Every Historian is a paid historian , every economist is a paid economist (20-Jun-2012) No.2

June 20, 2012

https://www.facebook.com/mehtarahulc/posts/10150871985666922

Every Historian is a paid historian , every economist is a paid economist
(jun-20-2012)

Just as every journalist is a paid journalist, every historian is a paid historian and every economist is a paid-economist. At least, the historians and economists who have written textbooks in India are all paid historians and paid economists. Paid by who? Paid how? And are all of them paid ones? Not even a few of them are unpaid? And how to reduce this mess?

Historians hid the reason why British mixed cow tallow and pig tallow in bullets in 1850s
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In around 1982, in 8th class, I first read about 1857 revolution. I read that Indian soldiers rebelled against British, and one principle reason was that British were using cow tallow (tallow = animal fat = charbi) and pig tallow in the Enfield Rifle’s bullets. The bullet back then used to have a cap which first needs to be removed. The cap of the bullet had to be removed using teeth, because one hand is holding the rifle and another hand is holding the bullet. So a few drops of tallow used in the bullet will go in the soldier’s mouth. For Hindu soldiers, drops of cow tallow going in their mouth was against their religion. And for muslim soldiers, drops of pig tallow going in their mouth was against their religion. And so they rebelled. That’s what textbook writer eminent historian Romilla Thapar said in the textbook. The impression Romilla Thapar created was “see, few drops of tallow, and soldiers went in rebellion --- how backward, how primitive, how irrational were these Indian soldiers”. The textbook portrayed Indian soldiers as superstitious, backward minded and irrational. And that’s exactly what history teacher also said – that Indian soldiers back then were very superstitious. . I now wonder, if such statement was part of her B Ed in History.

So I asked the history teacher -- "Lets say soldiers were all backward minded. But why did East India company use pig tallow and cow tallow? Why EIC did NOT use buffalo tallow? After all they wanted to rule and do business. So why don’t make a small change to suit soldiers?”. My history teacher laughed and said "well, the British did not have a Gujju brain like you have" , and whole class had a laugh ... so did I , and question got dispersed for the time-being. But the question remained in my mind for years and years. Why not use buffalo tallow? The British were surely intelligent --- otherwise they would not have been able to travel half the world and defeat Indian kings. Why didn’t this simple solution occurred to British that they should use buffalo tallow? So the answer I thought in back in 1980s was – “British were perhaps not knowing Hindu and Muslim customs. So they used unknowingly used cow tallow and pig tallow, and wham-bam … Indian soldiers went on rebellion.”. But that answer made no sense to me. Why didn’t soldiers ask their general to use buffalo tallow before rebelling? And how come British didn’t know Indian customs? For years, I could not come up with any satisfactory answer.

Some 13 years later, in 1995, I found the answer, that the British had used pig and cow tallow to induce caste-debarring (i.e. jaati-nikaalaa) of Indian soldiers from their caste\community, so that converting Indian soldiers to Christianity becomes easier !!!

Let me elaborate. If a soldier is forced or manipulated to use bullets with cow tallow and pig tallow, and drops of cow tallow or pig tallow will go in his mouth. And then he will be excommunicated =. jaat-bahar = naat-bahar i.e. people of his community and religion will expel the soldier. Now a person often needs spiritual solace and if he cant go to his mosque or temple, he will become easy audience for the Missionary serving in EIC. And it will become easy to convert him.

Later, I also found that EIC barracks did not have temples and mosques, but always had church. And soldiers were forced to attend church, till they flatly refused and threatened to leave EIC army. And soldiers were also not permitted to keep Hindu or Muslim symbols and pictures, but allowed to keep Christian symbols and pictures. The few soldiers who converted got better promotions. Essentially,. EIC was using 10s of tricks, incentives and force to impose Christianity. The soldiers had rebelled against sum total of all those tricks, incentives and force, not just tallow alone, as (paid?) historians wrote in the textbooks.

(Aside : One of my later posts will explain why EIC did not use cow tallow for bullets given to Sikh soldiers !! And they did not use pig tallow in bullets meant for Pathan soldiers of present day North West Pakistan area !! Those bullets all had buffalo tallow. Apparently, EIC did not want to displease all at the same time. )

So why would EIC want to convert Indian soldiers? The (paid?) historians and (paid?) economists all tell us that EIC came only for business and started ruling for protecting business, but had no interest in spreading religion.. So the (paid?) historians and (paid?) economist all tell us that EIC never promoted conversions. But EIC did promote conversions thru and thru. Why?

Because if a soldier gets detached from local religion and community, he can be more effectively used to suppress the locals. Also, EIC wanted to convince its own British soldiers that EIC is serious about spreading Christianity, so that religious minded soldiers get an additional motivation. There are 10s of factors why spreading Christianity was profitable to EIC and is also profitable to existing MNCs and US Military. I will discuss this in a separate post. But anyway, it was clear that EIC was before using buffalo tallow and later it started using cow tallow and pig tallow so that soldiers get excommunicated and it becomes easy to convert.

So next question that came to my mind was – why did historians such as Romilla Thapar did not write that in my 8th class history textbook?

This didn’t occur to them? It was too obvious to miss. It took me 15 years to guess, because I was not spending 8 hours a day on history and did not have access to many original records which they had. They simply had too much information with them. They could not have missed the fact that use of cow tallow and pig tallow was intentional and had a purpose.

So why didn’t Romilla Thapar and other historians wrote in the textbook that EIC wanted to spread Christianity and with that purpose, EIC used cow tallow and pig tallow?

So in around 1995, I started suspecting that historians were paid not to write about the motives of EIC. But explanation needed some detailing. After all, EIC owners were all dead long back and they could not have paid historians. Also, if anyone paid, how exactly did they pay? Did they pay Rs X per fact they would hide? And what is historians tell truth after taking Rs X.

After long fact gathering, I concluded that following was the mechanism used to “pay” historians

1. The British had significant control over India even after they left. Major industrial houses such as Tata, Birla, Sarabhai, Bajaj etc depended on British for spare parts of the machines. Not giving them spare parts would have meant end of their factories. Some media houses were still under control of British. And may be, British had information, pictures or other material which using which blackmail of Indian leaders would have been possible. Further, if Subhash Chandra Bose was alive and in British or Russian custody, then British could have blackmailed Jawaharlal Ghazi by telling “obey us, or else we will send Subhash Chandra Bose to India ; then he will become PM, and you will be nowhere”. IOW, British had many levers over Indian industrialists and Jawaharlal Ghazi to control them.

2. So under British pressure, Jawaharlal Ghazi told elite historians to write history that would hide intentions of EIC in spreading Christianity in India and keep Indians in dark about intentions of British to impose Christianity in India.

3. The way Jawaharlal Ghazi told elite historians is “see, if you historians write pro-British or less anti-British history, you will get promotions, foreign trips etc and if you write too much anti-British history, then you may even be expelled and harassed”.

4. Also, the History bodies in UK\USA could have promised good ratings, foreign trips, allowances, project grants etc if historians were to hide reasons by using cow and pig tallow, and not give any funding etc if historians tell students on motives of EIC in using cow/ping tallow. Back in 1950s till .1990s, foreign trip was a big incentive.

5. So some historians such as Romilla Thapar sold out and got promoted, and those who did sell out not got kicked out and their works did not reach textbooks. And the “successful” historians. deleted the facts that EIC had pig tallow and cow tallow for conversion purpose.

6. And thus, 8th class history textbook did not have the line that “British had used pig tallow and cow tallow to impose Christianity on Indian soldiers”.

IOW, these historians were “paid historians”, just as we have “paid journalists”, “paid editors”, paid judges” etc. The payments these historians got for hiding the truth were :

1. Positions, fame
2. Power to recruit people – translates into cash and many nefarious benefits
3. Grants to write books
4. tens of other grants running into crores of rupees
5. Foreign tours

To get positions/payments, the history textbook writers “tailor” the history-textbooks that would please those in-charge of deciding promotions and grants.

The list of facts history textbook writers have been hiding and downplaying is long. One example is that all history textbooks in India refer to 1946 Nary Revolt as Navy Mutiny. Mutiny is lowly and derogatory word, while Revolt is a respectable word. If it was a mere Mutiny and not a Revolt, then why did British got so scared and left? In any case, the British did not want word “Revolt” to be used for Navy Revolt and instead wanted it to be referred as Mutiny. And so all paid historian refer it as Navy Mutiny and not as Navy Revolt. Likewise, all history textbook writers in India refuse to write the fact that British started serious discussion on independence only after Navy Revolt in 1946, and ask students to compare and contrast importance of Congress and Mohanbhai vs contribution of Mahatma Subhashchandra Bose. The list of facts historians deliberately downplay or outrightly refuse to write is long, and will mention in some other article. But suffices to say that just like “all mediamen are paid news”. “all historians are paid historians”.

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Solution to the problem of paid historians
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Broadly, I divide historians into two parts --- those who are 100% privately funded and those who thrive on substantially on Govt funds and Govt made laws and regulations. The Govt paid historians not get salaries and grants, but their work becomes part of textbooks, which students are required read, memorize and write in the exams and their textbooks’ printing is also subsidized by Govt. So while their salary and grants may be few lakhs, but the money spent in subsidizing their publication runs in crores and the fact that students are made/forced to read their writing ensures audience of crores and crores readers. With Govt support, getting such audience would have cost crores of rupees of marketing cost.

Which Gazette Notification drafts will reduce the possibilities that Govt-paid historians do not sell out to private interests such as British or Ministers or anyone? The Gazette Notification drafts I propose is

1. Divide Indian History Council into 5 independent Councils, with Right to Recall on each of its Chairman

2. Let each State have its own History Council or two History Council with recallable Chairman

3. The History Textbook Officer for each State will be recallable, and Central Govt will not have any textbook officer. The students in Central Board will study history books from the state in which they are and exams will be taken that by that State only

4. Jury System over Staff in History Councils

5. Grand Jury in History Council, and any Historians in History Council can publish an article with permission of Chairman or permission of Grand Jury in case Chairman denies permission.

These steps will decrease the sell-outs in historians. How?

If citizens come to know that a Chairman has deliberately hidden an important fact, then they will not spare him. The RTR procedures will ensure that Chairman do not dare to hide important facts that comes to notice. Further, an internal Grand Jury System and Jury System will ensure that if an employee in History Council is hell bent on exposing some facts, the Chairman will not be able to stop him. Further, competition between History Chairmen will reduce the benefits they may derive by hiding facts. Because a person-A who wants some historical facts to remain hidden will pay chairman-B1 who is in-charge of airing that fact, only if it is guaranteed that chairman -B2, chairman -B3, chairman-B4 and chairman-B5 will also hide those facts. For this, he will need to pay all chairmen. Further, the JurySys and Grand Jury System will create independence for all Historians in the council. So those who want to suppress facts will now need to pay too large number of individuals. In such large sample, there will be always a small number of individuals who refuse to sell out, and so the truth will make its way.

So above GN will reduce the possibility of history being “paid-history”

Why did economist hid information on regressiveness of taxes?
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In the next article, I will explain why economics textbook writers hid the information about regressiveness factor wrt taxation i.e. the economics textbook writers never even BA students that inheritance and wealth tax are less regressive than income tax, which is less regressive than sales tax or VAT or entertainment tax. The main reason was --- they were “paid” not to write about it. All this in next article on paid economists.