Book Review:

Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present

By Romila Thapar and Namit Arora

Allen Lane

Pages: xvii+285

The accusation against professional historians that they do not reach out to the public has become grist to the mill of history enthusiasts and self-proclaimed pop historians. Included among the more serious ones within the latter category is Namit Arora, who has apparently secured his standing by collaborating with one of the most well-known historians in the field.

Romila Thapar, of course, is a name that anyone with some sense of the excellent historical scholarship in India would recognise. The book under review emerged from an exchange between Thapar and Arora, which evolved into a book structured around simple conversational points. In that sense, this book is envisaged as a terrain where academic and popular histories meet.

There are 24 thematic “points”, ranging from historical method to Marxist historiography and issues related to early India—subjects that fall squarely within Thapar’s domain. She also engages with controversial questions in pop histories on topics beyond her specialisation, such as integration of Islam and “the promise and the perils of nationalism”. At no point does Thapar stretch her limits, which is remarkable; her extensive reading and ability to synthesise arguments allow her to do so without claiming expertise in every subject within the discipline of history.

The same cannot be said for her interlocutor, though. His long-winded sentences, tutorial-like summary of the scholarship of historians (sometimes rather simplistic), and often presumptuous judgments are vexing, to put it mildly. At worst, they reflect the typical pop historian’s cherry-picking methods.

Recognition of the economic basis of social hierarchy and differentiation is not economic determinism, says Thapar, it is plain common sense. The point of discussion is caste, and Thapar argues that it emanates from “what is initially a different activity, but which often finds a niche in the socio-economic pattern and can become a dominant part of that”.

This is acceptable to the extent that the Brahmanas as ritual functionaries sought to establish their centrality in ritual and social life in the newly emerging agrarian society of the 1st millennium BCE. Thapar, while disavowing the neat collapsing of class and caste—particularly since their origins are different—argues that the two are intertwined and cannot be distanced in explanatory terms. She highlights the separation of savarna and avarna (those who belong to a varna and those outside of varna, respectively) as broad categorisations within the concept of varna that present a hierarchical ordering in early Indian society. A second conceptual dimension of caste was birth-based separation, denoted by jati, of a “functioning group”, around which rules of endogamy and social regulation through life-cycle rituals emerged.

Differentiating between these two aspects of caste, Thapar points out that status and rank were determined by varna and suggests that jati was an internal, community-based identity that derived from earlier clan and professional formations. While this is largely accepted, the point is to analyse why the two forms of identity marking came together and when this occurred. In a collection of essays published almost five decades ago, Thapar had located its emergence during the period of state formation and urbanisation in the second half of the first millennium BCE.[1] The context of its emergence was state formation and urbanisation.

More recently, the Indologist Patrick Olivelle has argued for rethinking the conspicuity of caste—implying the varna–jati framework—in ancient India, placing its manifestation at the turn of the Common Era.[2] He is of the view that it is from the time of Manu’s Dharmashastra that a clear coming together of the two concepts of varna–jati and concerns regarding miscegenation occurs. An important reason for positing a late date for caste is its absence in Ashokan edicts, which Thapar also mentions. However, a point to ponder, raised by Olivelle, is whether silence on caste in the edicts belies the Brahmanical texts that mention varna. Is Olivelle justified in questioning the reliability of earlier texts that mention caste? Was varna “ideology” and not “sociology”; “was [it] aspirational and prescriptive rather than descriptive”?[3]

There is a problem in such assumptions, and ignoring the Brahmanical texts on the grounds that they portray only what the Brahmanas wanted to convey, and did not represent social reality, does not address the question of why the Brahmanas came up with such a scheme and whom they were addressing. Also, jati does appear fairly early in an important text on semantics, the Nirukta of Yaska, generally dated around the 6th–5th century BCE.[4] A woman of Shudra jati is mentioned here, and historians have pointed to the transformation of a tribal identity into varna on the basis of this and other examples.[5] The 4th century BCE grammarian Panini speaks of aniravasita shudras (the Shudras who are not expelled); the 2nd century BCE philosopher Patanjali explains this in his commentary in terms of those Shudras who can be purified like the Yavanas in contrast to the niravasita shudras (expelled Shudras) like the Chandalas and Mritapas.[6]

Although well-versed in the fourfold vanna (varna) scheme, the Buddhist sources have a prominent categorisation of ukkata and hina (high and low) when referring to nama (name) and gotta/gotra, kula (lineage), jati, kamma (work), and sippa (crafts).[7] Rather than see jati as a new phenomenon, it appears that the socio-ritualistic classification based on “purity of function” was transformed to one of “purity of birth” because of the expansion of state society and Brahmanism into tribal areas, especially towards the end of the 1st millennium BCE, although caste did not manifest in the same way across the subcontinent.[8]

If one were to focus instead on the issue of how social production was organised at a time of state formation, one would find that it is not one text but a corpus of texts contemporaneous with the Mauryas (4th–2nd century BCE), known as the Dharmasutras, that invokes varna. Even earlier, in the later Vedic, and especially in the post-Vedic scenario (after the 5th century BCE), the separation of the four varnas invoked ritual, but there are strong indications of non-ritualistic concerns behind these invocations.

For instance, the Aitareya Brahmana (7.29) mentions that the offspring of the Kshatriya who consumes the sacrificial portion of the Vaishya will be born as Vaishya and pay taxes to another king. In other words, the distinctions of varna, couched ritualistically, had other ramifications. The anxiety over material resources—the generation and control over these—has been related by historians to the development of state, concomitant with varna formation in the mid-Ganga valley; it was neither incidental nor inconsequential.[9] Further, the issue of patriarchy as an essential part of caste formation has been pointed out, be it in the early stratification marked by varna or the later class complexity visible through jati-fication.[10]

As for why the Ashokan edicts may not have been primarily concerned with varna: one possibility is that Ashoka’s concerns revolved around dhamma/dharma. This concept occupies centre stage in his records and was aimed at achieving social harmony; towards this end, he specifically addressed the individual and the family. Rather than highlight social fissures and tensions, his emphasis was on the basic social unit through which such a message could be universalised. At any rate, the absence of varna–jati in the edicts requires an examination of the nuances of source and context, which do not find a place in the format of the “conversation” on caste.

The differences between professional academic histories and the popular variety are especially visible from two glaring examples that have a bearing on how the authors among the latter function.

In a rather impossibly put-together chapter on very disparate themes titled “History speaks of the ‘visible people’”, Thapar refers to the Therigatha as a unique text, quite unlike anything in “Brahmanical Hinduism”. This itself is a curious coinage since most historians have eschewed the Indologist’s penchant for using Hinduism as a catchphrase while referring to the Brahmanical traditions in premodern times. Arora responds by referring to “a significant Mahayana text by a Buddhist woman called Srimala [sic], a teacher and philosopher who lived in south India in the Ikshvaku kingdom of the 3rd century CE”.

Alex and Hideko Wayman, translators of the Shrimala Sutra, provide the historical context of the text’s composition as mentioned above; however, they convincingly demonstrate that this is an anonymous Mahayana composition that glorifies a queen by the name of Shrimala.[11] Her story is traced to the time of King Pasenadi/Prasenajit of Kosala, who made Mallika, the daughter of the chief garland-maker of the city, his chief queen. Shrimala was their daughter, and on coming of marriageable age was given to Ajatasattu/Ajatashatru, along with the dowry of Kashi, which had been a bone of contention between the two kings. In the 8th century, the text came to have “The Lion’s Roar” added to the title; until then it was known only by this legendary queen’s name.

This text extolled the Tathagatagarbha doctrine through the queen’s embracing of Buddhism and in that sense has a Buddhist woman as the source of this knowledge. This is not unusual within the Buddhist and Jaina traditions, and there are several women preceptors and philosophers described in legends. However, Arora is wrong in identifying Shrimala as a woman of Ikshvaku times or as the author of this sutra, for she is neither!

The translators explain that the reason for enunciating the deep philosophical views of ekayana (one path) through this legendary queen was to appeal to the numerous female royal patrons of the doctrine, especially in the Deccan where inscriptions attest to their active patronage of Buddhism even while their husbands performed Vedic sacrifices and patronised Brahmanas. The superficial understanding of this text and lack of knowledge of its context within Buddhism result in an unnecessary distortion.

The second point relates to the drawing-room-style discussion in a snarkily titled chapter, “The silence of the academic lambs”. By lauding two scholars for their vocal public positions, while displaying great ignorance with regard to the many voices of protest and plainspeak in the public domain, the omission of some of the most prominent voices—like that of Mridula Mukherjee—is both offensive and indicative of having no real understanding of where the fight lies.

Even outside of social media–driven popularity charts, or those propped up through the politics of referencing in elite circles, there are several historians who have remained in public institutions when they could just as easily have slipped into sinecure positions in private universities. For the fight is not merely about historical interpretation; it is about education and institutions. Thapar rightly draws attention to the National Education Policy 2020 and its decimation of academic learning with an unacademic emphasis on Bharatiya knowledge.

Walking into the classroom each day and continuing to teach history based on solid research—even while surrounded by new appointees in their departments who leave no stone unturned in poisoning the minds of young students with ideologically skewed fictions about the past—the historians (and other academics) who have stood their ground every day wage a battle in defence of history, academic excellence, and institutional responsibility. None of them has a guiding hand on their heads to draw a lineage as historians; it is not surprising that they do not find a place in Arora’s list of admirable scholars. Also irking is the (self-) congratulatory tone while discussing “brilliant non-academic history writers” who are apparently making a real difference. Naming some of them—and believe me, I have come across glaring mistakes and omissions in the works of some who are mentioned here—Arora suggests that the gap left by academic historians has been filled by these figures and some independent news platforms.

To cite just one example, a “brilliant” history writer has been pushing a colonial argument by talking of kings of a prominent southern dynasty as raiders leading bands of warriors and bringing back booty, rejecting the idea of their naval strength. Feted in litfest circuits, backed by publishers, and finding ratification in baithaks of various kinds, this is a self-proclaimed circle of brilliance. This is where the historian displays her expertise: Thapar rubbishes the idea that fake history proliferates because of a lack of popular outreach by professional historians and instead places responsibility firmly on the poor quality of education and on Hindutva politics.

This is a book that will catch the eye in places but largely has little to offer the serious reader. It is not really one for the bookshelf, especially if you are running out of space, but if you have the money and time, it is, with all its limitations, fulfilling to go through Thapar’s comments and discussions. My own recommendation would be other recent works of Thapar’s to get a sense of history that is contextual rather than conversational.

Notes

1. Thapar, Romila (1979): Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, pp. 26-33, 42-43, 141-143.

2. Olivelle, Patrick (2023): Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King, HarperCollins. See the review by this author (2024): “The king who dared to apologise”, Frontline, April 18.

3. Olivelle, ibid., p. 58.

4. Some scholars would prefer a later date of 4th–3rd century BCE. See Bronkhorst, Johannes (2023): “An Early Post-Vedic Treatise on the Etymological Explanation of Words”, Plurilingualism in Traditional Eurasian Scholarship: Thinking in Many Tongues, Glenn W. Most, Dagmar Schäfer, and Mårten Söderblom Saarela (eds), p. 107.

5. Sharma, R.S. (1980): Śūdras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order Down to Circa AD 600, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 30-35; Jaiswal, Suvira (1998): Caste: Origin, Function and Dimensions of Change, Delhi: Manohar, pp. 13-14.

6. Chakravarti, Uma (1996): The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, pp. 100-101.

7. Jaiswal, ibid.

8. Jaiswal, ibid., p. 14.

9. Sharma, R.S. (1996): The State and Varna Formation in the Mid-Ganga Plains: An Ethno-Archaeological View, Delhi: Manohar.

10. Jaiswal, Caste, p. 9.

11. (2007): The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā: A Buddhist Scripture on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory, translated with an introduction and notes by Alex Wayman and Hideko Wayman, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. xiii, 1-3.

[R. Mahalakshmi is a professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Courtesy: Frontline magazine, a fortnightly English language magazine published by The Hindu Group of publications headquartered in Chennai, India.]