Dalrymple attributed the growth of “WhatsApp history” to the failure of academic historians to write for general audiences. (Photo: Pixabay)
The popular historian William Dalrymple has sparked a public controversy, drawing the ire of India’s academic historians. At The Indian Express’s Idea Exchange, responding to a question about why India hasn’t been able to tell its story to the world, Dalrymple stated that until the early 2000s, Indian academics often spoke only to themselves in a deliberately obscure language inaccessible to others. He attributed the growth of “WhatsApp history” — a metonym for the pseudo-history that often passes as “history” on social media, YouTube and even popular books — to the failure of academic historians to write for general audiences.
It is true that for long, many historians confined themselves to writing in peer-reviewed academic journals and presses inaccessible to the public. Like scholars from other disciplines, their language adhered to academic conventions, and was — and unfortunately often still is — dull and stodgy, rather than active and engaging. While several historians wrote accessibly and beautifully, many used opaque jargon and stultifying passive voice, and wrote impersonal, lifeless prose. Few attempted to engage with the public through popular books or television. Only the much-reviled Romila Thapar comes to mind, perhaps despised by pseudo-historical ideologues because she publicly highlighted historical facts they found uncomfortable. Most academic historians, believing they were fulfilling their urgent duty to equip future generations with a historical sensibility, confined themselves to teaching university students. While, as Dalrymple acknowledges, recent decades have seen more academic historians engage publicly, these facts largely remain. I agree that the vast range of top-quality research produced by historians not being communicated to the public contributes to pseudo-history and downright propaganda successfully masquerading today as “history”.
Snobbery might be one reason some academic historians failed to engage with the public, but for most, the problem is deeper and structural. A popular historian (a term not used derisively here) seeks to convey history accessibly to the public. An academic historian primarily aims to contribute originally to and advance a specialised body of historical knowledge. For example, a historian of Hindu nationalism is concerned mainly with contributing original research to and advancing the already-existing body of specialised research (and specialised debates) on Hindu nationalism.
Crudely put, it is the difference between a writer writing about cancer cells for the public and a cancer biologist primarily aiming to advance specialised research on cancer stem cells. Writing for the public and contributing to a specialised body of knowledge are two distinct aims and skills. Most scientists also talk only to themselves in an alien language no one else understands! Despite their frustrations with pseudo-science on the internet, they don’t have the time or resources to communicate their research to the public. Realising the basic fact of human finitude, they leave communicating scientific knowledge to the public, mainly to science writers.
Most academic historians choose to remain part of the “peer-review” system where other historians (their “peers”), specialists in their fields, critically review and scrutinise their research, and help improve it. Peer review is considered essential in all scholarly fields, whether biology or history, to ensure the production of top-quality, cutting-edge research. Contrary to the view that history equals anyone expressing their subjective opinions, historical research is reviewed and passed by other top historians, and then published in peer-reviewed journals and academic presses.
The need to pass this high standard — a time-consuming process for which scholars are not paid — keeps most academic historians from turning that specialised research (even when written beautifully) into public history.
Peer-reviewed publications are also an essential criterion for academic historians to secure jobs in universities and earn regular incomes. In universities, they teach multiple history courses on different periods (often outside their research areas) to multitudes of students. Being a good teacher is a thoroughly time-consuming process requiring hours of preparation, examination, and administrative work. Between over-work and family, academic historians have very little time to produce and publish original research — let alone write public history.
Researcher-teachers put in as many — or more — hours of labour as bankers but earn a fraction. It is the way economy, society and government are structured. Britain has a better interface between historical research and the public not just because academic historians approach the media or film-makers, but because the latter also approach academic historians, knowing which expert to approach for which theme. It is a two-way street.
The failure of academic historians to write public history has contributed to the growth of pseudo-history. But for more historians to write public history, these structural constraints must be acknowledged by others and mitigated. Meanwhile, academic historians must also push for structural change, and engage more publicly. Or the spread of pseudo-history will continue.
Space for good public history may significantly widen if popular historians help spread awareness about the constraints academic historians face, and the excellent historical research being produced outside of public view. Dalrymple’s Empire podcast is a wonderful start. Academic historians must reflect on what then, if not public history, is the solution to pseudo-history’s alarming spread. Instead of dismissing all popular history, academic historians must distinguish between bad and good popular historians, and acknowledge the invaluable good some are doing to educate the public.
I have learnt immensely from a Peter Frankopan or Anirudh Kanisetti. Kanisetti’s work brought vividly alive for me the Chalukya and Rashtrakuta dynasties and the robust presence of Buddhism and Jainism in medieval Deccan. Rather than play to the gallery, it does the important work of countering pseudo-historical assumptions about Hinduism and even conveying the insights of the Sanskritist Sheldon Pollock to the public. Academic historians must be like historian Daud Ali who supports Kanisetti’s work, or Romila Thapar and Upinder Singh who refuse to see history as the exclusive preserve of academic historians. Or Sumit Sarkar, who took Dalrymple seriously. Academic historians and good public historians must extend grace to each other. We must be on the same side in our fight against pseudo-history.
The writer is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences, National Law School of India University, Bangalore
