About History and its heroes !
I had been wanting to express my opinions on the rebellion of 1857 , after i saw the movie " Mangal Pandey ,The Rising" . An extremely poor movie , nevertheless got me thinking on the events of 1857 . Notice, i can't call it the "First war of Independance" because i dont think thats what it was. I've always believed it was an attempt to give the nation identity and create heroes. I stumbled upon this excellent article by Rudrangshu Mukherjee . A fantastic read !
posted by Sairam at 12:44 AM
2 Comments:
good read indeed. are we talkin abt history as taught in schools or history as spelt by books like Discovery of India and other examples mentioned in the article?
I'm no authority in the latter but can safely say that the history taught in schools is pathetic n full of stereotypes made-to-believe-India-is/was/will-be-the-greatest, made-to-respect-handful-of-"freedom fighters"...
it will be wrong to call history a science its always gonna be somebody's personal account (based on facts of course....but opinionated nonetheless!) at best a student/reader is left to accept/contradict one or the other depiction/view (much like science actually).
exactly the problem right ..no offense against kings like Shivaji or Raja Raja Chola or what have you. How do we know what we are hearing is not his courtside poet singing his praises!!
For a country starved of heroes ... we go around manufacturing new ones. It gives rise to another interesting thought , Does history create heroes or Do Heroes create History !
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