Commenting on the controversy surrounding Karnataka textbooks mentioning Veer Savarkar flying on the wings of a bulbul while in jail, historian Sampath said that at least there is a situation where figures like Savarkar are now being discussed. He highlighted an incident from the post-independence era when Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Lata Mangeshkar’s brother, was removed from All India Radio for tuning one of Savarkar’s poems. Sampath also recalled Indira Gandhi’s heartfelt eulogy for Savarkar, questioning why she would do so if he had been party to Gandhi’s assassination. He argued that in the politicisation of history, Savarkar became a “fall guy.”He also emphasised the challenges of decoding history, including the scarcity of sources and their accessibility, linguistic barriers, and the difficulty of separating fact from the maze of storytelling in ancient texts.Talking about the destruction of knowledge and historical sources, he cited the burning of Nalanda by Bakhtiyar Khilji, where manuscripts reportedly burned for six months.“It is a travesty that the ruins of Nalanda are now located in a place named Bakhtiyarpur after the very man who destroyed it,” he said.Sampath also spoke about the initiatives of the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research, which he founded to encourage multiple narratives. The foundation offers scholarships in the name of renowned historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar, funding eight to nine scholars annually to write and research history.He also mentioned that the project group of the foundation is trying to incubate research projects in educational institutions, starting with the reinvented Nalanda University, where the rise and fall of Buddhism in India is being studied by a multidisciplinary team including historians, archaeologists and language scholars.This apart, under a project called Yuva, efforts are being taken to make history interesting for children and young adults, he said.
Source link
