In Britain, any author was welcome to try to make money by doing some research and writing a history book. Hume's History was so well-written (and partisan!) that it made him financially independent. Still, he is considered a philosopher, not a historian. Gibbon's magnificent prose style & rather snide attitude to Christianity earned him a lot of money. James Mill's history of India sold well, but its chief importance lay in that the EIC gave him a clerical job, inherited by his son the famous John Stuart. Macaulay's histories were written to restore his financial position (also the reason he came to India) so that he could continue his political career.
King George I did create Regius Professorships of Modern History in 1724 but the post was regarded as a sinecure. William Stubbs, appointed to the Oxford chair in 1866, is widely recognised by historians as the first true "professional historian" to hold a Regius Professorship of Modern History. As 'national historiography' gained in academic prestige in the UK, it became inevitable that the Indian Education Service (operational from 1896) would look with favour upon the creation of History Departments in Universities, provided funds could be found.
It must be said, from the Eighteenth Century onward, Britain and British India had amateur antiquarians with their own Clubs & periodicals. Professional historians, however, only came into existence after salaried Professors at Government supported, or Government recognised, Colleges began specialising in Historical research. Once Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee set up a History Dept. in Calcutta in 1912, we can say a distinctive modern Indian historiography began to develop. It was nationalistic, not colonial. True, the first Carmichael Professor was White. But he was a German philologist who had previously taught Sanskrit. The founding fathers of Indian historiography were people like Jadunath Sarkar, D.R. Bhandarkar, Radhakumud Mukherjee, Surendranath Sen, Shafaat Ahmed Khan, Kalidas Nag, S.K Aiyangar etc.
Thus, though there is a distinctive Indian National historiography, there was no 'colonial historiography' as such. Why? The thing was useless. Some knowledge of Indian languages and legal codes & types of land tenure were needful for administrators. Writers or politicians were welcome to talk bollocks about ancient India or ancient Atlantis but since History didn't matter and nobody could get a salary for studying it, there was no fucking colonial Historiography.
Romila Thapar, whose IQ was too low to get a PhD in Eng Lit or to study at Oxbridge, studied history at SOAS under Basham. She taught at Miranda College till, at the time of the 'History Wars' (i.e. conflict over what should be the official narrative of the freedom struggle) and Indira's lurch to the Left, she was promoted as a 'Durbari' Leftist of a civilized sort. After devaluation, the power elite found it difficult to send kids abroad for higher education in useless subjects. JNU was creaated to serve their kids till they got into the IAS or got married. It was there that Thapar entrenched herself.
The Commies didn't want to recruit her because she had a low IQ. Still, as a Khattri, she hated Brahmins and could be counted on to say 'boo to Hindutva! It is a Brahmin plot!'. That is why the Hindu newspaper- owned by Brahmins in bed with the DMK- thinks it worthwhile to provide her a platform
Hindutva reading builds on colonial interpretations of Indian history: Romila Thapar
Colonisation is only possible if your interpretation of the history and geography of the the territory in question is alethic. Hindutva builds upon Hinduism which existed in the India over which Britain ruled. Thus it is founded upon reality, not fantasy.
Had greater attention been paid to physical evidence such as inscriptions, Indian history may have been interpreted differently, says the historian
Romila is not a philologist. She relies on secondary sources. Nothing wrong in a Lecturer at a Girls' College doing so. But Thapar, as a JNU professor, has been built up as the equivalent of an Oxbridge Reius professor. She was nothing of the sort.
Prof. Romila Thapar speaks during Second Sitaram Yechury Memorial Lecture on Historiography and Early Indian History in New Delhi on October 25, 2026. | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
DD Kosambi, a mathematician who lost his way, became an amateur historian to counter the crude Marxism of S.A Dange. He said 'Marxism is not a substitute for thinking, but a tool of analysis, which must be used, with a certain minimum of skill and understanding, upon the proper material. Interlacing groundless conjectures with quotations from Engels does not suffice."
Sadly, Marxism is an economic theory. Kosambi didn't know Econ. Thus his work was shit. Indian Communism could have swotted up on Slutsky, Kolmagorov, Kantorovich, Pontyragin & Lawvere on the Hegelian dialectic. I'm kidding. They were too stupid and, once in power, too corrupt. Now, they have lost Kerala. Only in Tamil Nadu are they providing external support to the CM.
Historian Romila Thapar, 96, on Sunday (October 25, 2026) argued that colonial historians fundamentally shaped the way Indian history came to be understood,
The only professional historians in India, under the Raj, were Indian nationalists of various descriptions. They got paid to research and teach the subject and did have some political influence. But fantasists- like those of the Dravidian or Dalit movements- had more.
reducing complex social and political processes
like jihad
to simplified religious narratives
Muslims love kaffirs! If they kill them it is for their own good.
that continue to influence historical interpretations today and propagate the Hindutva reading of Indian history.
Also, Narendra Modi is actually a British aristocrat. His real name is Nicholas Maugham.
Delivering the Second Sitaram Yechury Memorial Lecture on the theme, “Historiography and Early Indian History”, Ms. Thapar said the subject stemmed from a brief conversation she once had with the late CPI(M) leader.
He was 21 years younger than her. He studied at JNU & was utterly useless.
Reflecting on her career as a historian of ancient India, Ms. Thapar said she had expected a quiet academic life when she entered the profession. “History is playing a public role, which it never did in the past,” she said, noting the growing public contestation over interpretations of the past.
History has never mattered. Historical Mythologies may matter but only for the same reason that Religion can matter in politics.
Tracing the origins of many prevailing ideas about Indian history, Ms. Thapar said colonial scholars viewed India through the framework of “Oriental despotism”, portraying Asian societies as static and unchanging and governed by despotic rulers.
Thapar was 26 when Karl August Wittfogel's 1957 book Oriental Despotism was published. He was a Communist Sinologist who changed his views. Still, he clung to the notion of 'hydraulic empires'. This may have some relevance for China but not India which has rain-fed agriculture (till the Brits brought canals to Thapar's ancestral Punjab).
The Brits knew that India had changed and was continuing to change because of foreign invasions and indigenous insurrections or socio-economcic developments. China, on the other hand, appeared to have had far greater historical continuity.
She argued that the tendency to read Indian history primarily through a religious lens was also inherited from colonial scholarship.
Why did her people run away from Lahore? Was it because colonial scholars said 'Muslims will rape and kill you?'
Had greater attention been paid to physical evidence such as inscriptions, Indian history might have been interpreted differently, she said.
Interpretations don't matter. Money matters. Armies matter. Low IQ shitheads teaching History to cretins don't matter at all.
Referring to the period after the Gupta era, Ms. Thapar noted the abundance of inscriptions documenting governance practices, caste relations and various aspects of social life, providing a richer understanding of the past than reliance on religious texts alone.
Thapar's family wouldn't have run away from Lahore if they had relied on interpretations of inscriptions. Thaat would have kept them safe- right?
‘Own invention’
“Those writing the history of the colony were writing their own invention,” she said, pointing to British historian James Mill,
Not a historian. He made a little money with a book about the EIC who then gave him a clerical job.
whom she credited with advancing the idea of India as divided into Hindu and Muslim nations permanently hostile to each other.
Whereas, if her family had correctly interpreted inscriptions, they would have remained in Pakistan and been butchered.
Ms. Thapar said colonial historians
there were none
oversimplified a wide range of social and political conflicts by presenting them as manifestations of religious antagonism.
The Brits had the headache of putting down periodic religious riots. They may have wanted a united India but even the British Imperial Army didn't have the resources to keep the peace between communities across a vast land.
Such accounts created “mono-causal” explanations that ignored other factors.
Just because a stranger is beating you and sticking his dick in you doesn't mean he is raping you. There are many other factors to consider aside from whether or not you are being raped.
Citing the Battle of Haldighati, she said the conflict was essentially a territorial contest.
All battles are. The guy who wins is the guy who gets the territory.
She noted that Rana Pratap’s forces included Afghan soldiers, while the Mughal army was led by a Rajput commander. Yet, the battle was now frequently presented as a defining confrontation between a Hindu ruler and a Muslim invader.
Because Pratap was of indigenous origin whereas the Mughals were proud of their Chagtai ethnicity. The fact that Armies employ mercenaries is neither here nor there.
Ms. Thapar also criticised Mill’s periodisation of Indian history into the “Hindu”, “Muslim” and “British” periods, arguing that such categorisations imposed simplistic divisions on a far more complex historical experience.
Whereas, in 1947, Brtish India had two successor states- one Muslim, the other Hindu in all but name. Mill may not have been a historian and he may never have been to India but he wasn't utterly stupid.
In this context, she said the decolonisation of history
Indian historiography was done exclusively by Indians who were active in the decolonisation process. Sir Ashutosh set up the first History Dept. His son set up the Jan Sangh which is now called the BJP. It rules 72 percent of India.
should depend on the new evidence available, thanks to the advances made in archeology and genetic, instead of building further on the colonial reading of history emphasising on religious fractures.
like the fracture which caused her family to flee Lahore?
The Hindutva reading of Indian history was “single and fixed”, she said, which did not take into account the multiplicity within the Hinduism itself, citing the example of Vishnu’s avatar Jagannath in Odisha and Vithal in Maharashtra being two distinct entities.
Just as the Turkish Khizr is different from the Indian Khizr. Still, Sheikh Galip is referring to the same Islamic personage as Mirza Ghalib.
“In this interpretation, the purpose of history is not to explain what happened in the past, but instead to construct statements of contemporary political views.
Thapar was a nice lady. The girls at Miranda College liked her. Then she was elevated as a Durbari public intellectual. People thought she was close to the Dynasty. The truth is, she was out of her depth.
These statements deny the centrality of secularism and democracy as the essential component of the new nation,” she said.
In 1947, her people ran away from their ancestral homes because the new nation created there was Islamic. Why did they emigrate to India rather than Afghanistan or Iran? The answer is- religion. They were Hindu. Thapar has spent half her long life pretending otherwise. Endlessly repeating stupid lies is the inevitable fate of a stupid person who teaches worthless shite.
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