The French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie as soon as mentioned that there are two sorts of historians – the truffle hunters and parachutists. The previous makes the threadbare scrutiny of previous occasions their calling; the latter attempt to discern patterns, or discontinuities, in centuries. However how does one describe a piece that condenses hundreds of years of historical past of the Indian subcontinent in a bit of greater than 400 pages, every of which is wealthy intimately? In A New Historical past of India by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Shobita Punja and Toby Sinclair start their account with the “Making of the Indian Subcontinent” that took billions of years. The ebook concludes with a dialogue on the challenges confronted by the nation because it completes 75 years as an unbiased nation.
It is a well timed endeavour. Among the many a number of paradoxes of our instances is one associated to the self-discipline of historical past. The historical past part at bookshops as we speak has a number of notable works that cater to the non-specialist reader. However on the similar time, the previous is more and more changing into an embattled terrain. Worryingly, this isn’t concerning the common conversations and debates amongst historians however a politics of “us” versus “them” that appears to attract on the previous with scant regard for the strategies and protocols of the specialist – a politics that appears to be obsessive about phrases like “invaders”, “outsiders” and “foreigners”.
In such instances, it’s salutary, for instance, to study of the efforts of the younger scholar of colonial instances, James Prinsep, whose examine of cash and inscriptions within the first half of the 19th century helped convey to mild an necessary chapter in Indian historical past — the Mauryan empire. Prinsep, “together with different students, got here to the groundbreaking conclusion that the title Devnampiya Piyadasi – Beloved of the Gods – referred to Ashoka”.
A New Historical past of India has {a photograph} of individuals seemingly in a vacation temper on the Prinsep Ghat — a memorial constructed at Kolkata for the Indologist who died on the younger age of 40 — that reminds us that the previous could be very usually engaged in a dialogue with the current. Because the authors remind us “a number of symbols of Ashokan reign have been adopted in unbiased India… Most significantly, Ashoka’s message of peace, concord and dissent continues to have relevance within the lives of Indians”.
Images, maps and illustrations are part of the narrative. And the captions are evocative. Take for example, the one accompanying the {photograph} of a gold coin with a hanging picture of Kanishka, the Kushana king. “His broad shoulders are draped in a stiff, heavy coat and cloak, presumably to guard the king towards the bitter chilly of the northern mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan over which he dominated… He sports activities a beard and a tall cap, and his boots level dramatically outwards, to current a picture of authority, stability and energy,” the caption notes, introducing the reader to the king’s apparel, the weather conditions of his area in addition to the way wherein he conveyed authority.
A New Historical past of India is not only about monarchs and empires. It takes us via intervals of social churn, introduces us to spiritual modifications and financial upheavals, like famines, acquaints us with retailers and merchants and nudges us to understand a variety of structure, together with lesser-known websites similar to The Dakhil Darwaza and Adina Masjid in West Bengal. A New Historical past of India alerts us to the truth that structure was not nearly imperial ambition or spiritual piety but additionally the abilities of those that labored with brick and mortar. “The Delhi sultans,” for instance, “weren’t averse to utilizing native craftsmen and one of the best manifestation of this use and flexibility was within the sphere of structure,” it factors out.
In current many years, Indian historical past writing has shifted from its preponderant concern with giant empires – the Mauryas, Guptas, Cholas, Mughals – to depict the state-of-affairs in “regional kingdoms”. The New Historical past of India is alive to this historiographical growth. It factors out, “The Deccan even after its inclusion within the Mughal empire had a cultural and financial lifetime of its personal. It was the bridgehead to the Indian Ocean and shaped an mental panorama the place numerous individuals and divergent cultures converged”.
If there’s one grouse of this reviewer, it’s this: The ebook is slightly skinny in its account of post-Independence India. The reader does get a really feel of the Nehruvian ethos, and although their account is transient, the authors alert us towards forgetting the ravages of The Emergency. However they appear to have glossed over seminal developments just like the introduction of the Mandal Fee report – it finds a point out solely within the timeline — and the social and political churn it created. A New Historical past of India talks of the challenges of industrialisation, however the environmental query is consigned solely to points round local weather change – the Bhopal Fuel tragedy, for example, doesn’t discover a point out.
However these are quibbles. A New Historical past of India is a type of books that many readers are prone to learn cowl to cowl, after which come again to their favorite sections.