"History" of Nations

Imagine, why did I not take up History as a subject of study during my Undergraduate days? Thought, its useless studying History which is nothing but the life of "Dead Heads". How would it be useful? Today, I feel its absense not because of the fact that I donot know the life spans of the dead heads of history but because of the fact that it is important for understanding the present status and future direction of a society. The techno-managerial sciences do not understand its relevance as they are somewhat socially crippled. This is the reason why Mr. Chandrababu Naidu - one of the progressive Chief Ministers of an Indian state thought of closing down the the History Departments in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Ask today the Chinese and the Japanese what History means to them? What's behind the growing conflict between these two societies? And the answer is - HISTORY - The history of war and Japanese occupation of China. There has been continuous protests on the streets of China against the Japanese attitude towards the "past". The Chinese did not like the former Japanese premier Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni - a shrine to Japanese war dead that includes war criminals and portrays Japan’s colonization and conquest of Asian neighbors as a noble effort to free Asia from Western dominance; and the Japanese government’s approval of a junior high school textbook that whitewashes Japanese atrocities committed against Chinese and other Asians from the 1930s through the Second World War.

These feelings of antagonism against atrocities goes back to the hisotry of nationalism and colonialism. The culture of Colonization was justified on the ground that it is the "Whiteman's burden (though not in Japanese case) to Civilise the Oriental Savage". Modern Nation-states were born as the endproducts of long anti-clonial nationalist struggle. As Partha Chatterjee (1993) tells us, "the forms of the modern state were imported into these countries through the agency of colonial rule". This does not mean that Nation-states in the east would not have come into existence, if the Orients had not been colonised. There are countries who qualify the characteristics of progressive Nation-states, but never experienced colonialism. However, I would say, Colonialism strengthened the feelings of Nationalsim in the east.

"History" is not about the dead heads; it is about the rich cultural past and uniqueness of identity of a particular Nation. It is the very reason of our existence in a society.