Historical Vacuum

Writing history presupposes painstaking efforts to reconstruct what happened in a remote past in a manner that should ensure, as much as possible, authenticity, accuracy and above all objectivity.

- SRI AUROBINDO.

Available material needs to be used by the writer without colouring them with his or her own perceptions, imagination, bias and preconceived notions. This is not an easy task and court historians or those commissioned by the powers that be have time and again let their own prejudices and those of their masters, who have paid for and assigned the task to them, influence the tone and tenor of their narratives. It is easy to claim that all these eventually boil down to travesty of truth. Facts and events that took place centuries ago have to be presented as they were, no matter whether they are to the liking of the present generation or not. If this discipline is violated, then the result is a pseudo-history and falsification of facts that do grave injustice to the times gone by. However, in a scenario that existed in the Indian subcontinent during the last thousand years or so, no unbiased, impartial or reliable records of events were ever maintained. Unlike Egypt or China where hieroglyphics existed prior to the birth of formal script, Indian society was deprived of any script of its own till much later in time of human evolution. Also, as education and exposure was limited to certain sections of society, primarily the upper caste, all recorded history glorified the ruling class or those who were close to them through economic or socio-religious standing. On second thought, even the trader or business class was not considered high enough to have access to governance or god. Therefore, Indian