COLONIAL HISTORIGRAPHY; MISINTERPRETATION

OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY AND EFFECTS

INTRODUCTION:

Scientific revolution 16th and 17th century made a drastic change in all disciplines of

scientific thoughts as it reflected in social sciences, natural sciences and humanities. When all

objectives were to be scientifically proven, results of such investigation become more acceptable

for researchers. Then anthropocentric history was started to written as like marc Bloch

mentioned about his historical approach as ‘human centered history’. The term history can be

defined as the real story of a geographical area and its subjects completely, when it is studied all

of areas it can be said as world history. There are more methods which make history scientific.

History, as a part of social sciences it must be studied in scientific methods only, resources of

every event must be verified scientifically. When a historian is at his work, there are some

specific sources like archaeological sources, written sources, archival sources, palm records,

myths and etc. all these sources have to be verified qualitatively. Modern historiographers

designed it in simple and systematic way. There is some wide perspective on history as oxford

dictionary defines history; it is ‘all the events that happened in the past’. Marc Bloch defines

history as ‘History is the man in time’ that means all actions, reactions, creativity, meanings and

life experiences of man is considered as various categories in historical study. There the term

total history is underlined.

There is a common assumption that Indians haven’t interested in scientific recording of

their past than believing myths and tales. And there is lack of indigenous historiographical
tradition in ancient scholarship of India from both pre-twentieth western orientalists and

medieval Muslim historians and even from modern nationalist historiographers. After the

enlightenment and scientific revolution which only objects humanism, new world order was

created. Western Europe dominated all over the world through commercial connections

primarily, and then it leaded to colonializing of most provinces politically and culturally. From

17th century English companies overwhelmed indegenous markets while there is portugese, dutch

and French. Battle of plassey in 1757 and battle of wandiwash in 1761 determined complete

commercial autocracy of Britain in india. The first independence war of 1857 become an

important point for british colonial rule in india and the treaty of sringapatam with the end of

third anglo-mysore war between tipu, the ruler of mysore and lord Cornwallis an ally of british

east india company, resulted complete British raj in india.

This chapter which intends to show how Indologists or orientalists studied Indian history,

what was their motives in scripting history of India, and how much scientific was orientalist

history of India. As a post-independent narrative, in colonial era, colonial historiography wasn’t

seemed to be ideological basement to maintain colonial rule, but it was discipline which intends

to arrange indian history in most perfect western scientific method. To believe this

misinterpreted history, design of soothing and satisfying picture of cultural legacy of india was

enough for majority of people. An outline of indian history on the basis of colonial

historiography can be seen as three ages, first is ‘ancient india’ interpreting as hindu period, then

india was on its hike of cultural diversity and harmony. Then ‘medieval india’ coming as Islamic

period which declined peaceful social order of india through demolishing temples and culture.

Lastly ‘modern india’ representing as revival of barbaric india to its cultural legacy.
 chapter which intends to show how Indologists or orientalists dealt with Indian history, what
was investigation heir motives in scripting history of India, and how much scientific was
orientalist history of India. There is a common assumption of lack of indigenous
historiographical tradition in ancient scholarship in India both from pre-twentieth western
Indologists and medieval Muslim historians.

Western scholars and sometimes medieval travellers primitively complained about indigenous
historiographical tradition in India. They denoted that this holy land which has great heritage and
legacy sacredness of this land which has a massive collection of heritage in most of intellectual
and scientific developments. Like various philosophical thoughts and schools and mathematical
inventions. India possesses an enormous heritage of literature accumulated over the Centuries,
much of it relating to past events, yet there has never' been a historian to compare with those of
ancient Greece and Rome, or later European scholars who contributed to the development of
history as a discipline. Indifference to the western conception of history, to the idea that man can
be its subject and agent, actively working to change the human condition, is cited as a
distinguishing trait of Indian civilization. Explanations offered for this deficiency are that
Indians have no sense of history, are not interested in factual or 'objective' history, or have in any
case had such a static society that there has been little in the way of historical development to
encourage its scientific study. Indian religions, besides acting as 'a tremendous force for social
inertia' in that they usually adopt a reactionary attitude towards social change, are also blamed
for inculcating a world view that has never been conducive to any interest in what westerners
know as history. How far these assumptions are justified, and what has been achieved in the field
of Indian historiography relating to the pre-modern period, are the concern of this chapter. 1