A HISTORIAN, NOT A SLAVE TO FACTS
(A version of this article appeared in the Pioneer 's Oped, on August 4, 2016 l) Ramchandra Guha’s penchant for ignoring and twisting the facts at piddling ease and indulging in partisan opinion making renders him as what Arun Shourie once called ‘Eminent Historians’. A part-time historian, part-time media personality has opinions on everything under the Sun – from cricket to politics and everything in between, including of course, history. And Guha is everywhere – from the confines of a posh TV studio to seminar halls to newspapers. But this is where his eminence ends. When the facts become dispensable and opinions aplenty, a Ramchandra Guha is born. In the thick of the controversy surrounding the renaming of Delhi’s Auranghzeb Road to Abdul Kalam Road, Guha presented this gem in his column in the Hindustan Times: “Why not have a road named after the greatest modern scientists of India, CV Raman?” The way backward and a way forward, by Ramchandra Guha, T