Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi
There is something deeply disheartening about the limited public visibility of some of our most celebrated historians at a time when the very period upon which they have built their international reputations is being subjected to increasingly contentious political reinterpretations. I refer particularly to distinguished scholars of Indian origin occupying prestigious positions in universities abroad, whose writings on the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries command enormous respect within the historical profession.
Their scholarly achievements are unquestionable. Their books have transformed our understanding of early modern India, and their intellectual authority extends far beyond the institutions in which they teach. Yet one cannot help asking whether this authority has been brought to bear sufficiently and consistently upon contemporary attempts to marginalise or distort the history they have spent their lives reconstructing.
The Turkish Sultans and the Mughal Emperors are frequently portrayed in sections of India’s political discourse as foreign conquerors, religious fanatics and oppressive rulers. The medieval centuries are sometimes reduced to a narrative of Hindu suffering under Muslim domination. School textbooks have undergone revisions, including the removal or reduction of material on the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal history, raising legitimate concerns about the historical understanding that future generations will inherit.
Some internationally renowned historians have criticised communal interpretations of India’s past, whether through scholarly writings, interviews, public lectures or occasional statements. These interventions are valuable and should not be overlooked. Nor would it be fair to assume that every contribution has received widespread publicity. Nevertheless, the relative absence of a sustained and readily visible collective response invites reflection. Has the international scholarly community engaged with these developments as fully and effectively as its intellectual resources and public standing might permit?
The issue is not whether the Sultans and the Mughals should be shielded from criticism. They were rulers, not saints. They conquered territories, suppressed rebellions and exercised coercive authority. Their achievements and failures demand rigorous scrutiny. But historical criticism is fundamentally different from interpreting the past selectively through the religious antagonisms of the present.
To portray the Turkish Sultans and the Mughal rulers merely as alien oppressors is to disregard decades of scholarship demonstrating the complexity of their political institutions, agrarian relations, commercial networks and cultural interactions. Their rule was integral to the processes through which the subcontinent’s institutions, economic structures and artistic traditions evolved. To minimise this history, or to present it predominantly as an age of religious oppression, is to diminish our understanding of India itself.
There is an uncomfortable irony here. The Sultanate and Mughal worlds have provided generations of historians with subjects of research, rich archival material and opportunities for distinguished academic careers. Their scholarship has illuminated precisely those historical complexities that are now often obscured in popular representations. One might therefore have expected a more conspicuous effort to bring the findings of this scholarship into public discussions of the period.
The contrast with the responses of many historians working within India deserves particular attention. It is they who confront the immediate consequences of changes in the country’s intellectual and institutional climate. Academic independence can come under pressure, while public disagreement with dominant historical narratives may expose scholars to criticism, professional difficulties or organised hostility. Despite these challenges, a number of historians in India have continued to question textbook revisions, challenge communal interpretations and defend the importance of historical evidence through articles, public statements and debates. Their willingness to intervene is especially significant because the consequences of public disagreement can be more immediate for those working within the institutions directly affected by these developments.
By comparison, internationally established scholars often possess access to influential publications, professional associations and academic platforms that could amplify such interventions. Their institutional circumstances differ, and it would be simplistic to assume that appointments abroad guarantee complete freedom from pressure or controversy. Nevertheless, their international standing offers opportunities to support colleagues in India and broaden the discussion beyond the country’s immediate political divisions. The paradox is that some of those confronting the greatest institutional pressures have remained publicly engaged, while the interventions of certain internationally prominent scholars have been less visible or less sustained.
This observation should not be mistaken for a blanket accusation of silence. Scholars contribute in different ways, and sustained research can itself provide a powerful challenge to ideological interpretations. Some have publicly questioned communal historiography, while others have addressed these issues through teaching, writing and scholarly collaboration. The concern is less about the absence of individual contributions than about whether their collective intellectual weight has been sufficiently evident in debates over historical education and public memory.
Nor does one expect every historian to become a political activist. Academic scholarship is itself a valuable public contribution, and intellectual independence includes the freedom to choose the manner of one’s engagement. But there is a difference between routine political controversy and a sustained struggle over how an entire historical period is represented to the public. When history is invoked to reinforce contemporary communal divisions, and when educational narratives risk privileging ideological certainties over historical complexity, the responsibilities of the historical profession extend beyond specialist scholarship.
This raises a question about the relationship between academic distinction and public intellectual responsibility. Scholars who engage confidently in sophisticated historiographical controversies possess the knowledge to illuminate the limitations of simplistic public narratives. Could more of that expertise be communicated beyond academic conferences, specialist journals and university classrooms?
The concern extends beyond the Sultanate and the Mughals. Once Indian history is divided into rigid religious or civilisational compartments, centuries of cultural interaction become difficult to accommodate. Shared traditions of language, literature, music, architecture and religious thought risk being marginalised, while the complex processes that shaped Indian society are reduced to an exaggerated narrative of perpetual antagonism.
What is required is neither the romanticisation of this period, nor the defence of individual rulers. It is a sustained assertion of the principles upon which responsible historical scholarship rests: fidelity to evidence, sensitivity to context, recognition of contradictions and resistance to the imposition of contemporary political prejudices upon the past.
Internationally recognised historians could contribute through collective scholarly interventions, accessible public lectures, engagement with educational debates and closer collaboration with colleagues in India. Such efforts need not be partisan. Their purpose would be to make the findings of serious historical research more accessible and to strengthen public understanding of periods too often reduced to political slogans.
For those of us who have devoted our lives to studying, teaching and writing the history of medieval and early modern India, the present situation is profoundly distressing. We have witnessed painstaking historical research displaced in public discussions by sweeping generalisations, complex historical personalities reduced to communal stereotypes, and centuries of interaction recast as an almost uninterrupted confrontation between religious communities.
The responses of historians working within India demonstrate that scholarly engagement with these developments remains possible, even under difficult circumstances. Their example also invites reflection among colleagues whose international standing could lend additional visibility and authority to the defence of historical complexity.
A historian’s responsibility does not necessarily end with the publication of a celebrated book, the delivery of a prestigious lecture or the acquisition of an endowed chair in a foreign university. There are moments when scholarship has an especially important role to play beyond the academy.
The question is not whether internationally distinguished historians have contributed to our understanding of medieval and early modern India. They unquestionably have. Nor is it whether they have all remained silent. They have not. The more pertinent question is whether their interventions, individually and collectively, have matched the seriousness of the challenges confronting the public understanding of India’s past. And perhaps the most compelling consideration is this: when historians working within India continue to defend historical inquiry despite institutional pressures and public hostility, should their internationally established colleagues not seek more visible and sustained ways of supporting that effort?
The disappointment expressed here arises not from personal animosity or a dismissal of existing scholarly contributions, but from the conviction that intellectual eminence offers opportunities for public engagement that should not be lightly set aside.
The Turkish Sultans and the Mughal kings do not need historians to defend their honour. History needs historians to defend its integrity. At a time when that integrity is being contested, the historical profession would be strengthened by a more sustained, collective and publicly accessible engagement from those whose scholarship has done so much to illuminate India’s medieval and early modern past.
