Q.What enquiry did Professor Gaitonde make at the Forbes building, what answer did he receive, and how did he interpret it? (Answer in 30–40 words.)

Historical Research Methodology: The Detective Work of the Past

Imagine you walk into a room where a crime has just happened. You weren't there. You can't rewind time. All you have are the objects left behind — a broken cup, a muddy footprint, a half-written note. Your job is to figure out what actually happened, in the correct sequence, and why.

That is exactly what a historian does. Historical research methodology is the systematic process of investigating the past using the traces it has left behind. It is not about memorising dates or stories. It is about reconstructing a reliable account of events that no one can observe directly.

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The Core Problem: You Cannot Go Back

The fundamental challenge of history is that the past is gone. You cannot interview a Roman soldier or watch the signing of a treaty. All you have are sources — the surviving fragments. A source might be a letter, a coin, a photograph, a building, a court record, or even a piece of pottery.

The methodology exists because these fragments are:

• Incomplete — most of the past leaves no trace.
• Biased — every source was created by someone with a purpose, a perspective, and an agenda.
• Corrupted — sources get lost, damaged, mistranslated, or deliberately altered over time.

So the historian's job is not to "find the truth" in a source. It is to interrogate the source, cross-examine it against other sources, and build the most probable account.

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The Two Pillars: Heuristics and Hermeneutics …