THE Indian History Congress is the largest body of professional historians of not only India, but the entire South Asia. Its list of membership runs into thousands and covers almost the entire subcontinent. This year too, our members from Bangladesh and even from Egypt and US attended the sessions.

Founded in 1935-36 at Allahabad, with its first session at Pune, the Indian History Congress has always been regularly held, except for the years 1974 (Partition) and 1971 (Indo-Pak War). Even during the pandemic in 2020, we held a two-day online session in which a number of senior historians delivered lectures.

The Indian History Congress stands for a scientific and secular approach towards history, and we have always stood for democratic traditions. Whether it was the Emergency imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi, or the vandalism in the name of religious bigotry since 1991, or attacks on Indian secularism, the IHC has always been at the forefront to oppose such moves. We strive for a fact-based history based on primary records from the past and oppose mythification of history.

This is the second time that the IHC session was held at the Kakatiya University at Warangal. We still remember and cherish the earlier fruitful IHC session held at the same place in 1993 under the able leadership of Professor Bobbili, the then head, Department of History, Kakatiya University in whose memory, on December 30, the secretary of IHC, Professor Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi along with outgoing president Professor KesavanVeluthat, were asked by Professor T Ramesh, vice chancellor of Kakatiya University to inaugurate a reading room in the Department of History, Kakatiya University.

The three-day session of the IHC included presentation of research papers under sixsections: ancient, medieval, modern, countries other than India, archaeology and contemporary Indian history in which 1070 research papers were presented over a period of three days. 

This session of IHC also saw three special panels: one on Indian economy, the second on Deccan, and a third on dalit history. The IHC panel on the history and culture of the region entitled ‘Deccan Past and Present’ was co-organised by the IHC along with the University of Hyderabad and coordinated by Professor Sanjay Subodh. 12 scholars presented research papers in this panel. In the panel entitled ‘Reconstructing Indian Economic History’, which was organised by Aligarh Historians Society (AHS) the keynote address was by the famous historian, and Professor Emeritus at AMU, Professor Irfan Habib. Professor Kesavan Veluthat, Professor Rajan Gurukkal, Professor Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Rajshekhar Basu were amongst the dozen historians who presented their papers in it. The panel on dalits had 18 presentations.

Apart from these sessions, two special lectures: one by Professor Krishna Mohan Shrimali (formerly of Delhi University) on sanatan dharma, and another (the SC Mishra Memorial Lecture) by Professor Kundan Lal Tuteja (formerly of Kurkshetra University) on ‘Visions of Hindu Identity and Indian Nationalism’ were also organised. Two well-known historians (Professor R Mahalakshmi, JNU, and Professor Arun Bandopadhyay, formerly of Calcutta University, Kolkata, delivered lectures in the symposium of IHC entitled ‘Reason and Ideology in Indian History’.

At the start of the session, Professor Aditya Mukherjee (JNU) took charge as the general president from the outgoing general president Professor Kesavan Veluthat (Kerala). His presidential address was on ‘Jawaharlal Nehru in our Past, Present and Future’. Professor Shalini Shah (ancient India section), Professor Najaf Haider (medieval India), Professor Sajal Nag (modern India), Professor S Srinath (countries other than India), Professor Seema Bawa (archaeology) and Professor Kalpana Kannabiran (contemporary India) were our sectional presidents. Unfortunately, as Professor Najaf Haider was unwell and hospitalised, the duties of the sectional president, medieval India were performed by Professor Syed Jabir Raza, the treasurer of the IHC and the senior professor of field.
The executive committee meeting of the IHC held on December 29 chose Professor Gautam Sengupta (former DG, ASI) as the next general president. The two vice presidents elected were Professor KesavanVeluthat and Professor Shireen Moosvi. Professor Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi (AMU was re-elected as the secretary, Professor S Jabir Raza (AMU) as treasurer, Professor Manvendra Kumar Pundhir (AMU) and Professor Rajshekhar Basu (Kol) as joint secretaries.

The various sectional presidents elected are: Professor R Mahalakshmi, JNU (ancient India), Professor Abha Singh, IGNOU (medieval India), Professor Umesh Bagade, Aurangabad (modern India), Professor GJ Sudhakar, Chennai (countries other than India), Professor Maxia Gandhi (archaeology, and Professor Sebastian Joseph (contemporary India). A total of 20 historians, including Professor Irfan Habib and Professor Rajen Saikia (Guwahati) and Prof Rajan Gurrukkal (Kerala) were elected unopposed as the executive members.

A number of awards and prizes (seven for books, and 11 for papers) were also given away during the inaugural function. The historian who has been chosen for a lifetime achievement award (given every five years) is the well-known Professor Ramchandra Guha. The Barpujari award for the best book published on Indian History (given once in two years) was given to Professor KM Shrimali. Professor Aloka Parasher Sen, late Dr Zakir Husain, Dr Epsita Halder, Professor KL Tuteja, Professor Aishika Chakraborty and Dr Snigdha Singh were the others whose books were given various categories of awards.

Similarly, 11 young scholars will also be given away various awards and prizes on their respective research submissions made in the last session held at Madras Christian College, Chennai in 2022.

During the business meeting of the IHC held on the last day, six important resolutions were passed. The first of these re-iterated the IHC resolutions of the previous two years and dealt with the NEP

and the tampering being done in the history syllabi by the government of the day. The second resolution too was a re-iteration of our past resolutions and dealt with protection of the monuments. We once again try to stress our position that the various Protection of Monument Acts passed by our parliament should not be ignored and the character of our past heritage be not changed or tampered with. The third resolution once again urges the ASI to restart its practice of publishing its archaeological reports in a timely manner and to restart the publication of its own journals like Ancient India. The fourth resolution puts forward the dismay of the citizens of India and the professional historians at the way that the National Museum is being tampered with. We urge the government of India, not only to safeguard the artifacts on display but also ensure that none gets damaged due to this unfortunate shift to a premise inappropriate for a National Museum. In the fifth resolution the IHC and its members express their concerns at what the Israel and the US have been doing at Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to displacement of the hapless Palestinians from their homeland. The last (sixth) resolution strongly urges the senseless action of the government to remove such an important heritage structure such as Sunehri Masjid, a Mughal era monument which incidentally had not been touched even by our colonial masters when they were constructing their colonial capital at Delhi.