This was in the initial years of the 1970s when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was at the peak of her career. Her powerful personality had helped shape and define Indian politics, and Sanjay Gandhi was her strength. To glorify 25 splendid years of the country’s independence, she decided to bury a time capsule in the Red Fort complex.

The government was keen on documenting the first 25 years of the country — its developments, struggles — in the capsule. It also wanted to manuscript important events in history, along with contemporary achievements.

The Indira Gandhi government named this time capsule Kalpaatra. It assigned the task to the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) of drawing out significant happenings from the past. A professor of History from Madras Christian College, S Krishnaswamy, was to get the manuscript ready. But before any of this could materialize, the project got embroiled in controversies.

Krishnaswamy had sent a copy of the document to Archives Commissioner and celebrated historian T Badrinath for his opinion. But after a brief assessment, Badrinath said openly that the manuscript misrepresented historical facts.

The political circle, meanwhile, opposed Indira Gandhi's initiative, accusing her of exalting herself and her clan in the time capsule. Despite the hullabaloo, on August 15, 1973, Kalpaatra was suitably buried inside the Red Fort.

In 1977, the Congress government was overthrown and the Janata Party came to power under the leadership of Morarji Desai. The party had promised the people before elections that it would unearth Kalpaatra and reevaluate its contents.

A few days after the government was formed, the time capsule was disentombed. A few veteran journalists claim the capsule’s content was gravid with details about the accomplishments of Indira Gandhi and her father Jawaharlal Nehru.

Another interesting fact was that the Indira Gandhi government had spent a mere amount of Rs 8,000 to bury the capsule. The successive government, however, had to reportedly spend more than Rs 58,000 to exhume it.

That it was unearthed was known to all, but what happened to the capsule after that is not known. And nobody, till this day, is fully aware of its contents.

The Janata Party too never divulged many details. The controversial capsule made news in 2012, when the editor of Manushi Patrika, Madhu Kishwar, sought information on it from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). In its reply, the PMO said it did not have any details. Kishwar approached the National Information Commission too.

The Indira Gandhi government had set a time frame of 1,000 years for extracting the copper capsule. It wanted the forthcoming generations to have a rendezvous with India’s magnificent past.

Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory that helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honours. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

An eminent Indian author has quoted the following sample of Marxist history–writing in one of his essays:

In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a “Time Capsule” buried in Delhi. That was during the Emergency. Indira Gandhi lost the 1977 election. Janata Party formed the Government. It was then rumored that the madam got the Time Capsule buried to make herself immortal in history. It must be a sheer eulogy of the Nehru family. Janata Party government exhumed the Time-Capsule. It contained the history of our times in just three thousand words. There were no other names in it - not ever the name of Mahatma Gandhi. It was said that the writer was paid three to four lakhs Rupees. The matter was thrust upon him. It was all about Nehru, Nehru, Indira, Indira--only that he was forced to write.

Later on, an article by that writer who was a professor from Madras was published. He wrote that Dr. Sarvepalli Gopal called him to Delhi and entrusted him that job. He was only paid living expenses in Delhi, which was so inadequate that he was required to spend from his own pocket. What to talk of lacs, he was not paid a single rupee. Neither Indiraji nor any of her henchmen said anything to him. He was asked to write history in 3000 words, which he did.

This was a small specimen of the principle or art of Marxist history writing in India (The time quoted in the above quotation is wrong. The ‘Time Capsule’ was buried in the Red Fort at the hands of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: on August 15, 1973, and was brought out on Dec. 8, 1977, in the presence of Pratap Chandra, the then Union Education Minister).

Dr. Krishnaswamy had written such a distorted account of modern India under the guidance of Prof. S. Gopal for the benefit of the humanity of the distant future. Prof. Gopal was earlier an officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later was made a Professor of History in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. When the Time Capsule was removed, Prof. Gopal was the Chairman of the Centre for Historical Studies in JNU. The comments of Prof. Gopal and other Marxist historians over the history text put in the Time Capsule were most amusing. They are perfect examples not only of their sense of history but also of their moral standards and political opportunism.

Who is a Marxist Historian?

Who can be called a Marxist historian? There was a time when many like Ram Sharan Sharma, Bipan Chandra, Iran Habib boastfully called themselves Marxist historians. There were also other Marxists or crypto-Marxists who preferred to call themselves only ‘progressive’, ‘modern’, ‘new’ etc. to assert their non-party approach. This was because of the democratic setup in India where an open party-mindedness could also be taken as a sign of prejudice in the eyes of the broad intellectual circle of the country. But the phrases, terminology, and mode of analysis of this later group of historians were the same as found in Marxist writings. The situation has greatly changed since those days.

Those who claimed to be Marxists three decades ago now hesitate to do so. For instance, Ram Sharan Sharma now claims he is ‘only a historian’. The rest have also started using adjectives like ‘secular’, ‘liberal’ etc. so that they may not lose their name and fame in the wake of the heavy devaluation of Marxism in the world market. Therefore, they have started using different phrases instead of well-known Marxist ones. For example ‘group struggle’ in place of ‘class struggle’, ‘economic structure’ in place of ‘production relations’ etc. Similarly, they now contrast ‘Secular’ and ‘Communal’ in the place of earlier ‘Progressive’ and ‘Reactionary.' But a careful reading of their articles, books, speeches expose their old allegiance to the Marxist superstitions. After all, from where can they get a new set of ‘world outlook’ unless they totally discard Marxist dogmas and political orthodoxy connected with it? Since they have not done this, we may regard such historians as Marxists based on their writings, political activism, organizational associations, and mutual support. This will be so even though many of them now pose that they are not Marxists, that they have just used some Marxist categories in studying history, and so on.

Sarvepalli Gopal

In a detailed interview published in the leftist weekly Link, Prof. S. Gopal asserted, “It was as ridiculous to dig up the time capsule as it was to bury it.” He incidentally evaluated the two governments responsible for the two acts. “It is tragic that we have replaced a right-wing fascist dictatorship with a right-wing communal reactionary Government.”

In other words, Prof. Gopal showered some of the choicest abuses from the Marxist lexicon on the two governments, one led by Mrs. India Gandhi and the other which replaced it. At the time he was accompanied by his worthy colleague Prof. Bipan Chandra when he made this statement. Have our learned readers ever read or heard of this evaluation of the Indira Gandhi government by Marxist historians? Does Prof. Bipin Chandra who has been receiving all kinds of lucrative positions, honours, and rewards from the successive Congress governments for years accept or accepted India Gandhi as a ‘right-wing fascist dictator’? Only recently he has described the Indira Gandhi of 1971-77 as, “standing for the unity and independence of the country and in particular of being secular and pro-poor”.

It was for the same Indira Gandhi then Prof. Gopal used the epithet ‘right-wing fascist dictator’ with Prof. Bipan Chandra standing by his side. Does this kind of time-serving not expose the political opportunism of all Marxist professors who evaluate a political leader or government according to the current political situation and issue pompous statements? Does it all go well with Prof. Gopal’s scholarly abilities or moral norms that first he got a distorted version of history written for a government and then condemned the same government as ‘right-wing’ and ‘fascist’? In his entire statement, he never touched the historical text as put in the Time Capsule. Why? Was Mrs. India Gandhi responsible for the exact text written therein?

The two Marxist historians very cleverly avoided this real issue with the journalist interviewing them. Finally, what is the logic behind the argument about digging up the Time Capsule, that correcting a mistake was also a mistake? This incident hints at the political sleight of hand of our Marxist professors whose actual worth was concealed only by the hallow of high posts they held thanks to the patronage obtained by the very ‘right-wing fascist dictators’.

Giving a devastating portrait of Prof. S. Gopal, Raj Thapar (sister-in-law of Romila Thapar and founder of the prestigious monthly Seminar) wrote:

keeping himself covered from all angles, sitting comfortably away… but making noises that could be turned into at some later date as proof of his commitment, entertaining thoughts of a position even higher…collecting feathers from wherever they fell to make the nest cushier. ... There is a cold ruthlessness (and) …a superior aloofness. - Raj Thapar

These lines enable us to appreciate Prof. Gopal’s ambivalent statements after Indira Gandhi’s defeat in 1977. It is worth recalling that Raj and Romesh Thapar were actively involved with the Communist Party of India for a long time during the 1940s to early 1950s and were highly influential during the early years of Indira Gandhi’s rule. With their help, many Marxists had occupied top positions. In other words, the Thapars’ experiences with the Marxist intellectuals were first-hand and most authentic.

The Marxist Intrigue Around Indira Gandhi's Time Capsule

Fortunately for us, the aforementioned account about the Time Capsule was written by Harishankar Parsai who was himself a well-known Marxist litterateur. Since he was in the field of literature, he cannot be charged with any prejudices when he criticized the Time Capsule enterprise of these Marxist historians. In fact, he was dwelling on some other subject and the incident was taken as an example of scholarship.

Secondly, the incident of Indira Gandhi's Time Capsule is historically so recent that the whole thing can be easily examined afresh. It must, however, be noted that this incident regarding Indira Gandhi’s Time Capsule has been all but removed from the memory of the academic circles which testifies the Marxist skill in distortion and cover-ups. The text which was written for the historical Time Capsule more than thirty years ago is not available in any debate or discussion of contemporary history! Even a reference to it is seldom made. But those acquainted with the Time Capsule episode perfectly know that it was but a tiny specimen of partisan and frivolous history writing. According to an R. Prasannan:

There was hardly any history in it, let alone its Congress version. - R Prasannan The Week23 January 2000

Now, let us examine an interesting but representative example of how Marxist historians refer to that specimen of Marxist history writing as put in the Time Capsule. In the mysterious and curious words of Prof. K N Panikkar, another eminent Marxist historian: 

Indira Gandhi had taken a keen interest in the writing of history; (she) even embedded at the Red Fort in Delhi an official version of history in a time capsule. Their (Nehru and Indira’s) engagement was integral to the nature of their politics: the creation of a secular nation out of the diverse religious communities into which the people were organisationally, ideologically, and emotionally divided. The attempt, therefore, was to retrieve the past from the colonial distortions and thus construct a nationalist history, which would reinforce the sense of commonness that the anti-colonial struggle had proffered. More important, to call attention to the fact that the secular character of the nation is not a contemporary construction but a part and continuation of its historical experience.

How cleverly the truth about the laughable history written for the Time Capsule is covered up by the eminent Marxist professor! The political beauty of this statement is indeed admirable. On the one hand, Prof. Panikkar silently dissociates Marxists from the history text put in the Time Capsule, so that if someone had heard about its absurdities may not know about its authorship connected to the Marxist historians; and on the other, with greater cunning tries confidently to thrust his own political line and concoction under the garb of presenting Indira Gandhi’s concern for history. The incident and statements regarding the Time Capsule fully represent the craft and craftiness of Marxist historians and their way of history writing.

It is worth noticing how shrewdly Prof. Panikkar covers up the entire period of Islamic rule in India. Its foreign and invading character, its bigotry, various atrocities on Hindus with mass killings, destroying temples, imposing Jazia tax, converting Hindus by force and different methods, making slaves and selling them to Arab markets, etc. All these barbaric acts have been neatly concealed and transformed into a ‘secular historical experience’. With what daring Panikkar tries to paint the entire period of Islamic rulers as the precursor of the present secular character of the Indian nation! This cannot be appreciated without understanding the essentially political propagandist nature of Marxist historians.

And to do this, we must understand the essentially universal characteristics of Marxist history-writing. An inquiry that leads us all the way back to more than a century. To Soviet Russia.

To be continued

References:

dharmadispatch.in - Shankar Saran