It was a fascinating experience to engage in a conversation with Romila Thapar, one of the celebrated historians of Ancient and Pre-Modern India. I could literally see the organic link between reading History in schools and what she conversed over a span of nearly two hours - as if it started from that very moment where it ended in classrooms.
Over the past two years, the King's India Institute, under the leadership of Dr Sunil Khilnani and with support from other members of the faculty, has been quite successful in engaging some of the finest thinkers of and on Modern India with the students. Thapar was more of an exception to that long list of esteemed scholars as her work mostly related to Ancient India. However, even at this age, it never seemed that she was talking on something which was not part of a dialogue on Modern India.
Compartmentalising Indian history between the Ancient, Medieval and Modern was only for the purpose of working out the syllabus and holding examinations, she said and "we should never forget the roots" for a better understanding of the "contemporary". In fact, some of the questions raised by her during the course of the conversation transcends beyond the realm of History as an academic discipline. Even an anthropologist or a sociologist or an archaeologist could have come up with similar questions during the course of their research, assuring many among her audience that inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary thinking were also taking shape in India.
Thapar, through erudition, situated her thinking on Ancient Indian History at the very heart of what was contemporary, when she said "simply stating that Mohenjo Daro was a big urban settlement is not good enough, we want to know how big it was." These are some of the queries which come to our mind when we deal with anything contemporary, but such questions never raked our brains when we studied Indus Valley Civilisation in schools. Now out of sheer inquisitiveness we want to know more about the lifestyle of the ordinary people living in urban settlements like Mahenjo Daro and Harappa. We want to know many more things about the life world of those living in the ancient urban settlements.
When we studied Indus Valley Civilisation, it seemed as if Mahenjo Daro and Harappa were like two islands in the middle of nothing. Today, however, we want to know what was beyond those urban spaces, were there villages - if so how fertile was the land in those villages - what was produced in those fertile land - what was the mode of irrigation - did farmers use fertilisers?
Given my long association with journalism, Thapar asked "Was there any form of media during that period - if so what was the mode of communication?"
Many such questions come to our mind now but never did when we studied school textbooks on History. I am not sure whether we were encouraged to do so. For us, history, especially ancient history, was more of a static concept and without any organic element.
I asked if the change in attitude, approach and perception was an outcome of enhanced intellectual thinking?
For Thapar it was going beyond what she termed as "romantic History" - that is talking only about kings and queens, battles and kingdoms.
As I walked out of the room having gothic structures it seemed that it could be humanising history. After all history is the story of humankind. My curiosity now is not only confined to the monarchy and their empires but I also want to know more about the life world of the warrior who goes to the battlefield to defend the king. What was crossing his wife's mind or those of his children when he left for war? Did he make enough arrangements for his family to survive in case he never returned from the battlefield?
My father always says that history is the connection between the past and the present. His intention though was not to inculcate historical thinking but to encourage me to read more and develop my reading habits. I never listened to his advice then but now the 'pain of disconnect' - failing to situate the past in the present - makes me feel uncomfortable.
Our conversation with Romila Thapar in one of the historic rooms of King's College at least provided me with some temporary respite.
Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay is a journalist and media consultant.
He can be contacted at tirthankarb@hotmail.com
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