30 "Presenting" the Pastportrayed it as an idealist venture in which the Indian elite led the peo-
ple from subjugation to freedom. The subaltern historiography, however,
attempts to dismantle elitist historiography of both the colonialists and the
bourgeois-nationalists by decoding biases and value judgments in their
narratives. It also seeks to restore to the subaltern groups their agency, the
role in history as subjects with their own ideology and a political agenda.
It tries to recover "the contribution made by the people on their own, that
is, independently of the elite to the making and development of this [Indian]
nationalism" (italics in original).^53 Subaltern historiography has produced
a rich collection of theoretically informed historical studies by articulating
the hidden or suppressed accounts of various groups, such as women,
Dalits, peasants, urban poor, and other disadvantaged groups.
Communal interpretation of Indian history is quite notorious. In its com-
mon South Asian usage, communalism "refers to a condition of suspicion,
fear and hostility between members of different religious communities." In
academic investigations, it refers to "organized political movements based
on the proclaimed interests of a religious community, usually in response
to a real or imagined threat from another religious community (or com-
munities)."^54 Communalism is a modern ideology that incorporates some
aspects and elements of past ideologies, institutions, and historical back-
ground to form a new ideological and political discourse or mix. There
have been several reasons for the rise of communal historiography. First,
the Mughal period was still fresh in the memory of the people and could
not be glamorized. Second, the ancient past was remote and could be
known only through official texts. Third, a European bias was carried on as
the historians tended to project the Catholic-Protestant struggle into India
as Hindu-Muslim struggle.^55 Fourth, the communal approach was also to
some extent the product of a preoccupation with military-diplomatic his-
tory where considerations of religion were important. Fifth, the ideology
of nationalism stressed the notion of common language, culture, and his-
tory.^56 Most importantly, however, communalism came in handy for Indian
historians mainly because of "its ability to serve as 'vicarious' or 'backdoor'
nationalism." During the political struggle between the imperialist rulers
and the Indian masses, the Indian historians were unable to side with the
masses as they were employed in government institutions. Most of them
could not, at least emotionally, side with the rulers either. So communalism
enabled them to feel nationalistic without opposing imperialism and hurt-
ing their personal safety.^57
Communal historians were cunningly selective and crudely mislead-
ing. Although they maintained that Hindus and Muslims were distinct
sociopolitical entities and were not integrated into cohesive units at any
level, they conveniently rejected the view that Hindus or Muslims did not
form any cohesive units by themselves either. They accepted the Hindu-
Muslim approach of the British but rejected their contentions about castes,