Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar | |
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Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, University of Edinburgh, the University of Calcutta, University of Hyderabad, Brown University, University of Pretoria. , 2008.Inaugural holder, Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South, US Library of Congress; Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, winner John W Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity |
Romila Thapar (born 30 November 1931) is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent.[1] Thapar is a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
Thapar's special contribution is the use of social-historical methods to understand change in the mid-first millennium BCE in northern India. As lineage-based Indo-Aryan pastoral groups moved into the
The author of From Lineage to State, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Early India: From Origins to AD 1300, and the popular History of India, Part I, Thapar has received honorary doctorates from the
Thapar is an Honorary Fellow of the
Early life, family and education
Romila is the daughter of Lieutenant-General Daya Ram Thapar, CIE, OBE, who served as the Director-General of the British Indian Armed Forces Medical Services. The late journalist Romesh Thapar was her brother.[4]
As a child, she attended schools in various cities in India depending on her father's military postings. She is an alumna of the
Work
She was a reader in Ancient Indian History at Kurukshetra University in 1961 and 1962 and held the same position at Delhi University between 1963 and 1970. Later, she worked as Professor of Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is now Professor Emerita.[7]
Thapar's major works are Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 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 portrays the origins of
In her first work, Aśoka and the Decline of the Maurya published in 1961, Thapar situates Ashoka's policy of dhamma in its social and political context, as a non-sectarian civic ethic intended to hold together an empire of diverse ethnicities and cultures. She attributes the decline of the Maurya Empire to its highly centralised administration which called for rulers of exceptional abilities to function well.
Thapar's first volume of A History of India is written for a popular audience and encompasses the period from its early history to the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century.
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 BCE, tracing the process to a change, driven by the use of iron and plough agriculture, from a pastoral and mobile lineage-based society to one of settled peasant holdings, accumulation and increased urbanisation.[10]
Views on revisionist historiography
Thapar is critical of what she calls a "
In 2002, the Indian coalition government led by the
Writing about the 2006
Recognition and honours
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.[18] She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
She was awarded the
In 2004, the US Library of Congress appointed her as the first holder of the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South.[21]
In January 2005, she declined the
She is co-winner with Peter Brown of the Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity for 2008 which comes with a US$1 million prize.[25]
Bibliography
Books
- Aśoka 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
- Ancient India, Medieval India, 1966, 1968 sq.; NCERT Textbooks[7]
- The Past and Prejudice (ISBN 81-237-0639-1
- Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, 1978, Orient Blackswan, ISBN 978-81-250-0808-8
- Exile and the Kingdom: Some Thoughts on the Rāmāyana, Rao Bahadur R. Narasimhachar Endowment lecture, 1978;[26]
- Dissent in the Early Indian Tradition, Volume 7 of M.N. Roy memorial lecture, 1979; Indian Renaissance Institute[27]
- From Lineage to State: Social Formations of the Mid-First Millennium B.C. in the Ganges Valley, 1985; Oxford University Press (OUP), ISBN 978-0-19-561394-0
- The Mauryas Revisited, ISBN 978-81-7074-021-6
- Interpreting Early India, 1992 (2nd edition 1999); Oxford University Press 1999, ISBN 0-19-563342-3
- Cultural Transaction and Early India: Tradition and Patronage, Two Lectures, 1994; OUP, ISBN 978-0-19-563364-1
- Śakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories, 2002; Anthem, ISBN 1-84331-026-0
- History and Beyond, 2000; OUP, ISBN 978-0-19-566832-2
- Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History, 2003; OUP, ISBN 0-19-566487-6
- Early India: From Origins to AD 1300, 2002; Penguin, ISBN 0-520-23899-0
- Somanatha: The Many Voices of History, 2005; Verso, ISBN 1-84467-020-1
- India: Historical Beginnings and the Concept of the Aryan, Essays by Thapar, et al., 2006; National Book Trust, ISBN 978-81-237-4779-8
- The Aryan: Recasting Constructs, Three Essays, 2008; Delhi, ISBN 978-81-88789-68-9
- The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, 2013; Permanent Black, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-72523-2
- The Past As Present: Forging Contemporary Identities Through History, 2014; Aleph, ISBN 93-83064-01-3
- Voices of Dissent: An Essay, 2020; Seagull Books, ISBN 978-0-85742-862-2
- The Future in the Past: Essays and Reflections, 2023; Aleph Book Company, ISBN 978-9395853149
- Our History, Their History, Whose History?, 2023; Seagull Books, ISBN 978-1803093543
Editor
- Communalism and the Writing of Indian History, Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, Bipan Chandra, 1969 People's Publishing House[28]
- Situating Indian History: For Sarvepalli Gopal, 1987; OUP, ISBN 978-0-19-561842-6
- Indian Tales, 1991; Puffin, ISBN 0-14-034811-5
- India: Another Millennium? 2000; Viking, ISBN 978-0-14-029883-3
Select papers, articles and chapters
- "India before and after the Mauryan Empire", in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 1980; ISBN 978-0-517-53497-7
- "Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity", Paper in Modern Asian Studies , 1989;
- Thapar, Romila (1996), "The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics", Social Scientist, 24 (1/3): 3–29, JSTOR 3520116
- "Somanatha and Mahmud" , Frontline, Volume 16 – Issue 8, 10–23 April 1999
- Perceiving the Forest: Early India , Paper in the journal, Studies in History , 2001;
- Role of the Army in the Exercise of Power , Essay in Army and Power in the Ancient World , 2002; Franz Steiner Verlag, ISBN 978-3-515-08197-9
- The Puranas: Heresy and the Vamsanucarita", Essay in Ancient to Modern: Religion, Power and Community in India, 2009; OUP, ISBN 978-0-19-569662-2
- Rāyā Asoko from Kanaganahalli: Some Thoughts , Essay in Airavati , Chennai, 2008;
- Was there Historical Writing in Early India? , Essay in Knowing India , 2011; Yoda Press, ISBN 978-93-80403-03-8
References
- ISBN 978-1-136-78764-5, archivedfrom the original on 1 September 2021, retrieved 1 February 2021 Quotr: "The pre-eminent interpreter of ancient Indian history today. ... "
- ISBN 978-1-136-78764-5, archivedfrom the original on 1 September 2021, retrieved 1 February 2021 Quote: "Among the major historians of ancient India in recent times, Thapar's emphasis on social history differentiates her approach from that of the cultural historian A. L. Basham, while her rejection of ideological frames of reference sets her work apart from that of the Marxist scholar D. D. Kosambi."
- ^ Garreau, Joel (3 December 2008). "Historians Peter Robert Lamont Brown and Romila Thapar to Share 2008 Kluge Prize". washingtonpost.com. Archived from the original on 11 January 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ Singh, Nandita (2 January 2019). "Why is Karan Thapar complaining? His dynasty holds a key to Lutyens' Delhi". The Print. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
- ^ Suman, Saket (15 August 2021). "Gandhi's encounter with a young Romila Thapar in Pune that inspired her activism". ThePrint.
- ^ "Romila Thapar". Penguin India. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
- ^ a b "Romila Thapar, Professor Emerita" (PDF). JNU. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 June 2015. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
- ^ "Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History By Romila Thapar - History - Archaeology-Ancient-India". Oup.co.in. 3 February 2003. Archived from the original on 4 June 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
- ^ Perspectives of a history Archived 26 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine – a review of Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History
- ISBN 81-250-2657-6.
- ^ "The Rediff Interview/ Romila Thapar". Rediff. 4 February 1999. Archived from the original on 3 July 2007. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
- The Tribune. Archivedfrom the original on 14 April 2009. Retrieved 7 April 2009.
- ^ "Hating Romila Thapar". 2003. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
- ^ a b Mukherji, Mridula; Mukherji, Aditya, eds. (2002). Communalisation of Education: The history textbook controversy (PDF). New Delhi: Delhi Historians' Group. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 September 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2009.
- ^ Thapar, Romila (9 December 2001). "Propaganda as history won't sell". Hindustan Times.
- Indian Express. 28 January 2002. Archived from the originalon 13 May 2008. Retrieved 7 April 2009.
- ^ Thapar, Romila (9 June 2017). "Creationism By Any Other Name ..." Outlook. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
- ^ "Romila Thapar". penguin.co.uk. Archived from the original on 19 December 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
- Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund. Archivedfrom the original on 18 July 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
- ^ Honoris Causa Archived 8 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ 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. 17 April 2003. Archived from the original on 30 March 2007. Retrieved 4 April 2007.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter T" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 October 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2011.
- ^ "New Honorary Fellows | St Antony's College". Archived from the original on 19 June 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
- Times of Indiaarticle dated 27 January 2005
- ^ "Historians Peter Robert Lamont Brown and Romila Thapar to Share 2008 Kluge Prize". washingtonpost.com. Archived from the original on 11 January 2017. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
- OCLC 7135323.
- ^ Thapar, Romila (1979). "Dissent in the Early Indian Tradition". Google Books. Archived from the original on 1 September 2021. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
- ISBN 9788170070641. Archivedfrom the original on 1 September 2021. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
External links
- Audio of Romila Thapar's 2005 lecture, "Interpretations of Early Indian History" at the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities
- "Delhi Historians Group's Publication "Communalization of Education: The History Textbooks Controversy", A report in 2002, New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, India