single nation.

However, this set of beliefs does not tally with facts of the past, facts of history.

In the past, prior to the rise of nationalism, geographical territories were not known in terms of nations. They were known in terms of rivers, river banks, eco-cultural zones and so on. This means in the past people in different continents were in a way united, even if they had fights or wars.

But they were not segregated in terms of their national identities. With the rise of nationalism, defining one’s identity by underscoring the past came to be seen almost as an inevitable requirement for the birth of a nation.

So, that is a big discord between the past as it was and the past as it is constructed in the history of a given nation, or histories of many nations. Identity, therefore, is the culprit.

RG: Your next project is about Asian civilisation. What will you be exploring?

GND: My plan is to look at four things primarily. The first is the movement of people in this region from the very earliest of times.

For instance, we received agriculture from both sides of India. We received it from the west. We also received it from the east. A lot is written about the arrival of agriculture in India some 7,000 years before our time from Iran.

But very little is written about how we received agriculture from the east. As if civilization is moving only in a single direction. In my opinion, migration of people is multidirectional.

Second, I want to see the connections between one part and the other parts of Asia — cultural connections, technological connections and ethnic connections.

The third part is dynamics of people. That is, when they settled down, say in Afghanistan or in Sri Lanka, how did a certain dynamic develop there?

With respect to India, we know that there is a tendency of Sanskritization, meaning going upward socially. How did it develop? What is at the back of this desire to go up upward in social hierarchy? In other words, how did the aspirations of people develop in different parts of Asia?

The fourth part is the attitude to technologies from the Stone Age to medieval war technologies to modern machine technologies to 21st century information technologies. What are the attitudes?

So, I would like to see these four things with respect to every country that is part of the 50 odd nations listed by the United Nations Organization, and on the basis of this, I plan to bring out at least one, in some cases more than one book for every nation.

All of this will lead to understanding how different Asian nations look at diversity, non-human existence and their idea of the future. All these different books will together give us a clearer view of Asia. 

Read more:

• India is many, not one; has assimilated ideas from everywhere: Upcoming report

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