History Lessons

Learn from history or you will be doomed to repeat its mistakes. This cliché has graced the ears of almost every student, scholar, or anyone trying to make a difference in the future. A plethora of people (from economists and businesses trying to make a profit to scientists hypothesizing the Big Bang) study the past to try to understand the future.

But what can we and should we really learn from history?

To answer that question, let us first look at three unique Indian scholars and revolutionaries- Gandhi, Savarkar, and Nehru- who came up with differing views of history and its usefulness as a learning tool while debating the best way to free their homeland from its past of British subjugation.

Gandhi believed that history recorded all the bad events that happened such as wars and famines, yet neglected good, peaceful events. To him, history is an inaccurate set of evidence that only focuses on the negative. Therefore, one should not learn from history, because one would be learning a message of violence and war.

The war of 1857

Similar to Gandhi’s view, Savarkar believed that there are many individual biased histories that do not tell the whole picture. However, according to Savarkar, distinct from those individual histories is a true, big history. To find it, one must look at the underlying causes for events that are buried in the individual histories. To Savarkar, learning from history was vital to freeing India. He published books of past rebellions, rephrasing words (such as changing the Mutiny of 1857 to the War of Independence) to have positive connotations. He encouraged Indians to see their history as one of people sticking up for their rights, not as one of loss. Savarkar wished for people to look upon this history as an inspiration to drive the British out of India. For him, the past was a method for the colonized to reclaim their future identity.

On the other hand, Nehru believed that people have no control over the past and that events have no beginning or end. Instead, events are an “unending chain” formed from “the wills, urges, and desires of innumerable human beings coalescing and conflicting with each other, and producing something different from that which any single individual intended to happen” (Nehru 480). Any intentionality is by chance. Therefore, one can not learn from the past to intentionally cause or prevent future events from happening.

So what is history? Is it an inaccurate set of events that should be ignored? Should it be used as an inspiration? Or can people never truly learn from the past at all?

As for myself, I can see all three views. People tend to share what they consider exciting, which rarely are peaceful events; simply look at the news- filled with car chases and shootings. At the same time there are many inspiring events in history- such as Rosa Parks’ famous decision- that cause people to take a stand and should not be ignored and forgotten. Although people can take inspiration from history, will their recreation of events really play out the same way? There are trillions of factors that play into an event occurring like it does; something one considers extremely minor and overlooks could be the deciding factor in whether or not an action gives the anticipated result. Think of the butterfly effect- that a butterfly flapping its wings could lead to a hurricane occurring in another part of the world. One can not predict the future from history because one can not predict the human mind; free will is what separates people from robots. So perhaps what history conveys is ideas, sentiments, and feelings of its participants and writers.

Gandhi, M K. Hind Swaraj. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Nehru, Jawaharlal. “Jawaharlal Nehru The Discovery of India.” Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1998.

Savarkar, Veer. “The Indian War of Independence of 1857. By an Indian Nationalist.” 1909.