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, The Hindustan Time, September 09, 2015, http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/the-way-backward-and-a-way-forward/story-aKEpOpWAngQybRTpFqL6EP.html.

One would expect than an eminent historian such as Guha would do his homework, do some fact-checking.  A simple Google search “CV Raman Road Delhi” which returns CV Raman Marg – Delhi – Wikimapia as the top result would have done the trick.  But again, in the grand ‘Eminent Historian’ tradition of ignoring the very basic facts, Guha chose to ignore the fact that a CV Raman Marg did indeed exist in Delhi.  It was an embarrassment for the Hindustan Times it had to put out a correction and a regret. 

It is in this backdrop we have to look at Guha’s latest article “RSS’ India model comes to Gujarat” (The Hindustan Times, July 31, 2016).   In the very first sentence of his article, Guha declares that “To understand the present day politics of the cow in India, the place to start is an article written in October 1952 by MS Golwalkar”.  Based on this article, Guha goes on to build his argument about “religious majoritarianism” of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendara Modi.  He also tries to build a narrative of increased cow-related violence against Muslims  

Guhas’ arbitrary demarcation of 1952 for the politics of cow is, well, just plain and simple arbitrary.  In India, the politics of cows is as old as politics itself.  Gaveshti, was one of the common forms of wars for the Aryans.  However, the history of organized political movement against cow-slaughter in India can be traced back to at least hundred years before either Hindu Mahasabha or Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh came into existence.  It was in 1818 when Swami Dayanand set up Go Krishyadi-Rakshini-Sabha as the “sporadic cases of violence had occurred since 1793 when the Hindus organized themselves in small groups to rescue cows from Muslims.” (S.M Batra, Cow and Cow-slaughter in India: religious, political, and social aspects, July 1981).   Several other similar organizations such as Prayag Mukhya Gorakshini Sabha, Allahabad Goraksha Samiti, Beni Madho’s Go Rakshini Sabha, and Allahabad People’s Association also sprung up with the purpose of mobilizing Hindus for the protection of cows.

Much before MS Golwalkar wrote his 1952 article, prominent independence movement leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak made emotion speeches in support of ban on cow-slaughter.  In a speech in 1893, Tilak said: ‘The cow … is taken daily to the slaughter house and is butchered mercilessly by the unbelievers.  How can I bear the heart-rending spectacle? Have all our leaders become helpless figures on the chessboard? (SM Batra)

It is indeed true that, as opposed to Hindus’ veneration of cows, Muslims and Christians eat cow flesh, as Guha mentions in his article.  However, it will be wrong to assume that eating cow flesh is a means of proof of identity for these two religious groups.  Tufail Ahmad, a prominent Muslim political commentator in his now famous article “India’s Thought Cops are Angry with Modi” writes: “Cows are not slaughtered across the Islamic world, but the reason cows are slaughtered mostly in the Indian subcontinent is because Indian Islamists introduced the practice of cow slaughter here as a challenge to Hindu religious practice of worshipping cows.”  In light of this fact, Guha’s argument of cow worship becoming “another stick to beat the minorities with” does not hold ground.

The 1966 movement against cow slaughter was significant in terms of mass mobilization.  More than one lakh had participated in the march to the Parliament.  The demonstration did take an ugly turn, as Guha alludes to it.  This parliament march resulted in 7 deaths and loss/damage to public and private properties.  However, comparing this to 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament is a stretch.  So is his suggestion that lynching of Muslims has increased since Narendra Modi took office in 2014.  True to his color, Guha fails to provide any comparative data based analysis to substantiate his claim. 

Violence related to cow, cow slaughter, cow stealing and trafficking is not new to India.  Any suggestion about increase in cow-related violence in India after Narendra Modi taking over as PM in 2014 is nothing more than a mere conjecture on part of left-liberal media intellectuals and is not borne out of any verifiable data.