Politics Of Indian History -2

[ramana]

Dr P. Bilimale of New Delhi writes

Stereotypical writings in Indian Social Sciences:





Scholarly pursuits such as history and anthropology in India have been professionalized

and institutionalized, with academic departments established during colonial period. The

texts, methodology and approaches were all adopted from the West. Often this was in the

context of colonialism and military occupation, resulting in asymmetrical power

relations. The writing of history was central to strategies of European colonial rule in the subcontinent. Some of these well-known generalizations (Stereotypes) are easily recalled:

Hindus and Muslims were two different nations and peoples who could not live together;

Indians were primarily a religious people or religious peoples; Indian communities were

prone to violence; Indians were uncivilized even if in an earlier golden age they had been

civilized; liberal values such as democracy or freedom of thought and expression were

unknown to Indians etc. Numerous scholarly work have been examined how these

stereotypes reflected a colonial agenda and were used to justify acts of colonial violence.

The subject is far from exhausted; it continues to be a rich source of material for scholars

of the colonial period as well as for postcolonial theorists.