We are aware of the fact that certain historians professing to project the Marxist ideology have been in the habit of claiming infallibility and mono… - M. G. S. Narayanan

Referring to the standard “history of different political units” in India, Narayanan asserts that they have been “discussed as though they were kingdoms established arbitrarily by some powerful tyrants and functioning arbitrarily without reference to a framework of civilization”. He blames this on a Euro- centric paradigm, that used, “European and West Asian parallels of religious persecution, conversion, state religion, church-state conflicts etc […] while approaching all Indian phenomena”. About the historiography of medieval India, Narayanan concurs that Hindus have been depopulated from the historical record, and Hinduism has been denuded of its vitality,

The Aryan-Dravidian or Aryan-Tamil dichotomy envisaged by some scholars may have to be given up since we are unable to come across anything which could be designated as purely Aryan or purely Dravidian in the character of South India of the Sangam Age. In view of this, the Sangam culture has to be looked upon as expressing in a local idiom all the essential features of classical “Hindu” culture.

The most important assumption was that Indian history was just a collection of unrelated events, like a series of migrations and conquests, owing their origin to external stimuli. It did not reveal the organic growth of a nation or a civilization, marking the stages of development or decline. The people are not an active force bringing about changes like the renaissance and reformation, or producing a revolution at some stage. It was a procession of exotic and colourful characters, autocratic kings and emperors just having their way without encountering resistance from the people. ...a long series of invasions…[acted] upon the unresponsive masses [and] political and historical upheavals [were] not products of conditions within society, representing certain trends or movements among the people. […] It was as though India was simply a geographical entity, providing an empty stage for odd characters to appear and move about for some time before their mysterious disappearance.