Some three years ago Rohan D'Souza wrote in the Wire
Recently, Meera Visvanathan in an article in the Caravan magazine served up a reality check to the many immodest efforts by Sanjeev Sanyal to rewrite Indian history.
Sanyal had an impact and did well for himself as a result. Visvanathan and D'Souza have had and will have no impact. The point about history is that a particular interpretation of it can change history.
In his day job, Sanyal is a principal economic advisor to the Government of India, having earned a BA and an MSc in Economics. Visvanathan, on the other hand, has a PhD in History and teaches and researches on ancient India besides being capable in Sanskrit and Prakrit.
Sanyal is smart. Visvanathan isn't.
In her article, Visvanathan clarifies what writing history means
being boring and not seeing the wood for the trees.
and what is not “history”.
What she does isn't history. It is boring shit.
Notably, history cannot be reducible to facts.
Sure it can. They just may not be accessible.
If anything, the reigning consensus amongst professional historians is that
they don't get paid enough. But this is because they are stupid and do boring shite.
history makes sense only when grasped as a relationship between fact and interpretation.
This is also true about winking. She winked at me! She wants my hot bod! No. She blinked because it is a windy day and a piece of dirt got stuck in her eyes. She doesn't think you have a hot bod. She thinks you are fat, old, and have lost most of your hair.
That is, academic history always walks on two legs
admittedly, being able to walk on two legs is considered a great achievement in that field. If you can also tie your own shoe-laces, your colleagues think you are a fucking genius.
and does not aimlessly hop around between one fact-point to another fact-place.
Sanyal doesn't do so. D'Souza- maybe. Nobody cares to find out.
Visvanathan also explains how Sanyal remains entirely innocent about one of the defining requirements for writing academic history,
which he isn't doing. He also doesn't know the defining requirements for being a marmoset. This is because he isn't a marmoset.
the notion of ‘source criticism’.
Since historians don't know Econ or DNA analysis, they can't do such criticism and thus are barred from saying anything interesting about the past.
Put differently, you cannot simply accept what has been put down on a palm leaf, paper or rock.
Sure you can just as historians can accept carbon dating without knowing how it is done.
A source, as any academic historian will tell you,
unless you stab them
is oftentimes layered with multiple and even contradictory meanings.
just like winking. Stabbing on the other hand tends to mean the guy doing it really doesn't like you.
And that is why claims about history can become compelling only when they are able to rigorously establish the ‘provenance’ of their source or why we should accept something as a historical source in the first place.
Nonsense! Marxists made claims about history which were pretty compelling till the shitshow they created became an even more compelling reason to run the fuck away to some nice Capitalist country.
The provenance of a source doesn't matter. What matters is whether it is true or not. My diary from 1984 is a source about the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. Its provenance is impeccable. Sadly, it is worthless because I was under the impression that only people recovering from cranial injuries had their heads wrapped in cloth. My diary chronicles my puzzlement as to why these poor souls were being attacked.
To be fair to Sanyal, he makes no claim to being an academic historian;
he is a smart guy who took a sabbatical from a high powered job with a Merchant Bank to write a history book of a topical kind which sold well.
he is an honorary professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Though for many, being an honorary professor without a PhD might be the source of controversy itself.
Not if they are Indian and are used to seeing guys with PhDs trying desperately to get Government jobs as janitors. Sanyal was a Rhodes scholar who pulled down big bucks working for a German bank.
To correctly judge the claims of Sanyal and a proliferating number of suchlike,
we can skim through their books.
however, we must begin by acknowledging that they are advocates of an entirely new genre of thinking about India’s past.
Nonsense! Indians have always been skeptical about the shite they had to mug up to crack the Civil Service exam. If you are supposed to write 'Ashoka and Akbar were nice', you suspected that both were shit.
Something that has, in fact, no precedence with regard to at least the last 70 years of history writing in India.
But the last 70 years of history writing in India have been shit. Who gives a fuck about it?
This newness follows a pattern and can best be classified as “Pseudo-History”,
like Marxist historiography or nutters who say there was never any Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The locals were Methodists when they weren't Confucians.
a departmental level contribution to “WhatsApp education” in general.
Whereas whichever department this cretin serves in can't make any contribution whatsoever.
A pattern in pseudo-historians
i.e. guys who were too smart to do a PhD in boring, stupid, shite.
It should be noted that pseudo-history takes birth by first declaring “conspiracy”.
That's what this nutter is doing! He is saying 'before Modi (aka Hindu Hitler) came to power, all history writing in India was nice-nice. Now, that fucker Sanyal is stealing the bread out of our mouths! Fuck you Sanyal! Fuck you very much!'
The opening lines in many YouTube talks or books usually begin with a sweeping declaration: that ‘leftists, liberals and Nehruvian’ historians have conspired to write an inglorious history of India.
Inglorious history of Hindus. Buddhists like Ashoka, or Muslims like Akbar are cool.
This assertion, interestingly enough, is never backed by any systematic review of the existing literature on the so-called ‘old order historians’.
It was given by Arun Shourie.
Who, after all, are these leftist historians and which are the books, in particular, that are the source for so much disquiet and hurt?
Thapar, Habib, Guha etc.
In great measure, the strange silence over such a question is because pseudo-historians do not attempt to publish credible disciplinary journals
there are none for Indian history.
nor do they try to make the cut in proper academic forums.
which are shit in this field.
This peculiar “hit and hide” tactic is actually a strategy.
Whereas Rohan's own strategy is 'shit and hide' and giggle if someone slips on your turd.
Psuedo-history is curated principally for social media, which, as a medium, is hardwired for generating explosive emotion rather than aiming to educate through dialogue.
Nonsense! Good 'psuedo-history' ends up on the History Channel or is incorporated into a Game of Thrones type Netflix series.
Social media is also a great place for “name-calling” and “dog-whistling” such as the now boring labels of “liberal, leftist or Nehruvian”, which, in turn, for many have become default arguments in themselves.
Just as 'pseudo-historian' is D'Souza's default argument.
For pseudo-historians, therefore, understanding India’s past is essentially about trumping the idea of measured reason
which D'Souza wouldn't know if it bit him in the leg. The cretin thinks that 'the British assembled and deployed the idea and practice of flood control in order to anchor their presence in the Orissa Delta'. Since their presence was already anchored by their treaties with Princes and cozy relationship with Zamindars, they didn't need to do flood control and, in fact, did not do so. Under Dyarchy various schemes were mooted and under Provincial Autonomy some progress was made. But dams in Orissa are all post-Independence.
by tapping into extreme emotions.
Rohan is getting extremely emotional. Fuck you Sanyal! Fuck you very much!
In such a schema, no quarter is given for nuance or doubt, disagreement or contemplation.
Rohan prefers to tell stupid lies about how evil Brits did flood control because they hated the Environment.
The intended outcome, moreover, from this highly mediatised exercise is to somehow assemble the mob, who are forever angry about something and someone.
The mobs this nutter likes are Marxist and led by guys with PhDs- like Kanhaiya Kumar.
A second key feature of the pseudo-history project is how they invariably craft a sense of paranoia and sustain a siege mentality towards any likely criticism.
This guy is paranoid about 'WhatsApp' university. Did you know it can sneak into your bedroom and suck you off while you are sleeping? But, that's what British Viceroys did! This proves Narendra Modi (real name 'Nicholas Maugham') is actually a British Imperialist! Help! He may inflict fellatio on me tonight itself!
Take a recent development involving Vikram Sampath, an author of a two-volume biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Following his talk at the India Today Conclave, Sampath tweeted that “professional” historians and crazy trolls were aiming to discredit his work.
It is true that 'professional historian', in India, means 'ignorant cunt'.
Subsequent threads in his Twitter account show him to be dramatically venting a victimhood story in a number of television news channels,
D'Souza isn't allowed to parade his own victimhood at the hands of Sanyal on numerous TV channels.
and promptly following it up with a short piece, published by News18, which describes his huge list of perpetrators noted below:
“Anchored mainly in Marxist historiography and leftist ideology, with a few borrowings from postmodernism, the Annales School, Subaltern and other studies, this new school, which may be called Leftist for want of a better term, has become synonymous with a number of abusive, unethical and unscholarly practices.”
Also, it is as stupid as shit. Still, this helps the Right.
And, more importantly, for Sampath, this proliferating school of leftists appears to have only one objective, which is to “denigrate our own culture and past, to be perennially apologetic about it and feel a spectacular disconnect from our roots” that ultimately leads to the “negation of India’s civilizational greatness”.
Sadly, it was Whites like Basham- and now Dalrymple- who supplied the market for Hindu Pride.
This claim, however, provides no explanation as to who and why such a plot has been hatched in the first place
Because we know that Indira did a deal with the Left such that they captured useless educational institutions- e.g. JNU- in return for becoming even more stupid and useless and thus a prop for the Dynasty.
nor do we get any helpful definition of what “civilizational greatness” means and who really needs it.
It means Hindus kicked ass at one time and can do so again. Hindus need this. D'Souza doesn't because he isn't Hindu.
For pseudo-historians, therefore, understanding India’s past is essentially about trumping the idea of measured reason by tapping into extreme emotions.
No. It is about telling useless nutters like D'Souza to fuck the fuck off. Nobody has a monopoly on telling stupid lies.
Contrasting modes of discussing the past
Later, on another YouTube channel, The Lallantop, we find Sampath seemingly agreeing with the retired JNU professor Aditya Mukherjee that academic history is about exploring how multiple narratives provide very contingent claims and that history writing cannot be held hostage to political considerations.
Why hold shit hostage? Who will pay a ransom for it?
In sum, we have two very contrasting modes for discussing the past.
Both are stupid. But only one is professionally stupid. For the other, it is just a hobby. Meanwhile, as technology improves, sciencey guys will make discoveries which change our view of history.
For academic historians, critiques and disagreements can potentially always be helpful and intellectually productive.
Not if the field only attracts cretins like D'Souza.
The field of history grows through accumulations and meaningful continuities.
Nope. It grows through scientific advances- e.g. carbon dating and DNA studies.
After all, in academia, we always try to look ahead by standing on the shoulders of giants.
These guys are slipping on each others' turds.
And at the heart of such learning is the need to nurture scholarship through research protocols involving peer review and subject expertise.
Not if your peers are baboons.
Pseudo-historians, on the other hand, are really products of social media.
Sanyal was carrying on a tradition established by Shourie- also an economist. Indeed, Ram Guha and Sanjay Subhramaniyam's MAs were in Econ. Dipshit Chackrafuckoff did an MBA.
They thrive on a take-no-prisoners attitude in the way they conduct arguments and purposefully stay shy of any considered academic scrutiny.
This nutter can't take prisoners. He is too busy slipping on his own turds.
Clearly, it appears counter-productive for academic historians to engage with pseudo-historians.
Or, indeed, with each other.
Ignoring the complications brought on by such a challenge, however, could prove to be unwise in the prevailing political climate.
No. What would be wise is to not draw attention to your stupidity. Your Department may get defunded. Pretend you are doing boring shit about climate change or some such thing.
A more positive and helpful approach by academic historians instead could involve a systematic and careful effort to bend the current trajectory of social media, by re-training and redirecting the digital to absorb nuanced and sophisticated academic content.
They are too stupid to do any such thing.
A shining example that comes to mind is that of Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration Initiative,
already defunct. Do you want to buy their domain name? No? I don't blame you.
which was started by a few earnest students but has quickly managed to garner a substantial following around the theme of academic history.
It was shit. It failed. On the other hand, my own proposal for a Mia Khalifat Heritage site would have succeeded if only Mia Khalifa had accepted my marriage proposal.
Popular writings for the press and online platforms in appealing and accessible prose are other means as well for generating educated and discerning audiences.
Rohan is incapable of writing in a readable manner. Also, he has nothing to say.
Academic historians and scholarship in general, in other words, must break from the confines of the university and the specialised classroom by reaching out to the popular
Rohan has got himself an Only Fans page.
and, ultimately, aiming to reach the public with appeals based on good learning and imaginations for a better world.
Neither of which he possesses.
It must be kept in mind that one of the dangers of pseudo-history is, what the past means to the idea of India.
But the 'idea of India' of boring cunts like Rohan don't matter in the slightest.
While academic historians are involved in trying to meaningfully understand how the past differs from the present,
Which the rest of us just do. There is no need to try.
for pseudo-historians, in sharp contrast, it is about realising the political ambition of trying to project their version of the present into the past.
No. Their present preferences shape their version of the past. Nothing wrong with that. The question is whether their efforts are successful- as Sanyal's efforts were- or whether they were or are counter-productive, which is the case with India's shitty 'professional historians'.
In a paper title' Rigidity and the Affliction of Capitalist property' the cretin Rohan D'Souza writes-
Capitalist Property: Colonial Land Revenue and the Recasting of NatureCapitalist Property: Colonial Land Revenue and the Recasting of Nature
The introduction of the idea of bourgeois landed property in the British East India Company's territorial acquisitions in Bengal
Many parts of India, since pre-historic times, had people who dwelt in Cities and who owned agricultural land and who engaged in various sorts of enterprises. The idea of 'bourgeois landed property' pre-existed in some parts of British India and didn't exist at all in other parts. Where it already existed, the Brits made some administrative and judicial changes without greatly changing ideas about what was property or who were the wealthy bourgeoisie who might have mansions in the City while continuing to receive rents from vast estates.
D'Souza is writing Ranajit Guha level stupid shit. This is because he is a Marxist who believes the bourgeoisie is very evil. Nasty Brits created this class in India. Previously Indians were very nice and used to eat bananas while hanging by their tails from the branches of trees.
overwhelmed pre-colonial agrarian society in unprecedented ways.
Nonsense! Kalinga had been a mighty power. The Eastern Ganga dynasty dates back to the 5th century. Under the Brits, Princes from dynasties such as this became Zamindars but so did some of the noveau riche- e.g. Naveen Patnaik's ancestor who got his start as a Dewan. But this sort of thing had been going on for centuries and millennia. What changed was 'Pax Britannica' and greater security for both master and man.
Bourgeois landed property, it has been held, was ideally intended, on the one hand, to dissolve the overburden of pre-capitalist social and political embellishments that cluttered the rural hinterland, and, on the other, implant deeply into its soils the improving landlord- the zamindar.
Nope. The EIC supplied 'local public goods' in return for a tax on land. That's what rulers do- or are supposed to. As for 'pre-capitalist social and political embellishments', Zamindars were welcome to keep them if they were prepared to pay for them.
Colonial officials presumed that the Company zamindar,
e.g Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati, whose ancestors had been ruling territory since the fifth century.
as entrepreneur and rural magnate, would then rapidly ascend to the apex of a new agrarian order and affirm exclusive property, generate economic surpluses and ensure political stability.
Also, they would inculcate advanced aeronautical capacities in pigs. The truth was landlords had to pay their taxes otherwise their property would be auctioned. But stuff like that also happened in post-colonial America.
Throughout the nineteenth century, however, British colonial attempts to extinguish pre-capitalist land relations in eastern India were not so much uneven as warped.
What extinguished such 'relations' was the fact that people preferred to get paid for working or for handing out food. Sadly, shit like that is the inevitable outcome of improved law and order and greatly reduced risk of war or civil strife.
The persistence of high levels of pre-capitalist ground rents,
was a matter of supply and demand.
the continued appropriation of labour rents
There are no such thing as 'labour rents'. Perhaps this fool means 'surplus value'.
and the various political barriers placed in the way of investment of capital in land,
Political barriers are easily overcome if the economic motivation exists.
were some of the critical factors that acted to shape the Company zamindar into a rack renting quasi-feudal landlord.
Because landlords are never greedy. Unlike other human beings, they don't want more money. British introduced the idea that more money is better than less money. Also, they introduced the idea that people should either have a vagina or a penis, not both. But for Queen Victoria, Rohan could fuck himself and give birth to a nice baby. Fuck you, Victoria! Fuck you very much!
Along similar lines but at a slightly different tangent, Amiya Bagchi has added to this argument by claiming that the British ended up turning land into an alienable commodity and not into full private property.
People were buying and selling land in the time of the Buddha. But to keep possession of land you normally have to pay the guy with the army and police force.
This was mostly brought about, according to him, by the Company preferring to retain certain types of prior claims on land in order to be able to eject proprietors in the event of the latter defaulting on revenue arrears.
In other words, the Brits had to follow previous practice. This is also the reason they couldn't get the Indians to speak English and eat with knife and fork.
Second, in tracts under the Permanent Settlement of 1793, in time, land titles were steadily perforated by a series of intermediate tenure- holders, who in most instances acquired overlapping rights.
Again, this had always been the case.
In effect, for Bagchi, the colonial land revenue dispensation was dictated and implemented essentially as an expedient;
All taxes and other instruments of government are expedients. Bagchi is as stupid as shit.
the thrust being to ensure the maximization
nope. This was a case of satisficing. As A.O Hume said in his book on Agriculture, the Brits needed to get rid of the Permanent Settlement. But who could be arsed?
and ease of revenue collection alongside the administration's need to prevent agrarian revolts.
Actually, the Brits could appease these easily enough even though the Indian zamindars grumbled. Indeed, that's what made the zamindars and the Princes the junior partner in the relationship. The Brits could always switch to ryotwari and deal directly with the cultivator.
Arguably, it appears, the colonial agrarian world was reordered as a sort of an economic and political hybrid.
because of limited monetization. Partly this was for regret minimizing reasons.
A description which, in many ways, seems to resonate well with what Michael Watts, in his study of colonial Nigeria, has described as the contradictory conjoining of capitalist and non-capitalist production processes.
Which still obtains in England and America and everywhere else.
Though undoubtedly illuminating, such explanations describing the Company's revenue strategy either as a function of administrative expedience or the resilience of pre-capitalist social residues, have been less than adequate in explaining why certain elements of early colonial routines for rule nevertheless prevailed over local exigencies.
In other words, the facts of the case don't explain why Marxism explains everything. This is because to establish the truth of Marxism involves telling stupid lies.
That is, the colonial imperative remained unaltered and marked itself most decisively not only in terms of its revenue hunger, but chiefly as a distinct social and economic relation.
East India Company, by some magic, were obliged to act in the manner that Marxism required them to do. True, the fact that the India they ruled did not display Marxist characteristics, but this is because magic had caused the facts to have this deceptive property.
This article suggests that the particular shaping of the Company's revenue strategy, despite its seeming malleability, was
most profoundly insistent on the realization of capitalist private property in land.
Why? Because that's what Marxists want to believe happened even if it didn't happen at all. This is the sort of shite, D'Souza thinks is 'measured reason'.
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