History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200-2000

by Sumit Guha, Padma Kaimal (Editor), K. Sivaramakrishnan (Editor), Anand A. Yang (Editor)

Overview

In this far-ranging and erudite exploration of the South Asian past, Sumit Guha discusses the shaping of social and historical memory in world-historical context. He presents memory as the result of both remembering and forgetting and of the preservation, recovery, and decay of records. By describing how these processes work through sociopolitical organizations, Guha delineates the historiographic legacy acquired by the British in colonial India; the creation of the centralized educational system and mass production of textbooks that led to unification of historical discourses under colonial auspices; and the divergence of these discourses in the twentieth century under the impact of nationalism and decolonization.

Guha brings together sources from a range of languages and regions to provide the first intellectual history of the ways in which socially recognized historical memory has been made across the subcontinent. This thoughtful study contributes to debates beyond the field of history that complicate the understanding of objectivity and documentation in a seemingly post-truth world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295746210
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	11/04/2019
Series:	Global South Asia
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sumit Guha is professor of history at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of Beyond Caste: Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present and Environment and Ethnicity in India, 1200–1991.

Table of Contents

Preface: Revisiting Histories in the Post-truth Era ix

Acknowledgments xi

A Note on Translations and Diacritical Marks xiii

Introduction 3

1 The Construction of Collective Memory: Sites and Processes 9

2 The Many Pasts of the Indian Subcontinent 50

3 Social Structure and Historical Narration in Western India 83

4 History and Memory through the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 118

Conclusion 176

Notes 179

Bibliography 203

Index 225

What People are Saying About This

Rosalind O'Hanlon

"Amid the acrimony and pessimism of our current 'post-truth' era, Professor Guha takes us on a wonderfully refreshing journey through the myriad ways in which human societies have approached the interface between specialist history writing and popular memory. Combining remarkable breadth of learning with vivid insights derived from South Asian experience, Guha offers us a new sense of the possibilities of balance between older disciplinary norms of evidence-based history writing, and the dynamic world of public and popular argumentation as it settles and acquires the status of collective memory."

William R. Pinch

"Not only does Guha possess a mastery of a staggering diversity of historical practices in South Asia, his analysis extends to a thoughtful discussion of (and argument about) the origins and development of European history writing."

Christian Novetzke

"Guha charts the rise of historical memory in South Asia in a way that moves past literary affect or philosophical predisposition, refusing to reduce his subject to a reconfiguration of Western historiography even while he traces parallels in colonial institutions. Instead, Guha engages everything from family lineages and modes of accounting, to grand memorial narratives of the rise and fall of dynasties, to give us a comprehensive study how social memory, wedded to evidence-based reasoning, transformed into the historical arts of South Asia, and finally how history matters even now in a ‘post-truth’ age."

Samira Sheikh

"Guha reminds us that the now-standard Western method of history writing, as practiced and taught in university departments, is of fairly recent vintage. This book should go well beyond the usual circles of South Asia specialists to general readers interested in comparative historiography and epistemology."

Douglas E. Haynes

"Much of this rich and exciting material has not been discussed in published form before. The subject of how South Asians have constructed the past has been an increasingly important one in the field; this book will become one of the most original and substantial contributions to this literature."

Editorial Reviews

"[D]evelops important arguments about the public significance of historical knowledge and the essential role of historians in public life."

History and Theory

"Guha’s book comes at a time when the authority of specialist historians is increasingly under challenge, while the gap between academic and public history seems larger and more in open conflict than ever. Through meticulous presentation of how the practice of history writing is shaped by the social-political context of the recording agents, Guha problematises the view that history writing can be seen as an autonomous cognitive practice of a specialised group."

South Asia Research

"Guha’s expertise in early modern Indian history allows him to explore “social structure and historical narration in western India” in great depth."

Journal of Asian Studies

"[E]xtraordinary scholarship."

H-Asia (H-Net)

"[A] welcome addition to the burgeoning scholarship around the practices of history writing in India and its relationship with the public sphere."

Contemporary South Asia

"Guha brings together sources from a range of languages and regions toprovide the rst intellectual history of the ways in which socially recognized historicalmemory has been made across the subcontinent. This thoughtful study contributes todebates beyond the eld of history that complicate the understanding of objectivityand documentation in a seemingly post-truth world."

New Books in South Asian Studies

"[O]ffers the most recent reflection on historiography, history, and memory by a leader in the discipline of South Asian history. Given publications spanning a range of topics in South Asian history, such as caste in social and cultural history, environmental history, health and population history, and agrarian history, Guha gives a veteran practitioner’s perspective on history and memory in South Asian history."

South Asian History and Culture