write an eassy of early history in our native place.
Answers
What is History?
Four historians consider the most fundamental question of all, one famously posed by E.H. Carr almost 60 years ago.
The Owl of Athena: Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) c. 490–480 BC. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
‘History is the study of people, actions, decisions, interactions and behaviours’
Francesca Morphakis, PhD Candidate in History at the University of Leeds
History is narratives. From chaos comes order. We seek to understand the past by determining and ordering ‘facts’; and from these narratives we hope to explain the decisions and processes which shape our existence. Perhaps we might even distill patterns and lessons to guide – but never to determine – our responses to the challenges faced today. History is the study of people, actions, decisions, interactions and behaviours. It is so compelling a subject because it encapsulates themes which expose the human condition in all of its guises and that resonate throughout time: power, weakness, corruption, tragedy, triumph … Nowhere are these themes clearer than in political history, still the necessary core of the field and the most meaningful of the myriad approaches to the study of history. Yet political history has fallen out of fashion and subsequently into disrepute, wrongly demonised as stale and irrelevant. The result has been to significantly erode the utility of ordering, explaining and distilling lessons from the past.
History’s primary purpose is to stand at the centre of diverse, tolerant, intellectually rigorous debate about our existence: our political systems, leadership, society, economy and culture. However, open and free debate – as in so many areas of life – is too often lacking and it is not difficult to locate the cause of this intolerance.
Writing history can be a powerful tool; it has shaped identities, particularly at the national level. Moreover, it grants those who control the narrative the ability to legitimise or discredit actions, events and individuals in the present. Yet to marshal history and send it into battle merely to serve the needs of the present is misuse and abuse. History should never be a weapon at the heart of culture wars. Sadly, once again, it is: clumsily wielded by those who deliberately seek to impose a clear ideological agenda. History is becoming the handmaiden of identity politics and self-flagellation. This only promotes poor, one-dimensional understandings of the past and continually diminishes the utility of the field. History stands at a crossroads; it must refuse to follow the trend of the times.
‘I have a preference for historians who probe into the “why” and the “how”’
Chandak Sengoopta, Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London
Any thoroughly researched and well-argued study of any aspect of the past counts, for me, as history. I do have a preference for historians who probe into the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ but, overall, I think that our scope should be as broad and as catholic as possible. I am old enough to remember a time when women’s history was a separate field – left, in many universities, to Women’s Studies programmes – and the existence of non-white people was recognised by historians only in the context of imperial history. Back then – I am talking only about the late 1980s – English, Anthropology and even History of Science departments were often more adventurous in addressing the history of ‘others’ but their work, we were often told by ‘real’ historians, wasn’t proper history: ‘they use novels as evidence, for heaven’s sake!’ ‘Have any of them been near an archive?’
If things are better today in History departments, it is because the disciplinary frontiers have been redrawn. But we still have our borders, not all of which are imposed by our institutions or funding authorities. How many History departments would exclude an otherwise excellent candidate only because her sources are mostly literary? A great many, I dare say, including my own. Many of the field’s old fixations may have disappeared, but quite a few antiquated fences still await a well-aimed boot.
Political, economic and social history are, without question, essential; so is the history of Europe and America. But they are not the alpha and the omega of History as a discipline. We still do not pay enough attention to histories of ideas, of the arts, of medicine, of philosophy, of entertainment, of technology, whether in Europe or America or elsewhere. Nor do we feel particularly comfortable about biographical approaches to history. None of these potentially enriching themes can be addressed unless we jettison our atavistic equation of the archive with a collection of yellowing reams of paper. It won’t be easy to dislodge this idol, but I would like to hope that coming generations of historians will chip away at it with greater conviction than mine has been able to muster.
Explanation:
INDIA IS A LAND of ancient civilization, with cities and villages, cultivated fields, and great works of art dating back 4,000 years. India’s high population density and variety of social, economic, and cultural configurations are the products of a long process of regional expansion.
In the last decade of the twentieth century, such expansion has led to the rapid erosion of India’s forest and wilderness areas in the face of ever-increasing demands for resources and gigantic population pressures–India’s population is projected to exceed 1 billion by the 21st century.
Such problems are a relatively recent phenomenon. Rhinoceros inhabited the North Indian plains as late as the sixteenth century. Historical records and literature of earlier periods reveal the motif of the forest everywhere. Stories of merchant caravans typically included travel through long stretches of jungle inhabited by wild beasts and strange people; royal adventures usually included a hunting expedition and meetings with unusual beings.
In theMahabharata and the Ramayana , early epics that reflect life in India before 1000 B.C. and 500 B.C., respectively, the forest begins at the edge of the city, and the heroes regularly spend periods of exile wandering far from civilization before returning to rid the world of evil.
The formulaic rituals of the Vedas also reflect attempts to create a regulated, geometric space from the raw products of nature.
The country’s past serves as a reminder that India today, with its overcrowding and scramble for material gain, its poverty and outstanding intellectual accomplishments, is a society in constant change. Human beings, mostly humble folk, have within a period of 200 generations turned the wilderness into one of the most complicated societies in the world.
The process began in the northwest in the third millennium B.C., with the Indus Valley, or Harappan, civilization, when an agricultural economy gave rise to extensive urbanization and long-distance trade. The second stage occurred during the first millennium B.C., when the Ganga-Yamuna river basin and several southern river deltas experienced extensive agricultural expansion and population growth, leading to the rebirth of cities, trade, and a sophisticated urban culture.