The authors should have been more stern about the continued myth-making habits of Western historians which appear to be quite ingrained. For example, after the research work available, to still insist that Western science and technology or ‘progress’ followed an autochtonous, self-contained, self-driven, path to the present or that the West has always been an ‘active’ civilisation in contrast to a ‘passive’ East, is only to display a deficient or wholly parochial education.
A good part of the article has therefore to be expended on excoriating what Marx said about Oriental Despotism or where Westerners were wrong in their analysis of capitalist institutions in the societies they came to impose themselves. I am surprised that so much bad history and bad sociology is still in circulation and still appearing respectable. (But then, one recalls that even in modern science, older scientists including Einstein, resisted the transition to a post-Newtonian paradigm for a very long time even with the better theory staring them in the face.)
18 Feb 2008
The strength of the present article lies in the important additional information it brings into circulation concerning the Indian contribution to the making of Europe. Here too, some of the developments described (for example, wootz, textiles) have been common knowledge with the widespread dissemination of the world of Dharampal and several others, some of it available, in fact, already in the 1970s when people like myself did our doctoral work. So what is it that the writers are saying that is new? And is it significant enough to warrant publication?
I can say immediately that in its present form the article is an important contribution to the re-writing of the history of the globe which has become all the more necessary in view of the reordering of the global economy. There is admittedly a gross mismatch between the emerging futures of the countries of India and China as they return centre-stage (with their 2 billion + populations) and the continued reliance on a parochial or Eurocentric understanding of what happened in history. At some point of time with the new power play, the politics of knowledge is bound to reflect the shift. Much of present historical writing will have to be cast aside, as, for example, the recent researches in the Chengo-Ho voyages have devalued the significance of the Vasco-da-Gama epoch to a small side-show.
The article ‘Rediscovering Indian civilisation’ by Hobson and Malhotra makes the point that if the East today cannot be understood except by reference to many features that have come in from the West, similarly, the West’s modern identity owes much to essential contributions from the East, including a good dose of mathematics.
This is not a radically new proposition since it has been made already quite brilliantly in respect of China by Joseph Needham (which the authors acknowledge), and by Donald Lach in his volumes on Asia in the Making of Europe published more than 30 years ago to which the authors do not refer.
The strength of the present article lies in the important additional information it brings into circulation concerning the Indian contribution to the making of Europe. Here too, some of the developments described (for example, wootz, textiles) have been common knowledge with the widespread dissemination of the world of Dharampal and several others, some of it available, in fact, already in the 1970s when people like myself did our doctoral work. So what is it that the writers are saying that is new? And is it significant enough to warrant publication?
I can say immediately that in its present form the article is an important contribution to the re-writing of the history of the globe which has become all the more necessary in view of the reordering of the global economy. There is admittedly a gross mismatch between the emerging futures of the countries of India and China as they return centre-stage (with their 2 billion + populations) and the continued reliance on a parochial or Eurocentric understanding of what happened in history. At some point of time with the new power play, the politics of knowledge is bound to reflect the shift. Much of present historical writing will have to be cast aside, as, for example, the recent researches in the Chengo-Ho voyages have devalued the significance of the Vasco-da-Gama epoch to a small side-show.
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