smartcybers786@gmail.com 
#Pitfalls #presentism #Political #Economy
Resentment, as a philosophical concept, is a bias to evaluate, analyze and interpret history, historical events, figures, ideas and technologies – as belonging to the past. At the touchstone of modern values, knowledge and perspective. This sometimes involves substituting current norms, values and beliefs for the past, which leads to misunderstandings, unfair judgments and conflicting histories. Although it can be useful in highlighting the evolution of ideas, principles, values and ethics, the presentation is generally considered a poor perspective and detrimental to historical understanding because it obscures the complexity and cultural aspects associated with the past. Ignores variations.
Indeed, many popular ideas about the past need to be critically interrogated and carefully evaluated before they can be historically accepted. Moreover, rigorous investigation and careful explanation of the past is essential, especially where the present derives its legitimacy from the past, as unscrupulous politicians, religious extremists, and fundamentalists not only attempt to misrepresent are but also deliberately connect the past to bring it. Add this intentionally too. In the present, serve their short-lived agendas.
An instructive example is the words Hindu and Hinduism as understood, present and their original origin and evolution. The word Hindu was never used as a name for a religion until late in the fourteenth century. Even then, it was a geographical name. The regions across the Indus River were called Gandara and Hanush in the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, which the Indo-Greeks called Indus. Arabs called the region outside Sindh as Al-Nand. The people of this region were called Hindus. It was a geographical identity that included everyone. Later, the British labeled all sects of Hindus, except the followers of Islam, as Hinduism.
Romila Thapar argues that some scholars of Hindu history trace it back to the Indus civilization, but too little is known for certainty due to a lack of evidence. It is an embodiment of the variety of sects, belief systems and ritual practices, which come down to the present day. Therefore, it is not possible for Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam to have a completely different history which was established by one historical person, all at a particular point in time. This makes them different from Hinduism. After all, presentism condemns us to conflate Hinduism with other religious traditions, as if it were one of the same religious traditions based on a holy book and a prophet.
The present, more often than not, uses the past either in pernicious ways to be part of various political maneuvers, or in a positive way to claim the legitimacy of an enviable legacy. Thus, history has been used in a number of ways to establish desired national and religious identities in contemporary times. To overcome this overwhelming trend, the focus should be on political and royal history to include social, cultural and economic histories. Moreover, it should be kept in mind that religion alone does not define a community.
The past should be rigorously investigated and carefully explained, especially where the present derives legitimacy from the past.
One should draw on the past to better understand the present as well as the past, not use the past to legitimize the present. As knowledge advances, we have more methods and techniques for discovering new evidence and asking fresh questions about the evidence. This leads to a past construct that is more reliable and accurate. This is especially important in remote cases where the evidence is much more than texts – from artefacts. For example, the recent rapid melting of glaciers, due to global warming, has revealed remains in the form of bodies and artifacts, giving rise to a new scientific field of historical investigation known as glacial archaeology. , the study of ancient artifacts that come down to us from melting glaciers.
As he put it in his extraordinary essay What is History? History is a never-ending dialogue between past and present, new sources and new methods of analysis lead to fresh perspectives, historical readings differ from previous ones. A frequently asked question is: Since historical facts do not change, why is there history? Historical facts may not change, (sometimes they do) but interpretations of those facts are constantly changing. “History is not just a directory of information. It also involves analyzing and interpreting that information,” insists Romila Thapar in her book, Past as Recent: Contemporary Identities through History (2014).
We must also understand that historical knowledge is relative and perspective dependent. Therefore, the concept of eternal and absolute object is an unrealistic abstraction. Historical records are relative and so is perception of reality. Similarly, truth is multifaceted, each facet based on a perceived reality. An objective historian, according to Carr, “is capable of transcending the limited view of his (own) situation in society and history.” Therefore, history is a continuous and continuous process, a process of understanding, recording and writing. Winners in one situation (context) are considered losers in another.
There is also a need to imagine and write histories beyond nationalist narratives. Little attention has been paid to alternative social and political imaginaries and struggles in post-colonial South Asia, or to methodological bottom-up histories. Besides avoiding the pitfalls of presentism, the past should be taken as a repository of diverse experiences, meaningful and instructive for the present.
The author is Head of the Department of History at the University of Sargodha. He has worked as a research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Get rid of it. He can be reached at zahoor@hotmail.com x handle: @Abarzahoor 1
