Ann exhibition An initiative organized by the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi in early 2023 titled ‘The Glory of Medieval India: Revelation of the Unexplored Indian Dynasties of the 8th to 18th Centuries’ proved a very scary pudding. It is no secret that the current regime actively desecrates history, but many of us have long known that the exhibition brazenly omitted all the kingdoms and dynasties of Islam. This confirms that.
Through the channels of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), along the frenetic renaming and remaking of Mughal-era heritage buildings and cities, through the manipulation of National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks, and through the manipulation of Indian Archeology Academic Research Bureau (ASI) toothless, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government seeks to erase the contribution of Muslims to India’s history and culture. Their reasons were clearly stated by ICHR Member Secretary Umesh Ashok Kadam. Said He did not consider Muslim dynasties to be Indian dynasties. “Those people (Muslims) were from the Middle East and had no direct connection to Indian culture.”
ICHR is tasked with The state has been mandated to write a multi-volume revised history of India, or rather of Bharat, and one can reasonably guess the nature of its contents. Their stated intention to include ignored or forgotten history is laudable, but what is deliberately omitted reeks of bias.
Challenge to the Juggernaut
This huge person is Indians: A History of Civilization try to take on the challenge. A comprehensive book edited by eminent linguist and cultural theorist Ganesh N. Devi, journalist and author Tony Joseph, and history and archeology professor Ravi Korisetter, covering everything from archeology to themes. It brings together a vast range of essays on various aspects of Indian history. From anthropology and linguistics to religion, culture, and art.
This book is divided into seven parts. Evolution of humans and their living conditions. The foundations, emergence, and decline of civilizations. Language mixing and philosophy in ancient India. Culture, sub-nationality, region. Colonialism. Towards federalism – a social and political movement. and India since independence. These sections contain a whopping 101 essays, completed by a foreword by Devi and a detailed afterword by renowned historian Vinay Lal.
This breathtaking breadth of topics is necessary for the purpose of this book, which is to map the “history” of civilization. Please note that the title is intentionally plural because the story of India is the story of each of us. The story is told in multiple, and indeed sometimes contradictory, ways. However, editor GN Devi writes in the foreword that “the openness of history as a field of inquiry allows majoritarian governments and dictatorships to replace historical narratives with irrational and untenable claims.” “There is,” he warns. Recently, these claims have been subject to an undesirable homogenization trend.
This book stands in stark contrast to the bullish claims of “oneness” by campaigns promoting one nation, one election, one language, one religion, etc. Those who advocate ‘unity’ forget an important caveat about the diversity that gives India its uniquely pluralistic heritage. While upholding a “scientific view of history,” the book aims to counter “ideological attempts to distort South Asian history” with “fantasy, hallucinations, and wishful nostalgia.” There is.
There are as many Indians as there are Indians.
Confronting the nation’s vast resources was no mean feat, especially for Devi, who produced this work “in the midst of extreme financial hardship.” Still, the page of Indian It provides unparalleled enrichment for students of history and those seeking a pluralistic perspective.
The first part of the book traces the evolution of the Indian subcontinent from the earliest times and uses paleoclimatological and population genetics data to paint a complete picture of the region.Tony Joseph’s essay on immigration reminds us of his groundbreaking book Early Indians: The story of our ancestors and where we came from, which almost completely changed the story of our ancestors. In this essay, Joseph uses the metaphor of “Indian demographic pizza,” which I found equally fascinating and memorable.
He said the pizza makes up the base of immigrants from outside Africa, who make up about 50 to 65 percent of the population. Painted on this base is Harappan sauce, made up of Indians from North and South India who form the “cultural glue” of beliefs and customs found throughout India. And finally, the cheese and toppings on this pizza come from later generations of immigrants. Joseph’s theory is firmly supported by genetic evidence and provides a great reminder for all those who want to claim superiority over the land.
Views based on population genetics are supported by essays on archeology and anthropology that involve primitive history. Even in history essays, multiple perspectives can be found, such as history, anthropology, geology, philosophy, politics, economics, astrophysics, linguistics, Sanskrit and Pali literature, and even Vedic studies. Contributors to this book include eminent academics from Indian and foreign universities, and names I recognize and respect include K Padaya, Rajesh Kochhar, Mugdha Gagir, Rajmohan Gandhi, Rochelle Pinto, and Richard. Eaton, Urvashi Butariya and others. .
What’s old is new, what’s new is old
The perspectives in many of these essays challenge existing narratives. For example, Naina Dayal, in her essay on “Early Indian Buddhism,” argues that recent revisions have made it difficult to date the life of the Buddha in the 4th century B.C., rather than the more common 6th century B.C. It points out how it is supported. Similarly, Meera Visvanathan, in her essay entitled “Indo-European/Indo-Iranian Contact”, argues that Sanskrit is the mother tongue of other ancient European languages such as Greek and Latin. This refutes the common notion that She points out that the world’s scholarship accepts a now-extinct language called “Proto-Indo-European” as the mother tongue from which Greek, Latin, and even Sanskrit were born. Like Joseph’s Population Pizza, these discoveries ask us to adapt to new timelines and truths.
However, the “new” content of this book is not limited to the revised edition. Many topics rarely included in mainstream texts are also covered in it. For example, many students study the history of pre-Shivaji Maharashtra, the literature of Pali and Prakrit, the culture of the pre-modern Deccan, the heterogeneity of Telangana, the history of the northeastern states, and the multiculturalism of pre-modern Bengal. Adivasi movement towards linguism, or specialization.
Although some may question the need for these niche themes, it is only through this expansive representation that we can break free from the habit of equating the history of the Gangetic plains with the history of India. Only by remembering a history so different and distant from our own can we truly understand and believe that there are as many Indians as there are Indians.
A major feature of this volume is that most of the essays are short, averaging two to three pages. On these pages, authors share an overview of the most important touchpoints of this topic, notes on the latest research on the subject, research questions for missing pieces, and more. Readers may jump right to a selected topic or quickly understand the essence of the topic in order to find a good starting point for deeper research.
Each essay is written with academic objectivity, neither glorifying accomplishments nor glorifying failures. As a people who have become accustomed to the exaltation of our national story, the manic zeal to become the ‘Guru of Vishwa’ in all things, it is a gentle reminder of our humanity and fallibility. In between that hard bondage is the soft lesson that greatness doesn’t lie in being first, fastest, oldest, or biggest. By seeing, accepting and loving all, we become a unique people called ‘Indians’.
Indians: A History of Civilizationedited by GN Devy, Tony Joseph, and Ravi Korisettar, Aleph Book Company.