Session 1: Nation and Community Re-imagined - Class Discussions

continuing my reply to the post summing up our first session,

1 - It just occurred to me that historians working on ancient and medieval India do not write "India" but rather refer to the "Indian sub-continent"

2 - Book by Dilip K Chakrabarti - I haven't skimmed it or found a review but found the back cover interesting from the point of view of our discussion on pre-colonial India (For reference historians broadly divide Indian history into three periods - ancient, medieval and modern)

Geopolitical Orbits of Ancient India: The Geographical Frames of the Ancient Indian Dynasties by Dilip K. Chakrabarti

How did different parts of the Indian subcontinent interact through out its ancient history? This book presents a new approach for understanding the political history of ancient India. It underlines how politics was enacted in various geographical orbits that kept interacting throughout the period without any fixed boundary or 'divide'. Dilip Chakrabarti closely examines the focal geographical points along which ancient Indian dynasties tried to expand their political power and interact with other contemporary dynasties. The author highlights the range of geographical possibilities of the regional power centres of various periods in ancient India. He also underlines the extent to which they operated within that frame. The Geopolitical Orbits of Ancient India argues that the web of inter-regional interaction was not limited to a particular set of regions but had a pan-Indian ramification. None of the regions could therefore thrive in political isolation. It underscores that regions in ancient Indian history never had any immutable historical shape or identity but were fluid, both in their interactions and outlines.

3 - Chakrabarti's interview in Dawn - https://www.dawn.com/news/1238453 - most of it is about his politics which is natural given the topic of conversation but some of his answers touch on issues we raised in class on pre-colonial formations - specifically ancient India

For e.g. the bit about nationalist thinkers not relating history to land but choosing to focus on 'spiritual' India which Guha-Thakurta addresses quite thoroughly in her work.