By Navneet Mishra

New Delhi, Feb 18 (IANS): The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh wants to initiate a debate on Indian history written so far. The RSS believes that till now historians have written Indian history narrowly and now is the time to revisit it.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will release a book titled 'Aitihasik Kaalgana: Ek Bhartiya Vivechan' on February 21 which raises serious questions on Indian historiography. The book is written by Ravi Shankar, director of the Centre for Civilisational Studies.

Ravi Shankar told IANS, "Historians have grossly ignored Indian sources while writing history. The major texts covering India's millions of years of history were in Sanskrit, but most historians did not have knowledge of Sanskrit and so they ignored these texts. In Indian history, the Indus Valley is taught, but the Mahabharata was not given a place. We need to take a relook at the history of India and the world."

Ravi Shankar said there are many problems with the history taught in India. The first problem is its antiquity. How ancient can India's history be? This question also arises because the history of the countries whose people are dominated in the world today is very small. The impact of the Christian history is on the Neo-European peoples of America, who believe that history is only 6,000 years ago.

He said, "Indian scholars were also caught under the influence of this ignorance of Europeans. Indian scholars also did not show the courage to accept the scriptural era as correct. Indian historians tried to put the history of India in the European style."

He said this book raises serious questions about the history taught in schools and colleges. Is India's history only 5,000 years old as taught in the NCERT books, or according to Indian tradition, is it millions of years old. This book is an attempt to understand the antiquity of the history of India and the world.