Challenges to History writing.

Abstract
History writing has never been an easy job for the historians. There is a whole lot of a burden
that comes along when a historian tries to write history. According to my understanding,
history writing is about the understanding and the interpretation of the sources. Sources are
open to interpretations, historians, with the help of their knowledge and understanding, come
up with these interpretations. Sources speak, they try to tell us what had happened in
particular period of time. These sources have a voice of their own. With my understanding of
the articles I have referred to, one thing that I have understood is that historians are not only
liable to interpret the voices that are quite audible but also search for those voices which are
shadowed by other voices and some pre- conceived notions of the past. Historians, like
Neeladri Bhattacharya adheres to the fact of not sanitizing history. It is historians’
responsibility to interpret the meanings of history1.

In this paper, I have tried to look at the problems, to speak of the burdens historians face
while writing history, to be precise ‘objective history’. Question of objectivity has always
been an important part in history writing. But the question is, ‘how do historians write
objective history? What problems do they face while writing this objective history?’

These are some of the questions I have tried to draw my attention to.

For searching the answers to the questions raised in my work, I have read and analysed some
of the articles by scholars like Richard Drayton, Neeladri Bhattacharya, Rajeev Bhargava and
others, on the topics related to history writing and problems faced by historians in the
process.

With my understanding, I have come to know that need of honour& favours, certain interests,
inclination to any particular thought or section of the society etc. lead to lack of objectivity in
history writing. And historians must avoid attachment to any of these when they try to
provide words to the voices which help them in interpreting the past.

Keywords: history, interpretation, past, objectivity, sources.

1. Richard Drayton, Where Does The World Historian Write From? Objectivity, Moral Conscience and The
Past and The Present Of Imperialism, journal of contemporary history (2011), 671-685.
Introduction
What is History? Is it just stories of past? Who writes history? If history is the story of past
then why do we have various stories of same part? How can one write an objective history?

History is the interpretation of sources done by historians by following proper historical

methods. Interpretation can vary, based on the understanding of the sources. History is not
just stories, it is not meta-history, it’s locating ourselves in the overlapping2. Not everyone
can write history, not everyone can come up with the interpretations, and not every
interpretation could be true. One has to leave the baggage of all the pre conceived notions
behind. Historians, while writing History, start with a clean slate and write everything on the
basis of their understanding of the sources and evidences they examine. There is no black and
white in history3. According to Prof. Raziuddin Aquil, one has to be above everything to be a
historian. You can’t be a Hindu or a Muslim, Indian or American and a historian at the same
time4. Historians need to rise above all these.Historians’ personal affiliation should never
influence their writings and corrupt history. It is rightly said, ‘past could be used for the
politics of present’ and historians play a vital role in it. When historians get involved in the
politics, they then tend to move away from the authenticity and objectivity in history writing.
While writing History, a historian must keep in mind the responsibility she/he carries of
giving the voice to the sources she/he is working on. She/He cannot look at one source and
leave another as the other is not supporting her/his argument. According to Prof. Aquil, a
good historian will look at the all the available sources and will not leave any. If the historian
finds something in her/his research which is completely opposite to her/his argument, she/he
would talk about it and incorporate it in her/his work. Dipesh chakrabarty says historians
from all of the world face hardships while writing history, for example, in 1980s, the History
of Australian Aborginality has hugely debated and criticised. This was or is not just the case
in Australia but it happens all over the world.

Challenges to History Writing

History writing, as discussed, has never been an easy task for historians. Challenges are
attached to every step of History writing. A good historian would not let these challenges
affect her/his work. These challenges may not always come from the outer space but also
from within the historians’ consciousness. This would mean her/his personal affiliation to a
school of thought or her/his personal beliefs.

2. Prof. Seema Alavi in one of her lectures at University of Delhi while explaining Ottoman History.
3. Seema Alavi in one of her lectures at University of Delhi while explaining Ottoman History.
4. Prof. Raziuddin Aquil in one of his lectures on Objectivity in History writing at University of Delhi.
Richard Drayton says historians should never set boundaries for History by keeping a
particular view of the past.5 Readers have always been an integral part of their work. They
tend to include readers’ values, beliefs, interests, myths etc. in their work. When historians do
this, they sometimes loose the essence of history which is supposed to be objective. In order
to comfort readers, historians tend to write what would suite the taste buds of the readers,
which may or may not be the actual interpretation. Readers with the help of these works try to
connect themselves with the past and shape their future.

Another challenge or problem with historians, to be precise is that they become too
dependent on sources and the interpretation and this should not be the case. Drayton calls this
a ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.6 Drayton quotes Kelly,” the way things really were was the way
men of power and influence judged them to be”. Sometimes people in power dilute history
with their agendas and historians help them in doing so. Also, when historians write on
politics and subjects related to it, tend to take sides (politicians and other powerful people, to
be precise). Historians’ desire of selling books, leads to corruption in history writing, as they
write things which suite the mind-set of the middle class people. Corruption in history-
writing also takes place when historians enter the academics and co-operate with the
authority and help them in fulfilling their goals. Drayton cites instances where seats were
reserved for such scholars and how they tried to control public opinion during the time of
Cold War, Kosovo War and Iraq War. It is, according to Drayton, the mutual ground of
politics, academics and public sphere where the most pressure is generated for a historian and
further encourages teleological arguments. He talks of the British Imperial Historiography
which emerged in 19th century and how it for a long period of time supported the ideological
expansion. Not only provided justification for the expansion it also defended the imperial
state by rejecting the presence of violence. The defence was so strong that scholars, who
stood against the ideology, were dusted in the initial decades of the formation of this school
of historiography. We later find strong resistance coming from the scholars from India, US
etc. in 19th century.

5. Richard Drayton, Where Does The World Historian Write From? Objectivity, Moral Conscience and The
Past and The Present of The Imperialism, journal of contemporary History (2011). 671-685
6. Richard Drayton, Where Does The World Historian Write From? Objectivity, Moral Conscience and The
Past and The Present of The Imperialism, journal of contemporary History (2011). 671-685
7. Rajeev Bhargava, History, Nation and Community: Reflections on Nationalist Historiography of India and
Pakistan, vol.35 No.4( Jan.22-28,2000), pp.193-200
As discussed earlier, historians’ personal ideologies and emotions affect history writing.
Rajeev Bhargava talks about four types of history writing7 :

 Manipulated
 Strongly relativist
 Critical
 Objective

Historians should let their work reflect the examples of principles, norms, interests and
objectivity. Personal attachment and emotions would corrupt the objectivity of the work.
Bhargava gives an example of Cantwell’s book where he talks of communal hatred and
presence of conflicts and arguments on both sides. He talks of how Muslim league attacked
Hindus because they feared that they would be ill-treated in an independent India and thus
proposed the idea of Pakistan. There were texts published on both sides (India and Pakistan)
which blamed each other for the partition. This kind of history was criticised by scholars like
Romila Thapar. Official histories are mostly influenced by the self-interests whereas other
histories have a mixture of cognitive interest. He opines Romila Thapar’s view that linking
emotion and national identity is one thing and making it the central theme of the work is all
together another thing(as was suggested by Drayton that historians when write about politics
tend to take sides). In Bhargavas’s work, we find how different scholars of 20th-21st like Irfan
Habib who criticised imperialist historians who tried to support the imperialist agendas in
their works. He also criticised Indian nationalist historians who tried to glorify their past and
disregarded defects in their past. History in the classical age was used to project an illusion of
truth without actually collecting proofs8. It was in 18th century that the elucidating of
evidences gained prominence. Carlo Ginzburg compares History with Law and historian with
judge as they both need evidences to proof the truth. He says in 19th-20th century a court like
structure had developed where proofs and evidences played important roles. In history
written from positivist perspective, evidences are only needed to historicise reality but they
themselves are not of any historical relevance. This makes the entire process of history
writing unfruitful. In contemporary history writing, evidence is seen as a wall restricting the
passage to reality. Assumptions like this become quite problematic in the process of history
writing. In 18th, 19th & 20th century we find numerous historical novels, fictions etc. now
regarded as historical masterpieces like Michelet’s work. This amalgamation of historical
work and fiction creates another sort of problem in history writing. When history of lives
people is reconstructed, according to Furet, the relationship between individual and the
context is missing. Another problem to history writing is

8. Carlo Ginzburg, Checking the Evidence: The Judge and The Historian, vol.18, No.
1(Autumn,1991) pp. 79-92of conjectures.
These are not always acceptable. Some of the events may just have been a possibility and not
a reality. This leaves the historians at a crossroad or in an intermediate zone.

According to Arnold D. Momigliano, historians when work on evidences while writing

history, they don’t deal with rhetoric which in itself is problematic if the texts are cognitive,
historians have to assume commonsensical criteria while analysing the evidence. In
contemporary times truth and possibilities contest with each other and even often overlap
making history writing quite complicated and problematic.

Another threat to history writing is of Dogmatism. Dogmatism in academic writing follows

academic exclusion where the alternative framework or other opinions are not in any form
visible as one own thought and truth leaves no scope for a new arena of research9. Akeel
Bilgrami mentions Mills’s ‘meta-inductive argument’, according to this argument, a historian
might never find the actual truth, she/he could only find the truth through the inquiry, even
when the historian believes that she/he has found the truth, she/he will never know that she/he
has achieved the truth. If the inquiry comes out to be true, it can only be a co-incidence as
what one finds to be true might be false for another depending on the historians’ beliefs.

Perfect place for pursuit of writing is the ‘market place of ideas’ where people with different
ideas and opine about same things but this sometimes lead to more confusion because of
different opinions.

Neeladri Bhattacharya in the Predicaments of Secular History draws our attention to another
challenge in history which, in a way Drayton has talked about. Bhattarcharya talks of how
communal division affected the history writing in ‘new India’. Historians of this new India
tried to fight this problem in the historiography. Their objective was to critique the existing
communal prejudice which would help in establishment of such historiography that was
secular, objective and scientific. For doing so, historians have tried to reconstruct a past
which was more secular and democratic. Bhattacharya shows how the histories where Hindus
are at centre, Muslims were potrayed as villains and the so called Muslim period as a period
of darkness, violence etc. Muslims were associated with brutality and fanaticism for example,
Akbar seen as break from the pattern because he appointed Hindus and practiced the idea of
Sulh-i-kul and Aurangzeb being referred to as bigot and responsible for the decline of
Mughal empire. Later from 1960s onwards we find new approaches to the period of
Aurangzeb, Satish Chandra being one of the prominent historians of this approach. He says
one needs to differentiate between the personal and public life of Aurangzeb. In personal life
he was an orthodox person but his political decisions like that of jizyah10, had political
reasons behind it. Out of his 50 years of reign, Aurangzeb emphasised on Sharia’t and Islam
only for about a decade.

9. Akeel Bilgrami, Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment, Harvard University Press,2014 pp. 03-97.
10. Satish Chandra, “:Jizyah and the State in India during the seventeenth century” and “Religious Policy of
Aurangzeb during the Later Part of his Reign- Some Considerations”.
 Another important challenge that Bhattacharya brings to our notice is picking of facts.
Choosing only those facts that would support one’s argument and leaving other facts. So if
the facts were to be questioned then the entire narrative would be subject to change as far as
meaning is concerned.

Muhammad Habib tries to reconstruct memories of Mahmud of Ghazni’s plunders and

violence. He clarifies that Mahmud came to India (modern notion) because of his greed. He
did not have any religious motives. This idea of ‘traumatic experience because of Muslims’
was the seed sown by British. Same has been done with the Somnath plunder. It has been
depicted as a traumatic event for Hindus. But Romila Thapar says this idea was constructed
over time by colonialists that helped them to be in a better and superior place11.

Secular historians, in search for a past that was quite secular and democratic, have tried to
overlook the evidences which speak of the differences and conflicts. Bhattacharya says it is
not the responsibility of historians to look for the solutions of these modern day problems of
communalism.

Richard M. Eaton and Philip B. Wagoner talk of the temples that were demolished during the
time of Delhi Sultans ( Alaudddin Khalji and muslim rulers). In this type of work, we see
muslim rulers were being projected as people hurting Hindus by demolishing and plundering
Hindu temples and other pilgrimage sites12.

Conclusion
History writing, writing objective History, to be precise, is full of challenges. These
problems can come from an outer space like the pressure from powerful, influential people,
readers, etc. or from one’s own greed. This greed could be of anything, economic, personal
satisfaction, combating existing problems (as secular historians tried to do), favours, selling
books, etc. we have seen how historiography has grown from the time of imperialism. How
the British School Imperialism tried to protect and provide justifications for imperialism, how
facts were distorted and presented according to the argument (R. Couplands’s rejection of
violence in imperialism and presenting Anglo Saxon as liberty lover).

Another important challenge to history writing is of lack of acknowledging facts. Historians,

in order to prove their argument right tend pick and choose facts. They leave facts which
don’t suite their argument (secular historians trying to picture a secular and democratic past).

11. Richard M. Eaton and Philip B. Wagoner, “Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested sites on India’s
Deccan plateau, 1300-1600[temples and conquest]”.
12. Romila Thapar, Early India: From Origins to AD 1300 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)

Historians are working on combating these challenges but there is a very long bridge to cross
in order to reach to an objective History writing. One of the most important steps in doing so
is to leave sanitizing history and presenting the actual interpretation based on the proper
understanding of the sources and the context.

ANUPAM TRIPATHI

M.A. HISTORY

HANSRAJ COLLEGE

Bibliography

1. Richard Drayton, Where Does The World Historian Write From? Objectivity,
Moral Conscience and The Past and The Present Of Imperialism, journal of
contemporary history (2011), 671-685
2. Akeel Bilgrami, Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment, Harvard University
Press,2014 pp. 03-97
3. Rajeev Bhargava, History, Nation and Community: Reflections on Nationalist
Historiography of India and Pakistan, vol.35 No.4( Jan.22-28,2000), pp.193-200
4. Carlo Ginzburg, Checking the Evidence: The Judge and The Historian, vol.18,
No. 1(Autumn,1991) pp. 79-92
5. Neeladri Bhattacharya, Predicaments of Secular History
6. Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and his Empire
of Truth.
7. Partha Chatterjee and Anjan Ghosh, History and the Present, pp. 01-23
8. Rajeev Bhargava, What is Political History and why do we Need it?
9. Richard M. Eaton and Philip B. Wagoner, “Power, Memory, Architecture:
Contested sites on India’s Deccan plateau, 1300-1600[temples and conquest]”.