It is generally assumed that historians are objective and express ideas outside their cultural influence, owing to academic training. However, this is never true. Historians, like all other humans, live in myth. Very few admit it.
The social sciences are very different from the earth sciences. There is a large component of interpretation and argument that shapes the thesis. Some historians value evidence. Some place evidence in context, some cherry-pick evidence, and some ignore evidence altogether. Take the case of those who insist that the epic Mahabharata is a document of real historical events.
Hundreds of scholars seek out astronomy data, such as information on eclipses, from old manuscripts to date the war at Kurukshetra. Many dates have been proposed. The most popular one states that the war took place 5000 years ago, before 3000 BC. But around 3000 BC, horses had not been domesticated and chariots had not been invented. The pyramids had not been built. Chinese oracular bones did not exist. The Bronze Age Trading Network was in its early phases. This makes one doubt the 3000 BC date, unless one subscribes to pseudo-histories of pre Ice Age civilizations popular in social media. It cannot be part of peer-reviewed history that values the scientific process. Historians who do not engage with such ideas are often accused of being colonial and anti-tradition. Such ideas remain a matter of faith, popular in history channels that talk about alien invasions.
But evidence alone is not enough to give accurate information about the past. This is most evident in how historians compare and contrast Ashokan edicts (250 BC) and the Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata, that reached its final written form maybe a century later. Ashoka was a Mauryan king, who was deeply influenced by Buddhism. Mahabharata, by contrast, is a response to Buddhist ideas. Language analysis has revealed that the Mahabharata epic was composed after Ashokan edicts, but tells the story of a distant past, before the start of the ‘Kali Yuga’, when Brahmins were respected. While Ashoka regrets his brutality after his successful conquest of Kalinga, the Pandava brothers of the Mahabharata contemplate on the burden of war, both before and after the violence. It is easier to talk of non-violence after winning a war (as in case of Ashoka) than to talk of non-violence when your property has been usurped and all attempts at peace have been compromised (as in case of the heroes of the Mahabharata).
When historians take sides, when historians compare a historical choice with a mythological argument, it seems more political than academic. It is important to remind ourselves that both Ashoka and Buddha were re-discovered by colonial scholars in 19th century, and there was a conscious attempt by European Indologists to frame Indian history as a conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism, mirroring European conflict between Protestant and Catholic schools of Christianity. Ashokan edicts are facts; but their content could easily have been royal propaganda, an attempt at political whitewashing, that we are all too familiar with.
Very often historians are not aware of their prejudices, but it can be decoded from the tone, tilt and repetitive arguments of their narrations. Many also carry the burden of using history to right a historical wrong. They seek a return to Eden, or march to the Promised Land.
The author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Reach him at devdutt.pattanaik@mid-day.com