Don't think anyone in Modi govt reads books, hence contempt for scholars: Ramachandra Guha

Noted historian and writer Ramachandra Guha on Saturday attacked the Centre stating that the current government has "contempt" for scholars "as nobody in the government has read or written any books." "It is probably because nobody in the present government has read or written any books. In Vajpayee government, at least half of the cabinet had written and read various books," said the prominent historian, who was speaking on the second day of TimesLitfest organised at Bandra. He pointed out, "Prime Minister Vajpayee himself was a poet, leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha had written books. Other members of the then cabinet like Mamata Banerjee had read Rabindranath Tagore. I don't think anyone in the current government read books and hence is the contempt for scholars."

He went on to add, "If a writer says something unpleasant, they will call it mischievous writers' talk." Guha was in conversation with former armyman turned historian Srinath Raghavan under the programme titled 'As History as it happened, and history in hindsight.' He said, "There is an interesting parallel between the communists and right wing people. Both are humour-less and if you oppose them, they will immediately attribute it to some motives. For example, the communists will call you bourgeoisie, if you oppose them."

"There is a need for new historians to come and write about our history, because earlier there was hegemony of Congress on history writing in the country. Historians wrote about people which would be suitable to Congress culture," said Guha. "Today, change in power at the Centre has given opportunity to write about history with new perspective. But the new people have little to do with research and worse thing is that they are abusive," he said.

History is part of social science but also a branch of literature, the noted historian said. Asked why some leaders from the past are again brought to forefront in the current context, Guha said, earlier Ambedkar was scorned and today he is blindly adopted. He was not only involved in Constitution and Dalit rights, but he was a scholar, he was also a sensitive person and these aspects should be brought in to his biography.

Similar is the case of V D Savarkar, who was a social reformer and not just the mentor of (Nathuram) Godse. Hence, young historians should write and bring these aspects into the picture as well, he said. Commenting on comparison of leaders from the past with the current ones, the historian said that such parallels are useful up to some extent. There are some common points between Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi such as both disregard Parliament and damaged the structure of institutions but it is obvious that 2016 is not 1975 (emergency period).