A take on History

Long ago, I am not sure when, I heard someone say "History is written by winners". It did not make an impact on me therefore I didn't dwell too much into the legitimacy of such a claim.

Lets see what Merriam-Webster has to say about History. Here it is
1.) tale; history
2.) chronological record of events
3) branch of knowledge that records and explains past events

Any person wanting to know history will want to know the facts not pieces of information strung together by forces (conniving or not) to stamp their authority of how the future generation views past events.

During the course of this week, I watched Gandhi - the brilliant 1983 film by Richard Attenborough and a History channel program on Angels and Demons. Both of the above video presentations made me revisit the claim I mentioned in the first line of this post.

To begin with lets rewind back to the days of Adolf Hitler - that fascist Nazi who thought about the "super race" and exterminated most of Jews. All of us growing up, at some point or the other has read about him and I am sure not one among us think there is nothing wrong with what the dictator did to the world. So far so good. A chronological record of events. Here is my question - Why do the history books not carry the atrocities done by the British Empire when they ruled most of Asia and Africa? Why do we read only about how they plundered the countries they conquered and made slaves of men? How many people did they kill to exert their dominance? Case in point - The Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Why aren't the British demonized like Hitler? One is being made to be a monster and the other is a superpower who cares about the world by following their Big Brother - The USA.

Let us turn our attention to Christianity or The Vatican. When people talk about Christianity most of them talk about the Son of God - Jesus Christ and how He died for all of mankind and took away our sins. That I find fault with the above is material for another post. So, one of Old Testament's (might be the New) claim is that the Earth is in the center of the universe and Sun revolves around it. The other claim is that the Earth is heavenly body supported by structures beneath it and has the Garden of God above it. Agreed the concept of gravity was unheard of when the Old Testament came into effect but to make the common man believe this fallacy is wrong. Torturing anyone who spoke against the Vatican or questioned the beliefs of the Vatican and killing them is tantamount to the same monstrous act committed by Hitler. Why is the Vatican - the mouthpiece for Christianity - made out to be this pious and kind state when all this atrocities were committed by them?

Now to my pet peeve - Gandhi bashing. He did a fantastic job polarizing the nation into following him for gaining independence. All of us know of his heroics in South Africa and his famed Non-violence and non-cooperation theories. In my opinion, he never gave others a chance to contribute towards Independence. I see him as a petulant, power-hungry person who wanted India to gain Independence his way or not gain her Independence at all. This was achieved by his infamous fasts. If someone acted out of his rule book, he would go on fast until the other toed-in-line. In the beginning he felt India wasn't ready for Independence as though he was an authority on when India is ready for independence. There were many revolutionaries who wanted to gain independence through force, because of the indignation suffered through oppression and wanted to grab the evil by the scruff of its neck and ask it to get out. They weren't given a chance to succeed or fail because Gandhi had already deemed them to be a failure. The British already weakened by the World War II and having taken whatever was there to be taken from India saw no point in staying in India any longer. From History we know Gandhi as the Father of the Nation, do we know how he extinguished any chance of others gaining Independence for India? The history books also do not mention any of his celibacy experiments. Reading about them long after I graduated out of high school opened my eyes to a new Gandhi. Would I have had the same respect for him when I was growing up if I knew History in its entirety and not just parts of what had happened?

To conclude, when I grew up I knew only about the popular tales and stories in the History books. The alternate view to the stories were never presented and many of the facts were conveniently left out. In a way I was forced to have the opinion I had. Is History written by winners? Do the losers have a chance to re-count their version of the events? If history is written by winners is it a fact? is it an accurate recounting of past events? or is it just a "blowing my trumpet" version of the events by the winners?