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For a New Periodization of Indian History: The History of India as Part of the History of the World
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Studies in History
http://sih.sagepub.com/content/30/1/89
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0257643014520737
2014 30: 89Studies in History
Michelguglielmo Torri
the History of the World
For a New Periodization of Indian History: The History of India as Part of
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What is This?
- May 12, 2014Version of Record >>
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Revaluation of Tradition in the Ideology of the Radical Adivasi Resistance 89
For a New Periodization
of Indian History: The
History of India as Part of
the History of the World*
Michelguglielmo Torri
University of Turin
Abstract
The model of periodization that is nowadays hegemonic in Indian history,
squarely based on the colonial model first articulated by James Mill, is both heu-
ristically unsatisfactory and politically dangerous. From a heuristic viewpoint,
it refers only to the ‘religious’ composition of the ‘ruling class’ (and, by the way,
not even the whole of the ruling class). From a political viewpoint, it stresses the
divisive elements present in the Indian historical tradition, by implicitly equat-
ing ‘Hindu’ with ‘Indian’ and ‘Muslim’ with ‘invader/foreigner’. The present article
aims at sketching out a scientifically more inclusive and politically less dangerous
new model by building on the assumption that Indian history is part of world
history and, consequently, that the main socio-economic developments in the
Indian subcontinent are part and parcel of the most relevant socio-economic
developments world-wide. The resulting model de-emphasizes the divisive ele-
ments of the Indian experience, represented by the separate religious strands
historically present within the Indian society, and, by focusing on socio-economic
evolution, makes obvious both the fundamental unity of Indian history and its
relationship with the history of the remainder of the world.
Keywords
Periodization, Indian history, world history, grand narratives, James Mill
The Relevance of Periodization
In the past decades the possibility of ‘grand narratives’, aimed at explaining his-
tory in its totality, has been put in doubt. Personally, I think that ‘grand narratives’
Article
Studies in History
30(1) 89–108
© 2014 Jawaharlal Nehru University
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0257643014520737
http://sih.sagepub.com
*This article is based on two lectures, the first given at the 17th European Conference on Modern
South Asian Studies, Heidelberg, 9–14 September 2002, and the second at the University of Delhi,
28 October 2003. The lectures themselves were based on Michelguglielmo Torri, Storia dell’India
[A History of India] (Bari: Laterza, 2000).
at JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY on May 12, 2014sih.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Studies in History, 30, 1 (2014): 89–108
90 Michelguglielmo Torri
are what gives history its meaning and make history a worthwhile enterprise. In
turn, grand narratives need appropriate categories. Most particularly, the general
history of a people, which is a ‘grand narrative’ par excellence, needs a proper
periodization. But, in striving to delineate a proper periodization, we must be
aware of two problems. The first is that the categories that we employ must
be powerful enough to organize in a meaningful way, if not all, at least as many
significant phenomena as possible. The second problem is that any category we
make use of—and, therefore, any periodization—carries with itself its own
hidden—or not so hidden—agenda.
If we keep these caveats in mind, it becomes immediately clear that the
periodization model now hegemonic in Indian history, squarely based on colonial-
ist categories, is both heuristically unsatisfactory and characterized by a (not so)
hidden agenda that is politically dangerous. An effort must be made at building a
new model, which might be both sounder from the scientific viewpoint and less
dangerous from the political standpoint. It is my contention that this is a result
that can be reached by relating Indian history to world history, and viewing the
history of India as part of the history of the world. Accordingly, in the remainder
of this article, I will start by dwelling both on the colonialist roots of the periodi-
zation nowadays prevailing, and on the reasons why such a periodization should
be discarded. From there I will move on to discuss the relationship between
world history and Indian history. In so doing, I will sketch out a new model of
periodization, with the explicit aim to make it scientifically more inclusive and
politically less dangerous than the old model.
James Mill’s Periodization
The most commonly accepted and less controversial periodization of Indian
history is still based on the one proposed by James Mill in his History of British
India.
1
As everybody knows, such periodization sees Indian history as articulated
in a Hindu, a Muslim and a British period. Since Mill’s time, the only change has
been a cosmetic one: the Hindu Period has become the Ancient Period, the Muslim
Period has become the Medieval Period, and the British Period has become the
Modern Period, whereas for the period after Independence the label ‘Contemporary
Period’ is sometimes made use of.
The acceptance of this periodization has been made easy by the fact that,
in order to study each of the periods singled out by Mill, different languages
are needed (respectively Sanskrit and Pali, Persian and Urdu, English and the
modern vernacular languages). However, as already stated above, the traditional
periodization proposed by Mill, is both heuristically unsatisfactory and politically
dangerous.
1
James Mill, The History of British India (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817), 3 vols.
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Studies in History, 30, 1 (2014): 89–108
New Periodization of Indian History 91
Heuristically, Mill’s classification, while it refers only to the religious
composition of the ruling class, is unsatisfactory even from such a limited
standpoint. In fact, if we consider the great merchant–financiers and the heredi-
tary landed aristocracy (rais, raos, ranas, chaudhuris, and khuts, lately collec-
tively designed with the term zamindars) as part of the ruling class, it is clear
that no ‘Muslim’ state in India was ever ruled by a class that was completely
Muslim. But even if we refer to the composition of the upper crust of the ruling
class and define it as made up by the noblesse d’épée, namely the great nobles that
controlled the military might of the sultanates and, later, the Mughal empire and
its successor states, Mill’s religion-based classification does not apply. Already
during the Delhi Sultanate, the religious composition of the military nobil-
ity started to change, particularly from Ala-ud-din Khalji’s reign onwards, with
the inclusion of recently converted Muslims and some non-Muslims among the
closer advisers of the Sultan and the governors of the provinces. Later, during
the Mughal Empire, starting with Akbar’s reign, the military nobility became
composite from a religious standpoint, a sizeable and influential part of it being
made up by Hindus, and remained so even under the reign of such an orthodox
Islamic ruler as Aurangzeb. The same was true of the successor states.
2
Once all this is said, even if the ruling class of the Indian ‘Muslim’ states were
completely made up by Muslims, the net built by Mill would be unable to catch
most of the relevant economic, political and social facts, a result which, anyway,
would made it largely irrelevant. However, at the end of the day, what should
induce us to discard Mill’s periodization is less its irrelevance from a heuris-
tic viewpoint than the fact that it is politically dangerous. In fact, it stresses the
divisive elements present in the Indian historical tradition, by equating ‘Hindu’
with ‘Indian’ and ‘Muslim’ with ‘invader/foreigner’. It is no wonder that this
colonial categorization of Indian history has been going through a new lease of
life following the rise of Hindu fundamentalism—both in its ‘hard’ version and
its ‘soft’ one—since the late 1980s. But, the results of Hindu fundamentalism
at work—which include civil strife and wanton killings—are there for everybody
to see. Any intellectual worth his/her salt should strive to get rid of any cate-
gories that are consonant with these results. Hence, the importance of showing
the irrelevance of Mill’s periodization and providing a more satisfactory, secular
rather than religion-based, periodization.
In order to do it, we have to cast our heuristic net much wider than what has
been done by Mill and his epigones. As anticipated, I will try to reach this result
by falling back on world history. More specifically I will base my discussion on
the methodological teaching of the Chicago world historians, particularly—even
2
M. Athar Ali, ‘Encounter and Efflorescence: Genesis of the Medieval Civilization’, Social Scientist
18, nos. 1–2 (1990): 13–28; M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1997) (1st ed. 1966).
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