India: Mukul Dube's letter to Editor, The Telegraph re Swapan Dasguta on ICHR

18 July 2014

In the "Telegraph" newspaper of 18 July 2014, Swapan Dasgupta says that by pointing out that Yellapragada Sudershan Rao has published nothing in a peer reviewed journal, "[Romila Thapar] is, in effect, suggesting that the community of professional historians is akin to a private members’ club...". Will Dasgupta tell us who, then, is best placed to evaluate the work of historians? People who have no clear idea of what history is about? Or, perhaps, a "lapsed historian" such as himself?

If "Rao’s authorship of ‘popular’ articles on the epics doesn’t necessarily warrant condescending asides", then Dasgupta should tell us just how popular were these articles. Certainly he is not an A.J.P. Taylor, whose name has gratuitously been brought in. My guess is that no one outside the Sanghi circle will have heard of Prof. Y.S. Rao. Oddly, Dasgupta himself says that he had not heard of him until recently.

Finally, if "[t]he ICHR is a completely redundant government body", then will it not make more sense for the BJP sarkar to scrap it than it does to fill it with its own people and thereby control the wasteful distribution of largesse?

BEYOND THE HISTORIANS
- The ICHR’s project must be to depoliticize the liberal arts
Swapan Dasgupta
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140718/jsp/opinion/story_18624300.jsp