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 Murli Manohar Joshi and his glorious days seem to continue to haunt the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). This is despite Leftist historians are getting increasingly powerful.
A new book titled ‘Indo European Languages and Culture’, published by ICHR, looks at India’s Vedic and Aryan heritage, along with the contribution of the Saraswati River in a very saffron way. But the catch is that though the book is written by some of Joshi’s favourite historians, Leftist intellectual Irfan Habib, a strong critic of the saffron agenda, has released it. And Habib has an interesting explanation. ‘‘I know this book is absurd but I had to release it because ICHR has already spent public money to bring it out!’’ According to sources, Sabyasachi Bhattacharjee, Marxist historian and president of the recently concluded History Congress in Bareilly, has refused to release the book saying he is not familiar with its contents. It is then that veteran historian Irfan Habib has been officially roped in. ICHR chief DN Tripathi, one of the few Joshi appointees who have managed to retain their key jobs, has edited the book. On his own he could not have pushed the book through as he is now surrounded Left historians in the council. The Left’s go-ahead is all the more strange because 80 per cent of the contributors are pro-BJP historians. The contributors even include Joshi’s principal adviser Devender Swaroop in the mission of saffronising textbooks. It was Swaroop who had provided the principal ideological basis, which helped the BJP rewrite and introduce its own brand of history. Joshi had tried to propagate India’s great scientific heritage during the Vedic era but his attempt to do so without physical evidence had never really found takers among secular historians. According to ICHR Registrar PK Shukla, ‘‘This shows that we are not acting as cultural commissars.’’ The book is based on a conference convened by the saffronised ICHR between 7 and 9 January at the India International Centre in 2002 when Joshi was still dictating terms at Shastri Bhavan.
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