Audrey Truschke’s Subaltern Interpretation of India Through 120,000 Years of History is Engaging But Limits Its Scope and Objectivity
- “India: 5000 Years of History on the Subcontinent” offers a readable, wide-ranging account that foregrounds diversity and global connections while centering marginalized voices.
Audrey Truschke’s ‘India: 5000 Years of History on the Subcontinent’ (Princeton University Press, June 2025) takes on the immense challenge of covering the subcontinent’s history across 514 pages, from human migrations 120,000 years ago to the political and ecological issues of today.
A historian at Rutgers University, Newark, Truschke draws on her knowledge of Sanskrit and Persian texts to shape a narrative focused on diversity, global connections, and marginalized voices. The book’s scope is broad, spanning the Paleolithic era, Indus Valley Civilization, Vedic migrations, medieval kingdoms, colonial period, and modern nation-states. Using archaeology, texts, and oral traditions, Truschke creates a clear, accessible account that engages both scholars and general readers, but its interpretive choices, particularly on gender, regional dynamics, and political structures, reveal biases that skew the historical picture, limiting its scope and objectivity.
A core strength is Truschke’s focus on marginalized groups, including women, lower castes, religious minorities, and indigenous communities. She foregrounds figures like the Buddhist nuns of the ‘Therigatha’, whose verses reveal early female spiritual agency, and 19th century reformers like Anandibai and Pandita Ramabai, who championed women’s education. By emphasizing Dalits, Adivasis, and Jains, Truschke challenges elite-centric narratives, offering a more inclusive history. Her portrayal of the Indus Valley Civilization as a cosmopolitan hub with trade links to Mesopotamia and Central Asia counters notions of cultural isolation. She further underscores global connections by noting the Portuguese introduction of marigolds and chilies, which became integral to Indian culture, aligning with scholarship that views India as a nexus of global exchange.
Truschke’s treatment of the Mauryan Empire and other premodern polities, while rich in cultural and religious detail, underplays the centrality of statecraft and empire-building in shaping India’s historical trajectory. The Mauryan Empire, under Chandragupta and Ashoka, developed sophisticated administrative systems, from centralized taxation to diplomatic networks, as detailed in Romila Thapar’s ‘Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas’.
Similarly, the Gupta and Chola empires established intricate bureaucracies and maritime trade networks, which B.B. Lal’s archaeological work and K.A. Nilakanta Sastri’s studies highlight as pivotal to regional integration. By marginalizing these political structures, Truschke’s narrative overlooks the interplay of power and governance that underpinned the subcontinent’s cultural and social developments, weakening the book’s comprehensiveness.
Her emphasis on South India as the epicenter of India’s cultural history elevates Dravidian traditions but marginalizes northern contributions, such as Sanskrit literature and Buddhist philosophy.
Romila Thapar’s scholarship, particularly in ‘From Lineage to State’ and ‘Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas’, illuminates the centrality of statecraft in shaping early Indian polities. She highlights the Mauryan Empire’s sophisticated governance, exemplified by Ashoka’s appointment of dhamma-mahamatras (officers of righteousness), as recorded in the Major Rock Edict V at Dhauli, to enforce ethical policies and unify diverse regions. Thapar also examines the Gupta Empire’s feudal framework, evidenced by the Junagadh Inscription of Skandagupta, which details land grants to local elites, fostering decentralised control. Her analysis of Chola maritime networks, supported by inscriptions like the Tanjore Temple grant, underscores their role in economic integration across South Asia. Thapar’s focus on these institutional mechanisms reveals how political power, economic systems, and religious patronage intertwined to drive India’s historical development.
On gender, Truschke’s narrative further reveals bias. She depicts Vedic society as highly restrictive, suggesting women were excluded from intellectual and religious life. This claim overlooks textual evidence in the Rig Veda of women like Gargi and Maitreyi engaging in philosophical debates, as B.B. Lal’s analyses of Vedic culture indicate. In ‘The Rigvedic People’, Lal cites specific Rig Veda hymns, such as those in Book 10 composed by rishikas like Lopamudra (10.18) and Visvavara (10.39), which demonstrate women’s roles as seers contributing to sacred texts. He also points to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.6–3.8), where Gargi Vachaknavi engages in philosophical debates with Yajnavalkya, showcasing intellectual agency. Lal’s excavations at Hastinapur uncovered terracotta figurines and ritual artifacts, including female deity representations, suggesting women’s active participation in Vedic ceremonies. This evidence paints a picture of a society where women, though not equal in all contexts, held significant spiritual and intellectual roles, undermining Truschke’s claim of rigid patriarchal constraints.
Her emphasis on South India as the epicenter of India’s cultural history elevates Dravidian traditions but marginalizes northern contributions, such as Sanskrit literature and Buddhist philosophy. Shereen Ratnagar’s studies of Harappan and post-Harappan societies underscore the North’s cultural significance, offering a counterpoint to Truschke’s regional bias. In ‘Understanding Harappa’, Ratnagar details the sophisticated urban economy of northern sites like Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, emphasizing standardized weights, such as a chert cubical weight found at Ur, identified in the Iraq Museum as matching Harappan standards, indicating extensive northern trade networks with Mesopotamia. Her analysis of terracotta figurines in ‘The Magic in the Image’ further refutes Truschke’s marginalization of northern traditions, noting their presence in domestic contexts at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, suggesting localized ritual practices rather than a South-centric cultural narrative.
Methodologically, Truschke’s reliance on narrative storytelling, while engaging, sometimes sacrifices analytical depth. Her discussion of urban inequality in premodern India, for instance, offers broad observations about social hierarchies but lacks detailed engagement with economic or archaeological data that could substantiate her claims. The book’s structure, which allocates two-thirds of its content to precolonial history, reflects Truschke’s expertise in Mughal and premodern periods but results in a relatively cursory treatment of modern developments. Topics like the independence movement, Partition, and post-1947 politics receive less attention, which may disappoint readers expecting a more balanced chronological distribution.
Truschke’s narrative also seems shaped by a defensive posture against contemporary political debates, particularly Hindu nationalist interpretations of history, often leading to simple binaries that tend to oversimplify a complicated picture. Her minimal engagement with political power dynamics, such as the interplay of regional kingdoms or colonial governance, suggests a deliberate shift toward social and cultural history. While this approach highlights underrepresented perspectives, it sidelines the “game of power” that has undeniably shaped the subcontinent’s trajectory, from Mauryan statecraft to modern electoral politics.
India: 5000 Years of History on the Subcontinent offers a readable, wide-ranging account that foregrounds diversity and global connections while centering marginalized voices. Its accessible prose and inclusive approach make it a useful resource for exploring India’s past. However, Truschke’s biases, evident in her selective treatment of gender, regional dynamics, and political structures, limit the book’s objectivity. Scholars like Romila Thapar, B.B. Lal, K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, and Shereen Ratnagar provide evidence that challenges her interpretations, highlighting the need for a more balanced approach. Readers will find the book a compelling entry point but should consult additional sources to capture the full complexity of India’s 5000-year history.
Vikram Zutshi is an American journalist and filmmaker specializing in religion, art, history, politics and culture.