Rewriting is part of writing history, says ICHR chief

The debate in the country on rewriting history is unnecessary as certain “exaggerations” need to be removed from time to time, Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) Chairman Arvind Jamkhedkar has said.

The historian also said the mandate of the ICHR, a body under the HRD Ministry, was not to dictate history or decide curriculum but to encourage research to facilitate the rewriting of history. “Rewriting is part of the writing of history,” he said in an interview to PTI.

History was divided into various eras, he said, elaborating how it had been dealt with differently over time.

“When colonial history was written there was a need to write it from a different point of view as Professor BB Kaushambi realised that this type of history did not have any meaning unless we studied economic history,” Jamkhedkar said.

“A complete new school came into being which included Professor RS Sharma, Irfan Habib and so many others who actually rewrote the earlier history,” he added.

Jamkhedkar supported his argument for the need to rewrite history, stating that it was a “healthy” trend.

“Over a period of time, a certain awareness comes among the historians and they find certain lacunae which would have been left by previous schools,” he said.

“History has always been rewritten and it is a healthy thing because there have been exaggerations. For instance, it was thought that probably the earlier economic historians might have exaggerated a few things and history was then rewritten,” he said.