A sprout is seemingly rising up notwithstanding the current dry spell that the state is going through. Here, we are referring to the much needed public debate that has been missing all these while. By public debate, we do not mean the battle of words that we often heard from a JAC meeting, demanding justice against certain atrocities. Besides, there are also other forms of meetings with words abound having cluttered agendas with no specific outcomes. The debates we saw during the recent election were no debate at all. It was plain mudslinging between the political parties, or individuals in the fray riding on emotive bylines. By public debate, we mean an informed debate among the citizens, who by virtue of their wisdom and accomplishment have occupied a legitimate space in public life. Newspapers as a facilitator of public debate carry opinions in the forms of articles. But we have not witness a meaningful debate generating out of it among the public. The articles are left as decorative piece as though they are meant to fill the pages for a day. So to say, there is debate competitions organised routinely in the educational institutes. These debates also lack vitality. An indication, that our future citizens are also numbed in one crucial aspect; the dialectics of ideas and issues that propels a society to its boundless horizon of growth. Learning communities like college and university, in absence of a debating rigour, will produce citizens bereft of a critical eye. Yet, what is even more appalling is the debate which has lost among the familiar citizens.
This year’s observation of Khongjom Day has given a stimulus to a debate. Historian RK Jhalajit has challenged the date of the ‘Khongjom War’. It has been contested that the exact date of the war should be April 25 instead of 23. He has been joined by other scholars and activists who agree with him. Hegel, the German philosopher has been one thinker who has made extensible contribution in the approach of historical enquiry. He attempted to discover meaning or direction in history. He understood history as an intelligible process moving towards a specific condition – the realization of human freedom. According to him “history is the unfolding of spirit in time, as nature is the unfolding of the idea in space”. RG Collingwood, whose idea on history also hinges on the Hegelian view to a larger extent. He viewed history as not believing someone when he says that he remember something. The believer is not the authority. His conception of modern history begins with the rejection of scissor-and-paste view of history. That someone may have in possession of evidential material to support the date of an event. His historical enquiry does not end there. The historian must be the interpreter of the evidence. Collingwood historical exploration is best known for what has been called the ‘inside-outside’ theory of historical events. He illustrated his argument by citing the example of the Great Roman Civil War. By outside event Collingwood meant anything belonging to the event which can be described in terms of bodies and their movements: the passage of Caesar, accompanied by his army, across a river called Rubicon at a particular date, or spilling of his blood on the floor of the senate-house on another. By the inside event he meant that in which that can be described in terms of thought: Caesar’s defiance of Republican law, or the clash of constitutional policy between himself and his assassins. In the light of these propositions, what should be configured of the debate that is centred on the accuracy of the date of Khongjom War? Yes, accuracy of the date of the event has its primacy. But what about the meaning or direction of history, as Hegel had construed? Those who have engaged in the ‘Khongjom War’ debate are highly esteemed scholars in their own rights. The debate is timely, a prerequisite for validation of facts and figures. Our only submission is that the debate should not be about scoring brownie points. That such and such person has in possession of historical ‘documents’ and thereby one is entitled to flex the cerebellum muscles at a public platform, in lieu of that: we suggest a round table keeping aside the different world views that one may have. So that the inaccuracies could be ironed out for an event like the Khongjom Day.