History On Hindsight

I was never keen on history in school or college. History was just about mugging up dates and events and wars. Since I was not much into mugging I did not like the subject at all. It’s only much later that I understood its importance – how past shapes our present and future.

Having said that I am also doubtful whether the history we read or know is  truly authentic. From time immemorial those who came to power wrote and rewrote their own versions of history. Did what they created actually happen?

Democracy is no different. It is actually not the rule of the people, for the people and by the people. We are governed by  a  small cotery of men  who make us believe that they are our representatives and we have exercised our right of electing them through  fair  means. But once these people, who are so called amongst us, come to power,  try to  recreate history glorifying their actions and inactions.

It’s the same as it used to be earlier in times of monarchy – benevolent or tyrannical. Palace conspiracies were the same as today’s  Machiavellian power struggles.

It is common knowledge that nobody cares for the aam junta or the common masses. Government is just a masked operative to fulfill vested interests of a few. History talks only of kings, conquests, consolidation of power, colonization. It does not chronicle the plight of  the ordinary subjects.

The eccentric ruler, Mohammad Bin Tughlaq, was in the habit of shifting his capital from one city to the other according to his own whims and fancies.   What did the common man feel about their life in transit?

King Ashoka The Great embraced Buddhism after the bloodbath of Kalinga. He repented the massacre and  turned to Ahimsa or non violence as the guiding principle of life. What about the families of thousands of dead soldiers? How did they overcome their irreplaceable loss?

We know about the atrocities under British Rule. It’s what colonisers have done through ages to the colonized. But why did this colonization take place in the first place? It’s because  the  country was divided into a number of Princely States which were engrossed in fighting amongst themselves. 

We need not look afar. We did witness history not so long ago during the worldwide pandemic caused by COVID-19. The mass exodus of the workforce, rendered jobless and homeless, ignoring social distancing. Those who left never  returned in fear of getting stranded by another sudden and unexpected lockdown. The dearth of labour, thus created, continues still.

Encouraged by the freebies doled out by the Administration,  the daily wagers thought it safe to be  home even without work, as a more viable option, than coping with the high standards of living in Metros.

While it was a matter of pride how advancements in science and technology led to successful formulation and marketing of COVID vaccines in no time, pharmaceutical companies remained tight-lipped about their side effects. In the second spell, the sudden deaths of the comparatively younger populace affected by the disease, left wide scope for speculations which were neither refuted nor affirmed by the experts.

Yet, history is important to figure out our mistakes of the past and take timely redemptive course in case it chooses to repeat itself. It is also a  reliable indicator to which invader we owe our roots. Why we are what we are – our empathy, our enmity, our Achilles’ Heel, our reversal to primitive hostility time to time.

History is  insight gained on hindsight. How we, the cattle class, have been manoevered and manipulated through ages, as mere pawns in the game between chess masters  who by birth or by luck happen to be in a position to subjugate us.

That’s what is most fascinating about history.