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“History Can Never be Used to Justify Faith”: Romila Thapar

ICF Team |
Veteran historian Romila Thapar talked about the necessity of maintaining a distinction between history and belief and congratulated Singh on  separating the historical narrative from the narrative that emerges out of faith.

Written by Valay Singh and published by Aleph (2018), Ayodhya: City of Faith, City of Discord is a biography of the city Ayodhya. Over thousands of years, Ayodhya has been a place of reverence for many faiths; but it has also been a place of violence, bloodshed and ill-will. Going back almost 3,300 years to the time Ayodhya is first mentioned, Valay Singh traces Ayodhya's history, showing its transformation from an insignificant outpost to a place sought out by kings, fakirs, renouncers and reformers and, later, becoming the centre-stage in Indian politics and the political imagination.

But what is the history of Ram, whose janmabhumi Ayodhya is claimed to be? 

A panel of speakers that include Romila Thapar, Kunal Chakrabarti, Zoya Hasan, and Valay Singh discussed this and other questions at the book launch of Ayodhya: City of Faith, City of Discord in New Delhi. Veteran historian Romila Thapar talked about the necessity of maintaining a distinction between history and belief and congratulated Singh on  separating the historical narrative from the narrative that emerges out of faith. Talking about Ram, she said, "Speaking as a historian, there is no cross-evidence for the historicity of the person of Ram." She also talked about how communities of all kinds have appropriated Valmiki's Ramayana and given it a distinctive identity: "The worshipper of Ram can believe whichever of these many versions of Ram he or she chooses to because this is a matter of faith and belief. It doesn't impinge on historicity or history."

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