'INDIA ABROAD' on new textbooks

[Lakshmi Srinivas]

--- Vishal Agarwal <vishalagarwal at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Others, who write in the same vein, are: Amulya
> Ganguli, Anikendra Nath Sen,
> Seema Mustafa, Achin Vachnaik, Shabana Azmi, Anil
> Dharker, Badri Raina, D N
> Jha......As for their credentials as historians,
> please read 'Eminent
> Historians'by Arun Shourie.

D.N. Jha is a Professor of History in Delhi
University. He's a student of Professor R.S. Sharma,
former professor in Delhi Univ and and the first
Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research.


D.N. Jha writes in the RS Sharma festschrift (Society
and Ideology in India. Essays in honour of Prof R S
Sharma, Mushiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1996)

QUOTE

Professor Sharma's zeal in fighting the obscurantist,
revivalist and communal approach to history is best
seen in his role in the recent controversy centering
around Ayodhya. His Communal History and Rama's
Ayodhya (1990, rev 1992) exposes the hollowness of the
claims of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and successfully
unmasks the political design behind their arguments
which has led to the obfuscation of Indian archaeology
and history.

END QUOTE

Prof DN Jha, an anti communalist scholar, is a
professional historian with many publications to his
credit.

As somebody asked on another list: for Ram's sake what
has Arun Shourie, an investigative journalist turned
BJP politician, got to do with Indian history?

Perhaps the presumption is that it is sufficient to be
a Hindu to be able to write on Indian history.

In electronic forums, I keep coming across lists of
names of scholars, professionals in their field,
whose writings are to be avoided. An alternate list of
writers is provided who are typically journalists,
pamphleteers, rabble rousers and the like. Mr
Agarwal's post is no exception to this trend.

Is this perhaps a new kind of 'denial of service'
attack?

Warm Regards,



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