Category: Books & Authors
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The Emergence of a Common Indian Identity: An Excerpt from ‘Speaking of History’ by Romila Thapar, Namit Arora
Himal Southasian has an excerpt from Speaking of History (reproduced below). Three previous excerpts have appeared in The Wire, The Print, and Scroll. Check ’em all out!
Romila Thapar on the emergence of a common Indian identity
Namit Arora and Romila Thapar on how identities in early and medieval India were formed, contested, and why a shared sense of “Indianness” may be a colonial-era development.
What did it mean to be “Indian” before the modern nation came into being? In this excerpt from Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present (Penguin India, Nov 2025), the historian Romila Thapar and the writer and social critic Namit Arora reflect on how identities were formed, imagined and contested in early and medieval India. Ranging across foreign travel accounts, Sanskrit texts, caste hierarchies and colonial transformations, the conversation probes whether any shared sense of Indian identity existed prior to the colonial era, and why the question itself has become so politically charged today. -
Asian Review of Books Podcast about ‘Speaking of History’
In which I speak to Nicholas Gordon, editor of Fortune Magazine and host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, about Speaking of History (audio podcast on ARB site, 38 mins). Nicholas also had me on his show in 2021 to talk about my previous book, Indians.
“What does it mean to be a historian? How do you try to explain the past when sources are lacking? And how do we talk about history when it’s so politicized? In the new book Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present (India Allen Lane, 2025), Namit Arora and Romila Thapar discuss some of the challenges facing historians in India today, what it means to be an academic historian, and how ideas around gender, caste and religion may be getting distorted in India’s public history. Namit joins us on the show today… (more)”
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What’s Pride-worthy in Hindu India’s past: An Excerpt from ‘Speaking of History’ by Romila Thapar and Namit Arora
Scroll.in has published an excerpt from chapter 21 of Speaking of History, which I’ve reproduced below. It comes from chapter 21, titled “What’s Pride-Worthy in the Hindu Past?” It follows two previous excerpts in The Wire and The Print. Check ’em all out!
Conversation: Historians Romila Thapar and Namit Arora discuss India’s proudly plural past
NAMIT: In today’s world, most people just luuuuv to take pride in their cultural past. Personally, I find it hard to take pride in things I did not help create—such as the accident of birth into a particular community or territory. That said, I also recognize that if I were inclined to seek pride in such inheritances, I would find plenty in Indian culture to inspire it.
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An Indian Inferiority Complex: An Excerpt from ‘Speaking of History’ by Romila Thapar and Namit Arora
After the excerpt in The Wire, another excerpt from Speaking of History has now appeared in The Print. IMO, the editors could have included a bit more at the outset to give the selection greater context and a more complete argument—though they were likely constrained by word-length guidelines.
Below, I’m sharing the version I wish they had run, using a less rage-baity title. It’s about 20% longer than their excerpt from chapter 9, and free of ads. I also found their choice of the featured image puzzling but I’ve reproduced it for completeness. Happy reading!
Exploring a Possible Inferiority Complex
NAMIT: Now, it’s true that Hindutva-like religious nationalism also exists in other parts of the world—as in Zionism, Islamism, White Christian nationalism in the USA and Europe, Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka and Burma and so on. But despite their many shared features, Hindutva also differs from them. I think some of the differences stem from a deeply internalized cultural inferiority complex among middle-class Hindus, which I’d like to explore here. Scholars such as Ashis Nandy, Christophe Jaffrelot and Partha Chatterjee have explored this complex as partly a consequence of colonialism. I feel it is widespread enough and it helps create a large audience for Hindutva interpretations.
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Nonviolence and Tolerance in Early India: An Excerpt from ‘Speaking of History’ by Romila Thapar and Namit Arora
Amigos, my newest book—co-authored with Prof. Romila Thapar—is out in the world! On 29 Nov 2025, Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present became available worldwide—in print and e-formats—thanks to Penguin India and Three Essays Collective. The book’s official page has the details.
Working on this book since the summer of last year—and getting to know Prof. Thapar—has been a privilege, a joy, and an immensely mind-expanding experience. We discussed numerous aspects of India’s past and present, including many contentious topics, and our occasional disagreements too were illuminating to me. I won’t nudge you to buy a copy … I have full faith. 😊
But if you’d like a taste first, check out this excerpt (from Chapter 16) that has just appeared in The Wire—also reproduced below.
Nonviolence and Tolerance in Early India
“The image of the great king is of one who is a conqueror, and conquest assumes violence and intolerance. So I really don’t buy the theory that early Indians were especially nonviolent or tolerant.” — Thapar, in Speaking of History by Romila Thapar and Namit Arora
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A talk on Marco Polo’s India of the 13th century
Last month, I was invited to speak about Marco Polo at the sixth annual Indology Festival organized by the Tamil Heritage Trust. The theme this year was “Wanderers and Witnesses: Travellers’ Tales of India” and the festival team had invited various “scholars, authors, and experts to explore how India was perceived, experienced, and recorded by travellers from distant lands through the centuries.”
Twelve talks happened at #THTIndoFest2025 over six evenings, 16–21 June 2025. My talk on Marco Polo (~90 mins, with Q&A) is embedded below but also check out others who spoke at this nice history festival (YouTube Playlist).
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On Social Scientists Engaging With Civic Spaces
I was part of a panel at the India International Center, Delhi, on 18 Feb, 2025, to discuss a book, Social Scientists in the Civic Space (Routledge, 2025), edited by Arundhati Virmani, Jean Boutier, and Manohar Kumar. To begin with, panelists were invited to offer their views on the book. This is the text of my statement. —Namit Arora
Thank you for inviting me for this discussion. I think the issue of social scientists engaging with civic spaces is a crucial one. The excellent book we’re discussing today examines this engagement through four key dimensions: context, modes of intervention, involvement, and ethical considerations. Its approach is largely historical, offering insights into how scholars have navigated these dimensions in different times and countries.For instance, in discussing context, the book explores the civic spaces of specific societies at particular times—analyzing their political milieu, education systems, media landscapes, social science institutions, and more. When addressing intervention and involvement, it examines the diverse roles scholars have played—as teachers, policy advisors, public intellectuals, social activists—and how they influenced civic discourse and policy.
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The Mystic Tradition of India
This is Namit Arora’s foreword to When I See, I Sing: Verses in Translation of Baba Farid, Namdeo, Kabir and Rahim, translated by Pavitra Mohan. First published on Scroll.in.
Humans have always had a remarkable diversity of religious experiences. Across time and cultures, spiritual practices—whether animistic, mystical, ritualistic, or ascetic—owe much to a common human desire to connect with something greater than oneself. These practices include prayer, fasting, sacrifice, self-mortification, festivals, pilgrimage, meditation, art, music, and dance. Whatever the form, such quests for meaning, transcendence, and connection reflect a universal human impulse.Among these diverse expressions of spirituality, mysticism is prominent in many world religions, particularly in Hinduism (Bhakti), Islam (Sufism), Judaism (Kabbalah), and Eastern Christianity. It has especially thrived in regions from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent. Scholar and philosopher Majid Fakhry describes mysticism as rooted ‘in the original matrix of religious experience’—born from an intense awareness of God and the realisation of one’s insignificance without God. This leads the mystic towards a central goal: the dissolution of the ego (fana) and total surrender to God. By shedding their egoistic self and discovering the divine presence within, mystics strive for greater self-realisation. In this transformation, writes Fakhry, ‘man becomes dead unto himself and alive unto God.’
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“Indian Civilization is an Idea But Also an Enigma”: Karan Thapar interviews Namit Arora
I was honored and delighted to receive an invitation from Karan Thapar himself, one of the sharpest, most incisive, and intellectually astute professional interviewers in India today. He wanted to discuss the web series Indians on his show. But I’m also media-shy, and right after saying yes, I grew anxious about the interview.
Well, I think it turned out alright. 🙂 Thapar asked about 15 questions and skillfully summarized at several places what I’d said in long-winded ways, illustrating once again the basis for his high reputation and numerous awards. See for yourself!
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Exploring India’s Past: From Al-Beruni to Marco Polo and Ibn-Battuta
I was recently invited to participate in a forum called The Black Hole, an “educational and intellectual space” in Islamabad whose goal is to further science, art, and culture in Pakistan. It is run by Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist, author, and secularist known for his vocal and courageous advocacy of scientific temper and progressive values, and who I’ve long admired. He invites authors and thinkers to present and interact with his live audience.
I was delighted by the invitation and overcame my enormous media-shyness to join this event. The session, held on 24 March, began with an introduction by Pervez Hoodbhoy, followed by a screening of Episode 7 of Indians (Alberuni and Marco Polo in India) and a Q&A interaction in Urdu/Hindi/English that lasted over an hour.
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The Overshoot Story
[This article first appeared in the Caravan magazine, June 1, 2023.]
India’s approach to global warming cannot mirror the West
THE GODAVARI RIVER wends its lazy way between the Papikondalu Hills of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh. Bright jungle spills down the steep hillsides, reflected in the broad, slow bends of the magnificent river. On the December day I visited, a pall of pollution damped the view. The flanks of the hills were dotted with small villages, but nearly all of them were ghost towns—empty, voided spaces where not a child played, not a dog snoozed, not a cow grazed. These were the remains of a few of the over two hundred and fifty villages that will be flooded1 when the Polavaram dam is finished, not far downriver, creating a vast reservoir that will drown this spectacular landscape.Namit Arora interviewed by Scroll
Scroll commissioned my friend and fellow writer, Abdullah Khan, to interview me over email. I enjoyed responding to his excellent questions. Read it here, or read it on Scroll.in where it was first published with the title below.
________________‘No one person gets to limit what it means to be Indian’: Namit Arora, author of ‘Indians’
To write his book, Arora travelled to the seats of the different civilisations of India
Category: Anthropology & Archaeology, Books & Authors, Culture, Economics, History, Justice, Politics, Religion, Science, TravelStories of Wealth and Distribution
[The thirteenth in a series of essays, On Climate Truth and Fiction, in which I raise questions about environmental distress, the human experience, and storytelling. It first appeared on 3 Quarks Daily. The previous part is here.]
In the world of Star Trek, no one ever goes hungry or lacks access to healthcare. No one wants for housing, education, social inclusion or any other basic need. In fact, no citizen of the United Federation of Planets is ever seen to pay for everyday goods or services, only for gambling or special entertainments. The Federation suffers no scarcity of any kind. All waste is presumably fed into the replicators and turned into fresh food or new clothes or whatever is needed. Yet despite ample social safety nets, there’s no end to internecine politicking, human foibles and failures, corruption and vanity, charisma and venality. The world of Star Trek appeals so widely, I think, because it presents us with something colorfully short of a utopia, a flawed human attempt toward a just, caring, and individually enabling social order. It imagines a society based on a shared set of human values—fairness, cooperation, political and economic egalitarianism—where basic human needs are equitably answered so that no one has to compete for basic subsistence and wellbeing. As the venerable Captain Picard has put it, “We’ve overcome hunger and greed, and we’re no longer interested in the accumulation of things.” Some Libertarian Trekkies have been scandalized to realize that Star Trek actually depicts a post-capitalist vision of society.But Star Trek’s world is premised upon the existence of a cheap, concentrated, and non-polluting source of effectively infinite energy. Obviously, no such energy source has ever been discovered (solar-paneled dreamscapes notwithstanding). And the replicator, which eliminates both material waste and scarcity, is a magical technology. The Star Trek vision is also a picture of human chauvinism and hubris, presuming H. Sapiens as the only relevant form of Earthly life. So it falls short of a vivid and plausible imagining of an ecologically sustainable, technologically advanced, and egalitarian human civilization.
Category: 3QD, Anthropology & Archaeology, Books & Authors, Economics, Environment, History, JusticeNamit Arora interviewed at Kalinga Lit Fest
I greatly enjoyed my conversation with Abdullah Khan, friend, fellow writer, and author of the novel Patna Blues (the screen grab below shows the introducer). It was hosted by the Kalinga Literary Festival (1 hr).
Namit Arora interviewed by the Asian Review of Books
In which Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, interviews me about ‘Indians’ (~40 minutes).
“We can sometimes forget that “India”—or the idea of a single unified entity—is not a very old concept. Indian history is complicated and convoluted: different societies, polities and cultures rise and fall, ebb and flow, as the political makeup of South Asia changes. Namit Arora, author of Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization, details some of these changing cultures. From the early Harappans, to the Buddhist centers of Nagarjunakonda and Nalanda, and ending at Varanasi, Arora takes his readers on a journey through South Asia’s rich and diverse history. In this interview, Namit and I talk about the many different cultures featured in his book Indians. We share the stories of some of India’s illustrious foreign visitors, and what it was like for Namit to research these lost histories.”
Namit Arora featured on Cyrus Says
I’m the sort who dreads even the thought of appearing on live broadcasts with AMA style audience Qs, but I quite enjoyed my conversation on Indians with Cyrus Broacha, the smart, funny, inimitable host of the podcast Cyrus Says. Do listen! (Apple, Google, Spotify, Adori, etc.)
Category: Anthropology & Archaeology, Books & Authors, Culture, History, Humor, Politics, Religion, Travel, VideoHerbert Fingarette on mortality
What is the point of it all, asks Herbert Fingarette, a philosopher, in this moving reflection on life and death. He “once argued that there was no reason to fear death. At 97, his own mortality began to haunt him, and he had to rethink everything.” (18 mins)
A Response to Harish Trivedi
(I think unfavorable reviews of books are at least of two kinds: (1) Unfavorable for the right reasons, which can be humbling and provide opportunities for reflection to the author; (2) Unfavorable for the wrong reasons, rooted in the reviewer’s misreading, willful ignorance or prejudices. Given how propagandized popular history has become in the age of Hindutva, I expect many reviews of the second kind, which are usually best disregarded. However, a recent mixed review in Biblio includes critiques of the second kind from Harish Trivedi, a scholar of postcolonialism. It bugged me enough to compel the response below, to also appear in the next issue of Biblio.)
Harish Trivedi (image source)As readers, we expect book reviewers to draw out the major arguments in new books. But often, reviewers end up revealing much about themselves, as does Harish Trivedi, a scholar of postcolonialism and translation studies, in his recent review of my book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization. Appearing in Biblio (January–March 2021, p. 9), his review reveals troubling intellectual positions and attitudes, manifest in his misreading, falsification and clouding of my arguments. So I feel compelled to respond.
Namit Arora on Indians: The Avid–BLF Lecture
I spoke about Indians in an online lecture, my first one based on the new book (1:08 hr). Hosted by Avid Learning and supported by the Bangalore Lit Fest, I delivered it on 25 Feb to listeners on Zoom (occasional choppy audio). If history or Indians interest you, check it out.
INDIANS: A Book Trailer
My sales pitch for Indians, or as they euphemistically say in the industry, a ‘book trailer’. 🙂
A shorter book trailer with just music (and on-screen text) is here. To learn more about the book, click here.
Category: Anthropology & Archaeology, Art & Cinema, Biography, Books & Authors, Culture, Economics, Environment, History, Justice, Philosophy, Photography, Politics, Religion, Science, Travel, Video
