A million thanks to JK for pointing me to a rather aptly titled piece, Lunch with BS: Romila Thapar. BS stands for Business Standard but from the tone, tenor, and content of the piece and the person it eulogizes, it more than deserves the other pejorative substitute: Bull Shit.
The article’s structure is quite fascinating: an extended review of an exotic Japanese meal interspered with liberal doses of undisguised fawning over Romila Thapar.
Romila Thapar was never really a historian. Post Eminent Historians, she became history. Romila Thapar is one of the reasons why ancient Sanskrit proverbs like Vruddha nari pativrata (An aged woman is always faithful to her husband) still have wide currency. But the secular press loves anybody who doesn’t make it take foolish risks.
The piece begins with a mention of blogs critical of Thapar.
Entire blogs have been devoted to Romila Thapar describing her as, among other things, the “High Priestess of Indian Marxism†and “a flat-earth type†and a “deeply mendacious enemy of the Hindusâ€.
Now, I’ve never taken a terrible pride in my blog nor do I harbour illusions that I’m doing some great service to a cause through my blog. But to my delight, I notice that this article mentions a term I applied to Romila Thapar five years ago: The High Priestess Speaks Again! Either my blog is that popular (which I seriously doubt) or it is a tribute to the blog-unearthing skills of the Business Standard guys. But lest we be misled, the authors add a quick but mandatory clarification that most of these blogs are “of a saffron shade, about Thapar’s “pinko†views on ancient Indian history..” The saffron shade explains everything. It does more. It shows her in an almost angelic halo–the harsher the Saffron criticism, the greater she must be is the default conclusion.
Business Standard is fully within its rights to slobber over Romila’s greatness as an alleged historian. Yet its readers deserve at least a balanced picture of a historian. This isn’t a gossip magazine where the sole intent is to only elevate a person to Demigodhood. No. History is a serious affair, and if Business Standard means business, it needs to stop reducing itself to the level of Filmfare or Stardust or Savvy or Society. The authors seem to be on a warlike mission to highlight Romila’s “achievements” like getting the Kluge chair, and simultaneously, take the cudgels on her behalf by belittling “communal” historians. In this laughably vain attempt, the authors descend to ridiculous depths like calling the Kluge prize “…a sort of “Nobel†for disciplines such as history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion and so on.” The Business Standard is not alone in this. Most Indian media houses seem to have assigned for themselves a God-given right to assume that their readers are ignorant by default. I challenge Business Standard to show me exactly one evidence that proves that the Kluge prize is a Nobel equivalent. Or perhaps it seems to suggest that it was transformed into a Nobel equivalent after Romila Thapar won the prize.
This piece is further evidence that Romila Thapar is only an alleged historian. A few examples are in order.
Her regret, she says, is that so much emphasis in modern times is put “only on the Valmiki version both in India and outside, that we’ve forgotten the fact that there were and are multiple versions.†What is interesting is not just that the Valmiki version travelled all over but “how people varied the story to express their concerns in their own versionsâ€
I’ve already spoken about the hollowness of the claims of “different versions” of the Ramayana. While it is commonsense that when a popular epic traverses both geography and culture, the latter assimilates it and gives it its own shape. Because there are multiple versions doesn’t mean that the original is no big deal. Would these versions exist without the foundation of Valmiki’s original? But such is the insidious nature of Thapar’s ilk, who want us to believe that the original itself is insignificant.
No Romila Thapar Encomnium is complete without her “expert” view on the Aryan Tourist Migration Theory. Once a fierce proponent of the Aryan “Invasion” Theory, her gigantic ego must’ve been irreparably ruptured after she was forced to acknowledge that it was no longer sustainable. Hence the Aryan “Migration” Theory. But it is also a testimonial to the ignorance of the nitwits who wrote this piece de disgrace when they uncritically quote her
Thapar’s was among the first, for instance, to counter the conventional “oriental despot†view of Indian monarchy and demonstrate that the “Aryan†was a linguistic grouping, not a fair-skinned master race, that migrated to, and did not “invadeâ€, north India and occasionally ate beef (this last point exercising Hindutva votaries the most).
Note again how the H word automatically proves Thapar’s thesis? An eminent linguist, Sanskritist, and scholar par excellence, the late Sediapu Krishna Bhatta conclusively proves how even Thapar’s fanciful linguistic theory actually proves the opposite: i.e. there was no invasion or migration.
Then we arrive at Exhibit 3:
The problem began with the British periodising Indian history into Hindu, Muslim and British and maintaining that Hindus and Muslims were always antagonistic towards each other. “This cannot be sustained historically.
And this another of the favourite Marxist construct, which conveniently blames the British for every real and imaginary communal conflict that existed historically. Also, she interestingly doesn’t give us one evidence to show how “it cannot be sustained historically.” If anything, the peaceful living conditions of Muslims under Hindu kings should be attributed to the tolerance of those Hindu rulers. On the opposite side of the scale, every Muslim king who conquered a Hindu kingdom first broke all its religious institutions, and symbols and enslaved its Hindu population. But we’re talking to a person who advocates that Aurangzeb was the progenitor of secularism. Here’s the deal: I challenge Romila Thapar to prove using the rigors of the scientific method that there was at least one period in Indian history that witnessed the Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai phenomenon.
Exhibit 4 is more fascinating and revealing:
Which raises the issue of her rebuttal of the “Golden Age†theory — another point that rankled with historians of a religious nationalist persuasion. “Golden ages all over world in various histories were a fashion among nineteenth-century historians. Most historians of present times have given up the idea. Nationalist thinking didn’t pay enough attention to the implications of the description nor was any attempt made to define it in detail. They just went on saying ‘it was a marvellous age of harmony and prosperity’. It’s like today when one hears talk about India Shining; few analyse what it means and what the implications are for the Indian citizen.â€
This is in reality a tired tactic to dismiss genuine achievements of Hindu history. Look at what we lose when you dismiss the Golden Ages.
- The Mauryas, a period close to 150 years of unparalled achievement
- The Guptas, a period of roughly 300 years, perhaps the greatest empire under whom most of India rose to stupendous heights in all fields of human endeavour
- The Chalukyas, again, about 200 years of accomplishment in art, music, poetry, philosophy, commerce and military
- The Rashtrakutas–ditto as Chalukyas
- The Cholas and Pandyas, between them more than a thousand years of development, prosperity, and high culture
- The Vijayanagar Empire–perhaps the real reason for Romila Thapar’s angst against the “golden age” theory as she calls it. I leave it to your knowledge about the Vijayanagar Empire’s achievements.
In a line, you are asked to discard these because most historians have given up this theory. Yet, she doesn’t name even a single such historian. I suppose we should believe it because she says so. So what does that leave Indian history with? No prizes for guessing the correct answer. But the clue lies in “religious nationalist historian.” This choice of words automatically implies that the non-religious non-nationalist historian is the only “true” historian. In other words, the only historians are the Eminent Historians with Romila Thapar as the head honcho. But she’s too modest to say it in so many words. So, let’s see what a commonsense definition of a historian is. JK nails it in one of his best posts till date:
Any historian who identifies himself with a label – Orientalist, Marxist or Nationalist – has already pigeon-holed himself. They are bound by dogma and cannot accept any evidence which goes contrary to their predefined concepts. At that point they cease to be historians and become politicians. Historians like Upinder Singh now perpetuate such labels, implying that a historian has to belong to one such fraternity… We cannot live without historians and our choice is not between Orientalists, Marxists or Nationalists, but between good historians and bad ones.
Commit these lines to memory. It is evident which light this shows her in. The problem is Romila Thapar’s bullet has to take a circuitous route to hit the target. She can no longer openly call herself a Marxist historian because Marx’s pet “history” has so miserably failed his followers. She can no longer repeat the lies about Babri Masjid and Muslim atrocities and historical evidences. That leaves her with impotent invectives against a faceless beast called Hindutva, which she hasn’t managed to clearly define. But she is a past master of labelling and that’s what she does here.
Since she’s a “controversial†historian in a country that is witnessing a resurgence of muscular patriotism we feel compelled to ask her views on India as a “future superpower†and the rise of Hindutva. On the first, she says, “I think we’ve got a long way to go.†But more to the point, “America has behaved so outrageously in matters concerning the rest of the world that if this is written into being a superpower, one would not wish it for India.â€
And yet, she had no qualms accepting the Kluge prize and serving on its chair. Nice. And therein lies a hint at the real problem as we shall see.
It is now time to remind Business Standard that it does its readers tremendous disservice by choosing selective facts about Romila Thapar and omitting the mountain of evidence that shows her in less than flattering light. By dismissing genuine criticism against this alleged historian as the rants of “saffron” bloggers, this paper actually insults the efforts of the really eminent men like Arun Shourie, Sita Ram Goel, and Koenraad Elst. Arun Shourie stands tall in this list because his book more than anything else, exposed the Marxist misdeeds in the ICHR. Does Business Standard have a factually convincing response to this?
This prima donna of Marxist history-writing now speaks about her own victimhood at the hands of the dreaded Hindutva votaries. Yet, in her peak, she and her clique routinely spat fire at everybody who had a different view. Monomaniacal, Communal, Nazi, Neo-colonialist, Laughable, Garbage, Bullheaded, Brawler, are but some of the fine terms her gang applied to those to “dared” to differ.
That this proud, card-carrying Marxist expounded her rehashed tripe over a Rs.3400 meal shows what she really is: neither a historian nor a Marxist but a self-serving fraud academic who made it big by latching on to the political fashion current in her youth.
It’s time Business Standard renamed itself.
Tags: Business Standard, Commentary, Eminent Historians, Fraud, High Priestess of Indian Marxism, History, History Writing, India, Indian Politics, Leftist History, Marxist History Writing, Pseudosecularism, Pseudosecularism Hall of Shame, Romila Thapar
Where does this Mr Yadav get that the Maurayans were not Hindus…Even both Chandra Gupta Maurya and Ashoka before they embraced Jainisim and Buddhisim in the later part of their lives practised Hinduism and their kingdoms were majority Hindus…..
Romila Thapar is what many call a “garbage” historian with political agenda. In one of her interviews, this woman stupidly says that no one questions science so why are they questioning historical research. Is she stupid or does she even have any brain? She doesn’t even know that science, unlike so called historical research, is based on experiments that are repeatable, observable and results are provable. Therefore, you cannot question the basic facts in science. How stupid a person can be and still claim to be an imminent historian? I pity people that trust a useless author like her.
Kuntuddin Illaiaha, Romila Thapar is a card carrying Communist who believes that there will be a Revolution in the year 2076 after which the state will wither away. Stupid superstition is not scholarship.
Arun Shourie IS a saffron brigand who stands tall in the Samhkya puddle of nebulous theism. Romila Thapar is the better historian among the pygmies you mentioned [Sita Ram Goel, and Koenraad Elst] Wake up and smell the saffron.
Thaper has served well the intentions of those who trained her (in UK) and those of her ilk at JNU. Witzel has been amply exposed by Talageri, so much that I wonder how such people get to the high academic positions in so called secular western universities. Kazanas by himself is sufficient to bring the Aryan Tourist Theory (AIT/AMT etc) to its knees. That leaves Danino and others to close the chapter on the propaganda machine unleashed by those who share the Muller haplotype. Some would like you to believe that it is an issue of past – not quite! The best way to destroy a people is by destroying their link to their own culture. Onslaught of Islam and later on Christianity has done a good job of it. And don’t be surprised if those with Muller haplotype found a way to turn the R1a evidence around to somehow connect it to AIT/AMT or some new variant of it. Cultural hegemony is west’s contribution to the modern civilization. It is quite ironic for them to even claim values central to Vedic dharma.
Romila Thapar got many rewards for being an indefatigable anti-Hindu propagandist masquerading as historian. In fact, being singled out for criticism by nationalist writers and truthful commentators has also benefitted her. So much so that some other leftists at the history deptt., JNU felt jealous of her: ‘see, you critics made her the most important leftist historian, and she gets rewarded again and again for it (not me)’.
If any of you interested about her one love, pl go through this article. It is in Hindi
http://www.pravakta.com/archives/27337
became “dominant”
No one believes that there was a an invasion that completely imposed the way of invaders on the locals, this is a very simplistic way of looking at things and history in general, but rather, there were many gradual migrations and assimilations, there was give and take and many wars of conquests, so that a distinct form of civilization was ultimately created in India over a long course of time, resembling the forms we see still intact today and forms which we recognize today, there are layers of history to be studied. Even in places like Kashmir which was raided by Huns and others several times and even had Hun kings, the civilizational continuity was not disrupted until after Islam which tried to impose a monolithic religion on the people. Also one has to remember many of the so called ‘invaders’ were barbarians such as the Huns, just as those invaders who arrived earlier were also barbarians for a while until they became Sanskritized.
Look at the Greeks, the language prior to the arrival of the Greeks in the Aegean was something different from Greek, but this does not mean the Greeks did not take a lot from what went before them to create something unique and distinctly Greek…And so in India, after the course of time, something distinctly Indian was created, which involved a great deal of give and take and cultural and ethnic assimilation….
Of course there have been migrations into India, otherwise why would people look different and why would there be such genetic diversity in India, although now with intermarriage across regions more and more Indians will probably morphe into one group eventually. A peoples ultimately resembles the majority in the region regardless of where they come from after several assimilation years of assimilation. Duh? But the invaders mostly took up the Indic culture and contributed, there was give and take, and there was a gradual assimilation of peoples into the native civilizational fold, even the Greeks produced harmonous Indo-Greek civilization in places like Bactria. The only religions which really did not fit in into the native fold were the Abrahamics, who are wont to destroy the native civilization and put their own monuments on top, the problem is that these religions are not syncretic in the way the Greek or Hindu or the other native Indic religions are. So it is not a question of invaders and non invaders but of civilizational outlook, some civilizational outlooks are incompatible with pluralism which has historically existed in India.
It is interesting that people thought the Myceneans were also destroyed by the Greek invaders into the Aegean from the Caucus, quite a simplistic theory, now there is evidence of a huge tsunami, and the Greeks became dominant because most of the naval powers of the Aegean like the Myceneans were destroyed by the tsunami and they were able to overcome what remained in the region….Even in Europe there were a lot of barbarian invasions, eventually the barbarians modelled themselves of Greek and Roman civilizations, until Europe took a different course after Christianity when one monolithic religion, Christianity, became dominate and were was an end to religious syncretism there as well afer the destruction of the heretical Christian sects, the Greek mystery religions as well as the Christian sects which were not compatible with the “one” Catholic Church…
Also Andre Wink is one of the few living Western historians who seems to have produced anything worth reading these days–you might not agree with everything he says but learn a lot you definitely will. Far better than those feminist or Marxist types who dominate Indology today and have unfortunately become fashionable….He seems just focused on quietly producing fine work as superior historians are wont to do….I wonder why prizes for such historians are ignored, but politically motivated people writing garbage fabricated histories get prizes?
See Andre Wink volume’s on the Marxist fabrication of Indian history…
Al-Hind
The making of the Indo Islamic world
The slave kings and the Islamic conquests: volume 2
See chapter on the Idols of Hind and the defiling of the well of Buddhism.
Andre Historian, unlike Thapar who probably got a prize on account of affirmative action for women, is a fine historian. Read his volumes–he is a real learned historian who has read many sources– one can learn much more from him than from Thapar B.S.
Often why superior historians like Wink do not get prizes but Romila Thapar’s of this world do so….
Dear sandeep u certainly seem student of some English honours course while your vocabulary may be applauded but your historical knowledge and sense deserves severe rebuttal and condemnation.your article or whatever one may refer it is a result of long grown prejudiced opinions which harps on some imaginary great hindu golden age.while ignoring the basic facts there were many rulers in ancient india like indo greeks , kushanas who were not hindus .Its indeed ludicrous that you are considering mauryan rule part and parcel of your hindu golden age thereby giving an extension of hitherto confined hindu golden age to GUPTA period backwards. while it must be known to you and your readers , mauryans too were not hindus.while this piece of yours might satisfy gullible laymen nurtured in mythology ambience is definitely an irritant for any serious student of history.how will u defend the very fact that romilla thapar is not the only historian who is in disagreement of indegenious aryan theory or rather bulk of ICHR historians who agree to her historical viewpoints .some prominent names being Prof RS Sharma ,Prof Aditya mukherjee and Prof Irfan habib ,Prof Satish Chandra et al.My point here is not to eulogize Marxist historians or historiography anyway, but to expose bigots like you who rebuke their works mindlessly because of inadequate historical knowledge.while its not anybody’s case whether a kluge is an equivalent of a nobel or not , a historian’s work can be assesed better by historians itself not by amateurs like you who have some mythological sense combined with some roman linguistic knowledge.Your piece is a disservice towards your readers if i guess there are any!.Being a student of indian history its my duty to inform others about great civilisational history of 5000 yrs of india juxtaposingly admitting that no civilsation can be termed perfect or precursor to every other contemporary civilisation so was ours.while i agree that historiography as a scientific discipline could not be developed in earlier periods leading to a neglected knowledge of history in our country, it is still evolving..and marxist contribution can not be neglected totally even in the guise of an alternative view.
Most of your post contents were a personal attack. And looking at you other posts its clear that you cant separate politics from religion. Anybody reading half way through your (very emotional) post can clearly conclude that your are biased against a certain religion. If you want to be taken seriously you have to make an objective analysis that is free of personal preferences and biases and does not resort to personal attacks.
A clash of two extreme views. India just like the rest of the world, has had a series of migrations over the years- this continues even today. The problem with the ‘Marxist’ view point, as well as the ‘Hindutwa’ perspective, is that they have tried to demonise migrations during some of these periods. And Sandeep, just because a person had a 3400 rupee meal does not make the logic of their arguments wrong. This seems to be largely an attack on a person and not on her ideas.
Unlike others who argue whether there was any migration/invension at all, she still sticks on to some form of migration, both one and same whether race of linguistic. The literature in India that is termed as aryan is huge and some migrant cannot be responsible for it. It is a contribution of every community/section of India and cannot be a product of foreign origin. That is why the dubious name called aryan is associated with it so as to dis-associate it from India and its people and their contribution and put it on to the lap of foreign people. This is bizzare and hypocracy and should not be tolerated on any account. I have seen that she thinks every vedic text is made by aryans and therefore oppose it, while the fact is the names of the authors of those text says that it is a mass contribution from every section of india. I have seen her views on many media and know that she is a Hindu basher. Her common misconception is that Hindu means aryan which is not true. Actually Hindu encompasses every tradition in india before the invasion of foreign powers. And Hindu is based not only on Vedas and other texts but to common faith of all indians other than foreign religions. Therefore Vedas and other Hindu texts belongs to all and not to Brahmins. She says Bramins used to eat and serve beef. Only foolish can believe this. Beef is strictly prohibited by all Hindu communities and only some minorities use it. All her texts are very biased against Hindus. Very bad indeed.
Dear Sandeep, you are really good! No sensible student of history in Indian universities can remain entirely unchanged after reading your piercing analyses of Mme Romila Thapar. Carry on, please.
Just yesterday I bought a History book by Romila Thappar; the name did strike me at some level… only later i realised I had read it here and on wikipedia. FML.
Keir Said:
” It clearly does not have the cachet or publicity of the Nobel Prize, but it is fair to call it an “equivalent” as that is stated in Kluge Center’s description of the Prize.”
No need to be over awed by Kluge prize. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington who finally chose the finalists for the prize has impecable evangelical credentials.
“”Dr. Billington was a longtime member of the editorial advisory boards of Foreign Affairs and of Theology Today, and a member of the Board of Foreign Scholarships in 1971-76 (chairman, 1971-73), which has executive responsibility for academic exchanges worldwide under the Fulbright-Hays Act. He is on the Board of the Center for Theological Inquiry and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”
This librarian was also a member of editorial advisory board of Theology Today which is a ecumenical journal of Christian theology.
With such impeccable evangelical credentials, is it any surprise that he chose Ms Thaper. His deep seated internalised racism against the pagans and Hindus being the last of the pagans shows in his choice for the prize.
Ofcourse the other prize was awarded to PETER ROBERT LAMONT BROWN who wrote autobiography of Augustine, “Augustine of Hippo” in 1966 and in 1988 he wrote “The Body and Society” in 1988 again about Augustine. Since Augustines reputation has taken a beating by Sam Harris’s best selling “End Of Faith” it was time to prop up ‘St Augustine’.
Rajiv,
I agree with your positions, of course, but I think we need to twist the knife in these AIT supporters some more, so that this religio-colonial theory does not manage to resurrect itself in the popular space.
The evidence is that there was a massive genetic input into Europe from S Asia in the Holocene around 10K. This is roughly the expected time date for the initial kentum migration/expansion out of Greater S Asia, with Satem as a straggler or, more probably, an in situ transformation of the kentum. Nichols’ and Talageri’s scenario is superior because there are no quasi-monotheist herrenvolk movements associated with it, merely expansion and internal transformation. R1a1 out of India at 10K is a near perfect complement of this expansion scenario. It really cannot get any better for us.
Theory is fine up to a point, but eventually must be made to dovetail with the actual evidence, especially when rigid adherence to the letter of theory has become the refuge for these guys (which, incidentally, is a theological necessity for them – similar to their insistence on conceptualizing the heathens in a conservative-liberal framework). Otherwise, some of these guys will not be satisfied unless migration is shown exactly at 1500BCE out of India, since that is the theory. And it is definitely necessary for us to put the final stake in this beast. For that, it must be made clear that the out of India theory is not simply the AIT with all the arrows reversed.
As a counterexample, hg-N in Europe is widely acknowledged as originating in E Asia and correlates with the introduction of Uralic into Europe by the E Siberians. The only reason why a parallel assessment is not made for out of India R1a1 is the IE issue.
If the situation were reversed and a clear majority of Indian lines originated in eurostan, then the case would be shut and closed by them; they would easily adapt their idiosyncracies to the greater goal of AIT. In fact, they once tried to push a “Neolithic package” out of the ME as the AIT, which quickly disintegrated with many of the hg-s actually originating in India (or with coalescence times greater in India than in Europe). I can guarantee that they are busily working away at every level (individual, university, and agency) to chip away at the R1a1 out of India scenario. R1a1 out of China is the latest craze, consistent with the anywhere-but-India syndrome. In contrast, there is almost no one on the Indian side, and the few are subject to constant sniper fire from Indians themselves.
Even those who acknowledge 1) the southern route, 2) differential settlement of Asia versus its european extension, and 3) r1a1 out of india – are obliviously self-assured about the AIT. Many will acknowledge Jawalapuram at 74K (far exceeding anything in Europe) as well as an Asian origin for European lines while denying the southern route simply because a shell midden has not been found! The same will insist on paleolithic R1b in europe while insisting on 1500 BCE r1a1 in India! Pure Madness!!
Against such farcical standards of evidence, the OIT scenario has still managed to emerge as the clear choice. It is quite superior to any other scenario. Let us take the available scenario and build it up. The phase for overturning it has passed (further resolution in r1a1 will be local not transcontinental) and we need to slay the AIT beast from as many angles as possible..
It took one full day to go thru this blog. sandeep you really touch the nerves. I have only one info which many may know. There is a book published by Dravida University, Kuppam originally Edi Charitra in telugu and its translation by babu krishnamurthy in kannada Yavudu Charitre. It has been well researched and written. All references are given at the end. I suggest every one should read it whether you agree with it or not is a different matter. I do not know if there are translations into other languages.