Why Credible History

 

History is often an early casualty of contemporary electoral politics. While history, when viewed objectively – in so far as the nature of the subject allows –  plays the role of a lighthouse to help us navigate the present and future, ruling classes have always rewritten, distorted, and misrepresented it to suit their narratives. Contemporary regimes, with access to modern, digital methods of content creation and dissemination, have plumbed new lows by writing pseudo-history and spreading historically and factually false stories creating a post-truth era. These falsehoods should be challenged and exposed to check the further weakening of democracy and its institutions.

 

The Project

Credible History is an endeavour to preserve authentic history as gleaned through the lens of established, respected historians who have spent their lives researching it via reliable sources. It aims to counter the propaganda being spread through a large section of mainstream media and  social media platforms, and provide easy access to established historical resources. In particular, it reaches out to tech-savvy and busy information seekers who prefer mobile and other digital channels to books, and prefer to navigate information overload by restricting it to bite-sized pieces. For lovers of detail and nuance, there will be a bibliography for different subjects. This project is supported and aided by several hundred volunteers including noted historians xxx and other academic and knowledgeable personalities like Prof Harbans Mukhia, Prof Purushottam Aggarwal, Sohail Hashmi and Prof S Irfan Habib. This project will evolve to host live workshops and interactive sessions in the future.

 

Subject Coverage

Besides Political history, it will cover People’s history, Regional history, Cultural history, Feminist movement, Farmers’ movement, Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi movements, LGBTQ movement, Philosophy/Intellectual history, Religion(s) etc. We shall also interview eminent historians from different fields on pertinent and burning subjects.

 

Target Audience

This bilingual (Hindi and English) website is planned to cater to the needs of students, researchers and common people. We hope to reach out to a wider audience. People are slowly getting aware of the negative consequences of the WhatsApp university of untrue and distorted stories. The new refreshing content of the credible history will nudge people towards true historical facts and offer an option to the monopoly of untruths and gross distortions that are currently being weaponised by the powers that be. This in turn, will hopefully reduce misconceptions and distrust, and increase political awareness and historical consciousness.