In Conversation with Romila Thapar: A dialogue across generations


Romila Thapar, one of the great historians and public intellectuals of our times, turned 90 on 30 th November 2021. As part of an online event held on 4 th December 2021, we invited three young scholars to discuss her work and what it meant to them. Mohona Chaudhuri commented on the Past Before Us, Nikhil Pandhi worked out a comparison between Thapar’s work and that of the anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot, with a special focus on issues of caste and social inequities, while Suchintan Das focused on the significance of Thapar’s works and ideas as a public intellectual. These presentations, and Romila Thapar’s response to the discussion open up spaces for a dialogue across generations, with shared concerns.
-Kumkum Roy