History is an unending dialogue between the past and the present

Ramin Jahanbegloo, in his introduction to this book of conversations, says, “When… we study Professor Thapar’s analyses of early India, we do not have a sense of historiography as a positivistic science, but that of history as an unending dialogue between the past and the present. As a result, this continuous process of interaction between Thapar the historian and the life and mind of those about whom she writes is not solely a reflection on the historical data or events, but also a way of mirroring today’s Indian society — the context in which she thinks and works.”

 

Here are two excerpts from the book. The first is from “The Function of a Historian”:

 

The second is from “Communal Ideologies in India”: