Can history be saved from textbooks?

In a world surrounded by fake news, WhatsApp stories and textbook propaganda, does genuine history have hope? That question elicited both optimism and concern from a panel of history researchers during the session titled ‘Saving history from textbooks.’

While Sunil Khilnani expressed worry over the growing trend of “falsification,” Manu Pillai, author of ‘The Ivory Throne,’ who is often frustrated by “WhatsApp histories,” felt well-researched history books would prevail in the long run.

Moderated by Mallika Ahluwalia, co-founder of the Partition Museum in Amritsar, the discussion focused heavily on how to make history, a subject weighed down by tedious dates and dynasties, interesting. “Focus on people” was the unanimous answer from the panel who believe human impulses and flaws are the things that lend history fun and drama. “Human beings,” said

David Gilmour

, author of biographies of controversial figures such as Lord Curzon and Rudyard Kipling, “are more fun to write and to read.”

In his recent book ‘The British in India,’ Gilmour, who loves to tell stories through the perspective of “loafers” and “marginal people,” focuses on the forgotten people of the Raj.

To drive home how much delectable historical detail a personality can reveal, Khilnani, who has told the history of India through 50 important figures, cited the eccentric painter Nainsukh, who would draw his royal patron in “non-grand poses” such as when he has a fever and is ensconced in a blanket. Pillai spoke about the last woman Maharani of Travancore, a figure who went from being royalty to dying as a nobody in a public crematorium in Bangalore. Besides saving history from textbooks, “there is a need to put history back into textbooks,” said Khilnani, stressing that the trend of propaganda-driven colouring of history calls for scholars to push back through academic rigour. Pillai, however, seemed convinced that well-told facts will win. “Quality,” he said, “will never go out of fashion.”


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