Liberal spaces for Romila Thapar
Historian Romila Thapar, while delivering the 3rd Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture organised by The Book Review Literary Trust in New Delhi, this November talked about the hesitation of free thinking Indians to question the authority. See Swapan Dasgupta's response to this speech here . During this speech, she expressed concern on the narrowing of liberal spaces in the last couple of decades. Though it was fought back, she laments that it is upon us again. She does not specifically name the events that led her to this conclusion, but indicates the types of events. To quote a summary of the speech from Rediff: “This is evident from the ease with which books are banned and pulped, or demands made that they be burned, and syllabuses changed under religious and political pressure, or the intervention of the state .” Let us inspect each of these cases. Subramanyan Swamy recently called for burning Romila Thapar’s history books. It appears a gross exaggeration to pronou