JOIN USThe appointment of a little known academic, Y Sudershan Rao, as the chairperson of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) by the NDA government has stirred up a controversy.
Rao’s credentials as a historian are meagre, though he was a professor of history and tourism management in a university in Andhra Pradesh.
But a mere academic position does not make a person eligible to head the country’s premier body which promotes and supports historical research. Eminent historians have been at its helm in the past. One aim of the ICHR is to give a national direction to an objective and scientific writing of history and to have a rational presentation and interpretation of historical events. Rao’s views and ideas, to the extent they are known, do not give anyone the sense that he will, or can, help the ICHR move in that direction.
He is not even considered a historian in the accepted sense by others. His contribution to historical research is not worth mentioning and his standing as a scholar is low. His claimed historical work is not known to even many historians and he has no peer-reviewed work published in any journal of standing.
What has obviously helped him to get the position is his affinity to the ideology of the ruling party which he has sometimes expressed even in ridiculous ways. He has asserted that the stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are actual history. He has also said the caste system worked well in ancient India and that Muslim rule was the reason for many present-day ills of Indian society.
It may be such views that can be identified with the positions of many Hindutva proponents that prompted the government to appoint him as the ICHR chairperson. He has himself said that the appointment was political. It is true that many historians find it difficult to separate their reading of history from their political views.
It is also correct that a large part of historical studies in the country and the leadership positions in institutions like the ICHR have been dominated by left-of-centre historians. But their credentials as historians were beyond questioning.
Governments usually try to interpret the past to suit their interests. Governments of ideological parties are more prone to this temptation. Unfortunately wrong precedents and traditions are followed by parties which claim to be different.