The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The Indian History Congress (IHC), which recently held its annual conclave in Kakatiya University, Andhra Pradesh, unanimously opposed the proposed demolition of the building that houses the National Museum as part of the Central Vista project and expressed its concern over the shifting of over 2,00,000 artefacts containing “thousands of years of cultural heritage”.
A resolution passed by the IHC said that the National Museum will be eventually shifted to the proposed Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum in the North Block and South Block of the Raisina Hill complex, originally planned as new office buildings. While it said that the government’s office premises will be highly unsuitable to accommodate a museum, it added that “the move seems to be an attempt towards making a more controlled and less accessible National Museum”.
“It impedes easy public accessibility and directly contradicts the vision that the National Museum had envisaged in the early years after our Independence. Thus, the core idea of dissemination of knowledge related to history, culture, and artistic excellence gets sabotaged,” the resolution said. It further expressed its concern over the non-transparency over the process of transfer of the artefacts.
“…till the new Museum space is ready, the fate of the collection of the National Museum hangs by a thread,” it said.
“Monuments represent the vision and authority of those in power. The shifting of the National Museum from its current location to incorporate the Central Vista project is a symbol of the government’s attempt to change the basic ethos and fabric of the Indian political system. The Indian History Congress strongly condemns the constant disregard of historical artefacts and the move to shift the National Museum,” the IHC said.
Protection of Indian monuments figured among the most important concerns of the IHC. It passed two other resolutions that called on the government to take extra caution in dealing with monuments that are being targeted by vested political interests.
“All buildings, whatever their nature, if over 200 years old, should be strictly protected, under the terms of the Protection of Monuments Act, and their character, if these are religious structures, should not be altered; and, where worship has ceased, it should not be restored. It feels that this is also the obligation imposed on the Archaeological Survey of India by the Protection of Monuments Act, and other existing legislation,” one of the IHC’s resolutions said in the context of judicial proceedings in the matters concerning the Shahi Idgah in Mathura and Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi.
Another resolution strongly condemned the Union government’s recent attempt to remove the Sunheri Masjid, a Mughal-era monument which even the Britishers had left untouched during the construction of Delhi as the imperial capital city.
Similarly, the IHC said that while such political calls to alter the nature of historical monuments are being made, it was “disturbing” to see the Archaeological Survey of India has “abandoned its project of annual reports and regular publication of the journal Ancient India, as also its two epigraphic journals”.
“It is vitally important that all of these be revived, properly edited and regularly published,” the IHC said in one of its six resolutions.
Founded in 1935-36 in Allahabad, the IHC is the largest body in India comprising professional historians and has advocated for a scientific and fact-based approach towards historical research and played a dominant role in opposing “mythification” of history. The 82nd IHC conclave happened between December 28-30, 2023, during which 1,070 research papers were presented by historians. This is the second time the IHC session was conducted in Warangal’s Kakatiya University.
The session also saw Professor Aditya Mukherjee taking charge as the newly-elected general president of the IHC from the outgoing president Professor Kesavan Veluthat. During the session, historian and columnist Ramachandra Guha was also chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award, given every five years.
In other resolutions, the IHC reiterated its previous criticisms on how History Syllabi is being tampered with under the guise of implementing the “National Educational Policy”. The IHC said that the history books were being altered “for presenting a very coloured and inaccurate vision of Indian history in our schools, colleges and universities”.
“This is manifest in the official decree to make compulsory the study of “Indian knowledge system”, of which caste-ridden ancient texts are cited as examples, along with a curiously entrenched concern with the Aryan race. This is accompanied by overlooking much of our social, economic, intellectual and art history, and in picturing the medieval period as a time when India was under foreign thraldom, etc. Even Akbar is excluded from the detailed Indian History syllabus for the Bachelor programme framed by the University Grants Commission. Needless to say, little or no concern is shown for fields such as economic history, women’s history, or the history of environment,” a IHC resolution said.
The IHC also called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Israel-Palestine conflict and “an end to displacement of the hapless Palestinians from their homeland”.