William Dalrymple is right about the origins of ‘WhatsApp History’

Academic historians’ failure to make history accessible and engaging to the public has ceded the ground to peddlers of fake history.

William Dalrymple, the historian and writer, at the launch of his book The Anarchy in Mumbai, October 14, 2019. | Photo Credit: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

The recent debate around the state of academic history in India provoked by William Dalrymple’s comment has sparked off an insightful exchange of ideas by various writers.

Dalrymple contends that the emergence of “WhatsApp history” in India directly springs from the failure of academic historians to present history in a way that connects and resonates with the general public. His view largely mirrors our own assessment of the subject.

At the outset, one must understand that history is not a disembodied field of inquiry but a subject that is deeply implicated in the questions that inform identity, shape ideologies, and form political agendas in contemporary times. Historians must, therefore, recognise that their work is not just meant for appreciation among their peers but for the wider public, whose understanding of history influences their everyday decisions, beliefs, and actions. At a time when the past is frequently invoked in political discourse, a failure to engage with the public is, in a sense, a colossal failure of responsibility. The past is not something that can be left to rot in the archives; rather it is a roadmap and an anchor for the present.

Academic historians have, more or less, detached themselves from the public, understanding their profession as an intellectual pursuit that demands specialised knowledge. Specialised knowledge historians must pursue, but that cannot and should not thwart history’s true purpose of driving transformation. Because history at its core is a transformative discipline.

The view of history that sees it solely as a field of inquiry is somewhat misplaced. A rigorous study of history should not stop its practitioners from engaging with the public. The two can and must go hand in hand. That is precisely what the true calling of a historian demands in today’s world. This can be achieved through blending academic rigor with public engagement—whether through accessible books, public talks, media appearances, or using platforms such as social media to share the complexities of the past in ways that can be understood by a general audience. Unfortunately, few historians have managed to do so.

History, with its complex narratives, is often seen as something beyond the grasp of the average person. And what is more worrying, it is historians themselves who have reinforced such an attitude. This is partly due to the traditional nature of academic history, which has overwhelmingly relied on jargon, long-winded academic texts, and an assumption that only those trained in the discipline can access the deeper “truths” of the past.

When historians fail to engage with the public, they inevitably create a void that ignorant fanatics are only too eager to fill with misinformation. The rise of “WhatsApp history” is not just the failure of the public to critically engage with the past, but also the failure of historians to be present in the spaces where misinformation thrives, and where genuine history is actively being contested by peddlers of fake history. Without a vibrant and widely accessible historical discourse, history becomes a weapon in the hands of those who can shout louder even though they possess scant evidence.

Falsifying the past

In that sense, the emergence of “WhatsApp history” is a symptom of academic history having become too detached from the immediate and pressing needs of contemporary society. The latest intervention in the debate by Eric Chopra and Kudrat Singh argues that the WhatsApp version of history existed all along. Yes, let us agree that WhatsApp history is merely the latest iteration of an age-old phenomenon of falsifying the past. But it still does not take away from the fact that historians in our day and age have not seriously sought to counter it, arguably when the wilful indifference has resulted in the deadliest of repercussions. They have, in a way, ceded the ground to such forces by not making the effort to come down from their ivory towers and make their work accessible—accessible not only in terms of intelligibility but also in terms of reaching out to the general public, the man and woman on the street, in ways and means that would touch lives. This is not merely an academic misstep; it has had wide-reaching real-world consequences, as one has seen. The stakes of history are high precisely because the past is so often invoked to justify modern-day injustices and indignities heaped upon those who lack the means to push back.

In a world where a mythical past is frequently invoked to justify nefarious political projects in the present, the work of historians cannot remain cloistered in academic journals but should be actively shared with the broader community and result in wide engagement. Thus, historians as custodians of our collective memory must recognise their ethical responsibility to transcend their academic seclusion and jump right in to participate meaningfully in public discourse.

Karl Marx, for instance, wrote one of the seminal treatises on capitalism, Das Kapital, which masterfully combines historical analysis with philosophical depth. While his research was conducted privately at the British Museum, he published his ideas, theories, and critiques on capitalism in smaller, more accessible forms, such as articles and pamphlets, in various vernacular journals and newspapers. He made a concerted effort to interact with ordinary workers, participating in their meetings in order to spread his ideas. This is what is called praxis (integration of theory with practical lived action). Contemporary Indian historians, more than ever before, need to embrace this approach, connecting their scholarship to real-world struggles and to the realities of our time.

Today, historians need to infiltrate the spaces where history is being distorted. This may require creating their own podcasts, writing in vernacular languages, and being present on various digital platforms. Not sharing history inadvertently but effectively contributes to misleading and ideologically slanted historical narratives getting the upper hand.

In a democratic society, history, besides being a rigorous academic discipline, needs to be reoriented as a living tool of empowerment that helps people understand their place in the world and the forces that shape their lives. If people are to engage meaningfully with the present and work towards a better future, they must be able to access the past in a way that is both relevant and understandable to them, and which helps them contextualise society. When history becomes the ground upon which today’s struggles are waged, historians must come forward to equip the people with the means to comprehend and navigate their way forward.

If we concede that history is not merely an academic pursuit but a subject fraught with real-life consequences, then it becomes obvious that historians must take on the mantle of public service and understand the kind of responsibility that being a public intellectual places upon them.

Meaningful public discourse

There are compelling reasons to end the intellectual separation between the historian and the public. The idea goes far beyond just disseminating knowledge and involves creating a space for meaningful public discourse about the past in a way that embodies the broad spectrum of human experiences, emotions, and backgrounds. Historians are uniquely poised to combat the misappropriation of history in public discourse.

Historical truth is not something that we discover once and for all. It is a continuous struggle, as in every historical epoch people reinterpret the past in the light of their own present challenges and circumstances. Historians can serve as a guiding light for each age to properly relate to the past in a way that reflects the diversity of human experiences and perspectives.

Historians do not necessarily have the complete truth. They seek to unravel fragmented pieces that are always open to reinterpretation. In true Socratic fashion, they have to act as midwives to the truth. Historians must help a more complex and layered truth to be born into the consciousness of people, a process marked by the labour of confronting unsettling questions. This dialectical method of asking questions, which are directed at themselves as much as they are at others, makes people revisit an over-simplistic understanding of the past that is aimed solely at serving particular agendas.

History is fragile at its core. Without historians at the forefront of the struggle, aided by other social scientists to anchor us, we risk slipping into the ether of an imaginative past, where the disenfranchised are swept away like autumn leaves and obscured in the twilight of historical erasure.

Irshad Rashid is an independent researcher from Kashmir. Manzoor Ahmad Parey is an Assistant Professor, Higher Education Department, Jammu and Kashmir.