Podcast appearances and mentions of audrey truschke

Turning Tides: The Mughal Empire will discuss the rise and fall of the Mughals in the Indian subcontinent. The third episode, Tears of Blood, will cover the period from 1708 to 1858, in which the Mughal Empire steadily declined before completely capitulating during the First War of Indian Independence.If you'd like to donate or sponsor the podcast, our PayPal is @TurningTidesPodcast1. Thank you for your support!Produced by Melissa Marie Brown and Joseph Pascone in affiliation with AntiKs Entertainment.Researched and written by Joseph PasconeEdited and revised by Melissa Marie BrownIntro and Outro created by Melissa Marie Brown and Joseph Pascone using Motion ArrayWebsite: https://theturningtidespodcast.weebly.com/IG/Threads/YouTube/Facebook: @theturningtidespodcastEmail: theturningtidespodcast@gmail.comIG/YouTube/Facebook/Threads/TikTok: @antiksentEmail: antiksent@gmail.comEpisode 3 Sources:The Empire of the Great Mughals: History, Art and Culture, by Annemarie SchimmelDaughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens & Begums of the Mughal Empire, by Ira MukhotyThe Harper Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present: Fourth Edition, by R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. DupuyThe Rise of the Sikh Empire: The story of the rise of the Sikh's as a Religion and to martial prowess, by Nehal KaurMajestic Mughals- A Saga of Passion, Power and Empire: From Babur to Bahadhurshah Jafar- Unraveling the Tale of India's Greatest Dynasty, by Arijeet SinghThe Napoleonic Wars: A Global History, by Alexander MikaberidzeNadir Shah in India, by Sir Jadunath SarkarBritish Colonialism in India: From the East India Company to the Road to Independence and the Partition of India (Pocket History), by Nigel DurveThe Legacy of Shivaji the Great: Military Strategy, Naval Supremacy, and the Maratha Empire, by Col. Anil AthaleEarly Modern India (A.D. 1605 – 1856), by Dr. Suresh Rai. K.Understanding the Mughal Empire from the Unusual Perspective of Jahanara Begum, by Derek Dwight Andersonthekashmiriyat.co.uk/do-not-regret-my-act-people-are-with-me-up-teacher-who-got-muslim-boy-slapped/, August 27th, 2023, by News DeskIndia's School Textbooks Are the Latest Battleground for Hindu Nationalism, time.com/6269349/india-textbook-changes-controversy-hindu-nationalism/, by Sanya Mansoor, published April 6th, 2023, updated April 7th, 2023How India's Hindu Nationalists Are Weaponizing History Against Muslims, time.com/6320003/india-weaponizing-history-against-muslims/, by Audrey Truschke (professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University), published October 6th, 2023Narendra Modi accused of stirring tensions as voting in India continues, theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/narendra-modi-accused-of-stirring-tensions-as-voting-in-india-continues, amended April 23rd, 2024General Election 2024 India Election Results, bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-india-election/, by Christopher Udemans, Adrian Leung, Jin Wu, Cedric Sam, and Swati Gupta, Last updated June 4th, 2024****Additional Ep. 3 sources available on our website.

This week we have a chat with Dr Audrey Truschke, a historian of South Asian history, about Hindutva and harrassment. 

Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay and Manogna Sastry explicate the key themes of Audrey Truschke's work in the book 'Ten Heads of Ravana.' research. Truschke's positions on Hinduism and Hindutva, her whitewashing of the temple destructions that took place under Aurangzeb's rule, her blatant misrepresentations of incidents from the Rāmāyaṇa through mistranslations and other important aspects are studied through a careful analysis of her writings. Mukhopadhyay and Sastry show how Truschke's work is riddled with poor data and sloppy Snakes in the Ganga - http://www.snakesintheganga.com Varna Jati Caste - http://www.varnajaticaste.com The Battle For IIT's - http://www.battleforiits.com Power of future Machines - http://www.poweroffuturemachines.com 10 heads of Ravana - http://www.tenheadsofravana.com To support Infinity Foundation's projects including the continuation of such episodes and the research we do: इनफिनिटी फ़ौंडेशन की परियोजनाओं को अनुदान देने के लिए व इस प्रकार के एपिसोड और हमारे द्वारा किये जाने वाले शोध को जारी रखने के लिए: http://infinityfoundation.com/donate-2/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rajivmalhotrapodcast/support

A version of this essay was published by news18.com at https://www.news18.com/opinion/opinion-what-a-difference-ten-years-make-india-since-2014-8559632.htmlI wrote ten years ago on Rediff.com (‘The great Indian rope trick and other illusions of progress' https://www.rediff.com/news/column/the-great-indian-rope-trick-and-other-illusions-of-progress/20130716.htm) about how the average Indian is satisfied with illusion, never mind real progress. That made India a Potemkin State, where form is everything and substance is immaterial. It turns out that I was wrong: Indians do want actual progress. I might be pardoned for saying what I said then because the country was at the fag-end of the Lost Decade, 2004 to 2013, wherein things deteriorated steadily. Decline had been par for the course throughout the Nehruvian-Stalinist decades of dirigisme. Conversely, there has been noticeable change in 2014-2023.Apart from mis-steps in economic management, the political environment was also dicey. There was the appalling spectacle of a constitutional coup, as I noted at the time (‘Four ways the Congress won power by Constitutional coups' https://www.rediff.com/news/column/column-rajeev-srinivasan-4-ways-the-congress-won-power-through-constitutional-coups/20140107.htm): by colluding with the Communist Speaker in the cash-for-votes scam, the Congress clung on to power violating democratic norms. We see the same recklessness today in the US (“Let's jail the leading opposition candidate”) and in Germany (“One party is getting too popular, let's ban it”). It does not bode well. The New York Times, on August 21, 2023 ran the striking headline, “Elections Are Bad for Democracy” before changing it to “The Worst People Run for Office. It's Time for a Better Way”. Yes, democracy is too important to leave to the people. Let us elites tell them what to think. The most striking example of this uncaring State, the very nadir of its contempt for the man in the street, was the length of the chain anchoring the mug in the loo in railway compartments: just three inches too short, thus shattering the illusion that you could actually clean your bottom.  A daunting prospect for any traveler, especially because of the overwhelming stink, and a world of difference from Japan's shinkansen and their amazing high-tech loos.Recently I traveled in several train compartments, including ancient Jan Shatabdi chair cars and newish Hamsafar sleeper coaches, although, alas, not in Vande Bharat coaches yet; but I was surprised at how much better the toilets were. The ‘bio toilet' means human feces are not dumped on the tracks; they do not smell terrible, and, wonder of wonders, there is a hygiene hose/bidet that is actually long enough to do the deed.And, perhaps redundantly, the chain for the mug has been lengthened. And there is water! It is hard to explain to a non-Indian what a difference all this makes. I had a cousin who denied herself food and drink while traveling by train just so she could avoid the toilet. It is a sea-change when you are granted a little self-respect. I am reminded of the placard held by a man at a Martin Luther King rally: “I am a man”. Yes, the proverbial average Indian aam admi is a human who deserves consideration: not only Lutyens and Khan Market types.I am sorry to talk about a cringe-making topic like toilets, but this is something earthy and immediately understandable; it makes the point that India is, 76 years after the imperialists left and brown sahebs took over, finally on the march. Indians are beginning to see that they can demand respect from their rulers, and get it. Dignity, that watchword of the butler Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro's brilliant The Remains of the Day.In a penetrating 1997 essay, “India shouldn't have fantasies about the past, but face it” (https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/from-the-archives-1997-v-s-naipaul-india-shouldn-t-have-fantasies-about-the-past-but-face-it-1988599-2022-08-16) Sir V S Naipaul mentioned that those who have been oppressed and denigrated for centuries are now rising, and this rise will be messy. He was talking about those outside the charmed circle that ruled the country for long. It is also broader: the rise of the Other Backward Communities, that uncharming name for the majority of Indians, the bahujan. Naipaul also said that the rulers will now of necessity be of the people, not overlords. It can be argued that for over a thousand years, Indians have been effectively ruled by a comprador ‘elite', middlemen who did the dirty work on behalf of invaders or distant rulers. It is my suspicion that the zamindars and other local strongmen were largely from the upper or middle jatis, and it is only now that those from the bottom of the pyramid are finally getting a say in things. No, this is not a jati-bashing exercise, and I may be extrapolating from my observations in Kerala, where a middle jati, Nairs, were the kulaks who lorded it over those below them in the hierarchy, such as OBC Ezhavas, SC Pulayas, and ST Mala-arayans. The latter are now rising, though not in full measure, yet. I think it's similar in Tamil Nadu, too. In the Soviet Union, Stalin liquidated the kulaks. In India, their eclipse has come about too late, though without violence. The usual woke Lutyens/Khan Market suspects were disappointed they couldn't chortle about Chandrayaan-3 being yet another expensive failure a poor country could ill afford, echoing Brits upset that their alleged ‘aid' was going to India (in reality, as per the UK Foreign Office, India politely declined any charity from them starting 2015; any money coming to India from the UK is foreign direct investment (FDI), or strictly in support of their geopolitical objectives, channeled via dubious NGOs or missionaries).The ‘wokes' also grumbled about ISRO engineers going to Tirupati and invoking the blessings of the Divine for their project. I am glad they got a munh thod jawab. There really is no dichotomy in Hindu thought between science and faith: science too requires faith and belief.The ‘wokes' have reason to be worried, not only by the picture-perfect moon landing, but also by Praggnaanandhaa, who almost unseated the reigning World Champion in chess; Neeraj Chopra, who won the World Athletic Championship in javelin to go with his Olympic gold; the 4x400 relay quartet with their heroics of almost defeating the Americans in the heats while setting an Asian record; and Vivek Ramaswamy, who is unabashedly Hindu and at the same time a patriotic American and a force to contend with in the Republican party in the US.Even though they haven't been defenestrated, except perhaps some unfortunate folks at Ashoka University, India's Left are less and less relevant: relics of a failed ideology. They should count their lucky stars: in Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew liquidated them. And indeed, even in the US, the ‘woke' capital of the world, their star is setting. There is another reason I brought up toilets: the unseemly obsession that westerners have with them. I was delighted to see this cartoon on Twitter, and it is obviously a parody of the earlier one in the sadly overrated New York Times, below.While the racist derision of the original cartoon, and the celebration of the be-jasmined and be-bindi'd women in Indian engineering are the obvious takeaways, I was intrigued by a detail: the white guy in the cartoon is dragging a shopping-cart full of toilet paper behind him! I am not sure why toilet paper is some kind of atavistic guilty pleasure for westerners. Despite being purely climate-related (they could not afford to melt ice and snow just to wash their bottoms, or for that matter their hands, thus cutlery), toilet paper has become a cultural staple for them. You might remember the hoarding of toilet paper in the early days of covid! It's time westerners abandoned killing trees, and went for the more healthy bidet-like health faucet. For that matter, the squat in Indian closets is apparently better than the sitting posture on a western ‘thunder-box'. Recently while traveling in the Czech Republic, I stayed in a (fancy) hotel that had a bidet: such a relief! May their tribe increase!Of course, some things never change. This was demonstrated in two ways: the thinly-veiled envy from the British that manifested itself in their assertion that an India full of open defecation shouldn't be spending on space research, and The Economist magazine in their recent obituary of Bindeswar Pathak repeatedly emphasizing caste discrimination and manual scavenging. These are vestiges of the past, and mostly due to the $10 trillion (or $45 trillion depending on whom you ask) that the Brits looted, impoverishing India. But then, who's counting?Oh, you want to talk about open defecation? Once-beautiful San Francisco is now the champion, while India has built large numbers of indoor toilets all over the country. See the ‘poop map' of San Francisco here (https://mochimachine.org/wasteland/# ).One thing that has definitely changed in the last ten years is the amount of Hindu-hatred expressed in the West, particularly America. The California caste Bill, Equality Labs, Audrey Truschke, and the latest, tech journo Kara Swisher's racist attack on Vivek Ramaswamy, are all related to the fact that Hindus have quietly become one of the most economically successful (but politically powerless) groups in the US. It is really a back-handed compliment, happily cheered on by rogues from the “Chindu” stable or similar. Caste is the weapon.Hindus tend to be defensive about caste. We shouldn't be. Caste is really a white invention, from the Portuguese casta, intended to segregate mixed-race people based on how white they are, half, quarter, one-eighth, etc: thus mulatto, quadroon, octroon, etc. It is their cross to bear. There is an ocean of difference between this caste business and jatis, but I digress..Besides, there are de facto castes in the US: the investment banker caste, the doctor caste, the lawyer caste, the management consultant caste, etc. They all go to the same tony prep schools, the same Ivy League colleges (legacy admissions mean you easily get into Harvard, if your parent(s) went to Harvard, regardless of your grades. Raj Chetty has published reams of data about this); they are endogamous; and they all miraculously end up at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. An outsider can't break in. These castes are also Lindy (ask Nassim Taleb).Perhaps, taking a cue from other groups that have prospered, Hindus (and Indian Americans in general) are becoming ‘white', like others have before them. Irish, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese: there is a long list. ‘Whiteness' is a construct. I was flabbergasted decades ago when a well-meaning white guy said, “You guys are almost white”. I stuttered: “But, but… we are brown!”. If you have money, you pretty much become white. I give it another ten years. With India's GDP at $10 trillion, and more Hindu-Americans creating unicorns, I bet by 2034 Hindus will be ‘white'. Maybe Vivek is the first white Hindu. I am not making a value judgment, merely making a prediction. You heard it here first.1800 words, Aug 29, 2023, updated Sep 10, 2023 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

Ten Heads of Ravana' by the Infinity Foundation India team was released in Feb 2023. The book is a collection of essays on the work of famous contemporary Hinduphobic scholars such as Sheldon Pollock, Romila Thapar, Wendy Doniger, Shashi Tharoor, Devdutt Pattanaik, Ramachandra Guha, Kancha Ilaiah, Michael Witzel, Irfan Habib, & Audrey Truschke. The authors - Manogna Sastry, Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay, Divya Reddy, Anurag Sharma, TN Sudarshan, Dr. HR Meera, Dr. Kannan & Dr. Sharda Narayanan factually deconstruct the numerous errors in their work. Snakes in the Ganga - http://www.snakesintheganga.com Varna Jati Caste - http://www.varnajaticaste.com The Battle For IIT's - http://www.battleforiits.com Power of future Machines - http://www.poweroffuturemachines.com 10 heads of Ravana - http://www.tenheadsofravana.com To support Infinity Foundation's projects including the continuation of such episodes and the research we do: इनफिनिटी फ़ौंडेशन की परियोजनाओं को अनुदान देने के लिए व इस प्रकार के एपिसोड और हमारे द्वारा किये जाने वाले शोध को जारी रखने के लिए: http://infinityfoundation.com/donate-2/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rajivmalhotrapodcast/support

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts in premodern India invested in narrating and making sense of Indo-Persian political rule and governance. In a study at once ambitious and razor sharp in execution, Truschke demonstrates the importance of taking seriously the enterprise of Sanskrit historical writing in the premodern period. Historically and geographically expansive, Truschke takes her readers through a delightful tour of Sanskrit texts from a variety of genres to show their incongruity with modern conceptions of religious difference and antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. Through her close readings of Sanskrit historical texts often saturated with poetry and a keen poetic sensibility, Truschke achieves no less than a fundamental reorientation of how we imagine and approach the discipline of history. This meticulously researched and lyrically written book will be of tremendous interest to scholars of South Asia, Religion, and the wider Humanities. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome.

Audrey Truschke, the Islamophile is out to whitewash the crimes of the Islamic rulers of India. Asbhas Maldahiyar flags her treatment of history of temple destruction and destruction of places of learning, specifically of Ayodhya, Kashi, Mathura, and Nalanda in this talk with Sanjay Dixit.

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at Nupur Sharma, neo-feudalism and the geopolitical squeeze on IndiaThe commentariat has rightly focused on the specifics of the Nupur Sharma incident, such as the alleged blasphemy, the apparent provocation, the possibly pro-forma outrage and the street-veto (cheered on by certain politicians who spoke ominously about tinder and spark). I couldn’t possibly improve on their perspectives. For instance Utpal Kumar wrote an excellent piece excoriating the cringe-inducing and thunderous ‘liberal’ response https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/nupur-sharma-has-erred-no-doubt-but-why-are-liberals-mutedly-supporting-islamist-challenge-to-her-right-to-life-10767521.html; and I would add that ‘feminists’ were also notable by their absence. The blood-curdling death threats being hurled at Nupur, the fact that she has been hanged in effigy, and the related riots that appear to be astroturfed, are all deplorable.  I would like to look at the whole thing from the point of view of geopolitics. India is in the process of being squeezed badly.Thanks for reading Shadow Warrior! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Soft StateThere are a couple of perspectives of interest. One is a throwback to the dark days of 1989-90, when the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban induced the most recent genocide of Kashmiri Hindus, because the terrorists Pakistan had assigned to their Afghan battle were (as they are now) available; and this time, thanks to Biden’s largesse, they have billions worth of weapons. A related historical incident is the hijack of Indian Airlines 814 in 1999, and what, in hindsight, was a strategic blunder committed by India, with Jaswant Singh personally escorting the freed terrorists to Kandahar, who then proceeded to wreak general havoc.  In both cases, the Pakistani takeaways were predicated on triumphalism. They could see the dictum in their Brigadier General SK Malik’s The Qoranic Concept of War being put in place. “Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end itself.” They could with good reason argue that they were on a trajectory towards a final victory, and urge a final thrust that would bring the house of cards down.The result was the Parliament attack, 2001. Operation Parakram. Godhra, 2002. And eventually 26/11 Mumbai in 2008.Pakistan and its friends in India have been nothing if not lucid: they openly declare their intent to wreak havoc on India, balkanize it, massacre people, do gazwa-e-hind. There is every reason to believe that they mean what they say. To pretend otherwise is to repeat the US folly vis-a-vis China: China kept saying what they intended to do, and the US kept pretending not to hear; and we know where that got Obama and Biden. The point is that every capitulation, every demand conceded, is viewed as a sign of weakness, and invites the next, ever more outrageous demand. India today may be going down this slippery slope, again. As it did repeatedly in the 20th century. The deep freeze on CAA was a capitulation. The withdrawal of the Farm Bills was a capitulation. And now the silencing of Nupur Sharma is a capitulation. If the State blinks on Agnipeeth, that would be another capitulation. There may well be good reasons for all of them, but the fact is that they perpetuate the notion that India is a Soft State.Thank you for reading Shadow Warrior. This post is public so feel free to share it.Neo-Feudalism and the Serf StateThe second perspective of interest is global. Sociologist and demographer Joel Kotkin writes in his latest book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism that we are slipping into a period where there is a stark contrast between the ruling elites, in particular the tech billionaires, and the ruled proletariat. In other words, a return to the European era of feudalism, where a ruling class lorded it over the serfs, who basically had no rights. On Singularity Radio, leftist and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, echoes the same sentiment and argues it is ‘techno-feudalism’. He goes one step further to state that Capitalism is dead, whereas Kotkin only goes so far as to argue that a zaibatsu-ization of the US economy is happening, and the economic systems of the US and China are converging.In a Hoover Institution podcast based on his Foreign Affairs article, geo-strategist John Mearsheimer suggests a convergence from a political angle too. He argues that the difference between a democracy and an autocracy are limited so far as great-power rivalries go, and that the US made an extraordinarily foolish move to enable China to rise. Says he: Engagement may have been the worst strategic blunder any country has made in recent history: there is no comparable example of a great power actively fostering the rise of a peer competitor. And it is now too late to do much about it.Put these two arguments together, and you get an interesting picture. On the one hand, feudalism requires an upper class and a lower class. It could be argued that feudalism never in fact went away in Europe, or even the supposedly class-less US. Social mobility there is far less than one has been led to believe, according to research by Raj Chetty, then at Stanford. There indeed are traditional elites in the US: the East-Coast Wall Street types, for instance. Their kids all go to prep school like Philipps Andover or Exeter, then on to Ivy League colleges, and then on to Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, and eventually maybe to government. This is, for all intents and purposes, an upper caste, which is also largely endogamous. Just try breaking into it: it is well-nigh impossible. Then there are the lower-caste serfs, the plebeian yahoos who are subjected to ‘manufacturing consent’ on a daily basis. They were earlier manipulated via the big newspapers, but now the tech platforms do an even better job. If you don’t believe me, see how the Overton window has shifted sharply in favor of woke tropes over the last few years. Or, for a more tactical shift, note how the topic of heated discussion has gone from Roe v Wade to school shootings to Jan 6 within days. I am reminded of a line from Pink Floyd, Welcome to the Machine: “What did you dream? It’s alright, we told you what to dream”.In contrast to Kotkin, I would argue that there is no neo-Feudalism, it is the same lovely practice that never went away. Kotkin also said, in passing, “Silicon valley is full of indentured servants from Asia”. He meant India. He is right, and that is the role of India in the game: producing raw materials, including serfs, for the consumption of the upper caste feudal lords.Feudalism applies also to nations. Whites have for a few centuries been the feudal lords, and their colonies, especially India, have been the untermenschen serfs. That is their pre-ordained role. As Mearsheimer candidly admits, the US blundered in allowing China to escape from serfdom. And it is too late. But of course it is not too late to contain India! They have no intention of blundering again, or allowing India to rise to be a great power as well. China has become an honorary upper caste country by bulking up its economy and especially its military. But applications are now firmly closed for membership in this club. Even rich Japan has only a tenuous membership. It is in the interests of the feudal lord countries to keep the serf countries as they are.In this, the US and China are as one: there is no way India can be allowed to gain power. This may explain the fury with which US and European commentators (eg Bruno Macaes) greeted India’s stance in the Ukraine war, of keeping aloof from it. That’s not how a serf state is supposed to act: it should do the Gunga Din tango.This mindset is why the US has continually armed and financed Pakistan, propping up a failed state that should have been dismantled long ago: it is meant to contain India. This is also why you have the likes of Thenmozhi Soundararajan running rampant in the US shouting about caste. This is why a propagandist like Audrey Truschke is not ejected from polite company. This is why USCIRF, an evangelist propaganda body, gets free rein to pontificate about India. This is why India is marginalized in the Quad, and the upper caste countries (Anglosphere is by definition upper caste) close ranks to form AUKUS. India must be put in its place, and that’s why a million mutinies are funded by the Ford Foundation and George Soros, and Xinhua and other CCP arms. There are plenty of sleeper cells armed and ready to riot on command. Add to this mix the oil states of West Asia. Qatar has its giant natural gas reserves, and India is increasingly addicted to LNG including for its newly-minted rural women consumers of cooking gas. Furthermore, Biden is genuflecting at the feet of Saudi Arabia, as Glenn Greenwald writes in a stinging comment on substack. Having successfully prevented India from buying cheap Iranian oil, and pushing hard to prevent it from buying cheap Russian oil, the Americans are forcing India to be ever-more dependent on West Asian states. Never mind that India has buyer power: of course the sellers have to sell the stuff to somebody to keep their economies ticking over.Also never mind the fallacy of the argument that India must kowtow to these Gulf states, in case they send back the Indians working there. Well, that is not charity, either. If the Indians were ejected (let us recall what happened to Uganda in Idi Amin’s time), the serfs running everything would be gone, and the feudal lords would actually have to get their hands dirty doing something other than being rich and idle. The fact that India has not asserted itself forcefully means that the pressure tactics are working: the malign forces have drawn first blood. Chances are that worse is yet to come. 1600 words, Jun 15, 2022 updated Jun 19, 2022 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

Trolling on social media is serious and menacing problem which has gone far beyond just heckling and what-about-ry. Trolls now threaten violence and worse. Women, especially activists, journalists, academics and celebrities routinely face threats to them and even their family.On this episode, Sidharth Bhatia is joined by Dr. Audrey Truschke, historian of South Asia and Associate Professor at Rutgers University, who has been attacked ceaselessly for her allegedly 'anti-Hindu' views. She writes about Hindu-Muslim relations during the Mughal Empire and her book on Aurangzeb, have made her a constant target of trolls.Sidharth and Dr. Truschke talk about when these online attacks against Dr. Truschke started. Hindu and Hindutva, facing anti-Semitic hate and misogyny that she gets from Hindu nationalists, and lots more. Tune in for an eye-opening episode.Follow Dr. Truschke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AudreyTruschkeFollow Sidharth Bhatia on Twitter and Instagram @bombaywallahbombaywallah and https://instagram.com/bombaywallahYou can listen to this show on The Wire's website, the IVM Podcasts website, app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.

Pandit Satish Sharma and Vibhuti Jha join Sanjay Dixit to dismantle the 'Dismantling Global Hindutva' Conference being organised by Audrey Truschke at Rutgers University in ew Brunswick, New Jersey. Diabolical and revisionist as the attempt is, the Hindus of USA have reacted fiercely and the majority of sponsoring universities are having a second thought.

Sanskrit is known as the classical language of India, especially Hindu traditions. But over its 3000 year history, Sanskrit was widely used in other Indian religions, as well. And not only religions. Sanskrit was a lingua franca in Early India—a window onto cosmopolitain, literary, intellectual, and political cultures of the past. On this episode, Finnian talks with Audrey Truschke, a historian of South Asia at Rutgers University, who has made her name studying Sanskrit texts and Islamic power on the subcontinent. Her most recent book, “The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule” (Columbia UP), presents a ”history of Sanskrit views of a Muslim Other.” For those on the far-right of identity politics in modern India, the very existence of such Sanskrit works about Muslims—not to mention Audrey Truschke's scholarship—comes as an affront. Hindu nationalists are deeply invested in the idea of a never-ending conflict between Hindus and Muslims. And they're not above distorting history or attacking historians to preserve their worldview. In this conversation, Audrey Truschke speaks about her work, her ideas about history, the importance of public scholarship—and why her research makes some folks on Twitter so angry. Learn more about Audrey Truschke and her new book here: https://www.audreytruschke.com/ Highlights of this conversation are featured on the podcast Trending Globally, “Hindu Nationalism, Contested Histories, and Challenging the Fascism Blueprint.” Listen to this episode and subscribe to Trending Globally here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hindu-nationalism-contested-histories-challenging-fascism/id1173544870?i=1000530302801 Find out more about Sensing the Sacred and the Center for Contemporary South Asia here: https://watson.brown.edu/southasia/news/podcasts. We're eager for your feedback and support: please subscribe and then rate the show on your favorite platforms so that others can find us. You can email us at southasia@brown.edu.

Audrey Truschke is a scholar who has gotten in some very hot water lately. She's regularly harassed on Twitter, she's facing a lawsuit, and she's received death threats. ‘What's she an expert in?' you might ask. Public health? Election law? Critical Race Theory? Nope. Ancient Sanskrit. On this episode we're sharing part of a new podcast from Watson. It's called ‘Sensing the Sacred' and it's hosted by Finnian Gerety, a visiting assistant professor of religious studies and contemplative studies at Watson's Center for Contemporary South Asia. Finnian and Sarah talk about the motivation behind the show, which explores spirituality in South Asia from angles as diverse as the origins of yoga to the rise of Hindu nationalism. Finnian also shares some of his recent conversation with Audrey Truschke, where they talk about the role of Sanskrit in Hindu nationalist propaganda, and more broadly about how to contest the ‘fascist blueprint' we see being enacted around the world today. You can learn more about and subscribe to ‘Sensing the Sacred' here: [https://watson.brown.edu/southasia/news/podcasts] You can buy Audrey's book here: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231197055/] You can learn more about Trending Globally by subscribing to our podcast newsletter here: [https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/f52w0GW?mode=preview&source_id=b6880bc0-edf0-49c9-8b65-17e2fccc5854&source_type=em&c=] [Transcript forthcoming]

Akshar and Mukunda talk to Hindu students at Rutgers about the future of Indology at their institution and cultural controversies around it.

Arnab talks about his first impressions on Republic Bangla, the economics of running a Bengali channel, the AICTE's recent decision to exempt math and physics are mandatory subjects for engineering (~17 min), the recent news about Dr. Truschke (~37 min), the interview of Meghan Markel by Oprah (~58 min), and Mithunda (~1hr 12)in this action-packed episode. Dalaal soundtrack in Bengali

Sham, Kushal and Abhijit discuss the Oxford-Rashmi Samant issue, and the harassment that she has face simply for being Hindu. They also discuss how Rutgers University completely disregarded the sentiments of Hindu students under the excuse of free speech, despite their employee Audrey Truschke constantly denigrating and abusing Hinduism. One sincerely wonders if Rutgers would have defended free speech so much is a professor had abused and denigrated Islam this way. We discuss what Hindus on campus can do. ------------------------------------ Follow Sham: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shamsharmashow/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/shambhav15 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamsharmashow/ Email Inquiries: contact@shamsharmashow.com Feedback: shambhav10@gmail.com  

In this edition of The Hindu on Books Podcast, we talk to Audrey Truschke about her new book, The Language of History, in which she explains why Sanskrit histories of Indo-Muslim rule, ought to be acknowledged as crucial to the study of Indo-Persian political history. Truschke, who wrote a biography of the Mughal king Aurangzeb in 2017 for which she received both kudos and brickbats, takes us through cultural encounters through the ages, the importance of history, and her new project. Host: Sudipta Dutta, Senior Deputy Editor, The Hindu Want to get more from The Hindu on books? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here (Newsletter Subscription) Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

We sit with Dr. Audrey Truschke, author of 'Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Controversial King' and discuss the sixth Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

Sham and Kushal are back to discuss Audrey Truschke's answer to questions about her research. She responded by saying that she is being attacked because she's a woman and that she is an expert because she has a Ph.D. and a book. We also discuss the Supreme Court's Censorship of Sudarshan TV and why it's very dangerous. #aurangzeb #sudarshantv -------------------------------------------------- Support The Sham Sharma Show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=13603950 ---------------------------------------------------- Follow Sham: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shamsharmashow/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/shambhav15 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamsharmashow/ Email Inquiries: shambhav10@gmail.com

Today we will talk about the challenges of teaching and learning about COVID-19 in higher education with Audrey Truschke (trushkey), Theresa MacPhail, and Maddy Larkin.Maddy Larkin is a junior Custom Design Major student at Drexel University. For her major, she combines studies of biology, psychology, criminology, and public health to study Humanistic Health. She is also a theatre minor and is involved in the Pennoni Honors College as a member and student mentor. Theresa MacPhail is a medical anthropologist at Stevens Institute of Technology and the author of The Viral Network: A Pathography of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic (Cornell UP). Her research centers on the social, cultural, and political aspects of global health, infectious disease, and medicine. Her next book examines the global rise of allergies and will be published by Random House in 2022.Audrey Truschke is Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. She is a premodern South Asianist by training, and is the author of two books on aspects of the Mughal Empire in India. She also publishes on historical memory and the politics of the past in the present. Because the pandemic has remade her world and she cannot get it off her mind, she is teaching a course at Rutgers-Newark in fall 2020 called Archiving COVID-19.

For many, the history of the Mughal empire looms heavy over contemporary South Asian social imaginaries. The lightning rod figure within modern day myths about the past is the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Some think of him as a violent Muslim fanatic who went out of his way to oppress Hindus and destroy their temples. Others consider his nearly 50-year reign (1658–1707) one of the most consequential for pre-modern South Asian history. Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, wanted to probe the pre-modern archive in order to understand the historical life and legacy of Aurangzeb. In Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (Stanford University Press, 2017) she offers a rich and detailed biographical account of his social, political, and intellectual contexts. The narrative unfolds through both a chronological portrait of the late 17th century Mughal imperial world and a thematic account of Aurangzeb’s administrative governance, the moral underpinnings of his self-perception, and questions of religious diversity and intolerance. In our conversation we discuss the textual sources we can use for South Asian history and the challenges they pose to modern readers, the early Mughal empire, Aurangzeb’s competitive climb to rulership, state security and uprisings, the construction of moral leadership and ethical judgement, managing difference across empire, motivations and circumstances for temple destructions, and Aurangzeb’s hallmark policies, final years, and legacy. We also consider the challenges of doing public scholarship, hate mail, and the benefit of bringing the historical record to bear on modern debates. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many, the history of the Mughal empire looms heavy over contemporary South Asian social imaginaries. The lightning rod figure within modern day myths about the past is the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Some think of him as a violent Muslim fanatic who went out of his way to oppress Hindus and destroy their temples. Others consider his nearly 50-year reign (1658–1707) one of the most consequential for pre-modern South Asian history. Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, wanted to probe the pre-modern archive in order to understand the historical life and legacy of Aurangzeb. In Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (Stanford University Press, 2017) she offers a rich and detailed biographical account of his social, political, and intellectual contexts. The narrative unfolds through both a chronological portrait of the late 17th century Mughal imperial world and a thematic account of Aurangzeb’s administrative governance, the moral underpinnings of his self-perception, and questions of religious diversity and intolerance. In our conversation we discuss the textual sources we can use for South Asian history and the challenges they pose to modern readers, the early Mughal empire, Aurangzeb’s competitive climb to rulership, state security and uprisings, the construction of moral leadership and ethical judgement, managing difference across empire, motivations and circumstances for temple destructions, and Aurangzeb’s hallmark policies, final years, and legacy. We also consider the challenges of doing public scholarship, hate mail, and the benefit of bringing the historical record to bear on modern debates. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many, the history of the Mughal empire looms heavy over contemporary South Asian social imaginaries. The lightning rod figure within modern day myths about the past is the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Some think of him as a violent Muslim fanatic who went out of his way to oppress Hindus and destroy their temples. Others consider his nearly 50-year reign (1658–1707) one of the most consequential for pre-modern South Asian history. Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, wanted to probe the pre-modern archive in order to understand the historical life and legacy of Aurangzeb. In Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (Stanford University Press, 2017) she offers a rich and detailed biographical account of his social, political, and intellectual contexts. The narrative unfolds through both a chronological portrait of the late 17th century Mughal imperial world and a thematic account of Aurangzeb’s administrative governance, the moral underpinnings of his self-perception, and questions of religious diversity and intolerance. In our conversation we discuss the textual sources we can use for South Asian history and the challenges they pose to modern readers, the early Mughal empire, Aurangzeb’s competitive climb to rulership, state security and uprisings, the construction of moral leadership and ethical judgement, managing difference across empire, motivations and circumstances for temple destructions, and Aurangzeb’s hallmark policies, final years, and legacy. We also consider the challenges of doing public scholarship, hate mail, and the benefit of bringing the historical record to bear on modern debates. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many, the history of the Mughal empire looms heavy over contemporary South Asian social imaginaries. The lightning rod figure within modern day myths about the past is the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Some think of him as a violent Muslim fanatic who went out of his way to oppress Hindus and destroy their temples. Others consider his nearly 50-year reign (1658–1707) one of the most consequential for pre-modern South Asian history. Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, wanted to probe the pre-modern archive in order to understand the historical life and legacy of Aurangzeb. In Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (Stanford University Press, 2017) she offers a rich and detailed biographical account of his social, political, and intellectual contexts. The narrative unfolds through both a chronological portrait of the late 17th century Mughal imperial world and a thematic account of Aurangzeb’s administrative governance, the moral underpinnings of his self-perception, and questions of religious diversity and intolerance. In our conversation we discuss the textual sources we can use for South Asian history and the challenges they pose to modern readers, the early Mughal empire, Aurangzeb’s competitive climb to rulership, state security and uprisings, the construction of moral leadership and ethical judgement, managing difference across empire, motivations and circumstances for temple destructions, and Aurangzeb’s hallmark policies, final years, and legacy. We also consider the challenges of doing public scholarship, hate mail, and the benefit of bringing the historical record to bear on modern debates. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many, the history of the Mughal empire looms heavy over contemporary South Asian social imaginaries. The lightning rod figure within modern day myths about the past is the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Some think of him as a violent Muslim fanatic who went out of his way to oppress Hindus and destroy their temples. Others consider his nearly 50-year reign (1658–1707) one of the most consequential for pre-modern South Asian history. Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, wanted to probe the pre-modern archive in order to understand the historical life and legacy of Aurangzeb. In Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (Stanford University Press, 2017) she offers a rich and detailed biographical account of his social, political, and intellectual contexts. The narrative unfolds through both a chronological portrait of the late 17th century Mughal imperial world and a thematic account of Aurangzeb’s administrative governance, the moral underpinnings of his self-perception, and questions of religious diversity and intolerance. In our conversation we discuss the textual sources we can use for South Asian history and the challenges they pose to modern readers, the early Mughal empire, Aurangzeb’s competitive climb to rulership, state security and uprisings, the construction of moral leadership and ethical judgement, managing difference across empire, motivations and circumstances for temple destructions, and Aurangzeb’s hallmark policies, final years, and legacy. We also consider the challenges of doing public scholarship, hate mail, and the benefit of bringing the historical record to bear on modern debates. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Audrey Truschke has created a name for herself on Twitter but it's probably not for anything you'd guess. She's an academic and author whose specialty is Muslim & Hindu conflict, The Mughal Empire and Sanksrit. We get down and dirty to learn about the role of academics in censorship, why people are so upset about her research and who was a better cheater at games as a kid, Audrey or Jess? ☕️☕️☕️ Who doesn’t want free advice from people that are wildly successful and probably more good looking than we are? In most careers, mentorship is a built-in part of the process, but as theatre people, Andrew (Hamilton) and Jess (Broadway Unlocked) always wished they had more opportunity and acess. Which is exactly why each week they’re taking you to coffee with some of the most incredible folx they can find, from Broadway to TV to YouTube to Sports to Historians to Entrepreneurship. We set up the coffee date and you become a part of the podcast as our guests answer your most burning questions. All without anyone having to leave the comfort of the internet (or put pants on tbh). If you’re like us, and wish you had more access to smart, funny people who can help inspire you, this is your podcast! Anything goes on TM2C, so buckle up and leave us a VideoAsk to be a guest on the show and be mentored on air. Oh! And come hang out with us on the internets! Twitter/Insta/FB @tm2cpodcast Jess @jessicaryannyla Andrew @theandrewcall ☕️☕️☕️ This episode was produced by wonderwoman Emily Ho. Check her out on the Insta: @mediaby.emily Special Guest: Audrey Truschke.

Audrey Truschke, Parvati Sharma, and Rana Safvi in conversation with Ira Mukhoty. This episode is a live session from day 3 of #ZEEJLF2019.

Aadit Kapadia and Sunanda Vashisht talk about CJI Mishra & Impeachment. They also talk about the Justice Loya Case, Yechury and PM Modi. Lastly they talk about the controversy over the Rama-Sita analogy by Audrey Truschke.

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu.

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016), Audrey Truschke, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University–Newark, demonstrates that Sanskrit was central to the process of royal self-definition. She documents how Brahman and Jain intellectuals were working closely with Persian-speaking Islamic elite around the cultural framework of the central royal court. These projects often revolved around cross-cultural textual production and translation, putting Sanskrit and Persian works in conversation. The production of Mughal-backed texts, and the literary reflection or silence about Brahman and Jain participation reveals unexplored horizons for understanding South Asia imperial history. In our conversation we discussed the dynamics of the Mughal court, the influential leaders Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, Persian translation of Sanskrit epics, the integration of Sanskrit materials into imperial knowledge, the end of Sanskrit at the Mughal court, and the tricky reception of contested histories in contemporary India. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this session of the workshop series, "Literary Cultures of Muslim South Asia", Audrey Truschke discusses Abu al-Fazl's Persian account of Indian learning