(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, which will also appear in the next issue of Biblio.)
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.
Trivedi complains that ‘Few books which are mainly about pre-Muslim India (for the Great Mughals too are largely absent here) have Hinduism struggling so hard for space and representation as in this one.’ This nearly made me fall out of my chair. How had he failed to notice that besides a chapter on the Harappans, and three about Buddhism, the remaining seven are mostly about Hinduism and Hindus (as these terms are now understood)? I wondered: What lay behind his anxiety about my apparently inadequate coverage of Hinduism?
Some clues soon emerge. Though he sees Indians as ‘mainly about pre-Muslim India’ (untrue; over a third of the book spans the second millennium), he alleges that ‘Arora seems to believe that the Muslims in India could do no wrong.’ This struck me as a surprising, sweeping and unfair charge. Having ignored my animus for folks like Mahmud of Ghazni, Bhaktiar Khilji and Aurangzeb, he attempts to offer some examples to substantiate his reading. Let’s examine them.
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