Itihasa made itihasya...

A short video presentation where I summarise my key thoughts on historiography and historiographical conflicts. It is in essence a distillation albeit rather simplified if not simplistic, of my arguments, ideas, meanings and purpose that has informed my teaching, my trainings, my professional interactions over years. The broad perspective presented here have further been the backdrop for my explorations, deliberations and experimentations particularly via different pedagogical endeavours that I have shared in these pages, in my book  and my facebook page . Of course my presentation may leave a lot wanting, given my own clumsiness in articulation and lacking media finesse and media savviness but yet I hope in some little more than 8 minutes, key issues in contemporary historiography and some directions in resolving messy and fraught epistemic imbroglios emerge. 

Over the years while dealing with different chapters in history, we come across constant references to occupations and trade where artisans evidently had a major role to play. Like for example we constantly read about textiles, jewellery, metalware, pottery either being unearthed in archaeological digs or references to all this in varied literary sources. All these are meant to indicate the richness of material culture of a given period and societies. And there is farming too. If even today nearly 60% of India is directly or indirectly dependent on farming...in the past, societies across the world were largely agricultural. Surplus could never be taken for granted till the 1800s and it is no accident that much of the rapid, intense and extensive technological changes leading to shifts in occupational profile happened only from the beginnings of the 19th century. But more to the point here - some time back few kids were doing a project on Mughal textiles - the chikans, zardozi, brocade...

Few of my friends have been asking me to put a list of books on Indian history, which in my 'esteemed' opinion has made seminal contribution to our understanding of our pasts. So here it is - my twenty books on Indian history, a must read for any pretender who claims to be passionate about Indian history and for anyone seeking to know Indian history in all its dynamism, nuances and vibrancy -

have a dekko at this website... this is technology used effectively to popularise and stun u abt the past....technology to popularise history teaching in the classrooms....with computers of course...so is history still beyond the pale of govt school kids where despite claims there is hardly any penetration of computers with requisite software?? www.world-heritage-tour.org

www.hnn.us http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/ http://www.untimelypast.org/links.html http://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/socialscientist/ http://www.marxists.org/ http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/mainhist.html http://www.becominghuman.org/ http://www.fashionindia.net/history_fashion/history_fashion.htm http://historymedren.about.com/library/text/bltxtindiabib.htm?terms=India (good bibliography) http://hinduism.about.com/od/history/index.htm?terms=India