ASI circular on tourist guides begs a question – who has the right to tell India’s history?
· Scroll
The Archaeological Survey of India’s circular in December on tourist guides at Red Fort has opened a larger debate: who gets to interpret the past?
Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
The circular states that only guides licensed by the Ministry of Tourism and endorsed by the Archaeological Survey of India may offer services inside the Red Fort. The rationale is that visitors deserve accurate information, accountability and professional standards.
But Delhi’s monuments have been more than tourist attractions. They have served as open classrooms where historians, teachers, students and passionate citizens have conducted heritage walks to understand the city’s layered history. These heritage walks are often more about engaging with architecture, politics, memory and culture.
The Archaeological Survey of India circular is an attempt to regulate whose interpretation and voices are allowed to reach the public. It ties in with the broader Hindutva project of selectively appropriating historical episodes and recasting history to suit its narrative, which is then widely amplified on social media, through popular literature and state-supported institutions.
Professional historians emphasise the value of academic training. Historical scholarship requires methodological discipline, source criticism and intellectual rigor. But public history has never been the exclusive domain of those with formal degrees or government licences.
Some of the most influential interpreters of Indian history have emerged from...