Wars don’t interest our historians
sharply criticised by leading historians. A group of scholars led by Marilyn Young lamented the “veritable tidal wave of military history” that was sweeping over history curricula. Joan Beaumont wrote scathingly of a “memory orgy” and the “commodification” of the past. The Australian people made sense of the commemorations in diverse ways. If anything, the study of war history enabled critical perspectives on both the past and the present. These ideas, in turn, inflect discussions in newspapers, television and radio.
While India may soon have the panoply of war memorial and commemorations, it is unlikely that we will witness debates of this quality. Our historians have scant interest in wars or soldiers. The notion that war might be an important motor of historical change is alien to most Indian scholars. As such they are ill equipped to critique or question the military myths that will be purveyed by the state in fostering new forms of nationalism. The silence of academic historians over the absurd “commemoration and celebration” organised on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war presages their likely contribution in the future.
Nor have the proposals for the new war memorial received any critical scrutiny . The terms of the reference specified that the new structure would have to be built adjacent to the India Gate — a memorial to the Indian soldiers who died in the World War I. So, between the old imperialist memorial and the proposed nationalist one, India’s contribution to the World War II is literally airbrushed out. Isn’t it curious that the war that most impacted the lives of ordinary Indians and that resulted in serious popular mobilisation should have no purchase on our collective imagination?
The absence of academic engagement with military history leaves the field wide open for ideological appropriation. At a time when the military is being placed on a pedestal and the rest of us told to adopt a posture of foetal admiration, such disinterest could prove costly.