Challenges of Understanding History

Book excerpt: The history of India, so far, has not focused on a civilizational Bharatiya perspective, emphasizing a geo-political history based on the Nation-state paradigm, rather than a geo-cultural practice based on India’s civilizational antiquity. Until recently, history had been viewed from various ideological lenses- Colonial, Nationalist, Marxist, Subaltern, soon and so forth. These schools have been immensely successful not only in tapping the immense range of sources and exploring the various regions and sub-regions across the subcontinent, but have also contributed towards bringing to light important perspectives concerning the political, economic, social and cultural developments in the history of India from the 8th to the 14th centuries. While tapping into these schools has its obvious advantages, in that they have focused on partial aspects of the grand march of the civilization’s history, a lot still needs to be done.