Romila Thapar heroine of Historiography as Heroin

What did 'colonial historians' have to say about India? People like A.L Basham- who taught Romila Thapar and Ram Sharan Sharma - thought ancient India represented an imperishable wonder and a glory. Thapar and Sharma held the opposite view. India is a shithole. Always has been, always will be. In Thapar's case, it is plausible to suggest she was influenced by Hobsbawm. What is certain is that she adopted his views, first propounded in 1985, on Nations and Nationalism which held both to be modern phenomenon.

This was strange because Hobsbawm was a Jew and the Hebrew scripture speaks of nations. The Hebrew word 'Goyim' means non Jewish ethnicities. The English Bible translators replaced this Hebrew word with 'nation' at the beginning of the Seventeenth century. But medieval universities were divided between 'nations'- i.e. groups of students with the same mother tongue. Thus a common language was always seen as constituting a nation. In the UK, 4 nations are recognized- England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Interestingly, even after the the partition of Ireland, players from both the Republic and Ulster are represented on the Irish rugby team. 

British historians know the history of their own country. They understand that countries need to do smart things from the economic and geopolitical point of view.  Obsessing over past grievances is foolish. The Indian students of such historians- or economists, come to that- didn't understand this. They thought academia should confine itself to virtue signaling and whining about 'elites'. 

Regarding Hindu Muslim relations, recent history is clear. Muslims ethnically cleanse Hindus if they can but Hindus don't necessarily do the same though their retaliations can be very bloody. Romila Thapar's family was from Lahore. She should understand this better than most. Yet, Romila argues otherwise.

The Wire has published the text of the C.D. Deshmukh Lecture Romila delivered on January 14, 2023, at the India International Centre in New Delhi. It makes for dis-spiriting reading. It appears the erstwhile doyen of Indian historiography had less knowledge of modern history than most A level students.

The highly respected historian of modern Europe, Eric Hobsbawm,

Hobsbawm was a Marxist who had a cult following in India and one or two other backward places. He was not respected in England whose indigenous working class Socialist tradition he, being a Jew born in Egypt, was not familiar with.  

commenting on the relationship of history to nationalism, given that histories become prolific when a society nurtures nationalism,

a foolish view. Histories are prolific where there is a market for them. Imperial Societies can sustain markets of this sort. Josephus wrote his Histories after he accepted Roman hegemony.  

writes that history is to nationalism what a poppy is to a heroin addict.

This is utterly foolish. Afghans are plenty nationalistic and they also have a lot of poppies. What they don't have is a lot of history books. The same was true of the Mongols. What Hobsbawm said was that nationalism and fundamentalism took history as their raw material- but this history could be invented. But why bother inventing shit? What matters is the future. Only if your ideology says your side is bound to win real soon- or else the World will end and your guys will get to heaven while everybody else goes to hell- can you motivate action here and now. Marxism was cool when it promised an earthly paradise any day now. It stopped being cool when people realized that everybody would have to work very very hard for many generations before scarcity came to an end and the State withered away. A better alternative to revolutionary action was emigration. 

I would add that the dependence has to be recognised and analysed.

It doesn't exist. Nepalis are nationalistic. How many history books do they have? India under the Raj was prolific in history books because the Brits liked that sort of thing. But guys who wrote or read such books helped keep India under the Raj because the alternative was an anarchy which bibliophiles would have to flee. Later on, stupid Marxists did entrench themselves on campuses and produced unreadable shite. But these weren't actually 'histories'. They were exercises in bigotry and Orwellian double-think. 

Origins generally rise in status when placed in the ancient past.

Nonsense! Macaulay's History was written when England was top dog. But Macaulay didn't give a shit about Britain's 'ancient past'. William of Orange was his hero.  It would be foolish for the Americans or the Australians to trouble greatly over their ancient past. Only if a country genuinely has an ancient civilization whose religion or literary culture continues to subsist would its historians dwell on the matter. But not many such countries exist. India and China are very much such countries. In India's case, the majority religion is directly tied to that ancient culture. Communists may not like this but nobody likes Communists because they are stupid and evil. 

They then have to be legitimised by assessing evidence and accuracy.

Why? Nobody gives a shit. There is plenty of objective evidence that Chinese Communism was stupid and evil. But it would be stupid for anybody to challenge that evil. If Chairman Xi says he farts rainbows, nod your head. What legitimizes Xi's authority is the fact that he will fucking kill you if you give him any backchat.  

What comes from the poppy and enters the mind of the heroin addict, conjures up fantasies about a magnificent past – or otherwise – and about which fantasy sustains the present.

Modi is in power. Communists are confined to Kerala. Thapar may have fantasies about a past when Communism wasn't evil and stupid. But then she may also think her own worthless shite served that cause. It didn't. The fact that Sonia listened to her caused Congress to be seen as anti-Hindu and anti-national. This helped the BJP.  

Those of you who are familiar with the counter-currents of actual history

Muslims destroyed temples and forcibly converted or ethnically cleansed non-Muslims 

as opposed to imagined history,

the Brits created enmity between Muslims and non-Muslims by inventing lies- e.g. that Hinduism existed. Obviously, if Muslims hadn't been brainwashed into believing there was a religion called Hinduism, they wouldn't have ethnically cleansed Thapar's people. Modi, btw, is actually a British man named Nicholas Maugham. He is a very Evil Fascist who seeks to perpetuate the myth that Hinduism genuinely exists.

in the India of today, or indeed have smoked pot, might appreciate the parallel.

Taking drugs may have been a good reason to stick around on campus sleeping through seminars given by stupid Leftists. But cocaine is expensive.  For a better quality high you have to go where the money is. 

I shall speak this evening initially on the link between history and nationalism,

There is none. A Nation may be foolish enough to subsidize the teaching of History and spend money on stupid Professors of claptrap. But if Nations don't kill invaders or insurgents, or else pay somebody else to do this for them, they will disappear. 

and subsequently about why history has become entangled with legitimising a kind of nationalist history that is questioned by many historians.

Historians, like Alchemists, are welcome to indulge in their own circle jerks. Why subsidize the racket? Ultimately, History pays for itself if it inspires popular fiction and films and so forth. This is a purely market phenomenon and thus increasingly ergodic i.e. not path dependent.  

Even long-lasting cultures like ours, have been punctuated by points of immense historical change.

Only long lasting cultures have this feature. 

The punctuations have transformed our societies.

No. Economic forces transform societies though lots of peeps may have to be killed before this can happen. The trouble with Thapar and her ilk is that they didn't get that Marxism is an economic theory of history. It is Anglo-Saxon, empirical, ergodic and the opposite of the German Historical School of Economics. 

These changes are not arbitrary. Nationalism itself is one of these seminal points of change.

Nope. It is a change in the super-structure which however could easily be defeated- e.g. by forcible or market based relocation or just fiscal unviability. There are plenty of Nationalities which have no Nation State of their own. This is because a State is an economic regime. It isn't some shite pedants gas on about.  

By definition, nationalism should carry the entire population of citizens in a nationalist movement that makes for a new society,

There is no such 'definition'. On the contrary, though patriotism may be 'natural' and is expressed by willingness to fight to keep your homes and families, Nationalism is a socio-economic concept which, since the eighteenth century, has been linked to the economic interests of both a lower administrative and a rising entrepreneurial class.  

together with its multiple requirements.

Utterly false! Nationalism is associated with expelling an alien ruling class and coercively 'assimilating' regional and minority populations. On the other hand, no 'new society' may be desired. Communism is a different story. But it is not, in essence, nationalistic. 

Nationalism is a concept which, when it comes to be adopted, terminates the old social system

there is no evidence whatsoever for this view. A nation may throw off an Imperial overlord so as to more thoroughly revert to the old social system. But 'social systems' are economic and regimes have to compete against each other. 

and brings in an alternate society with values and structures that virtually revolutionise the existing society.

Nothing of the sort has ever happened. Wars can change things. But War is just Economics by other means.

Nationalist principles do not have roots in the ancient past,

unless they do. The Hebrews are pretty ancient. So are the Hindus.  

because the new society they give rise to,

what fucking new society did Indian nationalism give rise to? The thing retarded economic development. It conserved a fossilized social order. The problem with 'Listian' Nationalism, absent a military threat which militates for conscription, is that it can actively impose scale and scope diseconomies. 

is a response to current requirements, and not to those that have long since passed away.

The current requirement of a regime is to buy off or beat off rivals for power. This may be done in the name of things which passed away long ago.  

Nationalism assumes that it brings about the uniting of communities on a substantial scale and for the first time.

No. It may be about dividing communities- e.g. the creation of Pakistan- and it may be about reverting to a previous state of independence- e.g. Scottish Nationalism. 

Their loyalty is to a new structure, namely, the nation-state.

No. Our loyalty may be to Islam or Catholicism or Communism or some other internationalist creed or ideology. 

The single unitary purpose is the construction of the nation,

India was admitted to the League of Nations at its inception in 1919 because it was already a Nation. Then Buddhist Burma went its own way in 1937 as did, a decade later, the Muslim majority areas which became Pakistan. Hindus decided to pull together rather than hang apart precisely because they did not want to repeat the mistakes of the previous thousand years. 

that is of citizens forging a single national identity,

subjects may have this while citizens may have a plural, but still national, identity.  The US has dual sovereignty. India does not- but it could have gone down that route. 

as for instance when the Indian national movement struggled to establish a state consisting of free citizens liberated from colonial control.

The only reason the Brits retained control of Defense, Foreign Policy etc. after 1937 was because Indians could not agree to establish a Federal Government. In 1947, Indian politicians had no choice but to accept Independence. Colonial control was taken off the table by the Colonial power. No fucking struggle was involved. 

But nationalism can have variant forms, from a single unitary identity to divergent identities.

So, Thapar admits she was talking nonsense just a few minutes ago. 

In India, the divergence was of two new nationalisms identified by religion, the Muslim and the Hindu, growing out of the colonial construction of India.

There was not 'colonial construction' of India or anywhere else. There was merely territory which it was profitable or prudent to bring under British paramountcy.  

These distinctly different nationalisms have diverse intentions.

Nope. They wanted to control specific territory.

The unitary drew in all the citizens and was anti-colonial

Thapar's grandfather and father weren't 'anti-colonial' at all. They sucked up to the Brits and made lots of money doing so. Also, there were no fucking 'citizens' back then. There were only British subjects and British protected subjects.  

whereas the multiform segregates specific identities, differentiating them from the other that is singular.

Meaningless jibber jabber. What this stupid woman is trying to say is that Muslims, Sikhs and some Princes or the Dewans of those Princes wanted to go their own way though they might drop this demand if it paid better or was less dangerous to do so. 

Their agendas differed and were tied to creating two fresh nation-states.

Sikhs would have loved to have their own State. Some Princes were of the same opinion. Hindus wanted to hang together because they had kept getting fucked over by Muslims and Christians when they were disunited.  

What then was the kind of society that unitary nationalism was intending to build?

The Nehru Report was pretty clear about this. The Mahacrackpot had his own ideas but nobody wanted that shite. 

At Independence, when the polity mutated from kingdoms and the colony of earlier time, into an independent nation-state, unitary nationalism was characterised by the necessary presence of democracy and secularism.

No. There was no guarantee that either would prevail. Pakistan didn't have a general election till 1971. Had the Commies not been so utterly crap, India might have been a Dictatorship.  

Every person was to have equal status and equal rights as a citizen of the nation-state.

Fuck off! There were plenty of Princes with privy purses and sovereign immunity.  

Inevitably democracy and secularism become essential to the rights of the citizen.

Nonsense! The rights of citizens depend only on availability of effective remedies under a bond of law. Neither democracy nor secularism have any magical power to ensure such remedies exist. 

Britain is pretty good at safeguarding rights. But it isn't secular. There is an Established Church.  

These rights had never existed before.

Rubbish! The departure of the Brits meant that Thapar's people suddenly stopped having any fucking rights in Lahore. Incidentally, Jinnah was very secular. He had a Hindu Law Minister- who had to run away- and got a Hindu- who soon ran away- to right the new National Anthem. 

Societies of the past rarely gave every person the right to being equal or having a free status.

This silly woman thinks that a right without a remedy is still a right.  

The caste rules of the Dharmashastras, for instance, underlined inequality and the absence of such freedom.

which didn't matter at all because Dharmashastras were concerned with doing well after death. 

Where a nation-state comes into existence, the people cease to be subjects of a ruler

False! During the nineteenth century, many new nation-states imported a King- e.g. Greece, Romania, Bulgaria etc.  

or a kingdom,

This stupid cunt doesn't know that when Norway chose to split off from Sweden it brought in a Danish prince to rule it. Sweden had previously brought in a French Napoleonic General to be its King.  

and become citizens of the state.

There is no great difference between being a subject of a Constitutional monarch and the citizen of a State- except that the latter are more likely to have to run away from a vicious dictator.  

Democracy is adopted as the model polity.

Unless it isn't.  

This implies that governing the state is dependent on the wishes of the people who are represented in various state bodies.

There is no such implication. Plebiscitary democracy is different from representative democracy. Why is this senile fool displaying her ignorance at this late hour? 

Power lies not with those that govern

Yes it does. You can't govern without power.  

but with the agencies that represent the citizens – the judiciary, the legislature the executive.

the judiciary does not represent the citizens. 

The rules of government are not the arbitrary wishes of the ruler but the actions based on constitutional authority.

Constitutions can be suspended. Indira acted in a pretty arbitrary manner during the Emergency. 

The rules and intentions of the functioning of the state are recorded in the constitution.

Utterly false! A country can have an unwritten constitution. In any case, the constitution can always be suspended ,amended or wholly abrogated. Why does Thapar not know this? 

Nationalism when it is singular should unite the people, a unitary nationalism as with the anti-colonial Indian nationalism.

It wasn't unitary at all precisely because anti-Imperialism was a big tent affair. Amba Prasad Sufi died in Iran and is considered a Pan-Islamist! 

Other categories of specific and segregated nationalisms are not intended to unify citizens but to segregate them according to identity.

Rubbish! Consider Canada's 'Laurentian elite'. Scottish Nationalists traditionally identified a similar nexus as underlying the Act of Union. Austria-Hungary represents a more complex, not to say catastrophic, dual identity. 

Segregation means that primary status is given to the group that counts as the majority.

Did Thapar think the Apartheid segregation in South Africa was enforced by a White majority?  

The agendas of these two are distinct and need to be understood.

This woman can't understand shit.  

This is the point at which there is a turn to history. The legitimacy of identities and their history is claimed to date back to ancient times, and the older it is, the greater status it is supposed to have.

This lady's ancestors lived in what is now Pakistan. Does she really think Pakistan considers Islam older than Hinduism?  

It is therefore with the emergence of segregated, diverse nationalisms that there develops a difference, or even in some cases a confrontation between the professional historians basing themselves on methodological correctness in researching history, and those who are not trained historians yet purvey a non-researched history.

Nonsense! Historians in free countries are welcome to confront each other or suck each other off to their heart's content. However, where segregation or ethnic cleansing is occurring, professional historians can get beaten to death if they harp on methodical correctness.  

The intentions differ. The multiform group is more dependent on public support and reformulates history to uphold the requirements of the majority among the citizens.

Or the minority which is killing and torturing anybody who looks at it cross-wise. Thapar's father and grandfather helped the Brits- who were a very small minority- do plenty of segregation between 'White town' and 'Black town' and to enforce 'crawling orders'. Incidentally, Thapar's grandfather subscribed money to honor Brigadier Dyer after Jallianwallah Bagh.  

The others, not of that identity may have lesser rights as citizens.

They may have to run the fuck away. 

History becomes crucial to justify the primacy of the current majority and the form of nationalism.

Nobody gives a shit about history. What matters is beating and killing. Thapar & Co were meant to get their students to train as guerillas or terrorist squads. Instead they got them to babble illiterate nonsense. 

In previous times the study and writing of history in various forms was left to

people who wrote well. Guys like Hume and Macaulay made money by writing Histories. Even now, English blokes with names like Dalrymple or Keay can make money writing about Indian history because their English is good and they write in an entertaining and informative style. Thapar thought her job was to make Indian history as boring as shit. 

scholars from whose midst came the professional historians.

i.e. academics- pedagogues paid to keep their students from masturbating incessantly 

Slowly there was a shift in history towards the social sciences which demanded a training in reading sources, and in learning systems of analysis and methodology.

Nope. Governments realized that cretins needed to be warehoused on campuses where they would cancel each other out as noise. 

History is now a specialised discipline in which the proven reliability of evidence is crucial.

No. History is now either Grievance Studies or what pays the bills while you write your version of Game of Thrones. 

No historical evidence has any fucking 'proven reliability' save of a purely chronological sort. Everything else is just evidence of 'Granger causality'.  

There is no catechism in historical study.

There are several.  

So now there is the history written by the trained professional historian

Thapar is one such- but she is utterly shit.  

and other views of the past projected by the nationalism of the many segregated groups each vying for the primacy of its particular identity.

They won't achieve shit if they stick with writing histories.  

The latter are questioned or rejected by the professional historians and are in turn said to be incorrect in what they present.

This follows from the great stupidity of 'professional historians'. Seriously, it isn't a high IQ discipline.  

Many who make pronouncements on history lack training but who nevertheless pronounce upon the past with full confidence, basing themselves either on hearsay or their own imagination.

This silly lady said there was no Ram Temple before the mosque was built. Sadly, archaeology is scientific. 

History for them is just a story, a story that I narrate, or you narrate, or anybody else for that matter. Making up stories is great fun and very entertaining as we all know from having told bedtime stories to children.

Thapar's stories are no fun. They are boring and stupid. 

But when these stories are claimed as factual then they have to be proved.

Which is what Thapar & Co failed to do.  

They cannot be part of entertainment –

why not? Factual narratives don't have to be boring.  

especially when they become central to the most influential of current storytellers: namely, the media of every kind.

AJP Taylor's BBC series were actually quite entertaining. Thapar's would not have been because she is boring and stupid. Also, why is her English so shitty? If Sen can write proper English sentences, why can't she? Both went to study in England at the same time and her subject was more literary. The difference, I suppose, was that Sen studied at Cambridge- where even the historians are high IQ- whereas Thapar studied at SOAS which is for genteel thickos. 

Democracy, which is politically crucial and a significant aspect of nationalism

There is no necessary or significant connection between nationalism and democracy. A religiously inclined people may adopt theocracy. 

is often used by non-historians as a slogan. But democracy is a recognised concept of modern times

though it originated in ancient times 

as is secularism and both are tied to the nation-state.

Empires can be secular- e.g. that of the King Emperor as whose subject Thapar was born- indeed, they can also be democratic- Ceylon got universal suffrage in 1931. 

 Thapar is simply ignorant as she will now illustrate

Let me suggest a couple of examples. The 18th-century French revolution claimed some links to Greek democracy so as to legitimise the change from monarchy to the nation-state.

It followed the American and the British, 'Glorious', Revolution which in turn followed the Cromwellian Revolution which had gathered strength because both the Common and the Roman Law traditions had a concept of limited monarchy arising out of the amalgamation of tribal republics. Since Athens had educated its Roman conqueror and since people like Sir Edward Coke said that England's ancient Druids spoke Greek, there was a continuous chain of legal reasoning linking seventeenth and eighteenth century Western Parliaments to the Athenian Ecclesia. 

This is the sort of thing English kids know before they get to Oxbridge to study History. Thapar, being from India, probably never had this drilled into her. She may have sounded quite British and upper class but the truth is she was, and remained, ignorant and Punjabi. 

Yet there was an absence in Athens of the concepts that moved the French. The free citizens constituted a bare fraction of that of the population of Athens.

Nonsense! Forty percent of men were free citizens. Add in the metics, who didn't have voting rights, but who were loyal enough for economic reasons and the old family retainers and we can understand why the alien slaves weren't a threat. 

The overwhelming majority were slaves and aliens who had no representation in, or rights to, governance.

Some metics were rich and some were highly influential 'sophists' or intellectuals. 

Imbuing governance with an ideal of democracy was an imaginative way of using the remote past to claim legitimacy for a revolutionary change in 18th-century France.

No. The American Revolution was important. Nobody gave a toss about Pericles. Still, the fact is the French Republic fucked up. Napoleon became Emperor and reversed the abolition of slavery etc.  

The revolution was seeking legitimacy for its call to ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’, by maintaining that they had existed in ancient times.

The thing existed in America which had kicked George III's ass. Greece was under the Ottoman heel. Its politics couldn't legitimize shite.  

This is a familiar formulation in our times.

No it isn't. This woman is mad.  

Indian sources mention the centrality of the gana-sanghas and gana-rajyas,

which, being shite, gave way to Kings and Emperors 

especially with reference to oligarchies and chiefships around the time of the Buddha.

and nobody in India at any time has said 'let's go back to that shitty way of doing things'. Fuck tribal republics. Have a standing army and the rule of law. The alternative is the khap panchayat.  

Free citizens find little mention nor instituted methods of representation.

But flying saucers do feature.  

The heads of Kshatriya families more frequently sat in the assemblies.

Thapar is Khattri. Her brother was India's worst general. Still, she has a point. Any assembly where Kshatriyas dominated would be bound to be shit. Them guys thought knifing each other was more important than keeping out the Muslims or the Brits or the Commies.  

The Shudras and the dasas despite being the majority, were excluded.

Unless they were rich or had become Kings or were just less stupid and cuntish than Kshatriyas 

The panchayats of medieval times, and the village assemblies such as that of Uttaramerur,

Since the Tamil country has no Kshatriyas or Vaishyas, there was a Brahmin assembly (because this was a land grant village and hence Brahmins had notional ownership) and one for everybody else.  

had select membership. Caste society based on varna as described in the Dharmashastras was a contradiction of democracy.

Though that's how democracy evolved in the West. I suppose Thapar didn't notice that Britain had a hereditary House of Lords.  

The concept of the gana-sangha seems more prominent in Buddhist texts than the Brahmanical.

ancient ones- sure. But those Buddhist texts were generally composed by Brahmins. If you were smart you lived large as a Buddhist monk. If you were stupid or your Mummy beat you and forced you to marry, you had to stick to Brahminism. 

Democracy, necessary to a nation-state,

Nepal is a nation-state. It was a monarchy which kicked ass militarily which is why nobody conquered it. But it wasn't a democracy.  

came to India later in modern times

the Brits started holding elections in the 1880s. Fuck you Britain! Fuck you very much! 

together with nationalism and secularism.

and fellatio and cunnilingus.  

The ideals of the French Revolution were beginning to be debated by a wider audience. They were picked up in America and tied into American political thought.

Wow! Here is a historian who does not understand that 1776 precedes 1789!  

As every historian knows democracy and representation were discussed with the coming of the nation-state,

the Dutch Republic was established in 1581. It became a monarchy in 1815 and a parliamentary democracy after 1848. Thapar is an exceedingly ignorant historian.

associated with the emergence of the middle class, with the new technologies and functions of industrialisation and the changes being introduced by capitalism.

Holland shows the reverse. It could rebel and become independent because it had new technology and a type of industrialization. But it didn't become democratic till the revolutionary year of 1848. 

It entered colonial thinking when these ideas began to be debated in the colonies.

which was when they became colonies. You can't have colonial thinking if there is no fucking colony. 

European social theories of the 19th century bestowed an inferior status on the colonised.

and the conquered and also those who sucked people off for pennies.  

The theory of race became prominent in part to justify the control of the European over many non-European populations.

No. What justifies the control of  population is making a profit or gaining some other benefit by doing so. Furthermore if you control a dude, chances are you are superior to him in ways that matter. 

To legitimise this particular type of control, the argument of successful conquest was insufficient.

It was unnecessary. Disraeli told Parliament in 1857 that India had not been conquered. This did not mean British rule there was illegitimate. What mattered was whether it was profitable. Would the cost of putting down the Mutiny be recovered? The answer turned out to be, yes though an Income Tax had to be imposed in 1860.  

The innate inferiority of the dark-skinned colonised people had to be firmly established.

No firmer way of establishing this existed other than beating them in battle with far fewer troops.  

Hence the importance of what was called ‘race science’.

Which wasn't important at all.  

Any culture that defined its people as fairer skinned than the other was taken as superior.

Nope. The 'hairy Ainu' were 'defined' as whiter than the Japanese. But the Ainu were considered savages. When Japan rose economically and militarily, the South Africans classed them as Whites while considering South Koreans as 'colored' which caused problems for a friend of mine whose father was British but whose mother was South Korean.  

Thus, the Aryan speakers referring to the dasas as dark was read as skin colour and therefore racial inferiority.

Krishna means 'black skinned'. But people who identify as 'Aryas' worship Lord Krishna, who was black skinned, as the incarnation of the Lord. Draupati, in the Mahabharata, too, is called Krishna because she is black skinned.  

The application of race to caste classification further clinched the segregation of the lower castes and the Adivasis.

Rubbish! The earliest British censuses clarify that skin color is irrelevant. A Brahmin might be very dark. An untouchable may be much fairer skinned. In Tamil Nadu, the high castes are Dravidian. One Scheduled Caste is 'Aryan'. 

Kipling depicts the 'kaffirs' of Afghanistan as Nordic. But they are uncivilized and have a lower material culture. The Afghans conquered and converted them a short while after Kipling published 'The Man who would be King'.  

No 'application' of stupid shite spouted by Professors had any consequences whatsoever. Who could kill who and turn a profit doing so determined hierarchies. 

The controversy over the origins of Aryan speakers is both a serious controversy among scholars but also has a component of contestation between most professional historians and those with pretensions to appropriate knowledge.

The thing does not matter in the least. When South India was poor, us Dravidians might have had a 'color complex' and let the fair skinned Thapars pretend they were superior. Now we tell them to go fuck themselves.  

The former locate the Aryan speakers as migrating from Central Asia in slow stages, whereas the Hindutva theory insists on their homeland being within the boundaries of India.

So, the Hindutva guys are doing something smart. They are saying that that what matters is mtDNA- mother India, maternal genes, Vande fucking Mataram baby. Us Hindus are noble and spiritual and thus true Aryans. Whitey wipes his bum. We wash our arseholes. We are superior to those meat-eating savages. This also makes us immune to the blood-thirsty cults of Moses, Muhammad and Marx. On the other hand, Israel will remain the holy land of our Defense procurement guys so we are cool with Jews.  

Hindutva holds that both the Hindu and Hinduism originated in India, so they have no choice but to argue for indigenous origins.

Hinduism assimilated invaders or immigrants from the North West and East. What's wrong with that? Plenty of us are now assimilating to Europe and America. We are proud of being Hindu rather than Muslim coz...urm... there aint no bombs in our turbans dude. Also we've given up turbans. Modi wore a Stetson.  

But defining the boundaries of India as with land-marked boundaries anywhere, has to contend with the fact of boundaries changing every century.

So what? Provided demographic replacement of Hindus is confined to the borders, we're sitting pretty.  

The study of the Aryans associated with Vedic texts is a fascinating historical example of the diverse sources and disciplines now required for investigating such topics.

Nope. It is boring shite. Scripture is only interesting from a spiritual or soteriological point of view. Nobody gives a shit about who the fucking Canaanites were.  

In the 19th century knowing Vedic Sanskrit was sufficient. Slowly the additional disciplines came. Archaeology in the 20th century brought fresh questions on the interface of two diverse cultures – the Harappan and the Vedic. That there were interactions was proved through the new discipline of linguistics pointing to possible Dravidian language elements being present in the earliest Indo-Aryan. The nature of this interaction requires further analysis to clarify aspects of cultural history.

No it doesn't. The thing is boring and stupid. Sooner or later, everybody and her cat will have an app on their smartphone updating them about their deep genealogical history. The glamor and mystery of ancestral origins will fade. Already we understand the dispiriting truth that the genes in our body are part of a multidimensional game of chess played against viruses or bacteria or other such beasties

In recent years Aryanism has again become a contention between professional historians and others, but the latter with a few exceptions.

The amateurs won precisely because they were amateurs. Their motivation was good- viz. to defeat a stupid racialist anti-national ideology. It was better that they- rather than State subsidized anti-national shitheads- crapped on this field which, to be fair, may be important for epidemiology and health care and stuff like why I should lose weight and become vegan.  

That the Aryan speakers were indigenous to India has been questioned this time by geneticists whose DNA analyses of post-Harappan samples of the second millennium BC shows strains from Central Asian populations.

The problem here is that once DNA sampling in Asia reaches the saturation level achieved in Western Europe, Granger causality will reverse 

Historians working on the Vedic period have now to be proficient in handling genetic data as well, whereas the non-historians writing on the topic can let their fantasies run.

 Genetic data is processed by non-historians. As sample sizes increase what has happened in Europe will happen in India- viz. the focus will be on how little demographic replacement there was and how much interrelationship there is between regions. This is good for Hindutva. It is bad for Marxist 'race equals caste equals caste' histrionics. But, in any case, Kanshi Ram and the BSP took out the monopoly of that issue leading to the decline of the Communist party in Punjab and UP. 

In the early colonial period, India was said to be lacking in knowing history since there were no ancient histories as there were among the Greeks, Romans and Chinese.

No. This was said by some guys whom nobody gave a shit about while the opposite was said by other guys whom nobody gave a shit about. India had and has lots of palm leaf manuscript depositories which have not been examined. The Arthashastra was only rediscovered at the beginning of the last century.  

The colonial power, for whom history was the key to understanding the colony they ruled,

there was no such 'colonial power'. The key to understanding a colony has to do with geography- natural, social and economic. History does not matter at all. Napoleon did invest scholarly resources in 'understanding' Egypt. Then he was chased out of it. Sad. Later Germany would spend a lot of time 'understanding' India while British Colonel Blimps, speaking a little rudimentary Hindustani, ruled the place in between indulging in chukkahs and chotta pegs.  

decided therefore to discover and write the history of the colony.

I suppose Thapar means James Mill. But nobody gave a toss about that clerk of the East India Company. 

The past of the Indian colony thus constructed would enable the colonial power to govern the colony the way they wanted to, and at the same time claim legitimacy from a version that they themselves had constructed.

Nobody believed any such shite. The Viceroy might say 'I need more soldiers to hold the country'. He never said 'Kindly supply me some historians so as to legitimize my power.' 

Colonial historical scholarship had a basic orientation to the Indian past.

Was history oriented towards the past? Cool. 

One was to discover a history similar to the early European.

Which is what obtained. 

But the later intention was to find a distinctly dissimilar one.

Nonsense! 

William Jones working in Calcutta studied the Vedas and began to see similarities in language and mythology with the Greco-Roman.

But, Europeans had already noticed similarities between European languages and mythologies. 

Some connections could be conceded. This was not so with other discoveries such as those of James Prinsep who deciphered the brahmi script and Alexander Cunningham who pioneered archaeological excavation.

But brahmi was seen as ultimately derived from Aramaic. The nature of the writing material dictated the changes while the pre-existing theory of phonetics itself had affected the original adaptation.  

Colonial officers working in India were enthusiastic about these activities,

some were, most weren't.  

as also were the Indian officials for whom the vision created by this material was new. Two most influential persons working in England, both declined to visit India to consult Indian scholars. They wrote from their study of and reflection on, the texts. These two were James Mill and Frederick Max Muller.

Mill was not a Indologist. He was a utilitarian economist whose work was rewarded by John Company. He'd have been happy to take up an appointment in India for a remuneration of 5000 a year but none was offered to him so he had to be content with a salary of less than half that. Muller was a German Indologist who was hired by Oxford at a time when missionary zeal was at its height. Then came the 1857 Mutiny. Best to stay away from Ind's coral strand if you have been pretending that Indology could contribute to the Christianization of the population. The local people might inflict thugee or suttee or buggery on your person.

James Mill wrote the first modern history of India, The History of British India, in 1817.

Enterprising Scotsmen wrote such works on spec. Mill's labors paid off just as Hume's History paid off. But Mill was remembered for his utilitarian views which, ultimately, is also Hume's message. Metaphysics does not matter. Utilitarian mimetics- doing what smart people do for an economic reward- is the way to go.  

Much of it was his personal perspective of the history as it might have been. Mill maintained that Indian history was that of two nations, the Hindu and the Muslim, quite distinctly separate and constantly in conflict.

The two nation theory prevailed in 1947.  

Indian history was periodised into the earliest Hindu period when Hinduism was powerful, followed by the domination of Islamic rulers. Finally came the British who controlled events in the third period. This periodisation deeply coloured the interpretation of Indian history.

Truth can do so but the thing is not inevitable. Stupid people may prefer to cling to fantasies. 

It has been discarded now by professional historians,

who are required to be very stupid in order to remain in that profession. 

arguing that its single and universally applied explanation of religion as the prime cause of every major historical activity, was untenable.

Very true. If I scratch my arse it is not because of my religion. However, if you notice that Hindus- like Thapar's family- run away from Muslim majority areas so as to live in Hindu or Christian majority areas- then it is likely that religion is the prime cause of such population movements.  

it continues to be used by some who are not historians.

And thus are sensible enough to run away from guys who want to chop off their kaffir heads.  

What were the implications of Mill’s history?

There were none. John Company had already noticed that Hindus like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore were saying 'please send out more White peeps. Protect us Hindus from the Muslims and we will pay you well.'  On the other hand, the Brits had come into conflict with the Wahabbis and were afraid this movement would merge with the indigenous tradition of Sirhindi and Wallilullah. With the first Afghan War, John Company adopted an explicit doctrine of defending Hinduism and pushing back Islam. The supposed 'gates of Somnath' were brought back by Lord Ellenborough's order. 

The plain fact is that Hindus preferred British rule to Muslim rule while even Sikhs, not to mention Hindus or Muslims, preferred British rule to anarchy. 

The Hindu period was reconstructed from Sanskrit texts. The Muslim period was based on the Persian and Turkish chronicles of the Sultanate and Mughal courts. The focus was on victorious invasions, the destruction of temples and the victimisation of Hindus. Most chronicles written as eulogies to rulers would tend to highlight these conquests, especially of rulers newly establishing themselves.

So, Thapar admits that Hindus were victimized because Muslim rulers gained esteem by killing kaffirs and destroying their sacred places. 

This is the kind of history that professional historians see as an attempt to whittle down every cause to a single one – religious difference – and ignore or minimise other causes.

 Islam considers it a holy and pious thing to kill infidels and to destroy their places of worship iff it is safe to do so. The causal factor is the same though it may be defeated or promoted by some other consideration. 

It was a travesty of the way serious history was being written and something of a joke when compared to the careful enquiries that European historians were making into European history.

European historians were ignored because they were as stupid as shit. Germany was expansionary and thus guilty of starting two world wars. It remained partitioned and under occupation till it ceased to be a threat.  

For example, much of European thinking on Asian history put the study of Asia into a mould labelled Oriental Despotism.

Which was genuinely distinct from Occidental Despotism. The Tzars had a different trajectory from the Caliphs.  

Asian societies were projected as static and registering no changes.

Whereas European societies were changing because of the fucking Jews, and Commies and Free Masons- not to mention the Homos and the Women's Libbers and the ginormous dicks all them darkies have which they will definitely shove up your pooper if you aren't on the qui vive.  

The cultural pattern was like a pyramid with a highly despotic ruler at the peak

coz a despotic ruler would look silly if his main occupation was cleaning the sewers 

controlling all resources through his administration. Those that laboured to produce the wealth, were at the base of the structure and were immersed in poverty. The despot was only concerned with displaying his wealth. The ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ was derived from this mould as also some ideas of Max Weber and others.

This was the stupid creed Thapar & Co were supposed to be promoting.  

These attempts at explanations differed by contrast from the careful investigation of European history.

Fuck off! European historians are utterly shit. Incidentally, Kwarteng's doctorate was in Economic History. What a tosser!  

It was not until the later twentieth century that European and Asian scholars investigating Asian data, discovered a different historical reality.

viz. that everybody thinks they are stupid and useless.  

Mill’s two-nation theory made an impact on politics in colonial India.

No. After 1857, Mill and the East India Company became irrelevant. British policy was to work with existing power-holders who, however, were crap. 

The veracity of the theory was assumed and was not debated in depth as it should have been.

There is no point debating cretins. 

It became the source for projecting two religious nationalisms emerging at this time, the theory providing political legitimacy.

Pakistan was indeed created. Khalistan too may have been created. Rahul Gandhi says that India is not a Nation. It is a Union like the European Union. Perhaps this is why Stalin backs RaGa. After all, the DMK was originally secessionist.  

The segregated, but conflictual nationalisms based on religious identities differed from the unitary anti-colonial nationalism.

It was only 'unitary' between 1916 and 1922. By the time of the second Round Table Conference, Muslims, Dalits, Non-Brahmin Tamils, Sikhs, Christians etc were all united against Congress which the Mahatma, in 1939, declared was a Hindu party.  

Secular democratic nationalism focused on the singular movement for Independence, whilst the two religious nationalisms – Muslim and Hindu –

why does Thapar not mention Sikh nationalism? Her family is from Lahore. The plain fact is, where Hindus are not in the majority, there is secessionism.  

divided the nation between them. The Muslim culminated in Pakistan and the Hindu is edging towards a Hindu rashtra.

Pakistan didn't become an Islamic Republic immediately. India is a bit different. In practice each State can be as 'communal' as it likes. However, Hindus may put caste over creed.  

The colonial projection is succeeding.

Britain wanted the subcontinent to stick together because there would be obvious economic and geopolitical advantages. Sadly, the colonial project failed.  

From the historical perspective, we may well ask whether the division had evidence to support it. Supposedly irrefutable evidence of division is said to lie in the Muslims over the last 1,000 years having victimised the Hindus, treating them as enslaved. Why do historians question this theory?

Because they don't live in Pakistan or Bangladesh. 

It is claimed that when the Muslims invaded India and came to power, they victimised and enslaved the Hindus for a 1,000 years.

Whereas the truth is the Muslims used to suck off Hindus in between doing their laundry and sweeping their floors.  

The image projected is that of violence and aggression of the one against the other.

Whereas, actually, Babur was continually sucking off any Hindu he encountered.  

Now that the Hindus are in power they should have the right to avenge themselves.

Vengeance must begin with those who have most recently fucked us over. In India, it is Hindu politicians who have most recently fucked over Hindus. But just voting against shitheads is enough to get vengeance.  

However, the historical sources researched by professional historians read differently and do not rejuvenate this view of colonial historians.

Colonial historians thought Western institutions were better, provided they were incentive compatible, than crappy Hindu or Muslim institutions. India agrees.  Since historians are derided in Europe, they should be derided in India. Sonia was a fool to consult Thapar- but there was a time when people assumed Thapar was smart. Then they read her shite and discovered otherwise. 

The dictionary tells us that to victimise is to make a victim of a person or a specific group of people, to cheat, swindle and defraud them, or to deny them any freedom, or to slaughter them in the manner of a sacrificial victim. Politicians of a certain view and others who should know better, are known to endorse the theory.

Thapar victimized her students. They had to regurgitate her stupid shite to get jobs. Their revenge was to just get stupider and stupider.  

The professional activity of Hindus was reduced to a minimum, they were socially ostracised and above all forcibly converted. They also had to pay a tax as non-Muslims.

Only if it was safe to do so. UPA tried to victimize Hindus- apparently India had a big 'Hindu terrorist' problem- but then they were kicked in the goolies. Some may go to jail on corruption charges.  

Victimisation is not unknown to most pre-modern societies.

It was a big feature of Stalin and Mao's regimes.  

Those having access to power and wealth, resort to humiliating and harming those without either.

Digvijay threw Sadhvi Prayag in jail. Then she got out on bail and defeated him in his constituency. What goes around, comes around.  

Upper-caste Hindus have been familiar with this practice for more than two millennia.

Unless they were being killed or having to run away from Muslims or Christians.  

The Dalits, lower castes, untouchables were segregated, and it was claimed that their touch was polluting.

Sadly, this was still the case if they converted to Christianity or Islam.  

They were placed in a separate category of those without or outside caste, the avarnas. This was practised among all religions in India, although records link it more to upper-caste Hindus.

Because Hindus are the majority. But Bali has Brahmins but no untouchables, whereas Buddhist Japan had no Brahmins but plenty of untouchables.  

It seems that even on conversion to other religions, and specially those that in theory observed the equality of all, this segregation was maintained.

Was this because of a primitive pathogen avoidance theory? Did Buddhism worsen the underlying problem by stigmatizing fishing and butchering animals? 

As a category, it may well have been the larger in numbers. This is why we have Muslim pasmandas, Sikh mazhabis, Dalit Christians, and such like. Yet these are religions that formally believe in all of mankind being created equal.

As does Hinduism.  

One difference however is that this practice was not directed primarily to a religion but was linked to caste and the absence of caste status. Many questions arise that are fundamentally important to our society. Are practices of this kind directed less to particular religious communities and more to the large numbers outside varna society? Are these actions defined more by caste than by other identities or do they change with purpose and intent? Significantly, in Sanskrit sources, Muslims are generally not referred to as Muslim but by ethnic labels such as Yavana, Tajik, Turushka, etc.

Hindus made a distinction between indigenous Muslims and invaders. But so too did Muslims.  The great Reza Khan refused to accept land grants and insisted on money payment because he regarded Bengal as dar-ul-harb. His descendants had no such scruple because they were 'al-hindi'. 

Since so much of crucial importance has happened as a result of what was projected as religious antagonism, and even victimisation, let’s just look at what were the actual relations between the two religious communities, the Hindu and the Muslim, and in the period of the last thousand years.

Why bother? The fact is some parts of India- e.g. Tamil Nadu- have no Hindu Muslim problem. Where there was a doctrine of Muslim supremacy there has been ethnic cleansing. But demographic change has put this issue back on the agenda. How else explain recent BJP successes in the North East? The bigger question is West Bengal. It may be that Mamata's thugs will do to the BJP what it did to the Left Front.  Hindus will quietly run away from Muslim majority districts 

Starting at the level of the elites we know that quite a few Hindu royal families remained at the highest social status.

Only if they couldn't be killed or forcibly converted.  

They remained at the head of the administration in their erstwhile kingdoms and were given the continuing status and title of raja. The politics of administration required some continuation. Their income – agrarian and commercial – was sufficient for maintaining their aristocratic style of living.

Because their people were good at killing invaders but not very good at paying lots of money to make their conquest worthwhile.  

Traders from Arabia and East Africa trading with the west coast of India go back many centuries, even before the birth of Islam.

India declined because it turned its back on the sea.  

The extensive trade touched points along the Indian Ocean Arc – the coastline that went continuously from East Africa up the coast of Arabia, on to the coast of Gujarat and then south along coastal India to Kerala. There was considerable familiarity among traders on each side. Arab traders after the spread of Islam, settled in the flourishing towns trading along this coast. Their invading activities were limited to a part of Sind.

Because Hindus fought back. The problem with jihad is that the kaffirs may kill you.  

Some Arab settlers married locally, which is what settlers often do when they arrive in new places. Cultures intermingled. All along the west coast of India, new societies evolved. Social identities and religious sects were a mix of Islam with existing religions of the area. This resulted in new religious movements, many of which are still prominent – the Khojas, Bohras, Navayaths, Mappilas and such like.

Mappilas and most Navayaths are orthodox Shafi Muslims. Khojas and Bohras are Ismaili and, till about a hundred years ago, could have been called 'new religious movements' because of some syncretic practices. Thapar is wrong to lump them all together. 

It also led to the employment of Arabs in local administration. The Rashtrakutas in the 9th century AD appointed a Tajik /Arab governor of the region of Sanjan in coastal Deccan.

But Muslims displaced Hindu mariners and thus littoral Hindu areas declined. Indeed, Hinduism became insular and stagnant. 

A Rashtrakuta inscription records the grant of land made to a brahmana by a Tajik/Arab officer on behalf of the Rashtrakuta king. The revenue from this went towards donations to local temples as well as to the Parsi Anjuman, since many Parsi merchants were settled in the area. The majority of officers at this level of administration were members of the local elite and therefore largely Hindu, and these officers continued in the administration of the Sultans.

Ming dynasty China made the mistake of putting a Muslim Admiral in charge of their great fleet. Naturally, he didn't want to disturb the hegemony of his co-religionists, so it was the Portuguese who opened the door to European domination of the Indian ocean and even the Pacific. Why doesn't Thapar mention the King of Mysore who appointed a Muslim as his Military commander? Is it because the Muslim usurped the throne? 

Appointing local persons to high office was a practice that went back centuries, providing closer control over local matters. This may well be a reason for Muslim rulers appointing Rajputs to high office.

Akbar did that because his enemies were Muslims like himself. 

The Mughal economy was in the trusted hands of the Vazir, Raja Todar Mal, and Raja Man Singh of Amber, a Rajput, commanded the Mughal army at the battle of Haldighati.

Why does Thapar not mention Hemu? Had he prevailed, Hinduism would have become the Imperial religion. 

He defeated another Rajput who was an opponent of the Mughals – Maharana Pratap. Pratap’s army with its large contingent of Afghan mercenaries had as commander Hakim Khan Suri, a descendant of Sher Shah Suri. One could ask whether the battle was strictly speaking essentially a Hindu-Muslim confrontation.

It would have done if Hindus had won.  

Both religious identities had participants on each side in a complex political conflict. Rajput clans had differing loyalties among themselves and the imperial power and therefore fought on opposite sides, and regaining ancestral kingdoms was on both agendas.

What fucking ancestral kingdom did Hemu have?  Queen Victoria, on the other hand, fought valiantly to regain her ancestral fiefdom of Ludhiana. She forced Disraeli to dance bhangra when she became Empress of India. 

The intervention of Hindu chiefs in the politics of the Mughal court was substantial.

Because the Mughals were crap. Incidentally, a Mughal brought the Nehru dynasty to Delhi. Big fucking whoop.  

One instance that went on for a long period was that of Mughal relations with Bundelkhand.

Famous for female warriors like the Rani of Jhansi- not to mention Phoolan Devi. Perhaps it will be raised up to Statehood to permit more rapid development. 

The Bundella raja, Bir Singh Deo, who was close to Jahangir and held one of the highest Mughal mansabs /rank of revenue assignment, was so embroiled in Mughal court politics that he was linked to the assassination of the chief chronicler and close friend of Akbar, Abul Fazl.

An ignoble episode in the history of a valorous and virtuous people. Trust Thapar to bring up the matter.  

Among the more impressive symbols of political power used by various rulers were immensely large inscribed pillars. The Mauryan emperor Ashoka set up pillars in the heart of his empire, the inscriptions on which explained his governance and some of his policies. It was a way of directly communicating with subjects.

Who, fortunately, were illiterate- otherwise they'd have died laughing.  

Later rulers, wishing to participate in the past glory of the country that they ruled over, would either add their message or reposition the pillar. The latter was to borrow the glory of their predecessors or to assert their own victories, even though they were generally unaware of what the inscription said, or who were the authors. What was the meaning of this re-location of pillars? Was it celebrating the victory of the Sultans, or was it a link to the history of earlier times?

Or was it simply the sort of stupid shite sycophantic courtiers with time on their hands get up to? 

The pillars were not destroyed but carried a long distance with great difficulty and relocated with pride of place.

By people who had nothing better to do.  

One of the Ashokan pillars carries the stamp of an extensive historical statement. Currently in a central position in the Allahabad fort, re-located there by a Mughal, it has engraved on it, the large body of Ashokan edicts, as well as the famous prashasti/eulogy, of the Gupta ruler Samudragupta. This inscription cuts into the first few lines of the inscription of Ashoka, suggesting that the earlier inscription could no longer be read. A few brief lines of Feroz Shah Tughlaq come next amidst some graffiti. The inscriptions culminate in a beautifully engraved genealogy of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir. The pillar is a remarkable object encapsulating the Indian past, used by three major emperors over three millennia and in three languages and scripts – the object of pride in a continuity of great Indian cultures.

Which only the Brits bothered with. But for them, the pillar would now have 'prashastis' to Sanju's Five Point program as well as my own depiction of my ginormous dick.

Feroz Shah was disappointed that the texts could no longer be read by learned brahmanas. He had the pillars transported with much effort and organisation to various important locations. One was placed like a surrogate crown firmly on top of his citadel at Kotla in Delhi where it still stands and could once be seen for miles around. Was Feroz Shah anxious to link with the past because his mother was a Bhatti Rajput from Punjab

the dude was probably Punjabi himself- not the spawn of a Turkish slave 

or was he interested in displaying a stunning historical object that brought him attention as well?

Apparently, the original idea was to break it up and use the materials in a minaret.  

Among those that visit Kotla, people of every religion, few know about Ashoka or Feroz Shah, but they stay for a while and seek the barkat/blessings, of those now dead but believed to inhabit the place as invisible spirits.

Djinns. Since 1977, people have believed that lots of djinns are floating around the place and they can grant wishes.  So what?

Significantly, the Sultans and the Mughals did not uproot these pillars and replace them with their own, nor did they destroy them.

Unless they did- which is why we haven't found them.  

They relocated them.

Which is why we know about them. 

Were they also intrigued by the pillars as symbols of authority from pre-Islamic times?

Or did they want to insert them in their rectums for sexual gratification?  

Did they possibly draw elements of their own legitimacy from them?

by inserting them into their rectums. Only the biggest asshole is the legitimate ruler- right?  

Were they attempting to link their history with pre-Sultanate times?

If you become the ruler of a country, your history gets linked to previous and future rulers. Thapar does not know this.  

And what might have been the comments of the orthodoxy of both religions – Hindu and Muslim – on these activities?

Religion says you should not stick big iron pillars up your backside. Mind it kindly, Rahul Baba.  

The complexities of politics were not the only links between the Muslim rulers and the ruled. Marriage alliances were intended to strengthen social bonding.

As was sodomizing beardless youths. Babur, however, sucked off all and sundry which is why Hindus are being very mean and homophobic when they knock down his mosque.  

These were viewed as a means of easing political relations and winning allies.

The same could be said of sucking everybody off.  

The Mughal royal family married into Rajput royal families of high status.

Because marrying low class donkeys wasn't doing them much good.  

Since Muslims as non-caste aliens were treated as mleccha by upper caste Hindus, did Rajput ruling families lose face marrying into a mleccha family even if it was the imperial family? Apparently not.

Because you get face back when you kill and torture those who make fun of you.  

Was it a matter of pride that they were marrying ‘up’ as it were? There was of course no love-jehad in those days.

Because actual jihad had succeeded. Why marry when you can enslave and rape?  

Memoirs and autobiographies do not suggest that these were forced marriages since sociability among them on both sides was applauded. Court paintings of the imperial ateliers and book illustrations show many facets of the culture brought by the Hindu wives – particularly celebrating festivals – which appear to have been assimilated.

Mughal rule turned to shit. It turned out that fucking does not matter. Fighting does. 

Mughal aristocracy socialised with Hindus, yet Hindus of status looked upon this aristocracy as mleccha – they lacked varna/caste identities.

Thapar will herself show that this was meaningless. 

An inscription from Palam, dating to the 13th century, issued by a Hindu trader describes Muhammad bin Tughlaq

who ordered the killing of all the Hindus of Kanauj 

as almost an ideal king, but concludes by calling him, quite simply, a mleccha.

probably to show that the Hindus did not regard that crazy tyrant to be a Hindu by reason of his participation in some Hindu ceremonies. Incidentally, there were some 'deendars' who claimed that the superstitious Hindus would follow the Nizam because he had performed some ceremony and thus become the incarnation of some heathen deity.  

No trader would have used this term for a Sultan in any derogatory sense as that would have been the end of the trader. It could only refer to the Sultan having no caste identity, as was often what it meant.

Rather it meant that Tughlaq was descended from proper foreigners- not some Punjabi goat herder. 

Low caste Hindus, as well as those that had no firm caste identity – could qualify as avarnas.

What people wanted to qualify as was guys who were not being killed or enslaved.  

Those regarded as untouchable and polluting, were all at one level, also mleccha.

Nope. Sonia is Mleccha. She isn't Dalit. The same could be said of Queen Victoria or Annie Beasant. 

The 16th century text, the Sarva-darshana-samgraha, states categorically that the Shramanas – in which category are included Buddhists, Jainas and Charvakas, and also the Turushkas, they are all called nastikas – non-believers in deity and lacking in caste status. The Turushkas/Turkish Muslims, did believe in a deity – Allah, but he was not a Hindu deity.

So, 'nastiks' don't believe in the Vedas. Similarly kaffirs don't believe in the Quran and 'heathens' don't believe in the Bible.

Depicting an altogether different social group there is a rather unusual document of the early 17th century that provides us with a perspective on the life and thoughts of a merchant and his community of that time. This is the Ardhakathanaka, a lengthy autobiographical poem written in Braj Bhasha Hindi by Banarsidas in the time of Akbar. The author’s grandfather was the diwan/minister to Lodhi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal. It presents a view of Mughal times from the perspective of the Jaina merchant community living in Agra and Banaras, with extensive trading networks in other towns. Jaipur alone had 52 highly active markets. Problems with certain Mughal officers who tried to extort money from the rich merchants are mentioned in passing. These demands are said to have made no difference to the wealth of the merchants which remained undiminished.

Since the credit of a merchant depended on people believing this silly story, it is the silly story they are obliged to tell.  

The composition has detailed descriptions of religious practices, the places of pilgrimage, the rituals, the deities they worshipped. Surprisingly there is little mention of Islam or of the Bhakti sects of that time.

The guy was writing for his own people. He was making out that he himself was super special.  

Banarsidas was briefly a practicing Shaiva, but very soon returned to being an ardent Jaina, the religion of his family and in which he was deeply read. A controversial but popular Jaina movement was started in Banaras in his lifetime that he writes about. There is no mention in these reflections of any victimization.

Because victims of murder tend not to be able to write about it.

The other crucial historical sources, relatively less studied are the many inscriptions. Some are official documents, but many refer to broader social life. In the 14th century, the Qutab Minar in Delhi was struck by lightning and required repairs. The masons who repaired it left a scatter of inscriptions all over, embedded at various points in the minar. The language is Hindi, or occasionally faulty Sanskrit, engraved in the Nagari script.

So what? I suppose some graffiti in Yiddish might be found in a Nazi labor camp. The plain fact is that if Marathas and Sikhs and Bhumihars and so forth not put an end to Muslim hegemony then East Punjab and Uttar Pradesh would have gone the same way as Pakistan.  Thapar may not like Hindus who fight back, or the British Raj which it was counter-productive to fight,  but her career could only flourish because both existed. Pretending they were evil, when the alternative was her remaining purdah nashin, is transparently foolish. 

The dates are in the Samvat era and not the Hijri which is significant. The name of the Sultan, who is the patron, is given. The dynastic succession goes interestingly from Tomar and Chauhan Rajputs to the Shakas – the last being migrants from Central Asia who came around the Christian era, but whose name was sometimes applied to the Turks of medieval times. These inscriptions were composed largely by brahmana authors, a few being mentioned by name. Those responsible for doing the repairs, are mentioned. The architect was Chahada the son of Devapala, and the masons were Lashman, Nana, Solha, Lola, Harimani Gaveri and such like. They were all Hindus. The inscriptions conclude with naming the deity they worship, often Ganesh, and more frequently the particular deity of craftsmen, Vishvakarma, by whose grace they say, the job was done. Invoking their deity clarifies that it was not forced labour nor that of converts. Such inscriptions are not unique to the Qutab Minar as they are also found on other buildings including mosques.

Where did the money to pay these Hindus come from? Was it the jizya tax imposed on kaffirs? Or was it rather the case that the money was sent from Arabia or Central Asia? Why is Thapar showing that the glories of Muslim architecture were actually the product of Hindu craftsmanship?  

Let me conclude by asking the obvious question.

Which is why a Hindu whose people had to run away from Muslim majority areas is so bigoted against Hindus? 

Given all this activity of Hindus at every social level, and across time in the second millennium AD, what does this tell us about inter-community relations?

It tells us that if Muslims get power, they get Hindus to build mosques for them even if this means demolishing Hindu temples. The implication is obvious. Hindus should be careful not to give Muslims any power as a community- as opposed to rights as individuals. Independent India took this route. It abolished reserved seats for Muslims. Sooner or later there will be a uniform Civil Code etc.  

Shouldn’t the educated Indians of today, not to mention others, all inheritors of this history, see the situation more clearly and know better?

They do. That's why they got rid of reservations for Muslims. The question is whether demographic replacement in the North East will be reversed. But it is up to local people to see to it.  

As with fake news, fake anything creates immense problems of what to accept and what to discard.

No. There is no fucking problem. Ignore the shite or just make it up as and when convenient. There is no need to pay a bunch of professional liars or historians or whatever. 

For us historians, studying the past means

telling stupid lies and pretending they aren't stupid because there was this Hindu in 1947 whose toilet graffiti doesn't mention how beastly the Muslim were being to other Hindus who hadn't had the sense to run away before hand.  

understanding how the past came to be – through a logical and rational explanation.

this must be military and socio-economic. It can't be based on magical thinking- e.g. the notion that nationalism is inextricably associated with democracy and secularism.  

If we are to understand the roots of our culture we have to comprehend

the actual roots of our culture in religion and politico-economic mechanism design. This has nothing to do with what mischief some minority was getting up to. If they aint ruling or doing smart stuff, they don't matter. 

inter-community relations of the past – both the harmonious and the conflictual.

We can write a history of the World in terms of the harmony or conflict between the LGTQYXZ community and boring straight people but it wouldn't explain shit.  

Why have certain controversies arisen, how do we analyse the evidence, why is it crucial to separate that which can be proved from that which is fantasy or hearsay?

Thapar & Co thought it was important to prevent the Ram Temple being built. They indulged in fantasy and hearsay towards this end but only succeeded in making themselves look stupid and ignorant. Now the Ram Temple is being built and maybe this will help the BJP a little in 2024. But what harmed Congress and the Left was corruption, incompetence and hysterical imbecility.  

My plea is that the history taught to our children and grandchildren in schools should be based on reliable evidence and should preferably be the history of professional historians.

The history of professional historians is the historic of careerism, cretinism and wholesale irrelevance.  

By taking up the theme of inter-community relations, I am not arguing that relations between communities identifying themselves by religion, over the 1,000 years, or even earlier, have always been amicable.

Hindus were disunited and ruled by stupid dynasties. Foreign Muslims were better but soon became stupid and ruled by stupid dynasties. The Brits were better at ruling India but didn't like the place coz it was too fucking hot and they kept getting dysentery. They tried to get the Indians to do 'responsible government' from the 1880s onward but Indians didn't want to be responsible. That's why they were paying good money to the 'maai-baap' Raj. After 1919, the Brits were no longer stipulating for 'responsibility'. They would pass on power to a 'representative' Government. So long as Hindus pretended they wanted 'Khilafat', the thing was doable. But the Mahacrackpot wanted khaddar instead. Sadly, America wouldn't refinance the Raj and so the Brits fucked off. Buddhist Burma had already gone its own way. Muslim majority areas followed suit. Muslims in India mattered as little as Hindus or Buddhists in Pakistan or Bangladesh. There was little point pretending otherwise. The 'Shapley value' of the Muslim vote disappeared the moment it could actually benefit any Muslim who was not a sycophant or a sociopath. 

Earlier too there were problems that we gloss over. The grammarian Patanjali two millennia ago, says that the relations between brahmanas and shramanas was comparable to that between the snake and the mongoose.

The mongoose eats snakes. Snakes don't eat mongooses. Brahmans eagerly become Shramans so as not to get married and have to watch their kids crying for bread. But Shramans are expensive. They disappear if nobody has any fucking money to give them.  

Or Kalhana who writes in the 11th century that Hindu kings looted the wealth of temples when there was a fiscal crisis in Kashmir.

So, Hindus thought it was wrong to loot or destroy temples. Muslims held the opposite belief.  

Occasional inscriptions of defeated Hindu kings accuse their mleccha enemies, of killing cows and brahmanas.

There is a lesson here. Hindus need to unite to keep out the mleccha. But Hindus and Muslims can also unite to kill commies as they did in Indonesia in 1965.  

Do we know this?

People like Thapar- who was 17 at the time of the Partition massacres don't need any fucking history lessons to understand why they should get the fuck away from Muslim majority areas or do a pre-emptive ethnic cleansing, as happened in Jammu, just to be on the safe side.  

Do we take the trouble to recognise that the discipline of history, taught to us and what we then read, can help us understand our culture, the people we live with, our attitudes to religion, our rights and obligations as citizens of a nation-state, among many other things?

Thapar doesn't. She and her ilk were careerists who denied the obvious for some silly gesture political reason. For a while they seemed important. Now they are reviled and derided. What to do? Durbari intellectuals are like courtesans. They enjoy a brief period of power without responsibility but inherit eternal obloquy or oblivion.  

Do we check why there were situations of confrontations sandwiched between harmonious times?

Thapar & Co thought it unwise to confront Muslims over the Babri mosque. The BJP took the opposite view. They were proven right. After 'Mandal', 'Mandir' was needful because intra-Hindu strife was a greater threat than any trouble the Muslim minority could create. It should be remembered that Sonia committed to building the Ram Temple, if the Bench permitted it, with the help of her pet Shankaracharya back in 2002. I think people like Digvijay and Arjun Singh hoped to gain at the expense of Sonia by projecting her as anti-Hindu.  

And what caused each?

God? No. Thapar is a lefty. 

How does the impact of peace or of aggression determine the creation of our culture?

A military culture is shaped by peace or aggession. Other types aren't. Thapar is as stupid as shit.  

Every religion proclaims that it knows the truth about life and even the afterlife.

This isn't true but Thapar proclaims it anyway. She is the Paraclete of her own prostituted profession. 

Who can speak about the latter?

Gagggagagga-ghosts 

History requires our pushing ourselves more to asking questions and understanding ourselves and the world we live in.

There is no point pushing the stupid to ask questions. Let them simply masturbate peacefully while drooling at the back of the class.  

The reality often lies behind the cloud of our surround.

The lady has cataracts. Sad.  

To return to the metaphor of Eric Hobsbawm. Should we let the relationship between the poppy and the heroin addict remain as it is?

Religion was the opium of the masses. Then there was heroin. But Doctors could get rich prescribing oxy. Historians like Hobsbawm thought they were providing the raw-materials for Stalinist opium. But they weren't really. Historians don't matter. They may provide the raw materials for the History Channel or 'Game of Thrones' but the History Channel has to compete with the Sci Fi Channel and the Horror Channel and Wild Life Documentaries on... Discovery? I can't be bothered to activate my free subscription to it. Boy, will I feel stupid if it turns out to be dedicated to Japanese tentacle Porn.  

Or should we insist that the heroin addict should question the visions seen by her or him? Or, should we reassess the quality of the opium?

Poor thing, she's had a stroke. What historians said about the Ram Temple didn't matter. Smashing the mosque did matter. It put the BJP in power. The irony is that it was Rajiv who paved the way for this. 

Why did the Ram Mandir help the BJP? Did it have something to do with heroin or opium? No. Hindus like temples. They wanted a big Ram Temple in Ayodhya and that's what they got because that is how Democracy works. The party which gives the majority what they want gets re-elected. Indian Judges have to live in India after they retire. Anyway, British era Law gave Hindu Temple deities legal personality and so Ram Lalla won his suit. That's it. That's the whole story. Thapar & Co shat the bed and ended up a laughing stock. The amateur historians prevailed.  

All knowledge advances by asking questions of it. So my ultimate question is, should we not ask questions of existing knowledge to enable us to know what we are and what we want to be?

The expert testimony of Thapar & Co collapsed under cross examination. What they had been peddling was not knowledge but bigotry. Sadly, because it was anti-Hindu bigotry and India is Hindu, their sponsors lost by it.