Whose story is History?

Watching a particular news channel yesterday, I stumbled upon an interesting piece of news. The Government of India has decided to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the "Revolt of 1857" aka "the First War of Indian Independence" aka "The Sepoy Mutiny". The Government has also announced the formulation of a 68 member committee to give this grandiose event a distinct shape. Now, one should bear in mind three important things. Firstly, the year 2007 also commemorates the birth centenary of Saheed-e-azam Bhagat Singh and the 75th anniversary of the adoption of Vande Mataram as the national song. Secondly, the budget of the patriotic extravaganza is estimated at a whooping 150 cr. And Thirdly, and most interestingly of all, the committee, other than some eminent historians also include politicians like Kumari Shailaja, Mayawati, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Rahul Gandhi, Chandrasekhar, H.D Deve Gowda etc.

The thing about anniversaries and the idea to celebrate them has always eluded me. Some of them are necessary like Independence Day or Republic Day. These were momentous events in the history of India. But if we were to celebrate the anniversaries (gold, silver, diamond...whatever!) of each and every historically event, we would surely run out of dates. Coming back to our main issue here, what is the relevance of the revolt of 1857 today? Historically speaking it was just a rebellion, granted, in a much larger scale. It was not even the "Firs War of Indian Independence" as it has been proved by historians, though some people would like to make people believe otherwise. They have their own reasons. Reasons, which are evveloped in a thick cloud of Politics. Avery pertinant example would be that of the recent film "Mangal Pandey: The Rising", which went down without a trace inspite of the star power of Ketan Mehta, Amir Khan and Rani Mukherjee. On the other hand, another Amir Khan movie "Rang De Basanti", dealing with an anachronised version of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and Asfaqullah was both a masterpiece and a blockbuster. Why? RDB has been presented in a contemporary fashion and it also presents the youth of today in a different light. In most contemporary films, the youth are shown in a negative light - as aping the western culture, as being severed from the roots - a reflection of social degeneration. RDB shows the youth of today drinking beer, jumping off buildings, mouthing obscenities but it also shows their power and their likeliness to resort to drastic "affirmative action" if need be. So if the Government plans something on the lines of a grandiose patriotic bonanza, it will be nothing but money well squandered.

It has been a historically proven fact that politics and history do not go hand in hand. When the two have met, it has produced disastrous results. And disaster is what this committee is headed at. The recent example of the saffronising drive by the erstwhile NDA government has proved beyond doubt that politicians have a vested interest in various fields, including history. The politicians are not concerned about enriching the already rich historical corpus of India. What they are really worried about is how they can manipulate the history to boost their vote bank politics. So politicians, no doubt will prove to be an impediment in the process of history.

It has now boiled down to a game of priorities. It remains to be seen whether the government prioritizes objective history or politics on history in the 150th year of the "Revolt of 1857".