History lessons are not just about buried bones and broken stones

Field visit to the ruins of Hampi

After a day’s dousing in Archeology, the children were taken to the ruins of Hampi and the folklore museum at the University of Hampi. We looked for someone to interpret local history based on facts and Mr. Ramachandra Shetty came on hand. While most people make it feel a jumbled time line of events, he made a nice narrative and yet he gave several versions of the events of the medieval times on either side of the Tungabhadra River.  After the down fall of the Hoysala rule and repeated invasion of the Delhi Sultans, the Hindu rule saw difficult times.  The resurrection and rise of Hindu rule was accomplished by the rulers of Sangama dynasty that was founded by Harihara Raya I also known as Hakka, and his brother Bukka Raya. Based in the Deccan, in peninsular India, from 1336 onwards Viyayanagara kingdom grew into an empire that in its peak reached out till the present Orissa in the north and Kerala in the south.

It lasted from about 1336 to perhaps about 1660, though throughout its last century it was in a slow decline since 1565 due to a massive and catastrophic defeat at the hands of an alliance of the Deccan sultanates. Once the capital Viyayanagara was taken, it was brutally razed and looted. People never returned to the capital city for a long time. Temples and other structures deteriorated due to vandalism beyond one’s imagination. Their impressive ruins surround Hampi in Hospet taluk of Bellary district. Today it is declared a World Heritage site and a large scale restoration is in progress.

Students admiring the ruins of Ugranarasimha

Though its foundation, and even a great part of its history, is obscure its power and wealth are attested by several travelers, such as Domingo Paes and Nuniz of the Portuguese, and the Venetian Niccolò Da Conti. Trade of spice, cotton, jewelry and ivory to countries as far as Venice and China thrived through the ports of Mangalore, Honavara, Batkala and Barkur. The main imports on the east coast were non-ferrous metals, camphor, porcelain, and silk.

Exposing students to History is important in a democratic society. Knowledge of history is the precondition of political awareness. Without history, a society can share no common memory of where it has been or what it has gone through. Its interpretation reveals what the societies’ core values were and what decisions or acts of the past account for present circumstances. Without history, we cannot undertake any sensible inquiry into the political, social, or moral issues in society. And without historical knowledge and inquiry, we cannot achieve the informed, discriminating citizenship essential to effective participation in the democratic processes of governance and the fulfillment for all our citizens of the nation’s democratic ideals. 

Students during the field visit

French philosopher, Etienne Gilson, mentions the special significance of the perspectives history affords. “History,” he says, “is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.” History opens to students the great record of human experience, revealing the vast range of strategies individuals and societies have taken up to the issues confronting them. It also discloses the consequences that have followed the various choices that have been made by people of the past. By studying the choices and decisions of the past, students can face today’s problems and make conscious choices of the alternatives before them and the likely consequences of each. 

Current problems, of course, do not duplicate those of the past. Extrapolating knowledgeably from history to the issues of today dependent upon how one understands the past. Is it on the basis of relevant historical antecedents or those that are clearly irrelevant? Students must be sufficiently grounded in historical understanding in order to bring sound analysis to the service of informed decision making. 

Students window shopping at Hampi

What is required is “critical history”- the ability, after painful inquiry and sober judgment, to determine what part of history is relevant to one’s current problems and what is not. Whether one is assessing a situation, forming an opinion, or taking an active position on the issue in exploring these matters, students will soon discover that history is filled with the high costs of decisions. They become so because of false analogies from the past and the high costs of actions taken up with little or no understanding of lessons that the past imparts. 

Historical memory is also the key to self-identity, to seeing one’s place in the stream of time and one’s connectedness with all of humankind. We are part of an ancient chain and connect to our descendants for years to come. Denied knowledge of one’s roots and of one’s place in the great stream of human history, the individual is deprived of the fullest sense of self and of that sense of shared community on which one’s fullest personal development as well as responsible citizenship depends. For these purposes, history and the humanities must occupy an indispensable role in the school curriculum.