Distinguished historian William Dalrymple, author of The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, sparked debate recently, calling on Indian academic historians to write successfully for general audiences. I think this is a welcome call, which will benefit both readers and new academic authors. At the same time, I think that writing history is a difficult, dangerous calling in India in 2024. New history books cannot single-handedly change our understanding of the past, because they face an uphill struggle in our information ecosystem. We need to understand why, and it needs to change urgently.
What the West gets right
I’d like to begin by looking at what the West does right, to see if it offers learnings for India. The “public history ecosystem” of the West (especially the UK) is robust, with fertile connections between academics and audiences. Readers and consumers are willing to pay, and are curious about diverse topics. Production companies, whether for documentaries, historical films/TV, or podcasts, are well-funded. Publishers are willing to take bets and invest in diverse up-and-coming voices. Museum spaces are well-maintained and engage with their communities. All this creates a positive feedback loop: more people want to write nuanced history because more people are aware of it and want to learn about it.
It’s possible, in the West, to talk about history online, or to study it professionally, and reasonably expect to make a living—if not in academia (which is a struggle everywhere) then possibly online. Many academics from the University of Oxford have made the leap to global literary superstardom; I know young public historians in the UK who started with Instagram reels and now host shows on the BBC. I do not mean to say that the situation is perfect in the West: there, too, academic funding is drying up. Nor have successful public historians managed to complicate the binaries of 21st-century majoritarianism.
Nevertheless, a comparison to India is sobering. India’s readers are overwhelmingly aspirational: in our extremely competitive job market, people read to achieve an objective, rather than for leisure or pleasure. According to Nielsen BookData, most of India’s top 50 bestselling books are for exam preparation and self-help. The leading fiction author is the ever-Instagrammable Haruki Murakami, and even his books rarely break the top 10. Low-profit margins mean that Indian publishers rarely pay large advances on books, except to celebrity authors. This means most potential writers are forced to moonlight in other professions, or give up writing entirely.
What about other forms of media? It’s difficult to get a precise figure for podcast earnings, but in my conversations with Indian production companies, the general consensus is that it’s impossible to market history: listeners don’t want to, or can’t afford to pay for it. Advertisers find it too controversial. While Discovery, National Geographic and other documentary platforms have been pushing for more Indian content, many of their shows are hosted by reality stars or influencers, rather than historians—whether academic or public. In India, there is money in history, but it often goes to influencers, not historians. Publishers and producers have proven more than amenable to propaganda if it gets them profits.
Finally, as I can attest personally, young Indian historians seeking to build an audience have to face tides of vitriol and even doxxing. The result is the opposite of the West: a negative feedback cycle where it’s difficult to make a living or find an audience if you want to do public history.
Also read: Was there a Mughal bias in Indian history textbooks? Yes, but not a Muslim one
India’s challenge
So much for public history. What about academia? As historian Swapna Liddle has pointed out in a recent article in ThePrint, Indian academia is sometimes unfairly maligned because it was not designed for the decentralised, instantaneous information transmission of the 21st century. Samyak Ghosh, another academic, has argued that the issue is that not enough academic history is being taught. Shoaib Daniyal of Scroll.in correctly points out that the Hindutva information ecosystem has deep pockets and has actively worked to flush out complex histories in favour of outright lies and hate speech. I think all three perspectives are valuable, with some additional context.
First is the long onslaught that Indian universities have been through—and I don’t just mean the prestigious JNUs, DUs and JUs. For at least the last 30 years, the academic environments of most state universities have steadily worsened. Regional political parties, often with the help of Right-wing student organisations, media outlets and vigilante groups, curtailed academic freedom—which stifled creativity and withered regional language book publishing. (This largely escaped the attention of English-language media while it was happening.) A look at the Shodhganga database of Indian PhD theses presents a dismaying picture now. The search term “women+Chola”, for example, throws up no less than four theses from regional universities, all with roughly the same name: one completed in 2014, two in 2015, and one in 2019. All use similar primary sources and theoretical lenses. In contrast to PhDs in the West, which seek new materials and new interpretations to push the boundaries of a field, these PhDs seem oriented towards summarising and re-summarising existing materials—and are being written in silos.
While India’s regional centres stagnated, the more cosmopolitan universities of Delhi and Kolkata continued to thrive, ensuring that Indian academics still influenced major global conversations. With India’s turn to far-Right politics in 2014, even these institutions have sustained serious assault, with junior professors facing disciplinary action, delayed salaries, or outright rustication for refusing to toe the political line. Those academics who do try to speak to the public receive more vitriol than support—consider, for example, Dr Ruchika Sharma, who runs the Eyeshadow and Etihaas channel on YouTube.
Also read: Why is it fashionable to deride historians? The answer lies outside academia
What needs to change?
This problem doesn’t just apply to history, though. Whether it’s climate science, epidemiology, ecology, or political science—India is increasingly suffering from a low-quality information ecosystem. We are a curious and hungry people, but I think it’s safe to say in 2024 that we were not socially prepared for 21st-century information networks, which care more for the quantity of engagement than the quality of retention. While profitable to those peddling the most marketable snake oil, the rest of society is now under unmanageable strain, with crucial professions—those encouraging a deeper relationship with society and the world—becoming untenable. I should not have to tell an aspiring historian or ecologist that to make a living, they have to fight administrators, be harassed by Right-wing vigilantes, or emigrate to the West.
But the situation is not hopeless in India. We cannot allow it to be hopeless, and there is a growing awareness of the need for change. Historian Vanya Vaidehi Bhargava, author of Being Hindu, Being Indian, has called for more cooperation between academics and public historians, kindly pointing to my work. I completely echo this sentiment. Grant-giving organisations like the New India Foundation are making it feasible for academics to take a step back and write bestsellers; Sohini Chattopadhyay’s The Day I Became a Runner is a stellar example. Despite harassment and abuse, young public historians, such as Sam Dalrymple, Gangaa Jamnaa Kaaveri and Tawarikh-e-Punjab on Instagram, are exploring the country and challenging what we think we know of the past.
In India today, whether academic or public, all historians—all disciplines—desperately need nourishment and independence from political pressure. More importantly, we need investment both from public and private institutions. Indian producers, publishers, philanthropists, social media companies and journalists need to rise to the call, not just historians.
Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of Lords of the Deccan, a new history of medieval South India, and hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti. Views are personal.
This is part of ThePrint opinion series on Indian history in the Whatsapp age. Read all articles here.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
I would argue that the biggest factor crippling the study of history in India is the mediocrity all through. And a large part of the blame goes to the “famous names”, who rather would publish another hackneyed volume rather than do some fundamental research. After the (often controversial) BB Lal grenades or the initial treatises on economy by Irfan Habib, there was very little by way of genuine scholarship, especially from the vaunted Delhi-Kolkata set, or from the BHU and likes at the other end of the spectrum. Most interesting work has actually happened in vernacular languages with regional history (Assam, TN, etc.)
Dalrymple is a fantastic writer, but why have Indian historians not been able to produce anything even close? Because of the ideological lens. That is why so many “summary” PHDs get awarded (not just in history, but in all arts subjects like sociology, political science etc.). It is easier to paint yourself in the color of your guide’s choice than to write something that challenges the orthodoxy because the indoctrinated guide (whether red or saffron or even any other color) does not have the mental openness or even capacity to objectively judge something new.
I am not hopeful of any change unless we create new institutions staffed perhaps by younger faculty with a significant proportion educated abroad.
For too long history was under the thumb of Marxist historians. One of the leading government Bank with over centuries of history behind it commissioned a historian from Bengal
It turned out to be Marxist – Bengal oriented history. Such examples are plenty. India has never a culture of writing history. It was the British who started this practice.
Even those who wrote Indian history wrote it from today’s perspective of rich- poor, oppressed castes-rulers. History writing must be about the times and notes existing at that time and an examination of the growth of the economy and people.
Sady this perspective has always been missed.
Excellent analytical article.
Communist and socialist ideologies are responsible for India’s history.
Who is responsible for the state of India’s history? Indias teachers, government and Indians.
Indian social sciences is rife with folk who refuse to admit they are wrong and will use authority to thrust their incorrect intrepretations on their students. Then use coercion to make the student believe in the victimhood.
I had teachers who consistently pushed their opinions on the students and used them to gang up and bully folk. As a Brahmin student in Tamil Nadu I have been personally bullied, hit and have had marks cut until I left the state.
Historians in India like Romila Thapar who will not admit to communist bias and will force her interpretation despite not knowing Sanskrit has been put on a pedestal. Any interpretations that deviate from that norm are thrown in the dustbin. How will historians thrive in a one sided environment, the same way abused make peace with abusers.
Ruchika Sharma , the historian quoted here was happily criticisi ng Hindus online. The Hindus of India trained in self flaggelation by historians of past let it continue with grumbles. She happened to criticise muslims and got death threats. Her next act exposes what is wrong with academia in India. She said she will now only talk about i.e. criticise Hindus.
Bully the week and give the strong a pass since they can be feared. Strength not in numbers but whether one of them can cut your hand off or head off.
Anirudh ends by saying we need time and money. I would not gtive this breed of historians any money to reverse the pendulum that has swung right after decades of gaslighting. This should be perhaps centuries since it started with the British trying to suppress Indian confidence to rule.
It starts with historians and academicians in social sciences in India have the honesty to use to the following phrases. ‘I dont know. ‘ ‘ I have one letter that says something and I am building on that to mean something else’. ‘ I am deliberately ignoring sources or fudging facts to help a certain interpretation’.
It starts with a public apology from left wing historians for gaslighting us not attempting to guilt people in to giving them more money.