In this thought-provoking conversation, we question some widely accepted narratives about India’s past — from the Aryan invasion theory to the frameworks through which the Indian history has been taught.
Our guest, Ajay Pratap, Professor of Ancient Indian History at Banaras Hindu University, brings over four decades of academic and field experience to this discussion. He contradicts the colonial constructs and argues for a continuous, Indian civilizational narrative, far beyond the timelines found in standard textbooks.
The conversation explores how the Indian historiography has selectively ignored India’s prehistoric past, forest and tribal societies and indigenous knowledge systems how language, archaeology, urbanization, trade routes, science, astronomy, and economics evolved organically within the Indian subcontinent.
This episode explains the fallacy of Indian societal faultlines; the distinction between the Hill and Forest dwellers on one side and the plains people on the other, has been clearly underscored in this conversation. Their relations was never a ‘binary’ one, rather complementary. Rather, the Hills and the Forest people were considered more spiritual, abstracted from the worldly ways of life.
The conversation also highlights the interesting dynamics of the state that existed with the agrarian and urban societies. The evidences are drawn also from the treatise of Arthashastra.
The Mischief of Myths and Faultlines
Our recorded history has been selectively portrayed. The prism of the west and its tools of historiography have largely shaped our narrative. This episode of conversion brings this out succinctly.
Ajay Pratap, Professor of Ancient Indian History at Banaras Hindu University, argues forth on how India’s recorded history should be relied upon to correctly interpret India’s political, economic, social and cultural life.
Examples in question are Astronomy and Mathematics. They developed through cumulative accumulation of knowledge. While Astronomy made weather predictable, facilitating India’s trade, Mathematics helped greatly in planning, its functions got connected then with India’s phase of urbanization too.
Most importantly, without historical method, evidence, and corroboration, we are left only with impressions, not history.
A must-watch for anyone interested in Indian history, science, philosophy.