07-07-2005, 12:59 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"<b>Ancient India bias in ICHR projects" </b>
Anita Joshua
Committee slams arbitrariness in awarding projects, "blatant racism," "bigoted view" "Ministry encouraged an attempt to establish the unchangeable nature of the ancient Indian civilisation, to show modern India as an uninterrupted continuum of the past"
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government used three premier autonomous institutions under the Human Resource Development Ministry to develop a "homogenous, hegemonistic, dominant unified culture and civilisation of India," says a one-man review committee.
According to the panel looking into the functioning of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), Shimla, for five years from 1998-99, these two institutions along with the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) were used to build "the theoretical, philosophical, archaeological, linguistic cultural base of a glorious ancient Indian identity and personality of an immutable character."
The committee came to this conclusion on the basis of the "ancient India bias" in the ICHR while awarding projects. Of the 13 special projects sanctioned during this period for Rs. 1.5 crore, only one each related to medieval and modern India.
Around the same time, the IIAS set in motion the process for establishing the "Centre for the Study of Indian Civilisation" at an estimated cost of Rs. 69 lakhs.
"Ignoring changes"
On the ICPR project, "History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilisation," the committee said that with "direct encouragement from the Ministry," an attempt was made to establish the unchangeable nature of the ancient Indian civilisation "to show modern India as an uninterrupted continuum of the past ignoring whatever changes which occurred in the medieval and modern periods of Indian history."
The committee, in its interim report on "Research Projects and Special Projects of ICHR," found that rules were flouted to award these fully government-funded projects arbitrarily. One private institution, Indian Archaeological Society, "which openly propagated the Hindutva ideology," bagged six of the 13 projects constituting 50.2 per cent of the amount sanctioned.
<b>The "Atlas of the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation," a Rs. 20-lakh special project awarded to the society, was primarily aimed at establishing that there were more Harappan civilisation sites than the Indus system along the Saraswati, to deal with the RSS lament over Pakistan getting the bulk of the Indus Valley civilisation sites. The project proposal should not have been entertained as the World Archaeological Congress and the Indian History Congress did not recognise the theory of Saraswati civilisation, the committee said</b>.
<b>A project titled "A Documentation of British Census Policy 1871-1941" to unravel "the true nature of British policies put into operation to justify their Aryan theory ..." also came in for adverse remark. While project managers said the census was used to support the "wrong European belief that the Aryans â a superior and civilised race â had come from outside [India]," the review committee said it was a "case of blatant racism which the Nazis put into practice in Germany," because the study sought to support the "bigoted view that the Aryans constituted a superior race and that their original homeland is in India."</b>
www.hindu.com/2005/07/05/...301200.htm
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Anita Joshua
Committee slams arbitrariness in awarding projects, "blatant racism," "bigoted view" "Ministry encouraged an attempt to establish the unchangeable nature of the ancient Indian civilisation, to show modern India as an uninterrupted continuum of the past"
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government used three premier autonomous institutions under the Human Resource Development Ministry to develop a "homogenous, hegemonistic, dominant unified culture and civilisation of India," says a one-man review committee.
According to the panel looking into the functioning of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), Shimla, for five years from 1998-99, these two institutions along with the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) were used to build "the theoretical, philosophical, archaeological, linguistic cultural base of a glorious ancient Indian identity and personality of an immutable character."
The committee came to this conclusion on the basis of the "ancient India bias" in the ICHR while awarding projects. Of the 13 special projects sanctioned during this period for Rs. 1.5 crore, only one each related to medieval and modern India.
Around the same time, the IIAS set in motion the process for establishing the "Centre for the Study of Indian Civilisation" at an estimated cost of Rs. 69 lakhs.
"Ignoring changes"
On the ICPR project, "History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilisation," the committee said that with "direct encouragement from the Ministry," an attempt was made to establish the unchangeable nature of the ancient Indian civilisation "to show modern India as an uninterrupted continuum of the past ignoring whatever changes which occurred in the medieval and modern periods of Indian history."
The committee, in its interim report on "Research Projects and Special Projects of ICHR," found that rules were flouted to award these fully government-funded projects arbitrarily. One private institution, Indian Archaeological Society, "which openly propagated the Hindutva ideology," bagged six of the 13 projects constituting 50.2 per cent of the amount sanctioned.
<b>The "Atlas of the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation," a Rs. 20-lakh special project awarded to the society, was primarily aimed at establishing that there were more Harappan civilisation sites than the Indus system along the Saraswati, to deal with the RSS lament over Pakistan getting the bulk of the Indus Valley civilisation sites. The project proposal should not have been entertained as the World Archaeological Congress and the Indian History Congress did not recognise the theory of Saraswati civilisation, the committee said</b>.
<b>A project titled "A Documentation of British Census Policy 1871-1941" to unravel "the true nature of British policies put into operation to justify their Aryan theory ..." also came in for adverse remark. While project managers said the census was used to support the "wrong European belief that the Aryans â a superior and civilised race â had come from outside [India]," the review committee said it was a "case of blatant racism which the Nazis put into practice in Germany," because the study sought to support the "bigoted view that the Aryans constituted a superior race and that their original homeland is in India."</b>
www.hindu.com/2005/07/05/...301200.htm
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