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Montgomery Fellow, Fall 2006
Interview by Neal Sarkar ‘07
 Romila
Thapar is an Indian historian whose principal area of study is Ancient
India. She received her doctorate from the School of Oriental and African
Studies, London University, in 1958. Later she served as Professor of
Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she
is now Emerita Professor of History. Professor Thapar’s works include
Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (Oxford University Press, 1961),
A History of India, vol. 1 (Penguin, 1966), Ancient Indian Social
History: Some Interpretations (Orient Longman, 1984), and Early India:
From the Origins to AD 1300 (University of California Press, 2003).
Toward the end of Fall 2006 I had the chance to sit down and talk with
Professor Thapar and ask her about her thoughts on Dartmouth College and her
work.
What did you think about your experience at Dartmouth
College?
Professor Thapar: I have enjoyed my experience here very much.
Most of my experiences have been at very large universities usually in rather
large cities. I spent time teaching at Berkeley, the University of
Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago, which are all located in large
cities. I did spend some time at Smith College, which I found similar to
Dartmouth. I like how Dartmouth feels like a very tight-knit
community. You can walk to anywhere on campus, and everyone is very
friendly. It is an ideal academic environment. There is peace and
quiet so people can do their research, and there is a wealth of academic
resources here. I had come to Dartmouth a couple of times to speak on
this campus, and I loved it each time. I also have many friends in Boston
and was easily able to take trips for a weekend here and there to see
them. I feel this would be an incredible place to go to university.
What was your experience here like compared to teaching at an Indian
university?
Professor Thapar: I actually found my students here very similar to my
students at JNU. The student response was absolutely fantastic. In
India I am used to teaching graduate students, which is one major
difference. Therefore, in India my students were more focused on the
theoretical basis. Also, Indian students have more familiarity with these
topics as well. They have a solid basis in many of the things I am
teaching while, for many of my students in America, this was the first time
they were exposed to any of this material. For these reasons I was
particularly impressed with the quality of work I got from my students here at
Dartmouth.
You have now taught Ancient Indian History for many years. Do
you see any differences between your students in the past and now?
Professor Thapar: I think students these days are much more aware of
the effects of colonialism on all aspects of life. Today we are aware of
various examples of when colonial powers tried to reconstruct the past of those
they were ruling. Students are much more receptive to these ideas, which,
when I started teaching, were just emerging. Back then we were just
discovering how greatly colonialist powers had impacted the way we had learned
history. Thus, when I was a student and when I first began to teach,
students were definitely less receptive to many of these ideas than they are
today
What are you currently working on?
Professor Thapar: I am working on pretty much exactly what I was
teaching in my class: perceptions of the early Indian past.
Teaching a class on the early Indian past has been good for me because, as I
prepared for class, I also had a chance to think about what I would focus on
and where I was heading with my research. I am doing my research on the
transformation of a society based on chieftans into one based on
kingdoms. I am also interested in looking at when the Indian past was
reformulated, what are the sources that were used, and why. In creating a
single tradition from many traditions, what sources did they use, and which
ones did they omit?
What do you see yourself doing after your experience here at
Dartmouth? Do you see yourself becoming a full-time professor
again?
Professor Thapar: Well, I don’t see myself become a full-time
professor again. Right now I am pretty much solely focused on completing
my research and finishing my book. This project has occupied so much of
my time; I haven’t really had the time to think about what I would do
afterwards. I plan to spend at least some of my time traveling.
After so many years of teaching it will be nice to see many places that I have
not seen yet. Furthermore, I could see myself teaching perhaps for a
semester at another school in a similar way to how I have taught at
Dartmouth. I also plan on continuing to give lectures and am especially
looking forward to lecturing about my new work.
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