ASHA: Blast From The Past

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Let’s be honest about what just happened. Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation as Education Minister wasn’t some gracious political gesture. It was a surrender. A government that had spent years brushing aside student grievances finally found itself cornered by the very people it had ignored. And that is what makes this moment historic. Not the fall of one minister, but the rise of thousands of young Indians who refused to be treated as statistics.

This was never really about the Cockroach Janata Party. The CJP provided a name and a structure, sure. But the heart and sinew of this movement belonged to the students who flooded the streets, who slept on pavements, who travelled for days on crowded trains just to add their voice to the chorus. They were not symbols. They were not props. They were the real deal.

The anger that propelled them was entirely justified. Leaked papers. Botched exams. A system so riddled with incompetence that merit became a joke. Young people who had studied for years, who had sacrificed sleep and sanity, who had pinned their entire futures on fair assessment – they were being cheated. And not quietly. Not politely. They were done with being patient. They were done with being fobbed off by bureaucrats and ministers who had never known what it felt like to have their dreams hinge on a single mark sheet.

So they gathered. First in small clusters, then in growing crowds, and finally in a roar that could not be ignored. They organised through WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram – the very platforms that establishment politicians dismiss as frivolous. They built networks that transcended cities, states, and languages. They turned a scattered cry of frustration into a unified, unstoppable demand for accountability.

And here is the part that really rattled the powers that be: they did it with discipline. No riots. No vandalism. Just a quiet, stubborn refusal to go away. That discipline was their superpower. It stripped the government of every excuse. They couldn’t be painted as goondas. They couldn’t be dismissed as anti-nationals. They were just students – angry, articulate, and absolutely right.

Now let’s address the elephant in the room. There were whispers from the very beginning – and not just from cynics – that the CJP, along with figures like Wangchuk and Dipke, might have been playing a different game altogether. Some suspected they wanted to act as a cushion for the government. The theory went like this: give the students a platform, let them blow off steam, absorb the criticism, take the heat out of the protests, and then quietly negotiate a face-saving exit for the minister. In other words, provide a release valve so the real pressure never reached the boiler.

We don’t know the truth of that thinking. Maybe it was fair. Maybe it was paranoia. Maybe the CJP and its prominent faces genuinely believed in the cause. But here is what we do know: whatever cushion they might have intended to create, the students blew right through it.

The young participants were not interested in being managed. They were not interested in backroom deals that would let the government off the hook. They were not there to be a photo opportunity or a talking shop. They kept the pressure on. They refused to be pacified by vague promises. They refused to disperse when asked. They kept the streets alive, the conversation loud, and the government uncomfortable.

And that is where the real story lies. The students became the Achilles heel of this government. Think about that for a moment. The farmers, with all their numbers and moral authority, could not bring this administration to its knees. They marched, they sat, they endured brutal police action, and still the government held firm. Political parties, with all their resources and machinery, could not land a decisive blow. They debated, they criticised, they formed alliances, and still the government remained unshaken.

But the students did what none of them could. They exposed the Modi government. Not through grand politics. Not through media campaigns. Simply by being young, stubborn, and utterly unwilling to be ignored. They laid bare the government’s vulnerability. They showed that beneath all the bluster and bravado, this administration is far more fragile than it pretends to be.

What the farmers could not achieve, what the opposition could not achieve, the students achieved with nothing more than their voices, their feet, and their refusal to back down. They did not have deep pockets. They did not have political backing. They had only their conviction that they deserved better. And that was enough.

Now let’s talk about what made these young protesters genuinely dangerous to the political establishment. Not dangerous in a violent sense, but dangerous in a way that keeps politicians awake at night. They refused to play the communal game. In an era when every election, every policy, every media debate is coloured by religion and region, these students looked at one another and saw equals. They sat together, ate together, marched together, regardless of whether they worshipped in a temple, a mosque, a church, or nowhere at all.

That was the real subversion. They tore up the divisive script that has become so comfortable for our ruling class. They reminded everyone that a student is first a student – not a Hindu voter, not a Muslim voter, not a pawn in someone else’s identity war. They reasserted a shared citizenship that has been under systematic assault for years. And they did it without grand speeches or ideological posturing. They simply lived it.

The government’s response was telling. First, they tried to ignore the protests. Then they tried to dismiss them as political mischief. Then they tried to divide the protesters along familiar communal lines. Nothing worked. Every attempt to fracture the movement backfired spectacularly because the students had already chosen solidarity over division. They had already decided that their common future mattered more than the ancient hatreds that politicians love to stoke.

So Pradhan fell. And good riddance. But this was never just about one man. It was about the government being forced to acknowledge that it is not invincible. That even a ruling party with a massive parliamentary majority cannot trample on young people with impunity. That when thousands of determined citizens refuse to look away, even the mightiest administration must blink.

What happens now? The formal protests have ended. The tents at Jantar Mantar have been folded. But anyone who thinks this is over is dangerously naive. Movements don’t evaporate just because organisers declare victory. They leave behind something far more enduring: a generation that has learned its own strength.

These students now know how to organise. They know how to communicate. They know how to sustain pressure. They know how to make themselves heard in a political system that was designed to ignore them. That knowledge cannot be unlearned. It will seep into every future campaign – unemployment, university autonomy, environmental justice, you name it. The establishment has sown the wind, and it will reap the whirlwind.

And here is the uncomfortable truth for those in power: the students are not going away. They are not returning to their dormitories to quietly finish their degrees and become obedient professionals. They have tasted collective action. They have seen their own power reflected in the panic of a government that scrambled to respond. They know now that democracy is not a spectator sport. It is a muscle that must be exercised, and they have just done a very heavy workout.

The communal agenda that has dominated Indian politics for the past decade looked resilient. It looked unshakeable. But these young protesters exposed its greatest weakness: it cannot survive genuine human connection. When students of different faiths stand shoulder to shoulder, when they share food and water and hope, the walls that politicians have spent years building start to crumble. That is not a threat the government can legislate away. That is not a problem they can solve with a reshuffle.

So let us call this what it is. The kids have just served notice. They have shown that they are no longer content to be passive recipients of policies made in distant corridors. They have shown that they are willing to take risks, endure hardship, and stand up for what is right. And they have shown that they are not interested in the tired, toxic politics of division.

The resignation of one minister is a beginning, not an end. The real battle lies ahead – over jobs, over education, over the very soul of this country. And if the government thinks it can return to business as usual, it has another think coming. The students have arrived. They have found their voice. And they are not backing down.

What the farmers could not do, what the politicians could not do, they have done. They have exposed the Modi government. They have made it susceptible. They have shown that the emperor has no clothes. And what follows next – well, that is entirely up to them.

Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Yesterday it was Jantar Mantar, today it is Patna, and tomorrow…. Who knows? The entire nation!

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Matthew Pierce, Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shiʿism. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2016. ix + 257 pp. ISBN 978-0-674-73707-5.

Matthew Pierce’s Twelve Infallible Men is an ambitious and methodologically innovative study of the collective biographies of the Twelve Imams. Rather than reconstructing their historical lives or tracing the development of imamate doctrine, Pierce examines how medieval Twelver Shiʿi communities narrated the lives, sufferings and deaths of their sacred leaders, and how these narratives forged a distinct religious identity.

Pierce treats these biographies as acts of communal memory rather than repositories of historical fact. Their importance, he argues, does not depend entirely on whether every event can be verified. What matters is that successive generations found these accounts meaningful and authoritative. Through preservation, repetition and reorganisation, the stories created a shared sacred past and gave the community a vocabulary for understanding suffering, loyalty, authority and salvation.

The book draws principally on five Arabic collective biographies composed between the tenth and twelfth centuries, including works attributed to al-Masʿūdī, al-Shaykh al-Mufīd and al-Ṭabrisī. The author identifies these as forming a recognisable literary genre organised around the sequential lives of the Twelve Imams. This is one of the book’s key contributions: these texts have rarely been examined together as a corpus with its own narrative conventions, emotional logic and communal function. Pierce shifts attention from isolated traditions to the overall architecture of the biographies.

The opening chapter situates the literature within the late Abbasid period, cautioning against projecting modern Sunni-Shiʿi divisions backwards. In that fluid environment, collective biographies helped define the Twelve Imams as a closed sequence of divinely appointed guides. The end of the Lesser Occultation posed a profound problem: the Imam was alive yet inaccessible. The biographies responded by organising the past into a coherent sacred history, retrospectively establishing the unity of the Twelve and transforming their lives into a complete age of guidance.

The thematic chapters examine martyrdom, betrayal, bodies and birth narratives. Pierce shows how the biographies extended the paradigm of suffering from Imam Husain to encompass the entire line of Imams. Their deaths became variations on a story of truth rejected by worldly power. Poisoning proved an especially effective narrative device, preserving the Imam’s innocence while identifying political authority as treacherous.

The chapter on loyalty demonstrates how betrayal functions as an organising principle. The Imams are betrayed by rulers, relatives and followers, establishing moral boundaries. Readers are invited to locate themselves within the narrative: would they have recognised the Imam and remained loyal? The past becomes a continuing test of conscience.

The most innovative chapter examines vulnerability and masculine ideals. Drawing on gender studies, it shows that the Imams were presented not as disembodied abstractions but as physically beautiful, disciplined and powerful, yet vulnerable to imprisonment and poison. Their capacity to endure suffering without surrendering moral control became a high expression of sacred manhood. The inclusion of Fāṭima al-Zahrāʾ broadens the discussion, though she sometimes appears chiefly in relation to the male Imams.

The final thematic chapter examines birth narratives, which place the Imams within a cosmic genealogy extending from Adam to Muḥammad. The transmission of light through purified loins transforms genealogy into cosmology. These narratives also solved problems of recognition: in a world of rival claimants, miraculous births and precocious knowledge distinguished the true Imam.

Pierce’s theoretical framework draws from social and cultural memory studies, particularly the work of Maurice Halbwachs and Jan Assmann. This allows him to ask why communities preserved certain stories and how narrative produced belonging. However, the near suspension of historicity is occasionally problematic. Medieval authors often rested a narrative’s persuasive force precisely on the claim that it reported actual events through reliable chains of transmission. A more sustained engagement with isnād analysis might have added an important dimension.

There is also a danger in importing models from Christian hagiography too readily. Pierce is aware of this and offers caveats, but the theoretical literature sometimes shapes the reading more strongly than internal Shiʿi categories such as naṣṣ, ʿiṣma and walāya. A closer integration of these concepts would have rooted the study more firmly in the theological universe of the texts.

The chronological claims also deserve qualification. He argues that collective biographies shaped Twelver identity from the tenth century onwards, yet he occasionally extends his conclusions to “the tenth century to today”. The later transmission of these narratives through Persian, Urdu and Turkish literary cultures receives little attention. The transformation of written biography into ritual performance, popular print and vernacular poetry is acknowledged but not systematically traced. A fuller account would need to follow these stories beyond Arabic scholarly literature.

Despite these reservations, the book is a significant contribution. The author successfully directs attention towards narrative as a constitutive force in religious history. Twelver Shiʿism was not produced by doctrine and political conflict alone. It was also made through stories: stories of poisoned bodies, miraculous knowledge, abandoned leaders and faithful companions. These stories taught believers how to remember and, through remembrance, how to recognise themselves.

The prose is clear and accessible. The organisation into thematic chapters creates a coherent argument, though the selection of individual Imams as case studies sometimes gives the impression that themes belong more exclusively to particular figures than the sources warrant. The appendices are useful, and the bibliography makes the volume valuable for specialists and advanced students.

Ultimately, Twelve Infallible Men is an original and illuminating work. It encourages historians to read sacred narratives neither as straightforward chronicles nor as fanciful accretions, but as texts that actively shaped communities. Pierce has opened an important field of enquiry and demonstrated that the making of Shiʿism took place as much through the disciplined remembrance of the Imams as through formal theology, law or political allegiance.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Today’s edition of The Hindu carries an excellent lead editorial column written by Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, titled “An Education System’s Collapse, Young India’s Trauma.” In the piece, she delivers a blistering critique of the government’s handling of the ongoing student protests, accusing it of responding to young people’s demands for accountability and education reform with “cowardice and wanton cruelty” rather than constructive dialogue. She argues that the protests sweeping the country are not isolated outbursts but the inevitable consequence of years of policy failures, institutional neglect, and a steady retreat from public investment in education. Her words echo what thousands of students and teachers have been saying for years: that Indian education is in the throes of a deep and dangerous crisis. What follows below is an attempt to examine the full dimensions of that crisis, from the hollowing out of universities to the erosion of critical thought, and to understand why the promise of the National Education Policy has given way to such profound disillusionment.

A Promise Unfulfilled

When the National Education Policy was announced in 2020, it was greeted with considerable optimism. It promised nothing less than a transformation of Indian education: universities would become multidisciplinary, students would enjoy greater flexibility, research would flourish, Indian institutions would compete with the world’s best, and education would finally prepare young people for the challenges of the twenty-first century. It was a vision that few could object to. Every teacher wants universities that are more open, more creative and more responsive to changing times.

The true test of any educational policy, however, lies not in the language of the document but in its consequences. Several years after the NEP began to be implemented, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the widening gap between promise and reality. Across the country, universities are grappling with shrinking resources, vacant teaching positions, weakened research, collapsing specialised courses, growing bureaucratic control and an increasing intrusion of ideology into the classroom. Institutions that once took decades to build are slowly being hollowed out. What is unfolding is not simply another round of educational reform but a profound change in the very idea of what a university is meant to be.

The Shrinking Purpose of Higher Education

Universities have never existed merely to prepare people for jobs. Their purpose has always been larger. They create new knowledge through research, transmit it through teaching, preserve the intellectual inheritance of civilisation and train citizens to think independently. Employment is undoubtedly one outcome of higher education, but it has never been its only purpose. Increasingly, however, education is being discussed almost entirely in the language of skills, employability, entrepreneurship and measurable outcomes. These are important objectives, but they cannot become the sole measure of educational success. Once universities begin to see themselves primarily as training centres for the labour market, something fundamental is lost.

It is often the humanities that suffer first. History, philosophy, literature, archaeology, sociology, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and other classical and modern disciplines find themselves under pressure because they cannot easily demonstrate immediate economic value. Yet these are precisely the subjects that teach societies to understand themselves. They preserve memory, explain social change, encourage ethical reflection and cultivate critical judgement. A country that neglects these disciplines weakens not only its universities but also its understanding of its own civilisation. The contraction of social science research funding and the erosion of full-time faculty positions have reduced many departments to mere teaching centres, stripped of their capacity for deep inquiry.

Flexibility or Fragility?

The much-celebrated flexibility introduced through multiple entry and exit options illustrates this contradiction. It is presented as empowering students by allowing them to leave with certificates or diplomas after one, two or three years. In theory, flexibility appears attractive. In practice, however, students rarely leave higher education because they desire flexibility. They leave because their families cannot afford the fees, because they must seek employment, or because social circumstances make it impossible for them to continue. Providing a certificate at the point of departure does not remove these obstacles. Instead, it risks normalising early exit. The students most likely to leave are also those who are already disadvantaged. Rather than reducing inequality, the system may well reinforce it.

The Tyranny of Paperwork

Alongside these structural changes has come a remarkable expansion of bureaucracy. Teachers increasingly find themselves spending more time filling forms, uploading information to digital portals, preparing accreditation reports and satisfying administrative requirements than reading, researching or teaching. Universities appear to believe that excellence can be measured through endless documentation. Yet scholarship does not flourish through paperwork. Research requires uninterrupted time, functioning libraries, archives, laboratories where necessary, and above all the freedom to think. Teaching requires preparation, discussion and reflection. None of these can be reduced to numerical indicators or administrative compliance. The proposed Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, intended to replace the UGC, has raised further concerns over centralisation and the uncertain future of grant disbursement to state universities.

A Research Culture in Crisis

The condition of research reflects this larger malaise. Vacancies remain unfilled for years. Young scholars move from one contractual appointment to another with little hope of permanent academic careers. Libraries struggle to acquire books and journals. Funding becomes uncertain. Scholars are encouraged to publish rapidly because quantity has become easier to measure than quality. Citation counts replace intellectual contribution. Rankings replace scholarship. Universities begin to chase metrics rather than ideas. India’s investment in research and development has stagnated at around 0.6 to 0.7 per cent of GDP, well below the global average and far behind emerging economies.

The Vanishing Disciplines

Perhaps nowhere is the crisis more visible than in the steady disappearance of specialised courses and centres of advanced study. Over generations, Indian universities built internationally respected expertise in fields such as manuscript studies, palaeography, epigraphy, numismatics, historical linguistics, archaeology, textual criticism and archival science. These disciplines cannot be learnt through a few interdisciplinary modules. They require years of rigorous training under experienced scholars. Yet many such programmes have either disappeared altogether or have been absorbed into broad multidisciplinary structures that sacrifice depth for administrative convenience.

Interdisciplinarity is valuable only when it rests upon strong disciplinary foundations. A historian must first learn history before engaging with sociology or anthropology. An archaeologist cannot work without mastering archaeological method. A scholar editing medieval Persian or Sanskrit texts requires years of linguistic training. Ironically, while official rhetoric repeatedly invokes India’s ancient and glorious civilisation, the very disciplines needed to recover and understand that civilisation are being steadily weakened.

When History Becomes Mythology

Equally disturbing is the gradual erosion of the distinction between history and mythology. Every civilisation possesses myths. They are central to cultural identity and deserve to be studied with seriousness and respect. Historians have always treated mythology as an important source for understanding belief, memory and social imagination. The difficulty begins when myth is presented as historical fact and historical method itself is portrayed as an obstacle to national pride. Textbook revisions that reduce focus on the Mughals and introduce a more glorified portrayal of certain dynasties have prompted concerns over ideological influence.

History is not a collection of comforting stories. It is a disciplined enquiry based upon evidence, chronology, source criticism and reasoned interpretation. It often produces conclusions that are complex and occasionally uncomfortable. That is precisely why it matters. Myth serves a different purpose. It expresses moral values, symbolic truths and collective memory. Confusing the two ultimately impoverishes both.

Increasingly, students encounter simplified narratives in which the past is divided neatly between heroes and villains. Centuries of social interaction, cultural exchange and intellectual dialogue are compressed into stories of permanent conflict. Nuance disappears. Evidence becomes secondary to ideology. The purpose of history quietly shifts from understanding the past to legitimising the politics of the present.

Ideology Over Inquiry

This transformation is reinforced by the growing influence of educational networks associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliated organisations. Like any social organisation, they have every right to establish schools and educational institutions. The concern is not their existence but the replacement of scholarly method with ideological certainty. When education encourages predetermined conclusions rather than open enquiry, classrooms cease to be places where minds are formed and become places where opinions are manufactured.

The consequences extend well beyond the study of history. The greatest purpose of education is not to provide answers but to teach students how to ask questions. Critical thinking develops only when young people encounter conflicting evidence, weigh competing arguments and learn to defend their conclusions through reason. If questioning itself begins to appear undesirable, curiosity slowly gives way to conformity. Students may leave university with degrees, but without the intellectual confidence to challenge received wisdom.

The Danger of Manufactured Minds

This is perhaps the gravest danger confronting Indian education today. A society that teaches its young what to think instead of how to think gradually weakens its own future. Scientific discovery depends upon scepticism. Historical research depends upon doubt. Democracy depends upon informed citizens capable of questioning authority. None of these can survive if education becomes an instrument for producing obedience rather than understanding.

There is another irony that deserves attention. India’s own intellectual traditions were built upon debate. The philosophical dialogues of the Upanishads, the rigorous arguments of Buddhist scholars, the traditions of Sanskrit learning, the disputations of medieval madrasas and the vibrant exchanges that took place in the courts of rulers across the subcontinent all testify to a civilisation that valued disagreement as a means of arriving at deeper understanding. To discourage questioning today is therefore not a defence of Indian civilisation. It is a departure from one of its oldest and richest traditions.

What Universities Truly Need

At the heart of this crisis lies a more fundamental problem. Universities flourish only when they enjoy intellectual autonomy and sustained public investment. Neither can be replaced by policy announcements. Libraries require books. Laboratories require equipment. Archives require conservation. Students require scholarships. Teachers require secure careers. Research requires time. None of these can be created through bureaucratic restructuring alone. The NEP’s own ambition of raising public education spending to six per cent of GDP remains unrealised, with actual expenditure staying around 2.9 per cent.

The Student Protests: A Symptom of Collapse

The recent student protests at Jantar Mantar, which spread to cities across the country, are not isolated events. They are a direct consequence of this collapse. Students are not just angry about paper leaks. They are protesting a system that has failed them at every level. When the Delhi University administration issued advisories warning students to stay away from lawful protests, it only confirmed what many already believed: that institutions of learning have ceased to be spaces of intellectual freedom and have become instruments of control. The protests in Himachal Pradesh and Hyderabad, where students demanded the scrapping of the NEP and the resignation of the Education Minister, reflect a deep-seated frustration with an education system that promises flexibility but delivers precarity. This movement is not just about examinations. It is a refusal to accept an education that manufactures obedience rather than cultivates critical thought.

A Nation’s Future at Stake

The debate over the NEP is therefore about much more than curriculum design or administrative reform. It is about the future character of Indian society. If universities become places where specialised knowledge disappears, where history gives way to mythology, where ideology replaces scholarship and where conformity is valued above curiosity, the damage will not be confined to campuses. It will shape the quality of public life itself.

Nations are ultimately judged not by the number of policies they announce but by the quality of minds they produce. India does not need an education system that manufactures agreement. It needs one that cultivates informed scepticism, intellectual honesty and the courage to question. Those are the qualities that have sustained every great civilisation. They are also the qualities without which no democracy can long endure.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Looking back over the many twists and turns of my life, I often feel that I have made remarkably few important decisions myself. Most of them seem to have been taken for me by circumstances, by chance encounters, or by people who somehow knew what was best for me long before I did. The earlier chapters of this memoir recounted how I drifted almost accidentally from the sciences into history and how, once there, destiny blessed me with teachers whose names were already becoming legends in the profession. This instalment of the story is about what happened next. It is about the period when a student slowly ceased to be merely a student and began the long apprenticeship of becoming a historian.

As my MA examinations drew to a close in the summer of 1982, I found myself standing at a familiar crossroads. I knew I wanted to continue studying history, but I lacked the courage to approach Professor Irfan Habib and ask whether he would accept me as his research scholar. To us students he was already an institution rather than merely a teacher. His books were discussed across universities, his lectures attracted packed classrooms, and his reputation travelled much farther than the walls of Aligarh Muslim University. Walking into his room simply to ask, “Sir, will you supervise my research?” seemed almost as intimidating as requesting a private audience with one of the Mughal emperors whom he himself had spent a lifetime studying. So, as was my habit in those days, I postponed the difficult conversation.

Fortunately for me, destiny had other plans. Like most students, after finishing our last MA examination, a few of us walked straight to our teachers’ rooms, partly to boast about how well we believed we had written our papers and partly to enquire how best to prepare for the Grand Viva scheduled a few days later. Among us were my classmate and friend Reena Arya and myself. Irfan Sahib listened patiently to our confident assessments of our own brilliance, smiled in the indulgent manner only experienced teachers can manage, and then, just as we were preparing to leave, quietly said, “You two come and meet me after the Viva.” There was nothing unusual in his tone. Neither of us imagined that the course of our lives had already changed.

The Grand Viva was followed, as tradition demanded, by the annual function of the Sultania Historical Society. By the time the proceedings ended it was already around half past eight in the evening. Reena and I walked to Professor Habib’s chamber where he was waiting for us. As we entered, he pointed towards two formidable heaps of books placed on chairs in one corner of the room. They were not books in the ordinary sense. They looked more like bricks that had somehow acquired covers. “These,” he said, “are for you.” We looked at one another with the apprehension of condemned prisoners. Turning towards me, he continued with complete matter of factness. “Nadeem miyan, you will write a paper on Muqarrab Khan, the surgeon. These volumes of Letters Received contain useful material. Here is a list of Persian and English sources that you should also consult.” He then looked towards Reena. “Reena bibi, you will write on Trimetalism under the Mughals.” Before either of us had fully absorbed what had just happened, he produced two membership forms of the Indian History Congress and pushed them across the table. “Fill these up.” Neither of us protested. Neither of us even thought of protesting. By the time we left his room that evening, we had unknowingly become members of the Indian History Congress and participants in its forthcoming annual session at Kurukshetra.

Only later did it dawn upon me that I had never actually asked Professor Habib whether he would supervise my research. Some days afterwards, gathering whatever courage I could muster, I timidly made the request. He looked at me almost with surprise. In truth, the decision had already been taken. Looking back today, I realise that I never formally became Professor Habib’s student. I simply found myself working under him one evening without either of us ever announcing it. Such was his way. There were no formal interviews, no solemn declarations and certainly no speeches about academic careers. A topic was assigned, a membership form signed, a pile of impossible books handed over, and one quietly found oneself inducted into a lifetime of research.

For the next six months my life changed completely. University examinations had taught us how to remember facts. Research taught us how little we actually knew. From June until December I lived among books. European travel accounts, English factory records, Persian chronicles, collections of letters and official documents gradually replaced the prescribed reading lists to which I had become accustomed. Most of these works had fortunately been published. Unfortunately, many remained untranslated. One had first to decipher the Persian before one could even begin asking historical questions. That, however, was only the beginning.

One day, shortly after my research had formally commenced, I entered Professor Habib’s room carrying a notebook filled with carefully prepared questions. Before I could ask a single one, he pointed towards another pile of enormous Persian manuscripts lying on a side table. “Take those.” I obediently carried them away. Only afterwards did I discover what I had undertaken. They were rotograph copies of Persian manuscripts. Black pages carried white lettering interrupted by worm holes, stains and innumerable dots. Many were written in khat-e-shikasta, literally the “broken script”, whose hurried abbreviations often appeared to have been invented specifically to discourage future historians. Each page resembled an elaborate puzzle. Each sentence demanded patience. Each word had first to be deciphered before it could be understood.

Months passed in this fashion. Finally, after what I considered a heroic struggle, I returned to Professor Habib. “Sir,” I announced rather proudly, “there is nothing here on my topic.” He looked up calmly. “Keep them there.” Then he pointed towards another equally intimidating pile. “Take those.” History, I was beginning to discover, had an unusual sense of humour. For several months this curious ritual continued. I would struggle through one set of manuscripts, decipher every difficult line, prepare careful notes and then report back, only to discover that there was scarcely a sentence relevant to my assigned topic. Professor Habib would quietly listen. “Very good.” Then another mountain of manuscripts would appear. My friends had begun discussing chapter outlines and bibliographies. Some had already drafted their first chapters. I, on the other hand, seemed to have become a full time reader of manuscripts that had absolutely nothing to do with my research.

Naturally, doubts crept in. Had I chosen the wrong supervisor? Surely supervisors were expected to direct their students towards useful material. Mine appeared to be leading me with remarkable determination in precisely the opposite direction. After nearly a year and a half of this exercise, I finally entered his room almost in despair. “Sir,” I confessed, “I have gone through all these sources. There is practically nothing on my topic.” Professor Habib smiled. It was one of those smiles which every one of his students eventually came to recognise. “I knew that from the beginning,” he replied. For a few seconds I was speechless. Then, seeing the bewilderment on my face, he explained. “But now you know how to read Persian manuscripts.”

It was one of the most important lessons I have ever received. Research is not the art of collecting information. Research is the discipline of learning how to search for information, how to eliminate false trails, how to recognise silence in the sources and, above all, how to distinguish evidence from assumption. Those months, which I had regarded as wasted, turned out to be the foundation upon which everything I have written since has rested. Every manuscript I have subsequently handled, every Persian document I have translated and every historical argument I have advanced owes something to those seemingly fruitless days. At that time, however, I was convinced that all I had acquired was a permanent weakness in my eyesight.

While this apprenticeship was unfolding, another annual ritual had begun to dominate our lives. The Indian History Congress. For us it was not merely an academic conference. It was almost a pilgrimage. Preparations began months in advance but reached fever pitch during the final week before departure. The Department of History underwent a transformation that would be difficult for younger historians, brought up in the age of laptops and printers, to imagine. Every large room seemed occupied. Manual typewriters clattered away from morning until well past midnight. Typists sat surrounded by piles of handwritten drafts covered with corrections in several inks and several handwritings. Teachers moved from table to table suggesting improvements. Research scholars waited impatiently for their turn. Fresh sheets of paper appeared mysteriously while discarded drafts accumulated in alarming quantities. There was no concept of office hours. The Department simply remained awake. Tea arrived with astonishing regularity. Somebody was always making another correction. Every time Professor Habib remarked, “Only one small change,” everyone within hearing distance knew that another hour had quietly disappeared.

There was, of course, no computer. No email. No photocopiers worth the name. Certainly no Ctrl+Z. If a typist made a mistake on page twenty eight, page twenty eight had to be typed again. The machine had neither sympathy nor memory. Yet no one complained. Indeed, those hectic days remain among my happiest memories of university life. What transformed the labour into a celebration were the people. Every now and then Professor Irfan Habib or Professor Shireen Moosvi would walk in carrying a large paper bag overflowing with roasted peanuts. On another evening M. Athar Ali Sahib would appear with another equally generous supply. Iqtidar Alam Khan Sahib was no different. Tea flowed continuously. Then, late at night, someone would announce that dinner had arrived. Huge containers of steaming qorma, stacks of naan and sometimes kebabs would appear from nowhere. We all ate together. Professors, lecturers, typists, research scholars and students. Nobody maintained any distance. Nobody stood on ceremony. Looking back now, I realise that the Department resembled less an academic institution than an extraordinarily large family trying collectively to meet an impossible deadline.

Once the typing had been completed, another stage began. The typed sheets had first to be converted into stencils and then cyclostyled on manually operated duplicating machines. Khursheed Bhai would be labouring at the cyclostyling machine while Idris Bhai and Noor Ahmad would be making sets out of that material. Those unfamiliar with that ancient technology cannot imagine the labour involved. Someone had to keep turning the crank while fresh sheets emerged one by one, still damp with ink and carrying that unmistakable smell which anyone of my generation instantly associates with scholarly publications. Then came collating. Hundreds of pages had to be assembled in precisely the correct order. Finally they were stitched and bound into volumes. It was usually only a few hours before departure that the last copies emerged. Sleep, if it existed at all, became a luxury.

Among the many traditions associated with those Congresses, one was particularly distinctive. Every year the Centre of Advanced Study in History produced its own independent collection of papers. It was affectionately known as the “rebel volume”. The title was never official. It never needed to be. The volume was cyclostyled, modestly produced and manually assembled. Yet it possessed a reputation that far exceeded its appearance. Delegates at the Indian History Congress would actively seek it out. Copies disappeared almost as soon as they reached the registration desks. One sometimes had the impression that people came looking for the volume before they came looking for the sessions. The contrast with the official departmental publication was rather amusing. That handsome printed volume, produced under the authority of the Head of the Department, often travelled home unopened, becoming an additional burden in already overfilled suitcases. Our modest cyclostyled collection, by contrast, was eagerly carried away. Perhaps the greatest attraction of the “rebel volume” lay elsewhere. It was thoroughly democratic. Every contributor’s name appeared proudly on the cover itself. Distinguished professors and first year research scholars stood side by side in alphabetical equality. For a young student to discover his own name sharing the cover with historians whom he revered was an encouragement beyond measure. And it was edited by Professor Irfan Habib.

When the final bundles had been tied and labelled, the entire group involved collectively exhaled. The next stage of the adventure was about to begin. The journey itself. When everything was finally packed, all members seemed to acquire a new burst of energy. The papers were ready. The bundles had been tied. The cyclostyle ink had finally dried. Now came the journey. For us young research scholars, the Indian History Congress began not at the venue but the moment we boarded the train. One of the remarkable traditions established by Professor Irfan Habib was that there was never one set of arrangements for the teachers and another for the students. We all travelled together. Professor Irfan Habib, Professor M. Athar Ali, Professor Shireen Moosvi, Professor Iqtidar Alam Khan, the younger lecturers, research scholars and students all occupied the same reserved third class compartment. Looking back, I realise how extraordinary this was. Elsewhere it was common for senior professors to travel separately, often in greater comfort. That distinction simply did not exist in our little travelling republic.

The moment everyone boarded, Irfan Sahib assumed complete charge of the compartment. With a reservation chart in one hand and the authority of a veteran railway official, he began allotting berths. “You go there.” “You exchange with him.” “No, she should have the lower berth.” Within minutes every student had found a place. One incident from those journeys still makes me smile. A passenger from the general compartment wandered in looking rather anxious. Watching Irfan Sahib confidently assigning berths and settling passengers, he naturally concluded that this gentleman could only be the Travelling Ticket Examiner. Looking around cautiously, he quietly approached him, folded a few currency notes inside his ticket and, in a conspiratorial whisper, requested, “Sahib, if you could somehow arrange a berth…” For a brief second Irfan Sahib looked completely bewildered. Then the entire compartment burst into laughter. The poor passenger stood frozen, wondering what offence he had committed, until someone finally explained that the gentleman he had mistaken for a railway official happened to be one of the country’s foremost historians. Even years later, whenever the story resurfaced, it never failed to provoke another round of laughter.

The journey itself was unlike anything I have experienced since. Food appeared from every direction. One family had sent parathas. Another had packed pickles. Someone produced kebabs. Another opened a box of sweets. Nothing remained private for very long. Before the train had crossed the first few stations, every tiffin carrier belonged to everybody else. There were no separate groups. Teachers and students sat together, ate together and argued together. Discussions moved effortlessly from Mughal revenue administration to cricket, from Persian manuscripts to politics, from university gossip to the latest historical debates. Someone would invariably begin narrating an amusing anecdote about an earlier session of the Congress. Another would recall some unforgettable question put to a famous historian. Laughter travelled up and down the compartment as frequently as the tea vendors. By the time we reached our destination, we were no longer fellow passengers. We had become a family.

That spirit continued even after the journey ended. On reaching the Congress venue, Professor Habib would ensure that we all stayed together. He never looked for separate accommodation for himself. He shared the same hostel buildings allotted to the rest of us, lived under exactly the same conditions and remained available throughout the Congress. To us, this appeared perfectly natural then. Only much later, after attending conferences elsewhere, did I appreciate how unusual it really was. Eminent scholars generally occupied guest houses or hotels. Irfan Sahib preferred to remain amidst his students.

The Congress itself was a revelation. Until then, the great names of Indian historiography had existed for me only on the covers of books and journal articles. Suddenly they were all there. One passed them in the corridors. One listened to them over breakfast. One watched them argue in the sessions. One occasionally found oneself standing beside them while waiting for tea. For a young student who had only recently completed his MA, it was an overwhelming experience. I still remember the nervousness with which I prepared for my first presentation. No matter how often one rehearsed the paper, one remained convinced that disaster lay only a few minutes away. The real ordeal, however, began after the paper had been read. The discussion. One looked up from the lectern to find oneself facing scholars whose books had shaped the discipline itself. There sat Nurul Hasan. Nearby was J. S. Grewal. One could spot Aniruddha Ray, A. R. Kulkarni and many others whose names had until then belonged almost to another world. To receive a question from one of them was at once terrifying and exhilarating. Today, after presenting papers at the Congress for over four decades, I still experience a measure of nervousness before every presentation. But nothing has ever equalled those first few minutes in Kurukshetra. With experience comes confidence. With youth comes fear. And perhaps fear is not always a bad companion. It reminds us to remain humble before our evidence.

Looking back now, I realise that Professor Irfan Habib was doing something far greater than supervising a group of research scholars. He was creating a scholarly community. He believed that history was not learnt in isolation. It was learnt collectively. It grew through debate, disagreement, criticism and companionship. The train journeys, the shared hostel rooms, the endless conversations over tea, the sleepless nights preparing papers, even the roasted peanuts distributed with such generosity, all formed part of an education no university syllabus could ever prescribe.

Many things have changed over the last four decades. Today papers are written on computers, circulated by email and uploaded with the click of a button. Conferences are organised with remarkable efficiency. Hotels are comfortable. Trains are faster. One can revise an entire paper while travelling on a mobile phone. Yet I sometimes wonder whether, in making everything easier, we have unknowingly lost something precious. We have gained technology. We may have lost fellowship. When I think of those early years, I do not first remember my own paper. I remember the smell of fresh cyclostyle ink. I remember the clatter of manual typewriters through the night. I remember the mountains of roasted peanuts that somehow disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived. I remember the laughter in a crowded railway compartment after an unsuspecting passenger tried to bribe Professor Irfan Habib for a berth. Above all, I remember a teacher who never behaved like one of India’s greatest historians. He travelled with us, stayed with us, ate with us, argued with us and quietly taught us, by example rather than instruction, what it meant to belong to a community of scholars. Fate may have brought me to history. Professor Irfan Habib taught me how to live it.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

History stands among the most misunderstood of all academic disciplines. Because everyone possesses a past, many assume that anyone who reads widely, collects anecdotes and narrates events can legitimately claim the title of historian. Few assumptions are more misleading. History is not the mere narration of what happened; it is the disciplined investigation of what can be known about the past through the critical examination of evidence. Like archaeology, law or medicine, it possesses its own methods, conventions and ethical obligations. It requires mastery over sources, familiarity with languages where necessary, sensitivity to context, engagement with historiography, and above all an unwavering commitment to intellectual honesty.

A historian is trained not simply to accumulate facts but to interrogate them. Documents are not accepted at face value. They are questioned for authorship, purpose, audience, silences, bias and context. Contradictory evidence is weighed rather than ignored. Earlier scholarship is critically evaluated, not dismissed because of ideological disagreement. Every interpretation is expected to be supported by verifiable evidence, while every intellectual debt must be acknowledged through proper citation. These are not optional refinements; they are the very foundations of the discipline.

Curiously, history is perhaps the only academic field where society often overlooks the importance of disciplinary training. Nobody would willingly undergo surgery performed by someone who had merely read extensively about anatomy. Nor would a bridge designed by an enthusiastic amateur inspire confidence simply because he had studied engineering manuals. In medicine, law, architecture or engineering, rigorous professional training is regarded as indispensable. History, however, is frequently treated as an exception, as though reading widely about the past were itself sufficient qualification to pronounce upon it with authority.

This is not an argument that only university professors can write history. Some of the finest contributions to historical scholarship have been made by independent researchers. Institutional affiliation alone is no guarantee of excellence. The real distinction lies elsewhere. Serious historical scholarship is defined by method rather than employment, by critical engagement rather than conviction, and by evidence rather than assertion. It is therefore entirely legitimate to ask whether any historical work, irrespective of its author’s background, meets these standards.

The public career of Vikram Sampath illustrates why this distinction matters.

Over the past decade Sampath has emerged as one of the most visible writers on modern Indian history. His biographies of Gauhar Jaan, S. G. Kittappa and especially the two-volume biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar have earned him considerable public attention. His writings have been enthusiastically received by organisations and commentators associated with the broader Hindutva movement, which has sought to reshape public narratives about India’s past. His works are widely cited in support of the argument that established academic historiography has marginalised nationalist figures while privileging interpretations associated with what is loosely described as the “Left.”

Sampath’s educational and professional background differs from that of many historians working within universities. He holds a doctorate in ethnomusicology, not history, and his formal historical training is minimal. That fact alone neither disqualifies nor diminishes his work. Independent scholars have enriched historical knowledge throughout the world. The relevant question is whether a writer’s published work exhibits the methodological rigour expected of historical scholarship.

It is on this point that Sampath has attracted sustained criticism.

His biographies of Savarkar seek to recover their subject from what he regards as decades of ideological neglect. There is nothing objectionable in revisiting established historical interpretations. Every generation of historians re-examines accepted narratives in the light of new evidence and new questions. Yet revision demands more, not less, engagement with the existing scholarship. Critics have argued that Sampath’s treatment of Savarkar frequently adopts an apologetic tone, foregrounding his revolutionary activities while giving comparatively less weight to aspects of his later political career that have long occupied historians, including his theory of Hindutva, his views on nationhood, his clemency petitions, his relationship with the Hindu Mahasabha and the wider communal politics of the late colonial period. Whether one agrees with every criticism or not, the debate concerns the balance of evidence and the selective emphasis placed upon it.

The same pattern is visible in Sampath’s interventions on Tipu Sultan and the kingdom of Mysore. Over the last several years he has become a prominent public voice in debates over Tipu’s legacy. His interpretation broadly corresponds with the dominant themes of contemporary Hindutva historiography, presenting Tipu primarily through the lens of religious persecution and intolerance. Few historians would deny that episodes of coercion, forced migration and violence occurred during Tipu’s reign. These subjects have long been discussed in the scholarly literature. The question is not whether they should be studied but how they should be interpreted.

Professional historians have generally sought to place these events within the broader political and military context of the late eighteenth century, drawing upon Persian chronicles, Kannada records, Marathi correspondence, French archives, British documentation and temple records. They have also drawn attention to evidence of Tipu’s patronage of several Hindu institutions, his correspondence with the Sringeri monastery after its desecration by Maratha forces, the religious diversity of his administration and the complexity of state formation in southern India. These elements do not absolve Tipu of criticism, but they complicate any attempt to reduce his reign to a single ideological narrative. Sampath’s writings, his critics argue, tend to privilege evidence that supports a predetermined conclusion while engaging less fully with this wider body of scholarship.

Perhaps the most serious controversy surrounding Sampath, however, concerns not interpretation but scholarly ethics.

In 2022 a group of historians submitted a formal complaint to the President of the Royal Historical Society alleging repeated plagiarism in Sampath’s published work. The complaint was signed by distinguished scholars including Professor Emerita Barbara D. Metcalf, Professor Sunil Kumar, Dr Vinayak Chaturvedi, Professor Lynn Zastoupil, Professor Christopher Jaffrelot, Professor Gyanendra Pandey, Professor John Zavos, Professor Emeritus Mridula Mukherjee, Professor Emeritus Aditya Mukherjee, Professor J. Devika, Professor Indivar Kamtekar, Professor V. Rajagopal, Professor K. V. Ramakrishna Reddy, Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Professor Nandini Sundar, Dr S. S. Sharma, Professor Saibal Bandyopadhyay and others. The detailed complaint included extensive comparisons between passages from Sampath’s writings and earlier works by scholars such as Vinayak Chaturvedi and Janaki Bakhle, together with material drawn from an undergraduate dissertation. According to The Print (4 March 2022; also reported in the Frontline 18 March 2022), however reported that several prominent figures on that list, including Ramachandra Guha and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, publicly stated they had not signed it. Bakhle stated the essay contained “significant portions of my own article appear without credit”.

The allegations are particularly grave because they document a pervasive pattern rather than isolated incidents. The complainants demonstrated that Sampath’s essay “The Revolutionary Leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar,” published in the India Foundation Journal in 2017, contained numerous passages that bore a striking resemblance to Chaturvedi’s earlier work published in Postcolonial Studies in 2013. The parallels were not merely thematic but textual. The very opening line of Sampath’s essay, “As an intellectual fountainhead and founder of what is termed as ‘Hindu nationalism,’ Vinayak Damodar Savarkar has emerged as one of the most controversial Indian political thinkers of the 20th Century,” closely echoed Chaturvedi’s formulation: “As an intellectual founder of Hindu nationalism, V D Savarkar has emerged as one of the most controversial Indian political thinkers of the twentieth century.”

The pattern of unattributed borrowing extended well beyond single sentences. Sampath’s discussion of Savarkar’s argument that “writing histories was a necessary step in overthrowing colonial empires” reproduced Chaturvedi’s observation almost verbatim. His account of Savarkar’s arrest on 13 March 1910, including the specific charges of “procuring and distributing arms,” “sedition,” and “waging war against the King Emperor of India,” was lifted directly from Chaturvedi’s article with only the most minimal alteration. The complainants further noted that when they ran the essay through plagiarism detection software, it registered roughly 50 per cent plagiarised content, borrowed largely from Chaturvedi’s essay and that of Dr Janaki Bakhle.

Perhaps most troubling, the complaint documented that Sampath’s two-volume biography of Savarkar contained passages taken from an undergraduate thesis submitted to Wesleyan University in 2012. The thesis, written by Paul Schaffel under the supervision of Dr William Pinch, had discussed A. M. Shah’s characterisation of the Indian Sociologist as only “mild in its criticism of British Rule.” Sampath reproduced this passage with only superficial changes and without attribution. The complaint noted that while Sampath cited the thesis incorrectly in his bibliography, he made no acknowledgement of having drawn directly upon it.

Response from the Royal Historical Society

The Royal Historical Society responded to the complaint by stating that it had examined the allegations and found that, while the evidence did not establish a case of intentional plagiarism sufficient to warrant removal from fellowship, it did identify serious concerns about Sampath’s scholarly practices. The Society’s statement noted that the case raised important questions about citation standards and acknowledged that its fellowship election procedures might require review. This response, however cautious, represented an implicit recognition that the allegations were not without substance. For many observers, the Society’s failure to take more decisive action raised troubling questions about whether professional bodies are equipped to enforce ethical standards when the accused commands significant public influence. The episode also highlighted a deeper dilemma: learned societies, which depend upon the goodwill and participation of their members, are often reluctant to expel fellows, particularly when the charges are denied and the accused enjoys political backing.

Sampath’s Defence and the Pattern of Response

Sampath publicly denied intentional plagiarism, characterising the allegations as politically motivated attacks by historians opposed to his interpretation of Savarkar. He argued that any textual similarities were the result of shared sources or constituted acceptable paraphrasing. This defence strategy is itself revealing. By framing criticism as ideological rather than scholarly, Sampath sought to shift the conversation away from evidence and towards motives. Yet the documentation provided in the complaint, running to many pages of detailed comparisons, was not rebutted with counter-evidence. The question of whether Sampath’s borrowings crossed the line from legitimate scholarly engagement to appropriation was answered not through engagement with the specific examples but through dismissal of the complainants’ political orientation.

This pattern, responding to scholarly critique by impugning the motives of critics, has become a recurring feature of Sampath’s public engagements. It is a strategy that mirrors the broader rhetorical tactics of the political movement with which he is associated. By casting every challenge as an attack by a hostile ideological camp, substantive questions about method and evidence are rendered invisible. The effect is to immunise his work from the kind of critical scrutiny that is the lifeblood of historical scholarship.

The Broader Context: History and the Politics of Memory in Contemporary India

The Sampath phenomenon cannot be understood in isolation from the wider political context in which it has emerged. Over the past decade, India has witnessed an intensifying contest over the interpretation of its past. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its associated organisations have sought to revise the narratives that have dominated academic historiography since independence, replacing them with accounts that foreground Hindu civilisation and minimise or deny the contributions of other traditions. This project has been advanced through multiple instruments: the rewriting of school textbooks, the renaming of cities and institutions, the construction of new museums and memorials, and the promotion of historians and writers whose work aligns with the official vision.

Sampath occupies a privileged position within this ecosystem. His books receive substantial publicity from media outlets sympathetic to the government, his speaking engagements are sponsored by organisations with close ties to the ruling party, and his interpretations are cited in political discourse as authoritative correctives to a supposedly biased academic establishment. This elevation of a writer whose professional training lies outside the discipline, and whose work has been shown to engage inadequately with both sources and scholarly conventions, reflects a profound transformation in the sources of intellectual authority in contemporary India.

The implications extend far beyond the reputation of a single author. When public discourse increasingly privileges works that gratify political preferences over those that submit to scholarly standards, the very meaning of knowledge is transformed. History becomes not a mode of understanding but a weapon of politics. The past is no longer studied for its own sake but constructed to serve the needs of the present. In such a climate, the distinction between history and propaganda begins to dissolve.

The Responsibilities of the Scholar and the Citizen

These developments place historians and citizens alike in a position of difficult responsibility. For historians, the obligation is to maintain the standards of their discipline even when doing so incurs political costs. This means engaging with popular narratives not by dismissing them but by subjecting them to the same rigorous scrutiny that is applied to any historical claim. It means explaining to the public not only what historians have concluded but how they have reached those conclusions, the methods, the evidence, the debates. It means resisting the temptation to retreat into specialised discourse while the public sphere is occupied by works that flout scholarly norms.

For citizens, the challenge is to recognise that not all accounts of the past are equally reliable. Historical authority cannot be measured by a book’s sales figures or its endorsement by political figures. It must be assessed by the quality of the evidence and argument, by the transparency of the method, by the willingness to engage with contrary interpretations. This is not an easy task in a media environment that rewards simplicity and emotional resonance over complexity and qualification. But it is essential for the health of democratic society, which depends upon a citizenry capable of distinguishing between knowledge and assertion.

The Past as an Arena of Struggle

The debate surrounding Vikram Sampath therefore raises questions far larger than the reputation of one author. It asks what contemporary India expects from its historians. Are they to function as custodians of evidence, prepared to follow the sources wherever they lead, even when the conclusions prove uncomfortable? Or are they expected to provide usable pasts that legitimise present political projects? The answer to that question will shape not merely the future of Indian historiography but the very meaning of history as an academic discipline.

History ultimately demands intellectual humility. It requires the historian to recognise that the past is rarely simple, that evidence is often contradictory and that certainty is the enemy of understanding. Whenever the complexity of the past is reduced to a single ideological narrative, whether of the Left or the Right, history ceases to be an inquiry and becomes an instrument. The challenge before Indian historiography today is not merely to defend one interpretation against another but to defend the discipline itself against the erosion of the standards upon which its credibility rests.

The Sampath case is not an isolated aberration but a symptom of deeper structural changes in the production and consumption of historical knowledge. It reveals the vulnerability of scholarship when it is divorced from institutional support and public understanding. It demonstrates the ease with which ideological entrepreneurs can appropriate the language of history while rejecting its methods. And it reminds us that the past is not a settled territory but an arena of struggle, a struggle over meaning, over memory, over the very identity of a nation.

In the end, the integrity of historical scholarship depends not upon the vigilance of any single institution but upon the collective commitment of historians to the norms of their discipline. It depends upon every scholar’s willingness to acknowledge intellectual debts, to engage honestly with contrary evidence, and to place the pursuit of understanding above the vindication of prior convictions. These are not optional virtues but essential obligations. Without them, history cannot fulfil its promise as a mode of understanding that illuminates the human condition while holding power to account.

Moral? Take authors like Vikram Sampath with a pinch of salt: their works are attempts at dāstangoi rather than serious works of history

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

History retains what power seeks to erase. Across centuries, we have mourned the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila, not as architectural losses but as civilisation’s self-inflicted wounds. Their names have become synonymous with knowledge consumed by conquest, with learning reduced to rubble by those who feared what books might teach. We condemn those responsible because they attacked humanity’s shared intellectual inheritance. Yet this condemnation rings hollow if we fail to ask an uncomfortable question of ourselves. What shall we call the threat of destruction that hangs over functioning institutions of learning in our own age? Can we invoke the sanctity of universities destroyed centuries ago while remaining silent when universities are threatened today?

This question acquires urgent particularity in the context of the proposed demolition of thirty-eight of the forty buildings comprising Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur. Whatever legal disputes may surround the institution or its founder, the larger issue transcends personalities. A university is never identical with the individual who establishes it. Once created, it belongs to generations of students, teachers, researchers and to society at large. Its classrooms, libraries, laboratories and archives embody years of intellectual labour and public investment. To destroy such an institution is to damage a public good whose beneficiaries extend far beyond those who conceived it. The threat alone is an assault on public trust.

No one disputes that a democratic state has both the authority and the obligation to enforce the law. Illegal construction, violations of planning regulations and administrative irregularities should be investigated and remedied. No institution, however eminent, should stand above the law. But the very essence of the rule of law lies in proportionality. Law exists to secure justice, not to maximise destruction. When demolition becomes the preferred instrument of governance, the line separating justice from spectacle begins to disappear. The threat of demolition, wielded as a political weapon, serves a purpose quite distinct from the enforcement of legal norms.

Justice and vengeance are fundamentally different. Justice seeks accountability while preserving the public good. Vengeance seeks visible punishment, often regardless of collateral damage. When universities become casualties of political conflict, those who suffer most are neither politicians nor administrators but students whose education is interrupted, teachers whose work is disrupted, employees whose livelihoods vanish and society which loses a centre of learning. The question is not whether the law should be enforced but whether destruction serves justice or merely satisfies a political appetite for visible retribution. The spectacle of demolition is not about legality; it is about sending a message.

There is, however, an even deeper danger. Educational institutions do not exist in a political vacuum. They often become symbols in larger ideological contests. When the demolition of a university is presented, celebrated or perceived as the defeat of a community rather than the impartial enforcement of the law, the consequences extend far beyond the campus. The act ceases to be merely administrative and begins to acquire a powerful political and communal symbolism. The threat itself becomes a performance, enacted for an audience that is meant to understand who holds power and who does not.

The events surrounding Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar University cannot be viewed entirely in isolation. They invite comparison with a wider pattern of political rhetoric and state action directed at certain educational and religious institutions. Many of those who today appear determined to see thirty-eight of the forty buildings of Jauhar University demolished are also among the most persistent critics of Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University. The same public discourse has frequently extended to madrasas, many of which have faced closure or heightened regulatory intervention, while waqf properties have increasingly become subjects of intense political contestation. Each of these matters has its own legal history and must ultimately be judged on its own facts. Yet it is equally impossible to ignore the cumulative impression that such episodes create. When institutions associated with one section of society repeatedly become sites of political confrontation, demolition, legislative intervention or sustained public hostility, many citizens inevitably begin to perceive a pattern rather than a series of unrelated events. Whether or not governments accept such an interpretation, the perception itself carries profound consequences. It weakens confidence in the neutrality of public institutions and encourages the belief that educational and cultural establishments associated with minorities are especially vulnerable to the coercive power of the state.

This is how societies become communalised. Rarely does it happen through a single dramatic declaration. It occurs gradually through repeated public spectacles that encourage citizens to view universities, schools, neighbourhoods, places of worship and charitable institutions not as common national assets but as markers of competing religious identities. The language of equal citizenship slowly gives way to the language of majoritarian entitlement. Instead of asking whether an institution serves education, society begins to ask whom it symbolically represents. Once that transformation occurs, the demolition of a university can be applauded not because it advances justice but because it appears to satisfy the sentiments of a political majority. The spectacle of demolition is complete when the audience applauds the performance.

That is a dangerous path for any democracy. Governments undoubtedly possess the authority to enforce the law, but they also bear the responsibility of ensuring that their actions cannot reasonably be perceived as selective or discriminatory. The rule of law derives its legitimacy not merely from legality but from public confidence that it is applied consistently, impartially and without regard to religion, ideology or political convenience. When that confidence erodes, the law becomes merely another instrument of power rather than a shield against it. The spectacle of demolition does not strengthen the rule of law; it parodies it.

The gravest casualty of this process is the very idea of citizenship. A university named after Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar should first and foremost be regarded as an Indian university serving Indian students. The same principle applies equally to Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University and every other institution of higher learning, irrespective of their history or nomenclature. Their classrooms belong to the Republic; their libraries belong to humanity; their future belongs to generations yet unborn. Once educational institutions begin to be judged primarily through communal or ideological lenses, the Republic itself begins to fragment into competing identities rather than remaining a shared constitutional community. The university becomes a battlefield; education becomes collateral damage.

There is another historical irony that deserves reflection. We often describe those who destroyed centres of learning in earlier centuries as barbarians. Whatever the complexities of those historical episodes, those rulers neither professed democratic ideals nor claimed to be governed by constitutional principles. They ruled as conquerors or monarchs in an age when concepts such as equal citizenship, fundamental rights, judicial review and constitutional accountability did not exist. They were products of their time; we claim to have transcended it.

The twenty-first century claims to be different. Modern governments derive legitimacy not from conquest but from elections. They govern under constitutions. Every public authority swears allegiance to the rule of law. Citizens are promised equality before the law, due process and protection from arbitrary power. If these ideals are to mean anything, then governments today must be judged by standards far higher than those applicable to medieval kingdoms. The democracy that threatens to demolish a university commits a sin that no medieval conqueror could have conceived, because it betrays not merely knowledge but the very principles that legitimate its existence.

For that very reason, the threatened destruction of an educational institution by a constitutional democracy carries an even heavier moral burden than comparable acts committed in pre-modern times. Medieval rulers may have possessed power without constitutional restraint. Democracies claim legitimacy precisely because power is restrained by law, reason and accountability. When elected governments choose demolition over preservation without convincingly demonstrating that no less destructive remedy exists, they invite comparisons that should trouble every democrat. The barbarians of the past had no constitutions to betray. We do.

Universities are unlike ordinary buildings. They preserve memory, encourage critical thought, produce knowledge and cultivate citizenship. They train doctors, scientists, historians, lawyers, engineers, teachers and artists. They are repositories of archives and manuscripts, laboratories of ideas and homes of intellectual dissent. Their value cannot be measured in square feet of construction or in market valuations of land. A university is not real estate; it is a republic of minds. Its demolition is not urban renewal; it is intellectual impoverishment. Even the threat of such destruction diminishes the public culture in which knowledge thrives.

History repeatedly teaches that societies become stronger by building universities, not by demolishing them. Every classroom destroyed diminishes educational opportunity. Every library lost narrows the horizon of future generations. Every campus reduced to rubble weakens the intellectual foundations upon which a nation ultimately rests. Nations that demolish their universities are not asserting sovereignty; they are committing a slow form of national suicide. The ruins they create will not be remembered as monuments to justice but as tombstones of their own short-sightedness. Even the threat, if left unchallenged, becomes a precedent for future destruction.

None of this implies that universities should enjoy immunity from legal scrutiny. Financial misconduct, corruption or violations of law should be investigated thoroughly. Those responsible should be held personally accountable after fair and transparent proceedings. But democratic justice distinguishes between punishing individuals and destroying institutions. The law should aim to preserve what serves the public while punishing those found guilty of wrongdoing. To demolish a university because some of its administrators may have erred is to punish students for the sins of their elders, a logic that no civilised legal system should countenance. The spectacle of demolition confuses the punishment of individuals with the obliteration of institutions.

Civilisations are remembered as much for what they preserve as for what they create. Nalanda survives today less as an archaeological monument than as a moral lesson. It reminds us that when knowledge is destroyed, everyone becomes poorer. That lesson loses all meaning if we commemorate the tragedies of the past while repeating similar mistakes in the present. If Nalanda continues to evoke our sorrow, it is because we recognise something in its destruction that transcends time, the tragic waste of human potential, the violence of ignorance against knowledge. To honour Nalanda while enabling its contemporary equivalent is not memory; it is hypocrisy.

If we continue to condemn those who destroyed centres of learning centuries ago, intellectual honesty demands that we apply the same moral standard to ourselves. Otherwise, history ceases to be a guide to ethical conduct and becomes merely a convenient weapon against the past. We cannot claim the moral authority to judge the barbarians of yesteryear while becoming the barbarians of today, armed not with swords but with bulldozers, not with conquest but with legal technicalities that serve as fig leaves for political vengeance.

The true measure of a democracy is not the ease with which it can demolish buildings. It is the restraint with which it exercises power. It is its willingness to distinguish between justice and retribution, between legality and spectacle, between accountability and collective punishment. A confident nation does not seek political triumph in the ruins of its universities. It builds them, protects them and reforms them where necessary, recognising that every institution of learning, irrespective of its name or origins, ultimately belongs to the nation. A democracy that understands itself does not need to demolish its universities to prove its strength; it preserves them precisely because strength lies in knowledge, not in rubble.

If the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila continues to evoke our sorrow a thousand years later, then we must ensure that future generations never have reason to look back upon our own age and ask why a democratic Republic, armed with a Constitution and governed in the name of the people, chose to destroy its own centres of learning. Should that happen, history’s verdict upon us may prove harsher than the verdict we have long reserved for those whom we call the barbarians of the past. They destroyed without the pretence of justice. We would destroy in its name, and that is the greater betrayal.