Abstract
Envisaged as a multi-volume series, consisting of dozens of small, handy, modestly priced hardback and paperback issues, A People’s History of India is at once almost audaciously ambitious and accessible. The focus of the present review is a set of four volumes, running from the mid-second millennium BC to the early centuries of the first millennium AD. Given the vast chronological, spatial, and thematic range, I will concentrate not so much on details as on broad issues of structure, approach, perspectives and presentation. I will also attempt to draw attention to the expectations aroused by a series explicitly designated as A People’s History, and the extent to which these are addressed.
The prefatory statement that introduces each volume is somewhat daunting and thought provoking: ‘The Aligarh Historians Society, the sponsor of the project of A People’s History of India, is dedicated to the cause of promoting the scientific method in history and resisting communal and chauvinistic interpretations.’
While this provides a comprehensive overarching framework, there are two or three issues that it raises—first, is there a single, monolithic scientific method, or do we need to create more space for dialogue and dissent in our understanding of such methodologies? Second, while communalism and chauvinism are categories that are broad enough to be useful, a series that will run through the present century will probably have to address other concerns as well. Sexism, especially in terms of gender-blindness, and casteism, as well as the complexities of class in a rapidly changing economic scenario obviously demand our attention and pose challenges that deserve explicit recognition. I will return to some of these issues subsequently.
Another set of issues, related to the above, pertains to the notion of ‘people’. As a working definition, let us assume that a people’s perspective will be different from the top-down perspective that has dominated much of history-writing, and will permit us to see things differently. Also, a history written for the ‘people’, even as it may be accessible only to the urban, educated middle class, itself substantially differentiated, will be simple and accessible, but not simplistic. And finally, it will involve discussing issues of historical method, and the uncertainties of historical reconstructions with the reader, rather than assertions. These are working yardsticks for examining the significance of the enterprise under consideration, to distinguish it from other, more or less popular, available histories of India.
Structurally, all four volumes under consideration follow a more or less consistent, simple format, which is easy for the reader to tune into. The Vedic Age, for instance, consists of three chapters, each of which is divided into several sections. While the sectional heads are virtually identical for the first two chapters, and are thematic, including issues such as economy, society, polity and religion, the third chapter, dealing with the archaeological evidence of the period, is organised somewhat differently, in terms of regions rather than themes. The concerns with economy, society, polity and religion run through The Age of Iron and the Religious Revolution as well, except that here they are expanded into separate chapters, each divided into sections, some focused on regions, and others on themes. Mauryan India, expectedly, has a sharper focus on the political and the administrative, with a chapter devoted exclusively to Ashoka, but the focus on economy, society and religion is sustained in the concluding chapter. A more or less identical pattern can be traced in Post-Mauryan India, which explicitly focuses on polity and economy, with the promise of another volume to discuss society and culture.
Other structural features are perhaps best illustrated in The Age of Iron. These include maps, charts and visuals. While most of the maps tend to be austere and minimalistic, there is a set of four (The Age of Iron, pp. 82–85) which give a sense of the subcontinent as a whole. The charts, especially those on texts and their locations within traditions, are particularly useful for the readers trying to find their way through the complex maze of references. Finally, the visuals, although (or perhaps because) black and white, tend to be sharp, striking and effective.
All the volumes include extracts from primary sources. Once again, these are valuable in providing a sense of the tone and texture of the material, in spite of the occasionally intractable problems of translations, and adaptations from nineteenth/early twentieth century works. However, in The Age of Iron, we have an additional bonus of shorter excerpts, very effectively interspersed through the text.
Each chapter is accompanied by two sets of notes—one, on issues touched on in the chapter, and the second on further readings. Most of the first category of notes deal with source-related themes—for instance, Mauryan India includes notes on chronology, the Arthasastra, epigraphy and the dialects of Ashokan Prakrit, all of which are useful for the more inquisitive non-specialist. However, one wishes that some of the material included within the notes, for instance, ‘The Caste System’ in The Vedic Age, and ‘Elementary Concepts from Economics’ in Post-Mauryan India, which are at once more general and fundamental to an understanding of the authors’ approach to issues, had been incorporated more centrally within the text. Also, while the bibliographies are generally comprehensive without being intimidating, it would have helped younger readers in the twenty-first century if the authors had identified some websites from the plethora of material, good, bad and indifferent, accessible on the Internet. Many of the primary sources, for instance, are available on line in both text and translations. Also, online journals/publications such as the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies are now assuming increasing significance.
While both the structure and the presentation are remarkably accessible, one wishes that the overarching approach and perspectives had been somewhat different. Let me illustrate some of these issues and possibilities by focusing on The Vedic Age, the very title of which replicates that of a volume in another series, History and Culture of the Indian People, which was produced several decades ago and whose strengths and weaknesses are now generally acknowledged within academic circles.
The first sentence of the volume runs: ‘With the Rigveda we enter the realm of History in India’ (p. 1). While this is part of literate, urban, middle class/upper caste common sense, it can and has been critiqued from a variety of perspectives. Feminist scholars have pointed out that the Vedic tradition, in its composition, compilation and transmission, has tended to be exclusive rather than inclusive—with women seers figuring as exceptions rather than the norm. Dalit scholars, likewise, have challenged the claims of the Vedic/brahmanical tradition to be representative. From these vantage points, the Rigveda can hardly be synonymous with history. Also, the volume includes a chapter that demonstrates that vast swathes of the subcontinent were populated by non-Vedic peoples, whose material cultures have been painstakingly retrieved by archaeologists. It would have been valuable if the volume had foregrounded the practices of these people, in all likelihood the vast majority, shifting the focus from the Vedic material that has been the subject of study for more than a century. We are also left with the issue of history being equated with textualisation—while texts apparently make the task of the historian easier, in the sense of providing what have been conventionally regarded as ‘sources’, the existence of non-literate populations, with complex pasts and traditions, who have been in dialogue and in relationships—both conflictual and consensual, perhaps requires greater space and consideration. While the problem is recognised almost in passing (p. 73): ‘Yet, when we say “recorded history”, we obviously are guilty of an inaccuracy’, addressing this issue centrally would have enriched the exercise considerably.
The note on ‘The Caste System’ (The Vedic Age, pp. 68–71), once again, provides a summary in broad brush-strokes, which is useful, but could have been pushed further. The review of the sociological debates ends with M.N. Srinivas—later interventions would have been more challenging for the reader. Also, while there is an acknowledgement that gendered practices become markers of caste identities, the ways in which these are tied in with issues of birth/reproduction could have been highlighted more explicitly.
Some of the volumes contain vivid details on social organisation. The Age of Iron provides an example of this. The section on ‘Social Groups’ (pp. 46–56) includes discussions on high status categories such as the gahapati and setthi, followed by kin-based groups, discussions on the family, and, finally, slavery. Rich and comprehensive as is this account, one wonders how the scenario would have looked if the author had chosen to begin the account with slavery/servile populations/less privileged groups who may have constituted the majority of the population, and then moved up the social hierarchy to the setthis.
Other issues of perspective arise in terms of the regional focus. This is evident in The Vedic Age, where two of the three chapters focus on the northwest and north of the subcontinent, which are also discussed in the third chapter. It is also apparent in The Age of Iron (pp. 4–12), where the evidence from north India, central India, the Deccan, northwestern India, Gujarat and eastern India is presented in terms of both regions and important sites, whereas the wealth of evidence from the megalithic sites further south is summarised rather differently. Once again, it is possible that a different picture would have emerged if the regional focus was shifted—after all the southern megalithic sites have yielded far more prolific finds of iron equipment than the northern sites.
There is also, at times, an overwhelming preoccupation with dynastic political history. This tends to happen, in particular, in the first three chapters of Post-Mauryan India, where the author leads us through the histories of the Greek, Shaka, Parthian, Shunga, Satavahana and Kushana dynasties (as well as histories of kings such as Kharavela). I could not help wondering what the significance of the details that almost inevitably weigh down these chapters would have been for ordinary people. This contrasts with the approach in Mauryan India, where the authors attempt to assess the significance of Ashoka’s dhamma: ‘…it is the ordinary man he appeals to and it is him, with all his worldly desires intact, that Ashoka wishes to bring under the umbrella of his dhamma’ (p. 70).
Likewise, fortunately, the last chapter of Post-Mauryan India contains vivid details on the economy and the everyday life, giving us a sense of what life would have been like in villages and towns, and the ways in which craft production and trade were organised. Based on archaeological, inscriptional, numismatic, visual and textual material, it conveys a sense of the possibilities of A People’s History.
The mundane and the tangible, in all their immediacy, are also apparent in the citation from the classic Buddhist text, the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (The Age of Iron, p. 37):
Both by day and by night, Ananda, the royal city Kushavati resounded with ten cries, that is to say the noise of elephants and the noise of horses, and the noise of chariots; the sounds of drum, tabor, and of lute; the sound of singing and of the cymbal and gongs; and lastly, with the cry: ‘Eat, drink and be merry’.’
This is just one example of the fruitful, chaotic and creative glimpses that these volumes provide the reader, giving a sense of the immense potential for the series—once space is created for acknowledging differences and diversities in terms of caste, class, region, community and gender systematically and persistently, acknowledging their intersections, and the heterogeneities that are perhaps the distinctive features of the people of India.