Note : Owing to my potential, the formatting and look-and-feel is as screwed as ever - requesting the readers to focus on the content
This is the question which I, who dreams to be a full-time Historian, must have attempted to answer ages ago. But better late than never !
The people of our mother/father ‘s generation used to love a song ‘ Sikandar ne Porus se, ki thi ladai, jo ki thi ladai toh main kya karun ? ‘ This song was an epitome of the question, rather an exasperation, that occured in the young minds - ‘Why should we learn, worse remember, who was whose grandfather, which battle was fought - when and for what, why to learn about swords and elephants in the era of ballistic missiles, why to remember the list of political parties’ and so on... I admit that I was no different from these people UNTIL I realised that what we learnt in the school is far from being qualified as ‘History’ - it was just a dump of chronology, a subject to mug-up and in a way, a liability !
With a wide range of professions engaging numerous youthful elements(except politics :P), there are some questions, I as an amateur Historian, would like to pop :
The list of such questions from my side is unending ! However naive and stupid they may seem to the respective professionals. they can be asked by some one who doesn’t understand the scope, the pitfalls and the impact of that particular profession. If you are patient and honest till this line, you can get a ‘slight’ idea of the frustration and dilemma a true Historian faces when some one questions the validity and usefulness of History !
The objective of this article is just to clear the dust on the mirror - NOT to prove anyone greater/smaller than anyone !
Let me analyse and put forth a few reasons why History always seems ‘obsolete’, ‘boring’, ‘mysterious’ etc. First question, in the Indian context, to be more specific, Maharashtra board, what we studied & when(how part later) :
Now I am going to stress the brain of the readers a bit more - recall the manner, the methods in which the subject was taught, learnt and looked at - the teachers just used to read(asked to read !) the chapters, the students good at memorizing saw it as a trump card while others dreaded it! More or less, it was true about it was/is true about all subjects, not just History ! But History, and the one we have learnt, didn’t find any direct application/relevance to our further education - engineering, medical, management, arts etc. The exams focused on the chronological orders, naive and mundane events, extreme insistence on partisan politics and politicians etc.which killed the interest of the students in the subject(precisely, that was/is the intention ! ). The students and people are bombarded, since ages, with worthless ideological statements, to quote some ‘India is a nation with rich cultural heritage’, ‘A period of golden History’. If that is not enough, they are scared with statements like ‘History repeats itself...’ and so on(NOT TO MENTION THE DISTORTION OF THE HISTORY!!!). But no attempts are made (DELIBERATELY !) to make the masses to realise the crucial nature of History - it’s relevance to the current period, the knowledge and wisdom, the boon of prediction and analytical powers, the direly needed self-esteem(in the national sense), the solid and fruitful values it can inculcate! Thus, History is reduced merely to a dreaded academic subject at the school level !
After all that abstract salvo, let me bring some ‘relevance’ to the flow :
While umpteen such examples can be given, many minds must already have started debating against it. But it must be remembered that in either case, the role of History can’t be denied. Another point, History has something for everyone. Unfortunately,this article focuses on too less arenas as those are the only areas of my (limited) knowledge !
After having written a no. of lines enough to cause yawning, I would like to summarize what History has to give, depending upon the interpretations and expectations :
I intend to expand this article in future, in time. It is challenging for me to cram my findings of a decade in one article;more challenging, rather killing, for the readers(if any :D )
This is the question which I, who dreams to be a full-time Historian, must have attempted to answer ages ago. But better late than never !
The people of our mother/father ‘s generation used to love a song ‘ Sikandar ne Porus se, ki thi ladai, jo ki thi ladai toh main kya karun ? ‘ This song was an epitome of the question, rather an exasperation, that occured in the young minds - ‘Why should we learn, worse remember, who was whose grandfather, which battle was fought - when and for what, why to learn about swords and elephants in the era of ballistic missiles, why to remember the list of political parties’ and so on... I admit that I was no different from these people UNTIL I realised that what we learnt in the school is far from being qualified as ‘History’ - it was just a dump of chronology, a subject to mug-up and in a way, a liability !
With a wide range of professions engaging numerous youthful elements(except politics :P), there are some questions, I as an amateur Historian, would like to pop :
- Why the activity of requirement analysis carried out so extensively and seriously before undertaking a project/product development ? Why don't just start coding and building apps. ?
- Why a doctor, especially a psychiatrist, are hell-bent on various tests and ‘history’ before starting the treatment? Why don’t they subscribe a random medicine and later proceed with a trial-and-error methodology ?
- Why do lawyers have those piles, stacks, cupboards of books having references to cases spanning over decades ? Why not just have a book that lists all laws and fight each case as it comes ?
- Why so much pains taken by software engineers to come up with design patterns, best practices, pitfalls etc. ? Why strive so much to avoid ‘re-inventing the wheel’ ? Why not just hit the coding button directly ?
- Why do civil engineers, geographical experts spend years analysing terrain, studying crust and mountains before undertaking construction projects? Why not directly begin with the construction ?
- Why there is so much demand and respect for ‘experience’ in the world - be it a grandfather, a veteran soldier, an old fox having served in the intelligence? Why not put young guys right away and let them learn ?
The list of such questions from my side is unending ! However naive and stupid they may seem to the respective professionals. they can be asked by some one who doesn’t understand the scope, the pitfalls and the impact of that particular profession. If you are patient and honest till this line, you can get a ‘slight’ idea of the frustration and dilemma a true Historian faces when some one questions the validity and usefulness of History !
The objective of this article is just to clear the dust on the mirror - NOT to prove anyone greater/smaller than anyone !
Let me analyse and put forth a few reasons why History always seems ‘obsolete’, ‘boring’, ‘mysterious’ etc. First question, in the Indian context, to be more specific, Maharashtra board, what we studied & when(how part later) :
- Std. IV - Shivaji
- Std. V-X - Various revolutions, Indian struggle for Independence, WWI and WWII
Now I am going to stress the brain of the readers a bit more - recall the manner, the methods in which the subject was taught, learnt and looked at - the teachers just used to read(asked to read !) the chapters, the students good at memorizing saw it as a trump card while others dreaded it! More or less, it was true about it was/is true about all subjects, not just History ! But History, and the one we have learnt, didn’t find any direct application/relevance to our further education - engineering, medical, management, arts etc. The exams focused on the chronological orders, naive and mundane events, extreme insistence on partisan politics and politicians etc.which killed the interest of the students in the subject(precisely, that was/is the intention ! ). The students and people are bombarded, since ages, with worthless ideological statements, to quote some ‘India is a nation with rich cultural heritage’, ‘A period of golden History’. If that is not enough, they are scared with statements like ‘History repeats itself...’ and so on(NOT TO MENTION THE DISTORTION OF THE HISTORY!!!). But no attempts are made (DELIBERATELY !) to make the masses to realise the crucial nature of History - it’s relevance to the current period, the knowledge and wisdom, the boon of prediction and analytical powers, the direly needed self-esteem(in the national sense), the solid and fruitful values it can inculcate! Thus, History is reduced merely to a dreaded academic subject at the school level !
After all that abstract salvo, let me bring some ‘relevance’ to the flow :
- WWII is what we all studied in school. How many of the things we see around today are rooted in WWII ? Just give a Google - Internet, Ballistic missiles, Nuclear warheads, Inter-continental aviation, Indo-Pakistan problem, North-South Korea problem - the list is mammoth !
- When we talk about Shivaji, partisan politics, Hindu extremism(?) etc. all such myopic terms come to play. Well, there was a short strike made by him at Umberkhind, near Lonavla where he ambushed a Mughal army of 20000 with just 3000 of his, most of them belonging to infantry, and won it with minimal bloodshed. For those who need 'Western Endorsement', the 352yr old Harvard Business School has about 600 books on Shivaji Maharaj for references on management casestudies. About 20-25 countries including Switzerland, Vietnam teach military warfare techniques of Shivaji in their military training.
- The DBMSs(DataBase Management System) have come a long way & so have PLs(Programming Language). Today, we see a new framework, a new tool etc. popping before we can breathe. All claim to be innovative. A veteran programmer/developer/architect can easily expose myths and segregate the useful and useless stuff !
While umpteen such examples can be given, many minds must already have started debating against it. But it must be remembered that in either case, the role of History can’t be denied. Another point, History has something for everyone. Unfortunately,this article focuses on too less arenas as those are the only areas of my (limited) knowledge !
After having written a no. of lines enough to cause yawning, I would like to summarize what History has to give, depending upon the interpretations and expectations :
- For those interested in building their own philosophy(like me :P ), it acts as a data repository
- It helps, after analysis of course, to expose myths and establish facts
- It gives invincible power of prediction - learn more, predict more accurately
- It inculcates,especially among the youth, qualities that are direly need - perseverance, rationality, open-mindedness, tolerance, defiance, patriotism etc. These are the things one has to experience and learn - they can’t come out of the thin air so no need to agree with the above statement !
I intend to expand this article in future, in time. It is challenging for me to cram my findings of a decade in one article;more challenging, rather killing, for the readers(if any :D )
