Devendra Swarup

"Use of Mahatma Gandhi’s name and views certainly makes it emotional but does not seem in accordance with history. Perhaps, the respected judges ignored the fact that Gujarat has a long history of communal violence. During Gandhi’s life itself Gujarat had burnt in such violence. His pain at the 1924 riots of Ahmedabad is visible in his complete works; since Independence sparks of violence have been spreading in the Muslim-dominated areas of Godhra and Ahmedabad; Mohammad Ghazni was extended invitation to again prevent the reconstruction of Somnath temple which caused unbearable pain to Gandhi. Gujarat has had a long history of riots during the Congress regime that called itself the sole inheritor of Gandhi’s legacy even after his death. In 1969, during Gandhian Hitendra Desai´s rule as Chief Minister, Ahmedabad witnessed communal frenzy, in which more than 3,000 people were killed, i.e. much more than those killed in the riots of 2002. Hence instead of getting caught in the quagmire of ideology, it is necessary to probe into the causes of this endless chain of communal riots in the state."

"The problem with Marxist historiography is that they are trying to interpret the whole past within the framework of dialectical materialism—a Marxist framework. Due the focus of science and the march of civilization during the last hundred years the Marxist framework has become out of date. Its philosophical foundations have been knocked out. Now modern science itself is knocking at the door of spiritualism, something that is beyond time and space. Similarly Marx’s visualization of the future of civilization did not materialize. Marxism is a failed ideology and so its application to understand a civilization like India is not very tenable… Unfortunately our Marxist friends are captive prisoners of the ideological framework--they say no ideology, no history, this is what Prof. R.S. Sharma said. Everything should fit in the Marxist framework and so they even try to suppress facts, distort facts and misinterpret facts. They want to interpret everything in economic terms, of course it has some relevance, nobody can deny it. But now they are prisoners of their own perceptions and bias, unable to go beyond. ...."

"Secondly they have developed a sense of superiority complex about their intellectualism. And want to dub all others as anti- intellectual. Thirdly, although they profess themselves to be very open- minded, very large-hearted, very liberal, but they practice untouchability in the field of intellectualism and even in politics. So they are the most narrow- minded bigoted fanatics who are not prepared to think with an open mind into the past or the trends which are emerging out of the march of civilization and the march of science. That is the problem. And now they have developed invested interest in their hegemony in academic institutions and if that hegemony is dented anywhere they start howling saffronization, saffronization, saffronization. If any writing goes against their pet theories you are saffronized and you’re not a historian. You cease to be an historian, you are a historian as long as you are with them… They do not allow any difference of opinion even in their own camp. These historians are not prepared to understand the limitations of Marxist approach--they are just fighting a political battle. ...."

"In an actual interpretation the sources speak. It is not going to be something concocted, a framework already decided, not something like that. It is their thing they are practicing, they want to see their image in everybody, a man sees his own image in others. Because these people can not think of history writing without an ideological framework, they think that all others are doing the same thing. ... There is no saffron history. It is in their minds. It is their imagination. I would call it traditionalist. I would call it history true to the sources. For example R.C. Majumdar was not convinced that the sepoy mutiny the 1857 revolt was a national revolt and he came out boldly--they call him saffron historian. They labeled him. R.C. Majumdar, in many places has his own approach....But these people think that they are the only intellectuals."

"In contrast to all this, Devendraswarup, (1993), touches on very different Christian appropriations of the work of the philologists and the discourse of Aryanism: "It seems that missionary scholars in India had already perceived the potential of the science of comparative philology in uprooting the hold of the Brahmins" (32). ...Other missionaries found it preferable to target the non-Aryan identity of segments of the Indian populace rather than play up the Aryan commonalty. ... Devendraswarup finds the scholarly work of missionary intellectuals such as the Reverend John James Muir and the Reverend John Stevenson readily presenting the Brahmanas as foreigners who had foisted their Vedic language and texts onto the aboriginals of India. The idea in this case was to create a sense of alienation from Brahmanical religion among the lower castes, thereby preparing them for exposure and conversion to Christianity. Thus Wilson, in a letter to his parents, noted that "the Aryan tribes in conquering India, urged by the Brahmanas, made war against the Turanian demon worship. . . . It is among the Turanian races, . . . which have no organized priest-hood and bewitching literature, that the converts to Christianity are most numerous" (quoted in Devendraswarup 1993, 35)."