ABSTRACT
Any study aiming to analyze the content of history textbooks needs to define clearly how it approaches the concept of history. As this is a topic that has covered lengthy volumes, I will limit my discussion to a few characteristic features. History as a scholarly discipline can be defined as a reconstruction of past events, based on a critical reading of relevant sources. 1 Moreover, at the basis of the discipline is the existence of a temporal gap between our present reconstruction of the past and the subject of our enquiry – the past itself. Reconstructing the past also implies explaining why, how and through whose agency things turned out as they did. The meaning of historical explanation is contested, but in most instances, it includes contextualizing the event or the actor subject to the historian’s gaze. The historical event is embedded in a wider context, which sheds light on its meaning and significance. Finally, the discipline of history is conveyed to readers through narratives, through storied accounts. As I will elaborate further below, it is through narration that events and actors are positioned in time and space. The importance of selection applies to most of the stages in the process of reconstruction – for example, in the selection of the most reliable and valid sources. It also applies to the employment of narrative tools and to how historians ascribe significance to certain explanatory and contextual factors rather than others when making sense of the subject under study. I am not suggesting that this process of selection is random and accidental; it is most often based on professional judgement and subject to criticism from peers. In my analysis, I pay particular attention to the extent to which there is a pattern to be found with regard to the selection and function of certain explanatory factors and narrative tools in the writing of Indian history.
