History in the Vernacular
Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: History in the vernacular/Partha Chatterjee. 2. History and politics in the vernacular: reflections on medieval and early modern South India/Velcheru Narayana Rao and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 3. Eighteenth-century passages to a history Mysore/Janaki Nair. 4. The king of controversy: history and nation-making in late colonial India/Kumkum Chatterjee. 5. Gait's way: writing history in early twentieth century Assam/Arupjyoti Saikia. 6. Restructuring the past in early-twentieth century Assam: historiography and Surya Kumar Bhuyan/Sudeshna Purkayastha. 7. System and history in Rajwade's Grammar for the Dnyaneswari/Milind Wakankar. 8. Captives of enchantment? Gender, genre, and transmemoration/Indrani Chatterjee. 9. Incredible stories in the time of credible histories: colonial Assam and translations of vernacular geographies/Bodhisattva Kar. 10. The study of Islam and Indian history at the Darul Musannefin, Azamgarh/Raziuddin Aquil. 11. 'Searching for old histories': social movements and the project of writing history in twentieth-century Kerala/Sanal Mohan. 12. History in poetry: Nabinchandra Sen's Palashir Yuddha (Battle of Palashi) 1875) and the question of truth/Rosinka Chaudhuri. 13. Autobiography as a way of writing history: personal narratives from Kerala and the inhabitation of modernity/Udaya Kumar. 14. A nineteenth-century romance of counterfactual time/Pradip Kumar Datta. Index.
Was there history writing in India before the British arrived? The stock answer is no. Other than the Rajatarangani of Kalhana, no ancient text adequately resembles a historical narrative. The itihasa purana tradition is largely indistinguishable from mythology. The vamsavali and caritra traditions do not really distinguish between the legendary and the historical. Yet these genres did percolate into India’s regional languages, being later complemented by Persian court chronicles.
Looking closely at vernacular contexts and traditions of historical production, this book questions the assumption that there was no history writing in India before colonialism. It suggests that appropriate techniques of reading reveal distinctly indigenous historical narratives. History in Assam, Bengal, the North East, Kerala, the Andhra Tamil region, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh are examined here with fresh archival material and new insights.
