Nationalist historians on sikh history

Abstract

Nationalist Historiography means that the historical writings produced or reproduced by the Indian historians highlight the Indian history from a national point of view. The national point of view represents the national culture and tradition. Every nation newlinehas its own culture and traditions and every nation wants to spread it. It can only be possible thought the literature. History is a newlinepart and parcel of literature, therefore, what history is written by a nation that represents its culture and traditions. That is called the nationalist historiography. The early decades to the twentieth century were dominated by an upsurge of religious nationalism. In Punjab Gokul Chand Narang was powerfully influenced by this nationalism of the period. He was the first historian of Sikh history who wrote a regular history of the Sikhs in 1912 under the title of Transformation of Sikhism. The second historian was principal Sita Ram Kohli who newlinewrote history of Maharaja Ranjit Singh from the national point of view. Similarly, the historians like Indubhusan Banerjee, N.K. newlineSinha and A.C. Banerjee also wrote Sikh history from the national view point. These historians interpret Sikh history as the freedom movement for India. According to these historians, Sikh movement brought renaissance among the Indians and as a result of this renaissance they waged a war against the Mughal rule. The Sikhs were the first people who uprooted the Mughal Empire in the newlinePunjab and established their rule. This was the national upsurge. These historians applauded the Sikh achievements in the field of politics. The thesis is centred on this point only. As a result of the efforts of all these nationalist historians, the Sikh history achieved an honourable place in Indian history. The achievements of the newlineSikh movement were regarded as the best Sikh contribution to the Indian nation. The Sikhs were regarded as warrior community of newlineIndia and the Punjab is regarded as the sword arm of India.