#Thread There is a lot of hubris among some ‘trained’ historians and archeologists in India that they alone are the custodians of India’s history, and no one else knows anything because they do not have a Ph. D! This is nothing but #IntellectualApartheid
I have interacted with some of these ‘historians’ in Maharashtra with Ph.Ds. Very few of them have done any original research by studying primary sources. Their doctorate degrees are acquired by studying the work of great historians like Shejwalkar, Khare, Sardessai.
Most of their research work consists of cut n paste of the work of great historians. Unfortunately, many of these Ph.D holders are now professors in institutes like Deccan college n Savitribhai Phule Pune University and teaching their version of Marxist history to students.
They hate the fact that amateurs are now getting into the field, learning Farsi, Modi and Arabic, doing original research and running successful and popular Facebook pages. Some of these ‘amateur historians’ have also published books which are hugely successful.
Ph.D holders are feeling insecure, coz their degrees are no taken seriously outside their own incestuous academic circles. A @MulaMutha or an @authorAneesh have done more to popularise history than these academicians who love to pontificate from their silos.
What the Ph.D holders are doing is to perpetuate a new ‘caste-system’, where they feel they alone are the custodians of all knowledge, and anyone without a Ph.D degree should not be allowed to opine on history. Well, history is not anyone’s ‘बाप की जागीर’. It is a common legacy.
If an amateur historian has read the same books that you have, you are NOT better than him just coz you have a Ph.D. Many famous historians did not have a formal degree in history. You do not need a degree to research history. You need passion, dedication n access to sources.
A formal education in the relevant field helps to channelise the interest and provide a definite direction for the research, but it is not a necessary qualification. Better to be like Gajanan Mehendale than to be a Romila Thapar who says Yudhishthir was inspired by the Buddha!
