THOSE 10-12 boys and girls -- all in their teens -- knew very little about that great moment of history -- Coronation of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj that took place 350-plus years ago. Today, as the nation organises festivities to mark that occasion, good numbers of youngsters get to know something about the Coronation of Shivaji Maharaj The Great. Unfortunately, they are not in a position to tell the details -- since those are rarely told to them in our homes and schools and colleges. In other words, our history does not form a subject of our social consideration. That explains the general lack of information of our glorious past among not just young generations but also among older people as well.

 

As the preparations were afoot near the statue of Shivaji Maharaj to celebrate the moment of Coronation, the loud-thinker sought to open the subject with a group of youngsters that had gathered for whatever reason:

His first question was: What is this Coronation business?

The answers were confused. The next question was about the year the Coronation of Shivaji Maharaj took place.

Again, no answer. Third question -- What is the importance of the Coronation and why should we celebrate it now?

Blank faces -- was the response.

THAT said so much -- about our apathy to history. That also brought to fore the poverty of our culture where telling stories has not longer remained an integral part of the family sanskaar. In schools, too, the teachers hardly find time and inclination to share with their students anecdotes and events of history so that the little ones get properly acquainted with our country’s history.

The loud-thinker is less worried about lack of precise information about dates of history’s great moments such as Coronation of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Those can be garnered from any source. But the real worry is about the absence of interpretation of metaphors of history.

The Coronation of Shivaji Maharaj has to be viewed from that standpoint. The period in which the Coronation took place, the background of social, cultural, religious, political and economic history up to that point in time, the condition of extreme paucity of resources in which Shivaji Maharaj operated -- all these factors make the moment of Coronation very special. The story of Coronation of Shivaji Maharaj, thus, is the story of a great revival of Indian nationhood against every possible odd.

 

This story needs to be told by us to ourselves. This story must become an integral part of the larger story of our past that showed how the Indian society protected itself against every possible invasion of the most unjust kind, of the most cruel type, of the most

criminal nature. The moment of the Coronation of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj turned into a metaphor of the entire successful struggle lasting not just for decades but also for centuries. When Shivaji Maharaj was coronated, he proved to be the first Indian king whose writ assumed a constitutionality that was missing in the Indian discourse for centuries.

 

This needs to be told by us to ourselves. This is our story and we must know it in good detail. And this ‘we’ includes all of us -- the young and the old, the men and women, and of course the children ! For, this is not just the story of any warrior getting anointed as King. For, Shivaji Maharaj was not just an ordinary king. He was a King of Kings, and his story needs to be told.

Of course, the story of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is also the story of his long struggle that he launched at the tender age of 14 years. Out of nothing came up an empire that controlled more than half of India of those days. The story of Shivaji Maharaj is also the starting point of the great Maratha Empire that controlled the whole of India -- every inch -- a little over a hundred years after Shivaji Maharaj was gone.

This part of Indian history is not to be told for the sake of entertainment (through terribly made television serials and shockingly ahistorical movies). It needs to be told so that our succeeding generations are well informed about the rhyme and reason of our existence as the Indian nation -- for the sake of tomorrow when the country will be the leader among all the countries of the world. That moment is not far. But we have to prepare for it. And to achieve that, we have to stand on the foundation of our past. For, didn’t somebody sagely say, in effect, that when a country ignores its own history, it prepares itself to become part of history !