A contemporary look at Indian history

John Zubrzycki's brief book is a perfect antidote to self-inflicted ignorance

The Shortest History of India

Author: John Zubrzycki

Publisher: Picador India (Pan Macmillan India)

Pages: 260 

Price: Rs 599 

“India is the world’s oldest civilization and its largest democracy. It is the fulcrum between the eastern and western parts of Asia and an assertive Indian Ocean power. It is also changing rapidly, ditching the last remnants of the socialist experiment that guided its economy for decades and adapting to a new world order where its rhetoric of non-alignment — its refusal to side with one superpower or another — has less and less relevance.”

With these words from the intro to his “shortest” history of India, John Zubrzycki puts the country, the nation and the civilisation in perspective. He goes on to say, “It (India) has been poorly served by its democratically elected leaders, who have consistently failed to harness the country’s full potential. Rich in natural resources with an immense pool of highly educated, globally literate workers, India holds huge promise.”

These words contain the essence of the author’s scope and effort. Part of a series of “shortest” histories, the aim to take on India’s massive history and condense it to a few pages is amazingly ambitious and fraught with dangers. How the author does it is a lesson in precis-writing at which my teachers would have gasped with amazement when I was in school. Although I am uncertain whether “precis-writing” still exists in schools.

But since I hear constant complaints that history is not taught properly in Indian schools or not at all or in a warped manner, The Shortest History of India can work as a perfect antidote to self-inflicted ignorance. You can learn at last all the things you were denied. There is a good chance that if you belong to this ideology or that, you may be shocked, horrified and even pleased. I say this for people who do not know, either from ignorance or indoctrination.

For those who did study history and have even a limited memory of those days, Zubrzycki provides a speedy and delightful journey into the millennia. There are glimpses, teases, hints to go further as he takes on this remarkable quest, from 180 million years ago when Gondwanaland hit the Asian plate right up to the BJP-ruled India of 2022.

By its very nature — brevity — this is largely a political history of kings and sultans, of land and conquest, of visitors and rulers. You obviously cannot expect the in-depth study of Mahmud of Ghazni’s raids on Somnath by Romila Thapar or the minutiae of the Mughal empire told in lyrical text by Abraham Eraly. And yet, as you read though, you are treated to social and cultural changes and directions, of growth and movement.

This is also a contemporary look at Indian history. Throughout, there are references to modern interpretations and discourses, to today’s politics and movements. The range in one chapter can sweep from what’s left to us of Megasthenes’s Indica (third century BC) to Tony Joseph’s Early Indians (2018). Thus, the reader is kept on her toes, as Zubrzycki demonstrates the depth and heft of his scholarship.

The author is careful to set history in context: The section on the Buddha and the rise of Buddhism also discussed why and how Dr BR Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in the 20th century. The raids of Mahmud of Ghazni on the Somnath Temple are linked to L K Advani’s Rath Yatra. The section on the Sultanate and Razia Sultana, daughter of Iltutmish, mentions Kamal Amrohi’s 1983 film starring Hema Malini and Dharmendra. This is a historian who is not locked in the past but is able to present the past as it intermingles with our lives today. This is no mean feat in 260 pages!

The most vital sections for those who revel in WhatsApp forwards which start “We were never told this…” are those on the glorious achievements of the dynasties of south India and the advent of Islam. The Cholas, Cheras, Pandyas and Pallavas — which apparently no one learns anymore; is that even true, I ask rhetorically? — are presented in all their vast reach and influence. The fact that India traded with Arabs for 300 years until the first Islamic conquest from Central Asia may provide some shock to the contingent that currently rules us.

The history of the arrival of the British and the subsequent or consequent freedom movement is not all about Savarkar, which may upset several WhatsApp addicts.

And then we reach contemporary India, through Independence, the early years of Jawaharlal Nehru, of Indira Gandhi, the Emergency, its dangers and excesses, Rajiv Gandhi, a shift in Indian politics with caste and religious fundamentalism, the BJP, the Gujarat riots of 2002… Until we reach the arrival of Narendra Modi in 2014.

Contemporary history is tough. The long eye of time and the calmness of distant perspective are unavailable. What seems important today may have no role to play in the larger scheme of things. We must negotiate potholes while we miss massive tectonic shifts.

Zubrzycki, thus, gives us immediate events, and then concentrates on our handling of the Covid-19 pandemic at the end. He does not hold back. “As countries scrambled to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines, India touted itself as the nation that would ‘save’ humanity from a big disaster. In February 2021, the BJP passed a resolution proclaiming that ‘the able, sensible, committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi’ had defeated Covid-19. Two months later India became the global epicentre of the virus. Mass gatherings at the Kumbh Mela religious festival in Haridwar and political rallies during state elections exploded into superspreader events.”

A telling of history is not just a test of what a reader can remember. It is also an example of how much and how easily we forget. Sometimes, events closer to us get lost in the tumult of everyday living even if we remember minute details of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Zubrzycki reminds us of both the distant and the immediate past and in that sense, educates us further about our long-held beliefs and the vagaries of our memories.

That surely is the mark of a history well-told.  

(The reviewer is an independent journalist who writes on the media, politics and social issues)