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Romila Thapar speaking at the U.S. Library of Congress

Romila Thapar (born 1931) is an Indian historian whose principal area of study is ancient India. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Shortcut: WP:NPOVD Articles that have been linked to this page are the subject of an NPOV dispute (NPOV stands for Neutral Point Of View; see below). ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. ... A historian is an individual who studies history and who writes on history. ... The History of India begins with the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent from 3300 to 1700 BC. This Bronze Age civilization was followed by the Iron Age Vedic period, which witnessed the rise of major kingdoms known as the Mahajanapadas. ...

Work and recognition

After graduating from Punjab University, Thapar secured her doctorate under A. L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University in 1958. Later she worked as Professor of Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is Professor Emerita. A. L Basham was a historian with an Australian University in Canberra. ... The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is a constituent of the University of London specializing in the arts and humanities, languages and cultures, and the law and social sciences concerning Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. ... Senate House, designed by Charles Holden home to the universitys central administration offices and its library The University of London, founded in 1836, is a federation of colleges which together constitute one of the worlds largest universities. ... The sprawling campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University is located in New Delhi, the capital of India. ... , This article is about the urban region that is the capital of India. ... A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ...

Thapar's major works are Asoka and the Decline of the Maurya, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History (editor), A History of India Volume One, and Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Her historical work is critical of elites^[1] and portrays the origins of Hinduism as an evolving interplay between social forces. Her recent work on Somnath examines the evolution of the historiographies about the legendary Gujarat temple.^[2] Hinduism (known as in modern Indian languages[1]) is a religious tradition[2] that originated in the Indian subcontinent. ... The Somnath Temple located in the Prabhas Kshetra near Veraval in Saurashtra, on the western coast of Gujarat, India is one of the twelve Jyotirlings (golden lingas) symbols of the God Shiva. ...

Ancient Indian Social History deals with the period from early times to the end of the first millennium, includes a comparative study of Hindu and Buddhist socio-religious systems, and examines the role of Buddhism in social protest and social mobility in the caste system. From Lineage to State analyses the formation of states in the middle Ganga valley in the first millennium BC, tracing the process to a change, driven by the use of iron and plough agriculture, from an pastoral and mobile lineage-based society to one of settled peasant holdings, accumulation and increased urbanisation.^[3]

Thapar has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the College de France in Paris. She was elected General President of the Indian History Congress in 1983 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1999.^[4] Cornell University is a university located in Ithaca, New York, USA. Its two medical campuses are in New York City and Education City, Qatar. ... This article is about the private Ivy League university in Philadelphia. ... Courtyard of the Collège de France. ... The British Academy is the United Kingdoms national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. ...

Thapar is an Honorary Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She holds honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, the University of Oxford and the University of Calcutta.^[5] Lady Margaret Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is a constituent of the University of London specializing in the arts and humanities, languages and cultures, and the law and social sciences concerning Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. ... The University of London is a university based primarily in London. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ... The Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) is located in Paris, France. ... The University of Oxford (usually abbreviated as Oxon. ... Formally established on the 24 January 1857, the University of Calcutta (also known as Calcutta University) (Bengali: কলকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়), located in the city of Kolkata (previously Calcutta), India, is the first modern university in the Indian subcontinent. ...

In 2004 the U.S. Library of Congress appointed her as the first holder of the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South.^[5] The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. ... The John W. Kluge Center occupies inspirational and capacious study and meeting spaces within the Librarys magnificently restored Thomas Jefferson Building. ...

In January 2005, she declined the Padma Bhushan awarded by the Indian Government. In a letter to President A P J Abdul Kalam, she said she was "astonished to see her name in the list of awardees because three months ago when I was contacted by the HRD ministry and asked if I would accept an award, I made my position very clear and explained my reason for declining it". Thapar had declined the Padma Bhushan on an earlier occasion, in 1992. To the President, she explained the reason for turning down the award thus: "I only accept awards from academic institutions or those associated with my professional work, and not state awards".^[6] The Padma Bhushan is an Indian civilian decoration established on January 2, 1954 by the President of India. ... The President of India (Hindi: Rashtrapati) is the head of state and first citizen of India and the Supreme Commander of the Indian armed forces. ... Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (born October 15, 1931, Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India), usually referred to as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, is the President of India. ...

Views on revisionist historiography

Thapar is critical of what she calls a "communal interpretation" of Indian history, in which events in the last thousand years are interpreted solely in terms of a notional continual conflict between monolithic Hindu and Muslim communities. Thapar says this communal history is "extremely selective" in choosing facts, "deliberately partisan" in interpretation and does not follow current methods of analysis using multiple, prioritised causes.^[7] Communalism is used in South Asia to denote attempts to promote primarily religious stereotypes between groups of people identified as different communities and to stimulate violence between those groups. ... This article discusses the adherents of Hinduism. ... There is also a collection of Hadith called Sahih Muslim A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم, Persian: Mosalman or Mosalmon Urdu: مسلمان, Turkish: Müslüman, Albanian: Mysliman, Bosnian: Musliman) is an adherent of the religion of Islam. ...

During the 2006 Californian Hindu textbook controversy, Thapar joined Michael Witzel in opposing changes proposed by US-based Hindu groups to the coverage of Hinduism and Indian history in school textbooks. She contended that while Hindus have a legitimate right to a fair and culturally sensitive representation, the proposed changes included unscientific, religious-based material that distorted the truth and pushed a political agenda.^[8] A controversy in the US state of California concerning the portrayal of Hinduism in history textbooks began in 2005. ... Michael E. J. Witzel (born 1943) is Wales Professor of Sanskrit and Chair of the Committee on South Asian Studies at Harvard University. ...

Thapar's appointment to the Kluge Chair was opposed in an online petition^[9] bearing more than 2,000 signatures.^[10] Praful Bidwai criticized the petition as a "vicious attack" by communalists who are "not even minimally acquainted" with her work.^[11] A number of academics sent a protest letter^[12][13] to the Library of Congress denouncing the petition as an attack on intellectual and artistic freedom. Praful Bidwai (born 1949) is an Indian journalist, political analyst, and activist. ...

Bibliography

Books

• Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 1961 (revision 1998); Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-564445-X
• A History of India: Volume 1, 1966; Penguin, ISBN 0-14-013835-8
• The Past and Prejudice (Patel Memorial Lectures), 1971
• Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, 1978
• From Lineage to State: Social Formations of the Mid-First Millennium B.C. in the Ganges Valley, 1985; Oxford University Press
• Interpreting Early India, 1993 (2nd edition 1999); Oxford University Press 1999, ISBN 0-19-563342-3
• Early India: From Origins to AD 1300, 2002; Penguin, ISBN 0-520-23899-0
• Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories, 2002; Anthem, ISBN 1-84331-026-0
• Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History, 2003; Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-566487-6
• Somanatha: The Many Voices of History, 2005; Verso, ISBN 1-84467-020-1

Edited anthologies

• Situating Indian History: For Sarvepalli Gopal
• Indian Tales, 1991; Puffin, ISBN 0-14-034811-5
• India: Another Millennium?

Select papers, articles and chapters

• "India before and after the Mauryan Empire", in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 1980.
• "Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity", Modern Asian Studies 1989 23(2): 209-231.
• "Somanatha and Mahmud", Frontline, Volume 16 - Issue 8, 10 April - 23, 1999

is the 100th day of the year (101st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud, a book by Arun Shourie

Arun Shourie Arun Shourie (born 1941) is a prominent journalist, author, and politician of India. ...

References

1. ^ Ronald Inden, 1990, Imagining India, pp. 154-156, 197
2. ^ Perspectives of a history - a review of Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History
3. ^ E. Sreedharan (2004). A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000. Orient Longman, 479-480. 
4. ^ Penguin publicity page
5. ^ ^{a b} Romila Thapar Named as First Holder of the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at Library of Congress. Library of Congress (April 17, 2003).
6. ^ "Romila rejects Padma award" - Times of India article dated January 27, 2005
7. ^ The Rediff Interview/ Romila Thapar. Rediff (February 4, 1999).
8. ^ Thapar, Romila. "Creationism By Any Other Name…", Outlook, February 28, 2006. 
9. ^ "Romila Thapar's appointment to Library of Congress opposed"- Rediff article dated April 25, 2003
10. ^ "Protest US Supported Marxist Assault Against Hindus"
11. ^ Bidwai, Praful. "McCarthyism's Indian rebirth", Rediff, May 13, 2003. Retrieved on [[2007-04-04]]. 
12. ^ Gatade, Subhash. "Hating Romila Thapar", Himal South Asian, June 2003. 
13. ^ (Text)Letter of Protest by Scholars and Intellectuals Against the Attack on Romila Thapar. South Asia Citizens Web (7 May 2003).

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External links

• Audio and video of Romila Thapar's 2005 lecture, "Interpretations of Early Indian History"