ROAD TO FUTURE RUNS THROUGH PAST
in a written form or other documented communication as History -- the word derived from a Greek noun ‘historia’ meaning ‘inquiry or research’. History gives us an account of every relevant detail about the past and traces the whole story of mankind. It gives us a clear idea of our origin and evolution, provides us with a good understanding of our tradition, warns us of mistakes made in previous times and teaches us a lot about techniques and inventions by our ancestors. On a personal front, it also gives us an account of man’s failures and his successes, recounts his profits and his losses, describes his laws and his wars, reveals his religions and his arts and portrays his engrossments and his interests.
History teaches the
true value of our civilization and as it forms the basis for good citizenship, its
inclusion in the school curricula is the most satisfying justification.
Listening to the history and studying it since childhood plays a great role in
shaping our values and beliefs, clears our understanding of the past and makes
us aware of the problems faced by our ancestors as also the solutions to those
problems. On the other hand, refusing to listen to history or fabricating the
past will be like a failure to acknowledge the problems of past and more
importantly failure to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong.
Apart from being a
description of events and facts about past, history in broader sense, is also an
encyclopaedia of transitions. These transitions are based upon the rise and
fall of empires and civilizations, kings and the wars that they fought and
struggles of the people during their dictatorship. All these transitions have
made history interesting and rewarding and, more importantly, have divided the history
into broad periods with each period being remembered for the remarkable achievements, challenges and conflicts.
As the saying goes, ‘In every seed of good, there is always a piece of bad,’
all these periods, one way or the other, have altered the world’s story and
influenced human society in both the positive and/or a negative manner. The
erasing of periods from the curricula that does not suit the selective
mind-sets at present is like giving a half cooked food to the child where he is
unable to enjoy the real taste of food. Unfortunately, this selective omission
of various chapters will have its own repercussions as it will create a lacunae
in the understanding of history and end up in creating problems for future
generation that could have been avoided.
We need to
understand that India is the native land of human race, fatherland of human
speech, motherland of history, the grandmother of legends and the
great-grandmother of tradition. The selective expulsion of 300 years of Indian
history, when it was being ruled by the invaders from outside, is going to do
more harm than any good to the overall understanding of our country. It is
going to underestimate the valour of all those historians who fought bravely
with them and also undermine the effort of the invaders who built various
monuments of historical importance during their regimen. The expulsion of
history of invaders from the curricula will always make the future generations vulnerable
to similar attacks in future and unfortunately, they will have no knowledge as
how to prevent such invasion and defend themselves from these invaders. The
hiding of hard facts from the young generation is like keeping them away from
reality and deceiving them in the long run.
As we are
living in a time of rapid change where social media forwards are replacing the
events of past, everything from the past seems to have become outdated and
irrelevant to the new generation. It is our moral duty and responsibility to
guide them in right direction, make them to understand true history and make
them aware about the real happenings of past, good or bad, without any bias. As
roses grow together with the thorns and cannot be separated from each other,
history also, either good or bad, is inseparable. If the good teaches us what
to do, bad also teaches us what not to do and selective removal of bad aspect
from everything will lead us to doing of such things which could have been
avoided. We need to study our history in totality rather than in anecdotes
to understand our past better so that
we could learn from the mistakes and figure out our future.
Dr.
Pawan Suri
email:
psuricardio@gmail.com
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