Romila Thapar—I don't like Modi's India, it's too Narrow & Limited; History won’t be Kind to Him https://youtu.be/x65z6USSfPQ?t=68 Aug 10, 2022 In an interview about how she views the last 75 years of India’s independence and what sort of country India has become, someone who is considered our foremost historian, Romila Thapar, has said she doesn’t like Modi’s India. Explaining why, she said it’s too narrow and too limited.
Romila Thapar says Nehru laid the foundations of India which have kept us going. She describes the Nehruvian India she knew from the age of 15 till 32. She talks about the emergency as well as how she views the rise of Narendra Modi and his emphasis on Hindutva and hindu nationalism.
Describing India’s ruling class as people who have largely worked in their own interests, Romila Thapar says that India has not adequately handled the two great challenges it faced in 1947 of caste and poverty.
In a significant section of the interview Romila Thapar speaks at length about attempts to re-write Indian history and to view the period from 1200 to 1800 in terms of religion and a hindu-muslim divide. Rather than precis and paraphrase what she has said we encourage you to see this section for yourself. It’s one of the clearest explanations of why the new interpretation of history in terms of religion and a hindu-muslim divide is mistaken and amounts not just to distortion of history but untruth.
This 42-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire with Romila Thapar is the latest in a series of select interviews to mark the 75th anniversary of Independence and explore what this anniversary means. The issues raised in this series of interviews include (though please bear in mind different issues are raised in different interviews i.e. the interviews are not at all identical): what were our dreams and expectations in 1947 and have they been realized; how has India changed over the last three quarters of a century; what are the achievements we can be truly proud of; what are the errors and lapses as well as willful mistakes that have embarrassed us; how successful have we been in wiping the tears of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes; is it fair to denigrate Nehruvian India; what does India in 2022 owe its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; how serious a blot or embarrassment to India’s democratic credentials was Indira Gandhi’s emergency; has India’s politics markedly changed since 2014 with majoritarian and often anti-muslim trends coming to the fore and an enhanced emphasis on Hindutva nationalism; how successfully have we overcome the divisions of caste, creed, ethnicity, language, cuisine and culture which separated us in 1947 to create a common Indian identity everyone can subscribe to; how important is secularism to India’s future or can it be replaced by Hindutva; are muslims fairly treated and are they adequately represented in India’s public services and politics; what does it feel like to be a muslim in India today; has the concept of Indianness altered over the last 75 years; how effective is our parliament in performing its duties of scrutinizing legislation and holding the government to account; how justified is the re-writing of our history; as a democracy how tolerant are we of dissent or do we punish it with accusations of sedition, unlawful activities and money laundering and what sort of country do we want to be 25 years from now.
notes:
why we survived.. diversity,
religion wasnt monolithic.. it was a series of sects, that were attributed to various religious movments,
Nehruvian india-- feeling that one could do things if one tried.. we were all pioneers.. Secular - religion must not come in the way of politics.. Rejeection of voting to be restricted by education etc. opened vote to womens, dalits,..
Third Phase: Nationalism- what it meant secularism, demomcracy, and the concept of a nation State. reversal of values, ideals and therefore a break. From being subject to cololonial or Kingdoms. to being "citizens" Free citizens.. from traditions following independence.. https://youtu.be/x65z6USSfPQ?t=1150