New History of the Marathas v1.c2.8

v1.c2.8

An extreme form of national pride had hitherto kept our modern Maratha historical workers back from using the English language, which is the only medium that can reach all parts of India and also make their researches available to the civilized world in general. The most glaring example of this mental attitude was the great explorer and life-long devotee of the muse of history in Maharashtra, the late Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade. Had he and other workers of his school published the results of their investigations in English, instead of exclusively in Marathi, they would have reached students of history all over India and enabled Maratha history to become a fruitful subject of higher study and criticism in our Indian Universities, and thus speeded up a healthy advance in our knowledge of this subject. Rajwade’s scholarly dissertations on various historical topics, his illuminating discussions of problems of philology, grammar and religion as also the researches of the Poona Itihas Samshodhak Mandal, have for this reason remained a sealed book to all other provinces of India and indeed to the rest of the non-Marathi world.