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Let us begin by recalling the most quoted dictum of Leopold von Ranke:
History has been assigned to it the office of judging the past and of instructing the present for the benefit of the future ages. To such high offices, the present work does not presume; it seeks only the past as it really was.1
This von Ranke wrote in 1824. To this all subscribe, though few are familiar with the context. In 1836 Leopold von Ranke made another assertion which many shall contest:
Every state is given a special moral character from God and individuals should strive to best fulfill the idea of the state.2
By this observation he clearly concluded that the French Revolution (1789) was for France only, not for Prussia (or Germany). Let us come now to the twenty-first century. This is what Professor Madeleine Albright wrote a few years ago:
One reason why so many adults become fanatics is, that as children, they are taught a history distorted by parochial obsessions3
This, she does not say with reference to Pakistan, she characterizes it as a common phenomenon. What I wish to bring to your kind attention today, is nothing more than what Professor Albright has said. The impulse of history is to generalize, all the great historians have strived to give explanations of human past on the basis of generalization; yet we tend to localize, and when we localize we tend to condemn ourselves.
The Historicus vol. LIX, No. 1 (January to March 2011) carries from the popular press, writings under the title: "History Must Not Lie". The first article was written by Dr. Shahid Javed Burki.4 The title itself is a reflection on the members of the Pakistan Historical Society. Are we liars? Do we deserve strictures of this nature? Do we need to be lectured to? I am myself the author of a history book: A Concise History of Pakistan. I mention my own book5 only to establish my right to reply; otherwise M. Rafique Afzal's Pakistan: History and Politics 1947-19716 and Nadeem Qasir's Pakistan Studies7 should be mentioned ahead of my book. Why he accuses the writers of history books of lying is explained most pointedly in this passage by Shahid Burki:
The movement was led...