Creative Pasts Quotes

“In seeking to understand the centrality of history in the Ayodhya movement and the ineffectiveness of professional historians attempting to influence its violent outcome, some scholars have condemned the politicization of history and reiterated the need to emphasize its boundaries as a scholarly, scientific discipline. Simply reinforcing disciplinary boundaries, however, only serves to widen the current gap between scholarly and popular domains without any further understanding of the making of popular narratives and their appeal.16 Others have persuasively argued that rather than retreating further into the ivory tower, professional historiography needs to engage more seriously with popular narratives of the past.”
― Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700-1960