Pre-eminent Indian historian Romila Thapar who created a more "pluralistic view of Indian Civilisation" has been selected as co-recipient of the USD 1 million Kluge Prize.
WASHINGTON: Pre-eminent Indian historian Romila Thapar who created a more "pluralistic view of Indian Civilisation" has been selected as co-recipient of the USD 1
million Kluge Prize, a prestigious award instituted by the US Library of Congress.
"Thapar created a new and more pluralistic view of Indian civilisation, which had seemed more unitary and unchanging, by scrutinising its evolution over two millennia
and searching out its historical consciousness," the Library of Congress said in a statement.
Thapar, 77 is Emeritus Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi will be sharing the award with Irish Historian Peter Robert Lamont Brown, 73, a
Professor of History at Princeton.
"She's been a courageous champion, fighting against the politicisation of history by various ideological parties -- and that goes for both the extreme left and the extreme
right," Robert Eric Frykenberg, Professor Emeritus of History and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin said.
"She fought against the skewing of textbooks so that they would be nothing but a government-sponsored propaganda machine."
Indian studies scholar Indira Peterson has described Thapar as "the preeminent interpreter of ancient Indian history today." Romila is "virtually the only living historian of ancient and pre-modern India who has risen to the rank of world-class historians," according to Richard Salomon of the University of Washington.
Thapar's 1966 "A History of India" and her 2002 update, "Early India," were breakthrough works, replacing a static view of Indian traditions with one that featured the dynamic interplay of political, economic, social, religious and other factors, the library noted.
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