Forming Historical Myths in British India in the First Decades of the 20th Century (the History of Mediaeval Mystification)

Abstract

Some Indian historians, as well as social and political activists believed before and believe now that democracy in India in general, and in Bengal in particular has very deep roots (according to these beliefs, in 7th–8th centuries A.D. Bengal suffered political and economic decline). Such great activists of “Bengal Renaissance” as R. P. Chanda, A. K. Maitreya, R. D. Banerji (Bandyopadhyay), and R. Ch. Majumdar were the first to express this idea and comprehend Bengal as a single entity. Meanwhile the idea in question was based on a single evidence, that was written in the genealogical part of two landgrant charters of Dharmapāla, the second king of the Pāla dynasty (ca. late 8th — the beginning of 9th centuries). However modern historians, analysing the Bengali sources of the period, note the fact that generally only Buddhist historical texts contain references to the mentioned political and economic disorder, while judging by inscriptions and excavations, there is no evidence of decline. Moreover, there is no proof that Bengal existed as a single entity in pre-Muslim period at all. Distribution of inscriptions of Pālas and their neighbours in Bengal territory shows that we can identify around six or seven cultural and political regions there. Thus we could conclude that the notion of deeply rooted Indian democracy is based on the prejudiced interpretation of available sources by the Bengali historians of the early 20th century.