BJP v Romila Thapar
Hindu nationalists are still trying to bully the much-admired historian Romila Thapar.
Romila Thapar is the preeminent historian of ancient India, an octogenarian feted the world over for her scholarship excavating answers to questions at the heart of the country’s past. She holds honorary doctorates from top universities including Oxford, is the recipient of the Kluge Prize — akin to the Nobel in social sciences — and has lectured at colleges across the world.
All this makes her a fine target for religious fanatics.
At the age of 89, Thapar is the subject of attacks by supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, who view her as an opponent to be discredited.
“In the early days, I used to get a little upset,” she said. Accusations of ignorance about ancient Indian history quickly devolve into “pornographic and sexist” remarks. “But it’s happened so frequently and regularly that it doesn’t distress me anymore,” she said.
…
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pursuing an agenda that emphasizes Hindu primacy in India — a vast, multireligious democracy founded on secular ideals. History is a key part of that vision.
For Hindu nationalists, India’s past consists of a glorious Hindu civilization followed by centuries of Muslim rule that Modi has described as a thousand years of “slavery.”
Thapar considers such assertions both simplistic and incorrect. Based on extensive research of Sanskrit and Prakrit texts and drawing upon archaeological data, she presents a more complex picture of Indian history. Her research and writings undermines the ruling party’s efforts to project a unified Hindu tradition stretching back thousands of years and to paint Muslim rulers of India as nothing more than invaders or tyrants.
This all too familiar brand of murderous bullshit is a powerful reason for thinking the very idea of a god or gods is absurd. What kind of god or gods would arrange things this way? With centuries upon centuries of inter-religious hatred and violence? Only a sadistic kind, in which case let’s stop worshiping them.
Thapar said attempts to humiliate her for her work have come from even trusted institutions. In 2019, Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, where Thapar spent decades teaching, sent her a letter asking her to submit her curriculum vitae so officials could “review” her status as an emeritus professor, an honorary title normally given for life.
That’s grotesque, and disgusting.
(She didn’t comply, and the university dropped the “review” plan.)
Thapar and others said the incident is reflective of declining academic freedom as Modi’s party has sought to seize control of progressive, left-leaning institutions of higher education by appointing loyalists to key administrative positions.
You can see why Trump likes him.
Historians like Thapar have “undervalued and consciously rejected many of the achievements of ancient India,” said Rakesh Sinha, a right-leaning academic associated with Modi’s party. Sinha said Thapar was guided by Marxism and had a Eurocentric view. “They take only those parts of history which undermine India’s image as a cultural and intellectual society,” he said.
Uh huh, Marxism, right. Don Junior couldn’t have said it more stupidly.
But being a political target for over three decades has not slowed Thapar. In October, her 30th book title, “Voices of Dissent,” tracing the history and evolution of dissent in the Indian subcontinent, was published. Critics of the government, including Thapar, say dissent is increasingly being criminalized.
It’s a trend.
This sounds so much like our right wing and their constant complaints about hating America and only teaching the bad.
Yep. It’s all the same crap.
So being guided by Hindu nationalism and an Indo-centric view is going to produce better scholarship? Isn’t it going to just take those parts of history which extoll India’s image as a cultural and intellectual society? Personally, I’d be willing to bet that the view from outside might offer a more complete, and truthful, if less lauditory picture. But why let mere facts get in the way of a good story?
A country defines itself partly through a shared history, but not everyone has a say in what gets included in that official story. “History is written by the victors.” This is more often invoked in the wake of conflicts between countries or socities, but applies as surely to conflicts within a community. Class, sex and ethnicity are all going to play their parts in such stories, and attempts to downplay or gloss over such important societal divisions should cast doubts upon any resulting history. A heroic, unifying history is going to leave out any bits that cast doubt on that heroism and unity. In an authoritarian regime, such doubts are painted with the brush of subversion and disloyalty.
History is messy. It’s the recovered story of the actions of millions of people over time. It is never just one “story.” Causation can be damned hard to figure out at the best of times. People act with incomplete knowledge, no knowledge, or with incorrect knowledge, all the time. People have conflicting interests, divided loyalties and don’t always act rationally, or in their own best interests. A given community, culture or civilization is not a monolith; hell, even individuals can change their minds. Any attempt at writing history involves decisions about what is and is not relevant evidence for explaining why and how events happened as they did in a particular way and not another. I think one can approach probable “truth”, but I don’t think that any one answer can ever be absolutely final or complete. Some proportion of factors which led events along the particular pathway they actually took are always going to be unrecoverable. But there is a difference between those things which can never be known, and things which, in official, axe-grinding, propagandistic hymns of praise to the Fatherland, must never be admitted.
History is not in the past. It is our present. It is what we are willing tell ourselves about ourselves. It is continually recreated and reformulated, re-examined and re-evaluated. It is a contested battleground of the nature and values of the society in which it is written. Many of the problems facing North America (I am not conversant enough with Central and South American histories to comment on them) stem from the unresolved and unadmitted, foundational history of dispossesion, genocide, slavery and environmental destruction and exploitation upon which Canada and the United States were built. We are a cuture squabbling over a legacy of thieves, coming to grips with what that means for us. The acknowledgement of this is important, but only a start. We’ve been willing to take from others until it hurts. Are we willing to give back until it hurts us?Are we willing to share that which has been stolen in our name? Not historical questions, but questions arising from our history. How will we answer? How much history will we “see” in formulating our response?
This all too familiar brand of murderous bullshit is a powerful reason for thinking the very idea of a god or gods is absurd. What kind of god or gods would arrange things this way? With centuries upon centuries of inter-religious hatred and violence? Only a sadistic kind, in which case let’s stop worshiping them.
Ah….But according to prominent apologists, we are not allowed to question God. Just obey. Or, because all of the Gods are inconveniently silent, obey the pronouncements of their priests and shamans and apologists and imans and gurus. And the gods ALWAYS NEED MONEY. Or slaves or sacrifices but money…and obedience above all!
The same is going on in Britain with Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Gove et al all wanting a triumphal account of what they deem to be ‘history’ poured like poison into the ears of schoolchildren and university students.