Migrations and the Making of Cultures in Early India

Prof. Romila Thapar delivers the Prof. Satish Chandra Memorial Lecture
Oct 13, 2020
bangaloreinter...
Historians in earlier years had tended to neglect the subject of migration but now it is receiving attention. Migrations are being differentiated from the other forms of the movement of people, such as invasions and settlers. The questions we now ask are, what are the differences between these various categories, and which are the social categories that migrate, and what impact do migrants have on the host society - the society in which they come and settle ?
The lecture will discuss two categories of migrants, the pastoralists and the traders and will be confined to the early period of Indian history, namely up to about the fourteenth century. The geographical areas will be migrations from Central Asia to northern India in the first case and from west Asia to the west coast of India in the second. A fundamental difference between the two categories is that pastoral migrants tend to come to a new area, set up scattered settlements and tend to not return to their homelands. Traders tend to do the reverse since they stay in the cities where they have their trading partners. Even when they settle in the host societies there is a minimum connection between their homeland and where they have settled.
The interface between the host society and the migrant settlement frequently results in elements of new cultures. These can be changed versions of a language, new social customs and new deities or forms of worship.

[@rameshwariar673]

Always an amazing experience listening to history from Ms. Romila Thapar. Beautiful conclusion: “It seems to me that what history is telling us is that recognizing the presence of migrants and the cultures that evolved from this presence is part of the process of recognizing and defining who WE are”

[@shihabmd.4050]

Every South Asian in all religions should listen to this..this is a wonderful talk that debunk many historiographical myths

[@girivasanrajasekaran8234]

Wonderful session from detailed analysis and years of hard work. Please don't get me wrong, Is there anything that covers what's beyond the Vindhyas?

[@wethepeople1680]

Always a pleasure to listen to Romilla T.

[@nitinpatil5714]

Brilliant talk! True homage to Prof. Satish Chandra .

[@ragchalan]

Great to see this!

[@OfficialJasSingh]

Very impressive and logical recitation of early history by Prof. Romila Thappar ji.

[@roshindaniel4806]

Wonderful speech maam.❤But you Speech is more about North India History south India is very rarely mentioned.Please focus more on south India especially Kerala which saw a lot of migrations from different parts of the world compared to other Indian states

[@su-mu]

36:24 Soma sacrifice found only in two cultures of the world: Iranian and Aryan.

[@bindudesai1608]

Brilliant and clear! Many thanks for uploading this

[@su-mu]

40:34 When wealth is counted, the list includes cattle, horses, and dasis among other things like gold..

[@firna1864]

You are addressing selected and few English speaking audience. Get these truth and interesting talks translated or subtitled in many other Indian sub-continent languages.

[@somdeepkundu2506]

Beautiful talk. Please upload the podcast

[@gautamdevgun333]

All those who are here just to criticise her aren't reading and researching from a neutral standpoint. Severe conditioning has blurred their judgement and thinking abilities.

[@skrishna653]

Thank you sir

[@uchandra84]

Brilliant and inspirational as always! It is our misfortune that we are now a country of semi-literates who do not read the primary sources and histories available to us.

[@pmrao9698]

Very impressive!

[@su-mu]

44:16 Arya, meaning the restricted people, appear to be in proximity with people who are labeled dasas!

[@anselmdanker9519]

Very impressive presentation, thank you .

[@su-mu]

35:32 Eastward migration of Aryan speaking groups. Leader caried fire in his mouth!? Reference please.

[@su-mu]

37:55 Laja instead of Raja

[@su-mu]

46:32 Second example

[@su-mu]

44:10 DNA: we are all mixed.

[@firna1864]

This fluidity of cultures and identities is rejected by nationalist right winged. Evidence proof is unfortunately are not applied by many people who discuss history. multiple languages and people are found in many cultures of the world. India sub continent is no exception. One can see in Chinese history as well. We are heading towards the narratives which are based on lot of frustrations and xenophobia.

[@sudipbiswas5185]

Arayan migration inversion became migration..... after sometime it's will be tourism. Genetics study clearly showed there was no such migration from anywhere rather outward movement happened. Language and script is different. How she got the language? Prof N Rai and Prof D Reach genetics research already proved that India is the womb of Civilization.

[@nirvanabliss73]

your thoughts are clearly against the current academic thought.......

[@su-mu]

40:48 brahmans who are the sons of dasis?

[@mohammadmian8002]

Brilliantly she debunked the BJP narrative indiginous aryanism.

[@induslove]

I am glad historians like Satish Chandra are no longer controlling the narrative. Arun Shourie has thoroughly exposed these Marxist historians in his wonderful book titled: "Eminent Historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud". I urge everyone to read this book and arm themselves with knowledge. Here is an excerpt from his book: Thus Class XI students reading Satish Chandra’s Medieval India learn that ‘in the early phase of the conquest many cities were sacked and temples formed a special target partly to justify the conquest and partly to seize the fabulous treasures they were supposed to contain. During this period, a number of Hindu temples were converted into mosques….’ 8 Allah forbid that Islam might have had something to do with any of this! Satish Chandra goes on to gild the shariat itself ! He says, ‘Their policy towards temples and places of worship of the Hindus, Jains, etc., rested on the Muslim law (Sharia) which forbade new places of worship being built “in opposition to Islam”. But it allowed the repair of old temples “since buildings cannot last for ever”. This meant that there was no ban on erecting temples in the villages since there were no practices of Islam there. Similarly temples could be built within the privacy of homes. But this liberal policy was not followed in times of war. Thus the enemies of Islam, whether human beings or Gods, were fought and destroyed. In times of peace, however, within the Turkish territories and in those areas where the rajas had submitted to the Muslim rule, the Hindus practiced their religion openly and ostentatiously.’ Notice the sleight of hand. The repair of temples is allowed! Temples can be constructed in villages! Temples can be constructed ‘within the privacy of homes’! Thus ‘liberal policy’ is the norm which is departed from only in times of war! And the ones who are fought and destroyed at such times are in any case ‘the enemies of Islam’! In times of peace, which are the times that prevailed normally, the norm prevails - that is, ‘the Hindus practice their religion openly and ostentatiously!’ Each of these assertions is a blatant falsehood. But these historians, having, through their control of institutions, set the standards of intellectual correctness, the one who questions the falsehoods, even though he does so by citing the writings of the best known Islamic historians of those very times, he is the one who is in the wrong.

[@sridharbhatk3510]

I believe in secular traditions of revisiting history because people like u forget ur caste,creed,language, religion,.........while researching in history. Ur moto is only to understand human beings. But People like me who can't get deep into d study r confused by sanghparivar historians & all religious historians including muslims. Recently, ASI published excavations at sanauli & it connects all excavations to vedic & puranik traditions. My conscious says that leaving all exaggerations & miracles profounded in vedic & Puranik literatures ,some pictures of historical society is there. But I fear to believe sanghparivar because they may use mixing up some truth & some deliberate lies & marketing it. Please enlighten us how we can understand vedic & puranik evidences in secular perspectives. I perform puja everyday.

[@VikramSingh-vg7gv]

I have almost similar opinion... though I can hardly believe zingoistic and utopion illustrations propagated by RSS type (non) histroions,I believe historians like Thapar,rs sharma and bipan Chandra were also driven by their self proclaimed facts along with agendas and biases....like Biapn giving full credit of independence of India to gandhiji and Nehru and giving hardly 1 page to Netaji bose who was more instrumental in independence ( at par with gandhiji if not more)...yes. bipan Chandra died years before from newly released British archives documents so not wise to blame him but at least Thapar can revisit her own research with new evidences. This way she can fight more prudently with false propaganda of RSS, trying to project their imaginary myths as true history.

[@desi_anarch]

No conclusion till harappan dialect is deciphered. Rest be assured that rss is all about race and cultural hegemony borrowed from nazis. Everything else is bullshit and it will be proved so in future when science does prove everything. And lets hope the govt of that future doesn't hide all that from us.

[@mvaidjhaoyo]

That lady who starts the talk is biased and not worth the data she's consuming.

[@nem6686]

Not worth the data she's consuming 🤣

[@nirvanabliss73]

pls elaborate on your statement with data points