Top 15 Romila Thapar Quotes

The political ideologues of the Hindu Right endorse a history rooted in colonial interpretations and are anxious to make that period of history a Hindu utopia.

I have over the years of my research been struck by the frequency with which the present makes use of the past either in a detrimental manner where it becomes a part of various political ploys, or alternatively in a positive manner to claim an enviable legitimacy and inheritance.

A society has many pasts from which it chooses those that go into the creation of its history. The choice is made by those in authority—the authority being of various kinds—although occasionally the voice of others may be heard.

The history of India was constructed in accordance with nineteenth century European views on what history should be and what was thought to be Indian history.

Hindutva claims to represent indigenous Indian thought opposed to western interpretations of Indian religion, traditions and culture. The claim is that colonial scholarship used its understanding of Indian culture for political purposes to justify colonialism. Yet Hindutva is doing precisely the same by reformulating Hinduism along the lines suggested by colonial interpretations in order to facilitate its use in political mobilization. It uses colonial constructions of the Indian past such as the theories of James Mill and Max Mueller to further its programme of political control. The exploitation of history becomes a significant dimension of its attempt to appropriate the understanding of the past.

Political ideologies focusing in particular on what they call ‘cultural nationalism’—and this is common to many societies apart from the Indian—blatantly exploit history.

Pre-modern Hinduism had its warts—big and small—as do all religions, but its subtleties were richer than what is now being thrust on its believers. Hindutva is in many ways the antithesis of Hinduism, and aims to create a society that is narrow, bigoted and inward looking, in which the co-existence with those that differ, such as the minority communities of various kinds, is becoming increasingly impossible, as demonstrated by the frequency of communal riots.

In the questioning of existing explanations the validity of periodizing Indian history as Hindu, Muslim and British was increasingly doubted. It had projected two thousand years of a golden age for the first, eight hundred years of despotic tyranny for the second, and a supposed modernization under the British.

Nations are not easily forged since many identities have to be coalesced.

The destruction of temples even by Hindu rulers was not unknown, but Mahmud’s was a regulated activity and inaugurated an increase in temple destruction compared to earlier times

Rajendra I ruled jointly with his father for two years, succeeding him in 1014. The policy of expansion continued with the annexation of the southern provinces of the Chalukyas, the rich Raichur doab and Vengi. Campaigns against Sri Lanka and Kerala were also renewed. But Rajendra’s ambitions had turned northwards. An expedition set out, marching through Orissa to reach the banks of the Ganges. From there, it is said, holy water from the river was carried back to the Chola capital. Bringing back the water through conquest symbolized ascendancy over the north. But Rajendra did not hold the northern regions for long, a situation parallel to that of Samudra Gupta’s campaign in the south almost 700 years earlier.

Some forms of Indian asceticism, although not all, have a socio-political dimension and these cannot be marginalized as merely the wish to negate life.

Epic literature is not history but is again a way of looking at the past.

The late arrival of the horse in India is not surprising since the horse is not an animal indigenous to India. Even on the west Asian scene, its presence is not registered until the second millennium BC. The horse was unimportant, ritually and functionally, to the Indus civilization.

Strangely, Indians travelling outside the subcontinent do not seem to have left itineraries of where they went or descriptions of what they saw. Distant places enter the narratives of storytelling only very occasionally.