“Time to shed White Mughal mentality: Why Dalrymple must stop running with Indian hare while hunting with British hounds”, First Post, June 10, 2023:
“William Dalrymple is a tricky person. His history doesn’t always complement his politics. His books, though often appearing to be an apologia for the decadent and depraved later Mughals, have at least been a damning exposé on the sorry state of history writing in India. That a history book should be written like a novel with rigorous research put in the endeavour. Stories should remain the core of the book and not a farfetched ideological fantasy dictated by what was once the “Only Fatherland” of progressive ideas.
Even when Dalrymple is not delving into history and wears the hat of a contemporary chronicler, he still seems to tread a fine line of not invading the sacred in his search for modern India.
In Nine Lives (2009), for instance, he recounts with empathy the story of “The Dancer of Kannur”, in which Hari Das, a Dalit from Kerala, is a “part-time prison warden for 10 months of the year”, but during the Theyyam dancing season between January and March, he is “transformed into an omnipotent deity” to be worshipped even by the high-caste Brahmins. Then there are the stories of an MBA sannyasin, Ajay Kumar Jha, and an idol maker, Srikanda Stpathy, Tamil Nadu’s Swamimalai town, told with warmth and understanding….”
Read the full article at Firstpost.com
