Rashomon
Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa is a classic that examines truth. A murder is described by four witnesses: a bandit, a samurai’s wife, a woodcutter, and the dead samurai himself. Each version is different. Kurosawa explores how truth changes when seen from different perspectives and motives.
Timur
A few weeks ago, I was returning from the Bukhara Biennale and had a few hours to while away in Tashkent. Next to my hotel was the Amir Timur Museum. I vaguely recalled his attack on Delhi and the massacres that followed. Wondering how he and his conquests would be portrayed, I decided to visit the museum.
It was then I realized that he was designated the Father of Uzbekistan and celebrated as a renaissance man. It struck me that even here there was a Rashomon-like situation with four perspectives on the same figure or his legacy.
1. Marxists in the USSR
Under Soviet rule, Timur was depicted as a feudal warlord and a symbol of oppression. Marxists viewed his life through the lens of class struggle and exploitation.
2. Nationalists in Uzbekistan
After the collapse of the USSR, nationalists in Uzbekistan remade him as their father of the nation. Textbooks were rewritten, statues were installed, and a museum was built to honor his legacy. He is now seen as the builder of their nation, a patron of art, science, and architecture, and a unifier of Central Asia.
If the Soviets used him to condemn power and oppression, the Uzbeks used him to construct their identity.
3. Marxists in India
Funnily, in India, the same Marxist lens that condemned Timur in Moscow glorified his descendants in Delhi. The Mughals, Babur, Akbar, and Aurangzeb were portrayed as enlightened rulers who shaped a “composite culture.” Each one of the rulers had a separate chapter describing their rule in the history books. However, their temple destructions, forced conversions, and genocides were either ignored or made “contextual.” Other local kings like the Cholas, the Marathas, and the Vijayanagara rulers were consigned to a paragraph.
4. Nationalists in India
When the current nationalist government came to power in 2014, everyone expected that the history books would be revamped. For the first two terms, nothing changed. The education minister even took pride in saying that not a single sentence in old textbooks have been changed. Only during the third term have we begun to see change. The Mughals are now being correctly portrayed, and long-ignored kingdoms are finally being given their due. The Marxist cataract that blinded the previous governments is now removed and a slow process has begun to present a more accurate perspective. We have yet to see how much the pendulum will swing to the other side leading in turn to an accusation of ideological bias from the Left
5. Launch of Grokpedia
The launch of Grokpedia last week brought to light the ideological bias within Wikipedia. Many people on the Right have earlier spoken about being unable to make changes to their own pages. Editors with Marxist leanings routinely prevent edits that challenge their worldview.
Now, however, we have an alternative with Grokpedia, a new platform powered by AI. Comparisons of some of the pages between Wikipedia and Grokpedia show the Marxist/Leftist slant that Wikipedia has.
Conclusion
I wonder whether technology and AI can truly solve the problem of discovering truth and presenting it objectively without any ideological bias be it Right or Left. I guess it will take both technology and competition. Any monopoly, by its very nature, in spite of the best intentions, will drift towards an ideological bias, whether Left or Right. Google, whose motto once was “Don’t be evil,” manipulates search results based on the ideology of the few engineers running it. Thankfully, we now have multiple players and competition in search.
As I walked out of the museum, I saw a washroom. I went in and expressed my peaceful protest.
Hari’s Curries
A Buffet of Reflections