DR. C.D. DESHMUKH MEMORIAL LECTURE 2023

Our History, Their History, Whose History?

Speaker: Prof. Romila Thapar, pre-eminent historian, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC

The talk will examine the current crisis in the teaching and writing of history as reflected in new syllabus for school, college and University, and in public statements on the past. There is a bifurcation between popular public views and those of professional scholars of history. The questions to be answered are how did this come about? How legitimate are the changes being formally suggested? And why these changes are being contested by historians? The focus will be on one frequently quoted interpretation relating to the second millennium AD., discussing the relationship between two communities.