The importance of having a history textbook in school

in #history7 years ago

Today we often heard from everyone that this is an era of science. That is to say, we need science in almost every area of our life. People normally talk about science. Then why is history taught in school? This question may arise in everyone’s mind. So we must have to understand the advantage of reading history, which is not so easy. History keeps the record of many incidents that happened in the past. Everyone knows that all incidents and their consequences are accurate and perfect. Yet there is so much debate on this. If everyone is familiar with those incidents and their consequences, then why there are so much debate? To know more about it we will have to investigate this in detail. 

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What Rabindranath Tagore said about Indian history:

“The history of India that we read, memorise for examinations, is merely a nightmare of the dark times of India. Who came from where, feuds and fights, rivalries between son and father, brothers, for the throne, the coming up of one group with the departure of another, Pathan – Mughals – Portugese – French – English have combined to make this nightmare increasingly complex. This history would not answer where Indians stand, as if there are no Indians, and only those who have killed and fought, remain. We get the dust storms from foreigner’s written history, but no words of home.
Those countries are lucky who find their eternal home in the history of their nation. History learnt at childhood introduced them to their country. It is the opposite in our case. The history of our country has prevented us from realizing our patriotic homeland. From Mahmud’s invasion to Lord Curzon’s proud imperial roar, history has cast a strange mysterious veil over India. It doesn’t help us get a good look at our homeland, merely covers the vision. It focuses artificial light on such a spot that the history of our own nation is swallowed in darkness.
We must drop the false belief that history of all countries need be the same.”

If you read the whole text, said by Rabindranath Tagore, we will find that he has no problem to understand the matter of history. He has some questions regarding the matter of history. One big question seemed to be there, who would write Indian history, foreign historians or Indian themselves?

This question was raised by Bankimchandra before Rabindranath. He wished to know about the history of Bengalis. He demanded the history of his ancestors should be shared to all Bengalis. Otherwise, they will face problem. Why is it important to have knowledge of history?

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Whatever is occurring in our present life, has some connection with the incidents that has happened in our past. That is to say, the past determines the present.  It is often seen that the reason behind the present happening always connects to the past incidents. You would read the story of the wolf and the young lamb. The lamb, while drinking water, was caught by the wolf. The lamb was not able to understand his fault. The wolf told the lamb that its ancestors had done wrong with them in the past, and so the wolf wanted to punish the lamb for its ancestor’s guilt. The reason behind the punishment was the lamb’s ancestor’s guilt, which could be discovered in history.

In human history, this wolf is replaced by a foreign indigo trader who has come to set up his business in India, and the lamb is replaced by a poor Indian indigo farmer. It was always found in Indian history that the farmer of India borrowed money from the foreign trader and fell in debt, which continued to next generation. So, in order to pay off his loan, the indigo farmer had to keep farming continuously. The wolf gave the same logic to punish the lamb. You have to make correct the mistakes that had been made by your ancestors. So it is necessary to go back to history to find out what exactly happened in the past. Thus, you need to read history. 

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The situation may be different. Suppose the argument of the wolf is correct. Now, the lamb discovered in an investigation that its ancestors had not made any mistakes in the past and the lamb becomes able to provide the proof of innocence of its ancestors. Then the wolf may have to leave the lamb. So history can help you find the truth and establish your rights. This means, if the wolf can punish the lamb on the basis of the incidents that happened in the past, the lamb can also use history to prove its innocence.  He may even prove he is coming from different family and the wolf has made a great mistake.

Now, let’s replace the wolf with the British imperialist ruler. Let’s replace the lamb with the commoners of India. In order to set up a colony in India, the British ruler said the Indians are uncivilized. They didn’t have any education and the knowledge of science, while the British were already civilized. So it was their duty to civilize the uncivilized the country. And to make it possible, the British rule was necessary to establish there. In this way, the British set up their empire in India. 

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But the Indians proved that the British were wrong and they openly protested against their judgment. They discovered many references from ruler Ashoka to ruler Akbar and from Aryabhatta to Chaitynadev. They also proved it as Indian history, which was more glorious than British history. So, the Indians provided the reason why they protested against the British ruler in India. 

So, you can understand, history not only keeps the record of names of kings, years and dates or description of wars, but it recorded many arguments in its database. History can be a witness and can provide arguments for and against. That’s why, history must be taught in school. It is now clear what the importance of history in our life is. 

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Let’s move at a second question. If we are aware of the past incidents and their consequences, then there should not have any debate on it. Now, let’s go back to the words said by Rabindranath Tagore. He clearly says that different countries have different history. There is no matching between them. The foreign historian didn’t understand the history of Indian, because it is different from the history of England. 

We would now go back to Bankimchandra. He kept demanding a history of Bengalis. He also said that the history produced by the foreigner has many errors. A Bengali person must have to write the history of Bengalis. According to Bankimchandra, anyone who knows and understand the history of Bengalis can write it. Why there are so many debates on the incidents that had occurred in the past. It depends on the way people view the history. If the way of viewing changes its angle, it creates different opinion and thus creates so many arguments that history involves in it. There is a kind of picture which produces different pictures if the way of viewing changed its angle. It is the only picture which has the elements of other pictures. The past incidents and their consequences are the same thing. It always produces different opinion, when the history is viewed from separate angles. 

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Now, let’s come to Bankim’s proposal. He wanted everyone to write his own history. It sounds good. But then, we shouldn’t forget that there are so many illiterate people in our country. They won’t be able to write their own history. Then who will write it? It will be written by the persons who are educated. But when they will write it, their point of view will surely be different about other’s history. Exactly, the same thing happened with Indian history. There were a few educated people who wrote the history of India. The people who wrote about Sidhu and Kanho forgot to mention those names who were also involved in Santhal revolt. When the same people wrote about Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose, they again forgot to include those names who were involved in India’s freedom fight. This means, they neglected the sacrifice of those people. 

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Now we came to this conclusion that different writer has different viewpoint about the history which creates the time of historical debate. History not only keeps the record of years, dates and names, but it provides evidence and proof of many incidents that are brought by people to support their logic. 

@rajiv

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