Why Hindutva loves to hate Romila Thapar | Scroll Adda

Very few things are as controversial in today’s India as its history. The academic discipline now sits at the heart of popular politics, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its Hindutva supporters using India’s medieval past to power its politics. Into this battlefield rush in writer Namit Arora and India’s most famous historian, Romila Thapar. In their new book “Speaking of History”, Thapar and Arora deconstruct what the discipline means in India today, the role of popular history and why ideas such as perpetual Hindu-Muslim conflict say more about the present than the past. In this episode of Scroll Adda, Thapar opens up about what it has been like being attacked by the Hindutva right for so long and why she thinks academic history will, eventually, prevail over short-term politics. Support our award-winning journalism by becoming a Scroll member - https://scroll.in/contribute Producer: Raghav Kakkar Editor: Hyder Habib Host: Shoaib Daniyal Chapters: 00:00 - Montage 01:48 - Introduction 02:15 - Speaking of History 06:10 - History and nationalism 14:37 - State of research in India 22:43 - Is history the search for truth 41:00 - Ashoka and his edicts 52:00 - Hindutva attacking Romila 57:00 - Romila on right wing misogynistic attacks Subscribe to Scroll's YouTube channel and turn on your notifications, so you don't miss new videos. For more explainers, and the web’s most interesting videos - https://scroll.in/video/ For the latest news and analysis - https://scroll.in Support our award-winning journalism by becoming a Scroll member - https://scroll.in/contribute Follow Scroll.in here - Facebook:   / scroll.in   Twitter:   / scroll_in   Instagram:   / scroll_in   Threads: https://www.threads.net/@scroll_in Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/scroll.in