Spiritual View Of History

Contemporary historians, Diana Preston and Michael Preston say that history is made of the whole bundle of past human experiences. It is, most often, written by the victor and is never really black or white, except on certain occasions. The endearing British couple uses the pseudonym, Alex Rutherford, to write historical fiction. Together they have written six volumes of Empire Of The Moghul; they live in London and have been awarded the Los Angeles Times Science and Technology Prize for their non-fiction work. The couple was in India to participate in the Times Litfest held at India Habitat Centre on November 30-December 1.Both Diana and Michael are interested in medieval Indian history. They are particularly well-disposed towards Emperor Akbar, who they think was ‘open-minded.’ “Akbar was among the first who started studying comparative religion. Jews, Christians, Sikhs and Jains all were welcomed at his court. At a time when in Europe, there was a great deal of religious intolerance, in India, Akbar was summoning representatives from all faiths to discuss issues of belief and spirituality without fear of sanctions,” says Diana, explaining that Akbar was prepared to challenge his mullahs to appoint people who were not mainstream Sunni Muslims in senior positions.Diana says that Akbar would employ people of many different faiths and trusted them. He started his reign by crushing the Rajputs, as he wanted to knock out any challenge to his power. As he got stronger, and grew confident, Akbar also saw the benefit of bringing people together. He saw cohesiveness as a way of keeping together geographically disparate people; it was one of the biggest empires at that time. According to Diana, if Akbar were alive today, he would have been very sorry to see how things fell apart, because of hatred, animosity, narrow thinking and orthodox interpretation of things, instead of his extraordinary open-mindedness.Why is it that political history is taught in schools and universities, and social history is largely ignored? Isn’t social history as important, if not more than, political history? “These days, if you go to country estates in England, in the past, you would have gone to look at fabulous furniture or paintings. Increasingly, there has been a move to open up kitchens and show the lives of people who kept these great houses running, or the people who worked at the stable and looked after the horses. History is not just about rulers and people with influence. It’s about everybody who made up society and played a role in it or maybe didn’t get much of a chance to play a role; including those used as hard labour. Their experience is difficult to get, but it is just as important in understanding how we got where we are now,” says Diana, talking about the importance of social histories.Diana and Michael point out, “Our job is to sift through main historical facts as are generally recognised. We may have added things to characters; we may have put particular character traits into people; we may have imagined relationships between families. But in the books there’s nothing that major characters did that is not ‘backable’ by history.”“Most often, the underdog doesn’t get a chance,” says Diana, giving the example of how Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, was treated by early historians. “A clear example of misinformation, propaganda and complete fiction being paraded as fact,” states Diana, elaborating that Cleopatra ruled Egypt quite successfully for 20 years. She was charismatic, spoke many languages, was skilled in the sciences, and attracted a lot of scholars to Alexandria. But as soon as she and her lover Anthony were defeated, the first Roman Emperor Augustus had history rewritten. He got statues and carvings of her destroyed. He started to portray her as a siren, seducer and not as politician and scholar that she was.Perhaps it’s important to explore the role that personal biases play in the retelling of history and why neutrality in reportage is of supreme importance. “In any retelling of history, there must be a degree of bias, because however objective you are, you also choose to leave out certain things. It is not a question of what you include but what you exclude. Which side your history is coming from does colour the words,” says Michael, talking about the importance of women’s histories. He also says that a lot depends on how much prominence is given to the history of not rulers, but the ruled, and also, what ordinary people felt about the events. “You also carry your own background and culture. All those things that you think you are stripping away to be objective, doesn’t work because some of it may always stay with you. When you are making the selection of what you want to include, you may be intellectually, emotionally and culturally more attracted to a particular character,” adds Diana.Michael makes an interesting point, that is, his problem with the word ‘the.’ He says that it stereotypes people and leaves little room for diversity. Instead of saying ‘the British’, he suggests that we should say ‘most British people’ or ‘most Indian’ people. Diana adds that we have to seriously stop doing that and begin to see things differently.Post your commentes at speakingtree.in