Historians have always taken lots of pain to present our past in front of us and for that we should be grateful to them. Without their efforts our pasts would have remained just a collection of legends and stories mired in a cacophony of rumours. But historians have a drawback. They think too much.
Lets talk about the period when kings had ruled the world. Historians have seen in all their acts some sense of economic, social or political reasoning. That is great I must admit. But do we always have to read economics or politics into their actions. Kings have been humans like us. They have been no incarnation of the divine, however much they may try to establish that fact. So just like us they must also have felt the pangs of jealousy, envy, greed, frustration, and submitted to whims and fancies without giving any thought to economics or politics. They may have been trained in the arts of political reasoning but at the end of the day they were humans who were aware of their military might. If I know that I have the backing of my troops, will I think of consequences when I want to do something? I would not and most wont. See what the sons of powerful people do and what the politicians do when they know that no one can touch them.
Keeping this in mind is it fair on our part to say that whatever kings did, they thought about the economic, social and political consequence of their action? Maybe they did in certain cases, but not all. Why do we always have to find these stereotype reasons behind the events in History? Can kings not have done something just because they wanted to without thinking? Does the historian always needs a reason to do something in life? I guess not. So I beg the historians, please let the kings be humans and let them act like one without always trying to find a reason behind them. I was so happy in my childhood when I read about the craziness of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq – he was as human as me. All this was shattered when I learnt that there were economic and political reasons behind them – I lost my crazy king. Has anyone of you heard of a crazy king? No. Because these historians have given them a divine stature. Does no one want to find the human side to our kings? I know I do.
Lets talk about the period when kings had ruled the world. Historians have seen in all their acts some sense of economic, social or political reasoning. That is great I must admit. But do we always have to read economics or politics into their actions. Kings have been humans like us. They have been no incarnation of the divine, however much they may try to establish that fact. So just like us they must also have felt the pangs of jealousy, envy, greed, frustration, and submitted to whims and fancies without giving any thought to economics or politics. They may have been trained in the arts of political reasoning but at the end of the day they were humans who were aware of their military might. If I know that I have the backing of my troops, will I think of consequences when I want to do something? I would not and most wont. See what the sons of powerful people do and what the politicians do when they know that no one can touch them.
Keeping this in mind is it fair on our part to say that whatever kings did, they thought about the economic, social and political consequence of their action? Maybe they did in certain cases, but not all. Why do we always have to find these stereotype reasons behind the events in History? Can kings not have done something just because they wanted to without thinking? Does the historian always needs a reason to do something in life? I guess not. So I beg the historians, please let the kings be humans and let them act like one without always trying to find a reason behind them. I was so happy in my childhood when I read about the craziness of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq – he was as human as me. All this was shattered when I learnt that there were economic and political reasons behind them – I lost my crazy king. Has anyone of you heard of a crazy king? No. Because these historians have given them a divine stature. Does no one want to find the human side to our kings? I know I do.
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