Altering history: Aren't there better things to do?

Textbooks and syllabus of school education play an important role in moulding the students and their characters. Right syllabus and good books are key to the success of our education system, particularly in our country where we lay a great emphasis on schooling our children. From the beginning, these books and also history books have become tools in the hands of the ruling classes to alter the course of history by influencing the content of the books.

In the case of history, it is a well-known fact that conquerors get the history written to their liking, except perhaps, for Chenghis Khan. He was never presented as a great warrior and a conqueror but only as a bloodthirsty villain for not doing so. The rest of the world's history got altered by the colonialists for whom the world never existed before Christ and so everything history and culture was distorted by these Europeans. For these people there could never have been ancient civilizations far more advanced and no countries in the past with a glorious history and science. The English systematically disintegrated and destroyed Indian history to such an extent that even after Independence we have not been able to question the motives of the English rulers and the Left intellectuals who continued their onslaught. That is one aspect of it.

The efforts of the government now to 'set right' the history by obliterating significant chunks of the 'doctored version' of our history strike a discordant note. By all means, a course correction is needed. But it is the way it is sought to be done that has come in for quick questioning now. Pencils, it is said, have erasers for a reason: everyone makes mistakes, everyone makes bad decisions and even deliberate attempts due to ideological reasons to distort. In an era of ethical and moral decline, it is not uncommon to see such attempts. To err is human; therefore, one of the most important skills we can develop is course correction.

It's crucial to recognize when a mistake is a mistake, to learn from our indiscretions, and then to change course and move forward a better person. Life is a test, and sometimes we pick the wrong answer—no big deal, right? Unfortunately, we often pick the same wrong answer over and over, thereby avoiding any other possible outcome, and therefore avoiding the correct answer. Despite all this, when we seek to resort to course correction, the other side won't keep quiet. It waits for its chance and strikes back at an opportune time. Haven't we seen it?

India and Pakistan attained independence almost simultaneously and the latter chose to write history books only from the Eighth century - from the time of Mohammad bin Kasim rule. Hindu rulers were shown in a poor light and we know what kind of a country it had become now.

Is this our time to do so now? Good kings and bad kings equally killed the 'enemy' people whether their religions' had a role in the butchery or not. Moreover, the fact that life's answers change as we get older makes it more complicated and therefore, yesterday's right answer may not be today's right answer.

Before embarking on course correction, a lot of thought is needed, hence. Don't you think that there are far more serious challenges on hand for the government to deal with rather than 'altering history'?