Learning about history is beyond the dates and wars : While there is a lot of talk and heated debate about writing and rewriting history in our curriculum, I want to bat for what actually made me interested in history beyond the abridged paragraphs in the textbooks which are largely forgotten after the examinations. This is not to belittle the importance of academic history and historians. But it is time we introspected whether the history we studied has made its mark in the public conscience as it is supposed to have made.

When I was in high school in the late nineties, the school history curriculum that the state education board of Andhra Pradesh had prescribed holds my admiration till today. Starting from class 6, the syllabus was in a chronological order covering the early history till Shatavahanas in Class 6, Later Hindu empires, Delhi Sultanate, Vijayanagara and Mughal empires in Class 7, Indian freedom struggle in Class 8 and international history in Class 9. While the last academic year in school recapped everything relieving us of the burden of studying something unknown in the most crucial year of school.

While this serializing of curriculum was great, the Doordarshan had come up with dramatized presentation of Indian history where I could connect with the characters about who I read in the text books. The various dramatized retellings to a large extent reduced my academic rote learning burden. I vividly remember the educative series on various poets that was aired on Doordarshan, Telugu and the dramatized Hindi serials on Shivaji, Indian freedom struggle (I think the name was Swaraj). Study of history then turned into a pleasure and I longed to read more. The burden of memorizing and remembering lightened up and assignments and exams looked like the challenges I used to look forward. In the last decade when I turned to revisiting history (finally free of the academic and professional pursuits that had kept me away from my field of love), I discovered the treasury of historical fiction.

Historical fiction is a dramatized retelling of people who existed in the past, reconstructing the world of those days, presenting their lives in the connectable way. We become aware of their challenges, their motivations, their achievements failures, their strengths, weaknesses and not to forget their romantic exploits. These reconstructions do take a lot of creative liberty, shift the events here and there, compress or expand battles and may be take liberties with the names too. But what is the use of history, if we can’t connect to the people, if we can’t understand their rites of passage, the tensions and aftermaths of the innumerable wars and invasions, the details of the various coups and takeovers, extend and effects of betrayals and all what brought their names worthy to be printed in the text books?

I am reminded of a certain discussion we had in school while studying Delhi Sultanate. We asked our teacher why no dynasty stabilized in Delhi. Academically, we had got used to drawing the long family charts of dynasties for Cholas, Pallavas, Shatavahanas, etc to remember their genealogy with mnemonics. Delhi Sultanate presented us with a new challenge as no dynasty survived for more than a couple of generations and some were toppled even days within their forming. (Frankly, it was becoming rather taxing to remember so many names within an empire and Class 7 with board exams required us to focus more on Science and mathematics) The teacher took time to deviate from the syllabus to explain the nature of Kings, rulers and the loyalty of generals which was the key to stabilization of an empire. If a general feels that he could better the King, the teacher asked us back, why he would continue being just a loyal general when he can be a king and have his own empire. Betrayals and coups started to manifest in a different light and Malik Kafur’s rise then began to make sense to us.

Today, as someone who loves to read, research and write on the subject, I find this sort of contemplation made simpler with novels like Ponniyin Selvan (Kalki Krishnamurthy), Prithvi Vallabh, Tapasvini (KM Munshi), Anand Math (Bankim Chandra Chatterjee), Gods, Kings and Slaves (R Venkatesh) and many more. A deeper understanding of history has a huge influence on the public conscience. As a populace, we would view tourism in a different light and start valuing our historical monuments in a way due to them. It has a positive side effect on the tourism revenues too. The awareness in public conscience is worth the liberty that the fictional retellings take.

After all, it does not matter in our daily lives when the date of a certain war is shifted by a decade or two as long as we understood what the country lost during that war. Dates and years would be of interest for historians and the bulky books which most of us might not be reading. But the immortal lore and legend that endear the heroes of the past achieve in true spirit what history as a subject is actually meant to achieve. Would the Kings Krishna Deva Raya and Akbar have been as popular if not for the popular legends and tales of Tenali Ramakrishna and Birbal? Probably not.

Residing in London, I admire the passion with which Britain proudly celebrates its literature, lore and legends, independent of actual history, through guided heritage walks, costume festivals, street carnivals and plays. Given our longer haul in the past, our literature deserves its long due push from the government to be celebrated not just through some annual awards usually limited to elite circles, but through such innovative ways which connects the population with literature and then with the historical figures celebrated in the literature.