DEMOCRATISE HISTORY ... 1

DEMOCRATISE HISTORY ... 1

It is best to give everybody due credit for the work they have done for the advancement of human society. But, sadly, so many are brushed aside or neglected unto oblivion when chronicling history from the victor's preferred point, his prejudiced perspective. The masses who laboured to found civilisation and died in the process, their silent sacrifice remains buried beneath the sands of time beside their bodies. The love and care of mothers, sisters and daughters that held humanity in its arms, nourished and nurtured civilisation, their tales are lost in the alleyways of memory. Only the prominent ones who conquered, shed rivers of blood and built monuments on the skeletons of the conquered, they are remembered as masters of man, the shapers of history which indeed they largely were. But could any mighty monarch have built his empire without the labour of the masses, the common toiling men who have ever been the bridge upon which civilisation has made her rapid strides? And even in chronicling the life and achievements of the great ones, how many other equally great ones have been cast into oblivion by the perfidious hand of the court historian commissioned only to eulogise his victorious master? It is time to rectify this unseemly historical slant by democratising history. Let everyone get his due share in historical mention, in historical chronicling, in historical remembrance, even as each one had contributed his due share of labour in the shaping of history. 

Written by Sugata Bose