Opinion A historian for everybody
R.S. Sharmas commitment to the dissemination of scientific history.
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At 10.20 pm on August 20,my mobile phone rang. The call that I had been expecting all through the day,but always hoping would not come,ultimately came. Sharmaji is no more, said Professor R.S. Sharmas son in Patna. For once,I felt orphaned. My mentor since 1970 will not be available for discussions and guidance any more. My thoughts immediately went back to the afternoon of December 29,1970 when I received a very complimentary pat on my back from a dhoti-kurta clad,tall,fair and robust historian after I had nervously presented my first research paper at the Indian History Congress (IHC) session at Jabalpur. His humble self-introduction main R.S. Sharma hoon was stunningly gratifying but equally embarrassing. The sense of disbelief then was enormous,for,I had by then already been through his masterly works,such as Sudras in Ancient India (1958),Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India (1959) and Indian Feudalism,300-1200 (1965),during my graduation and post-graduation days.
Such indeed has been the persona of Sharmaji for people like me,who did not have the privilege of being his formal students but have had the great opportunity of receiving his blessings nonetheless. The 91-year-old had all through encouraged young scholars through suggestions and comments on their writings. More remarkably,his humility had no limits he was always ready to learn even from a novice working in the discipline of history and go to the extent of acknowledging him/ her in his works. Such a combination of scholarship and humility is not seen easily today,when even toddlers in history writing prefer to blow their own trumpets in the din of the market.
About six-seven years ago,when Sharmaji was recuperating in a Delhi hospital after a minor surgery,I visited him to wish a speedy recovery. Even there,one could not miss his enormous enthusiasm and commitment to the discipline. Showing one of his recently released books,he said that it was his 85th book (including numerous translations in various Indian and foreign languages),in his 85th year. Apparently,that unceasing zest to write was his elixir that had kept him mentally and physically alive till almost the end of his life.
One of his last books is Rethinking Indias Past (2009). Sharmaji has written so prolifically,not to add many letters against his name but to spread a scientific historical consciousness amongst his readers. The fact that his first book (Vishwa Itihas ki Bhumika,in two volumes,1953,recently revised) was published in Hindi when he was merely in his early thirties,and that he deliberately got almost all his works translated into Hindi and other Indian languages,are indicators of his concern for making his writings available to the maximum possible readers in their own languages.
Before accepting the offer of professorship and headship of the history department of the University of Delhi in 1973,Professor Sharma had already created a distinct identity for the same department in Patna University during his 15-year tenure (1958-1973). Immediately after his arrival in Delhi,he tried to harness the enormous pool of talent lying scattered over scores of constituent colleges of this university. Sharmaji strongly believed that every person possesses some positive quality or the other and that opportunities should created for him/ her to concretise it. He was a great institution builder,a quality well represented in the way he shaped the academic programme and administrative structure of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) as its founder chairman (1972-77).
Sharmajis commitment to the dissemination of scientific history was boundless. He was not just a class-room preacher. He took his craft into the public domain and,like a true activist,ceaselessly fought communal,obscurantist and fascist forces. He literally led from the front. When such forces withdrew his Ancient India (textbook for XI-XII classes) in 1977 (the book was subsequently restored),he came out with In Defence of Ancient India (1978) attacking those forces. His Communal History and Ramas Ayodhya (1990) and Ramjanmabhumi-Baburi Masjid: A Historians Report to the Nation (in cooperation with Professors M. Athar Ali,D.N. Jha and Suraj Bhan,1991) made a strong case against the exponents of the Rama Temple (under the Babri Masjid). No wonder,the government of India sought his views on the more recent controversy about the Rama Setu project as well. Earlier,he had been instrumental in getting a resolution passed at the IHC against the Emergency.
Professor Sharmas mastery of epigraphic,literary and archaeological texts enabled him to demolish many myths created by imperialist-colonialist historiography as well as by the cultural chauvinists of more recent times,and made scientific study of the ever-changing Indian society in all its dimensions possible. He was a colossus. It would be difficult to fill the void created by him. We,Indians,would miss him.
The writer is a professor of history at the University of Delhi
express@expressindia.com
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