what does romila thapar say about indus civilization?
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
A Review of
Romila Thapar�s �Ancient India, A Textbook of History for Middle Schools�
NCERT: New Delhi (1987)
by Vishal Agarwal
25 November 2002
Opening Remarks -
This review deals with the withdrawn NCERT textbook on history for Std. VI authored by the eminent historian Romila Thapar
When the text of the first edition of the book (published in 1966) is compared with its current edition (July 1987, reprinted 13 times till January 2000), we do not find any significant differences between the two. The changes are primarily cosmetic � sentences added here and there, a word or two changed, and so on. Some errors are corrected here, a subtle shift in emphasis made elsewhere, and so on. This means that in 34 years (1966 � 2000), Thapar does not see the need to revise completely her understanding as well as her presentation of history of ancient India to middle level school children of India.
As indicated in the �Foreword� of this first edition of the book, we find that the Chief Editor is S. Gopal, whereas the other editors of the series are Romila Thapar, S. Nurul Hasan and Satish Chandra. Nurul Hasan is dead, S. Gopal passed away a few months ago, and Thapar, Gopal and Chandra have continued to be authors or editors for NCERT even 35 years later. It appears that India has not produced better or equally good historians who could write history texts for school children, in all these 3� decades! The hegemony of this small group of Marxist historians (or their fellow travelers) in producing school texts for impressionable schoolchildren in India all these years is quite alarming.
Unless stated otherwise, this review pertains to the 1987 edition of the textbook that continued to be in use till 2001. A few references will however be made to the 1966 edition for various reasons.
Chapter 0: The Study of Indian History �
The introductory chapter alone in the current edition is quite different from the 1966 edition. It stresses the current trends in historiography of ancient India � such as a greater emphasis on the lives of common men rather than on aristocrats and kings alone in older texts of history. It discusses how history of ancient periods is reconstructed, the various sources of information for the same, and how civilization in ancient India could have begun. The chapter as such, makes very dry reading for a 6th Std. student, because there are so few illustrations. Study aids such as well-demarcated sections with section headings are missing in this chapter. A significant omission from the chapter is a map of India, which could have greatly facilitated the understanding of the essay type text.
The book makes no attempt to relate the present with the past, even though the author remarks (page 1) that one of the reasons for studying history is to understand our present.
Explanation:
It was discovered by archaeologists in the 1920s. It developed along the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River and even that areas are now in modern Pakistan, north-west India and Afghanistan. The civilization started during the Bronze Age and the height of its development was between 2500 BC and 1500 BC.