Despite all our supposed high vaunted “progress”, we remain a confused nation ... one step forward, three steps back. Unfortunately that extends even to the “stories” we create about ourselves.

In January last year, a respected Meghnad Desai questioned the number of lives lost as per claims in the most venerated of our epics, the Mahabharat.

Contesting the figure of two million dead, he wondered how it would be possible for that ground to hold that many corpses when no bodies were cleared till the end of the 18th day ....

Imagine the stink of degenerative flesh and warriors continuing nevertheless.? Where did so many warriors spring from.? Quoting from historical population figures, Desai revealed that at 500BC, India’s population was reckoned at 25 million; but since the Great War covered only North India, total population would be much less and number of warriors?

“Were there enough men on ground to fight that battle? Could two million have died? Where did they cook? .....bath? Clean the bodies of the dead ? How did they manage?” That question is juxtaposed against the mention of the exact figure of 21,821 horses used!

Another phenomenon is Rename, never mind if it is longwinded names no one would recall? To commemorate a prime ministerial visit to the Andaman and Nicobar islands in December 2018, three of the archipelago islands were renamed: Havelock became Swaraj Dweep, not just Swaraj; Neil Island became Shaheed Dweep (aah , that Angreziness) and Ross Island became a mouthful of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Dweep. Who will remember even NSCB Dweep, rather than just Bose?

The residents of the islands, whether original tribals, migrants, settlers, officials or retired officials who waited for some resolution to their issues got new names for their homeland, that started the process of erasing the past, the century and a half process of colonisation, stationing of imprisoned revolutionaries and settlers gradually pushing back the native tribes in number and space. .... famously put “ what gets swept away is neither Mughal or British history, but our own past”, says a professor of history.