How Distorted History is Destroying Indian Society: A Summary-Analysis of Romila Thapar’s “Reporting History: Early India”
Kas 152 Summary-Analysis
In the midst of historical distortions perpetrated by Hindutva radicals to promote their politico-religious ideologies, the media has a very crucial role on propagating the proper and nuanced view of Indian history to the public. Unfortunately, the dominant Bharatiya Janata Party currently controls not only the textbooks, but also the state media which they use to spread Hindu nationalist history designed to further fuel a divide in the religious diversity of the Indian subcontinent.
Secular historians such as Romila Thapar are thus fighting an uphill battle to combat these simplistic and divisive narratives. At the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on May 3, 2012, Thapar presented a lecture in front of student journalists and other media personnel about the importance of disseminating public history, especially about how the media should report ancient Indian history. The document “Reporting History: Early India” is therefore a transcription of this lecture.
The main thesis of her argument is about tackling the current broken state of the public perception of ancient Indian history, and how it originated from the flawed historical periodization by British orientalists in the 19th century until it was exacerbated by the politically-motivated historical distortion of religious extremists to the present day.
Defining first history as “a construction of the past in which various historians attempt to explain what happened and why,” Thapar started with how British scholars felt the need to develop a history for the Indians which rooted from their assumption that India has no sense of history due to the absence of historical writing during the antiquity. It all began with James Mill’s 1819 book “A History of British India” where he divided Indian history into three major periods: (1) Hindu period, (2) Muslim period, and (3) British period. This kind of periodization implies the colonial argument that the history of Indian society is all about the clash between religious communities. That is to say, each period was defined by the religion of the ruling dynasties, and the majority religious community is to be hailed as the “natives” of the Indian subcontinent.
This eventually led to the British Census of 1882, where the colonial government classified Indian population by boxing them in terms of their respective religious communities. Since Hindus were the defined majority, it was then assumed that they ruled over the minorities like Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and many more. It forever scarred Indian society, as it later developed into the “Two Nations” theory of Indian Muslims and their ongoing conflicts with Indian Hindus that was made worse by the 1947 Partition.
Of course, these colonialist interpretations have encountered resistance from Indian intellectuals, and formed their nationalist ideologies to oppose the British rule. But Thapar pointed out that most of these same intellectuals never actually analyzed where, why, and how these colonial theories emerged in the first place. In fact, they even accepted their flawed periodization to be true. For example, the three period was replaced into (1) Ancient, (2) Medieval, and (3) Modern. But the ancient and medieval periods were still equated into the Hindu and Muslim period.
Nationalist historians hailed ancient India (from the Vedic Period until the fall of Gupta) as a “virtual utopia” where society was in an unchanging harmony in accordance to the norms laid down by the dharmashastra. The downfall therefore of Hindu glory began with the invasions of Muslims that started from the Mamluk Dynasty. This is now the part where Thapar illustrated the relationship between history and nationalism. All kinds of nationalisms necessitate a romantic utopian past, which is easier to conjure up because of the limited evidence that we have for the ancient period.
There is also a conflict of interests. Most nationalist historians, which mostly belong from upper castes, are hesitant to question the agenda and purpose of ancient texts, which were also written by the elites focusing on what they think and did. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s when secular historians started to ground Indian history from evidence instead of ideologies, as well as studying the past from the lens of lower castes. Thapar said that Hindu nationalist historians never really decolonized themselves from colonial influence because they still hold on to the religious, caste, and linguistic identities that the British colonial power imposed to them.
She then proceeded into clearing up misconceptions, beginning from challenging the notion of ancient India, from Harappan civilization until the fall of Gupta, being a long, unchanging period of Hindu prosperity. Aside from Hinduism not being a thing in the Indus Valley civilization, there also never was a unified Hinduism, nor any kind of Hinduism that resembles its current versions. All of the major historical changes that happened such as the rise of protest religions (Jainism, Buddhism, etc.) against the dominant Vedic Brahmanism, cannot just be compressed as the Hindu period.
It was also erroneous to say that the Hindu period ended with Muslim invasions that spread Islam by the sword, Thapar reminded. The Muslim invasions were not a one-time event, but a series of conquests carried out by various Muslim tribes to various parts of the subcontinent in a span of centuries. In addition, Islamic conversions were mostly done by peaceful Sufi Muslims, who allowed the syncretic mixing of Muslim beliefs with local cultures. As a result, the religion of the common people was mixed versions of various religions, which means almost nobody in the lower castes identified themselves as exclusively Hindu nor Muslim. Such identities only came during the British colonial rule.
Another myth was the idea of Hindu civilization coming from Aryan culture and being the indigenous culture of India. Civilizations do not emerge onto itself without the influence and intermingling of any outsiders, which makes the question of who were the true natives of India to be irrelevant. It is also factually wrong to say that the Aryans were indigenous to India, nor to classify the Aryan and Dravidian linguistic families as races.
Speaking of race, Thapar also cleared up how the caste system is not a form of racial segregation, as the British orientalists made them to believe, as well as how intercaste marriages were not a strict rule in the antiquity. Each of the four varnas (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras) became too large over time that eventually modifications in marriage and occupations were inevitable. This level of diversity inside each castes is also the reason why it cannot be guaranteed for the genetic continuity of a lineage from the same caste to be predictable and consistent.
Thapar ended her lecture by encouraging to rethink the identities of the Indian populace: to stop thinking of themselves in terms of limited communities through religion, caste, or linguistic identities, but through a larger, broader community. She advocates for a nuanced view of their history without the lens of any politico-religious ideologies, since religion’s use for political mobilization is limited due to its fluidity and frequent overlap of these religions’ observances and beliefs.
To go to the strengths of the document, Thapar’s use of simple and comprehensible language is praiseworthy. To be fair, this is already expected as the lecture is meant to be addressed to her non-historian audiences (particularly student journalists of ACJ as well as the common Indian people) instead of her fellow academics. The simplicity of her language also played a role for her compelling use of historical analysis on tackling the flaws and dangers of Indian nationalist historiography. It helped illustrate her point as to why it is crucial for the media to get the facts straight and stick to evidence-based history.
However, this also leads to one of the article’s weaknesses, with the author’s tendency to be argumentative and reactionary. Thapar has a tone that would definitely trigger a radical Hindutva supporter, which may only reinforce their desire to push for their ideology further. Despite the linguistic clarity, there is also a difficulty to follow the flow of her arguments due to its lack of definite outline of idea. Improvement on transitioning ideas also seems to merit attention. For example, the transition between the discussions of genetic continuity inside castes and book banning of Indian secular history books looks quite abrupt.
It is also a problem how Thapar never showed any references at all. Even if the nature of the document is not an academic paper but a transcription of lecture, it would still be helpful if the readers could have the ability to trace back the sources of what she cited. One would have to read between the lines in order to determine where did get her information. Mill’s book is the only source that she explicitly cited, but given that she is a known expert on ancient Indian history basing on her reputation, it would be safe to assume that she merely applied her years of self-expertise on the subject matter that perhaps it did not have the need to put a bibliography of her past books and journal articles.
Nevertheless, Romila Thapar’s “Reporting History: Early India” made an excellent job on fulfilling its objectives to make Indian history not accessible to the general public and away from the ivory towers of the academia. It shows a substantial insight on how bad the historical distortions in India can be, and a chilling reminder how the past can be weaponized by any political forces to reinforce their own personal agenda instead of making it a force for nation-building. Filipinos, then, must learn from the case of India, considering that the same phenomenon is also happening in our country, especially concerning the facts of Marcosian Martial Law period. Thapar reminds us that the job of developing a history that will unite us all, rather than divide us, is a task not only dependent on the shoulders of historians, but also of everyone.
Reference:
Thapar, Romila. “Reporting History: Early India.” Social Scientist 40, no. 7/8 (2012): 31–42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23338857.
Passed on June 25, 2023
