Ravi the blogger

Took part in heritage walk at the Madras High Court organized by INTACH and lead by advocate N. L. Rajah. It was the first heritage walk that I've ever participated in and it exceeded all my expectations. Now hours after the walk is over, I would say that if you are a heritage buff you are surely missing something if you haven't participated in the walk. I feel glad to have done so and I wish to participate in one or two more future editions as well. Thanks, INTACH for providing it free-of-cost but even if they hadn't, I would've still attended it. The walk was officially flagged off at the old lighthouse. Rajah explained that the lighthouse was constructed between 1835 and 1842 on what was then the Esplanade, a vast patch of flat, empty land overlooking Blacktown. The walk leader then explained how the the area was bombed twice - in the first as well as the Second World War and made a passing reference to the revolutionary Champakaraman Pillai. Then, he dropped an in

Perhaps there is no other country in the world where history writing is as controversial as in India. History has been constantly politicized right from the time of British rule that it has become seemingly impossible to discern falsehood from the truth. This is not to say that history was never used as a propaganda tool in other parts of the world. We have the classic examples of Victorian England and Nazi Germany. But nowhere does  the ground situation offer scope for higher politicization than the countries of South Asia. And being a country of enormous proportions and varying multitudes each pursuing their own agenda, India was always a hotbed of distortions and falsifications. Traditions of history writing in India could be broadly classified into two schools - left wing Communist and right wing Hindu nationalist . Each school of historians have had their heyday in turn (currently, it is the ascendancy of the Hindu right) and each have introduced their own dosage of venom to pol