48-50: Three non-fiction books

[wordsofastory]

48. B. B. Lal, The Sarasvati Flows On: The Continuity of Indian CultureA short, easy-to-read (except for one chapter which seems to come from another book entirely) pop non-fiction summary of the Indus or Harappan Civilization, a Bronze Age culture located in the modern countries of India and Pakistan, which had its own writing system, cities, and

Comments

[dhobikikutti]

OMG Thank you for recommending books about India actually written by Indians /irrational venting>

[fiction_theory]

That hardly sounds like irrational venting at all, if you don't mind me saying so and I'm really sorry that you've been made to feel that pointing out something so RIGHT is irrational at all. Because it's very rational and reasonable.

I think it's actually VERY valid to be upset that so many history books penned about India are penned by very privileged non-Indian people and upset that more people don't realize that it's a huge problem and has huge cultural, intellectual, and political ramifications for the people who's history is being discussed.

It's something that should be discussed and brought up far more often, if not on this comm then in other places where Indian history or history in general is discussed.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

[dhobikikutti]

Heh. I said it was irrational because in this comm, no one would be able to rec books by white authors even if they wanted to.

And yeah, while I have a great deal of respect for the research and scholarship of non-Indian academic Indologists, I remain wary of their texts being the starting points for someone unfamiliar with the culture.

Thanks for your supportive comment!

[wordsofastory]

It is really frustrating. I'm always looking for good books on Indian history by Indians, and I don't think I've ever seen one in my local chain bookstores. It's always White Mughals and Women of the Raj (but only British women, of course), and other annoying titles.

[fiction_theory]

Wow, these sound like great books. Were they available in a chain bookstore/library?

Also, you mentioned there is a bias in the first book about what topics are and are not discussed. For my own edification, what are those biases? I like to be aware if there are any issues like that when I go into a book, especially if it's a topic that I am so woefully unfamiliar with.

[wordsofastory]

I got all of them out of a university library myself, so I'm not sure where else they would be available. Jain's book is the most likely to be in a public library or bookstore, I would guess, since it's very recent.

The Indus is a subject which I study myself, so I could go on forever about the problems with the first book; I just wasn't sure if other people would care. :) Basically, there's currently a right-wing political movement in India known as Hindutva; in a extremely simplistic explanation, you could think of them sort of like Fundamentalist Christians in the US. One aspect of this movement is an emphasis on India as a inherently Hindu nation (some individuals involved with the movement therefore discriminate against other long-standing religious groups in India, like Muslims, Christians, etc; other individuals argue that these groups are culturally Hindu even if they're not religiously Hindu). This manifests within archaeology in efforts to 1) prove that the Indus people believed in Hinduism, because that would show that

[wordsofastory]

Question though, what is their position on languages like Bengali?

I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I would say most Hindutva supporters have no problem with them. It's more about Hindu as a culture/religion and not as much about it as a language (since Hindi, at least as it exists today, is a very recent development). I do know Hindutva has been gaining popularity in South Indian Dravidian regions lately, and one would think there would be a bigger difference there than to Bengali.

Anyway, it's a bit complicated.

Yeah, that's to say the least! The whole issue is enormously complicated (particularly when you get into areas like "what does secularism even mean in a multi-religious, non-Western context?"), and I am definitely no sort of expert in modern Indian political/cultural movements. But it is important, and I wish I knew more.

[kizmet_42]

Thanks for the rec for the Trivedi book. I watched a video by Milton Friedman last week about the fabric industry in India - he uses it an example of why India remains such a poor nation. I wanted to hear the other side of the argument.

[dhobikikutti]

OMG Milton Friedman, yes please tell post-colonial national more about how capitalism is the one true way to paradise.