Garud An Entirely New History of INDIA

“This book seeks to dismantle the cliches, to clarify the controversies, and to retrace, as accurately as possible, the most significant periods of Indian history – history much older than previously thought.”Francois Gautier (1950- ) was born in Paris and has lived in India for the past five decades. He is a successful journalist and the author of several books. I first came across his book “An Entirely New History of India” in a bookstore and was intrigued by the passage quoted above. Later, I ordered this book on Amazon India and have read it over the past few days.The book being reviewed consists of 31 chapters, which cover the history of India (in fact, the Indian sub-continent, as they necessarily include information on present-day Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, etc.) starting from pre-history to speculations on the future. There are no photographs, charts or other illustrations to support the text. However, there is a glossary (which seems superfluous for Indian readers), followed by a bibliography in which majority of the cited sources are in French. The academically inclined reader will be disappointed to find that there are no references, endnotes or index.The first 12 chapters deal with Ancient History, up to the Mauryan empire. Here the author challenges much of the history taught in our schools. For instance, he questions the Aryan Invasion theory and says that the Harappan civilization was spread along the Saraswati as well as the Indus rivers. According to the author, this region had pre-Harappan civilizations as far as 7000 BC (compared to 2500 – 3000 BC given by established historians). In another departure from commonly held beliefs, he says that the Emperor Ashoka, far from being a pacifist, “reveled in acts of violence, war and bloodshed” and points out that none of the Ashoka’s inscriptions express sorrow, remorse or regret. Such unconventional claims have been supported by just a handful of references in the text and a series of ten footnotes which do not extend beyond the sixth chapter.It is significant that this book was originally written in French and later translated into English by Jean-Yves Lung. While some shortcomings in the prose can be blamed on poor translation, the author and the publisher cannot escape responsibility for factual errors and inconsistencies. For example, on page 82, we are introduced to Bindusara (296-213 BCE), the son and successor of Chandragupta Maurya. On page 85, Chapter 11 begins as follows, “In 274 BCE, Bindusara fell seriously ill and died.” Elsewhere, there are repeated references to “Box, page xx”, but there is no such page in the book!Mediaeval History is covered in just three chapters, of which one is devoted to the Delhi Sultanate and another to the Mughals. While the great empires of South India, such as the Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas are touched upon, there is no mention of the flourishing Gupta empire, the kingdom of Harshvardhan or the travels of Chinese pilgrims like Fa Xien and Hsuen Tsang (Xuanzang).Modern History is covered from the sixteenth chapter onwards, focusing on the arrival of Portuguese, French and British traders. This portion also has numerous errors – for instance, on page 128 it is mentioned that the Battle of Plassey took place in 1759, while on the next page it is correctly stated that the said battle took place in 1757.On page 129, the author asks a rhetorical question “Was Clive corrupt?” and answers it by saying “This was not the opinion of the Queen of England, who made him ‘Baron Clive of Plassey’, decorating him on his return to England.” The reader may well ask the author, “Which queen did you mean?” as Elizabeth I, the last Queen of England had died in 1503 and the United Kingdom did not have any reigning queen between the death of Queen Anne in 1714 and the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837. As for Clive, he had returned to England with an ill-gotten fortune and King George III had made him an Irish peer, which was less prestigious than being an English peer with a seat in the House of Lords. As William Dalrymple writes in “Anarchy” (2019): “He had returned to London with the intention of entering politics and quickly used his wealth to buy a rotten borough.” In other words, he entered the House of Commons through bribery. Later he faced trial by the British Parliament for his misdeeds in India and ultimately died by suicide.It is said in Chapter 19 that Lord Dalhousie followed the doctrine of “pre-emption” to bar adopted children of Indian rulers from inheriting their thrones. In fact, this was called the “Doctrine of Lapse”.On page 144, we are told about the impact of the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon: “The protest movement spread to other states: Punjab, with Ajoy Singh, Tamil Nadu with Chidambaram Pillay, and Maharashtra with Bipin Chandra Pal.” I am unable to identify Ajoy Singh, unless the author meant Lala Lajpat Rai, known as “the Lion of Punjab”. As for Chidambaram Pillai, he belonged to Tirunelveli which was then a part of Madras Presidency – Tamil Nadu did not come into existence till 1956, long after Pillai’s death. Bipin Chandra Pal was from Bengal, not Maharashtra. Perhaps the author intended to refer to the hardliner “Garam Dal” within the Congress Party, whose leaders were popularly known as “Lal-Bal-Pal” ie Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal, who belonged to Punjab, Maharashtra and Bengal respectively.It is hard to give much credibility to an author who writes on history with a such a casual approach towards both facts and dates.Parting thought: Is it realistic to expect a book on the history of India to be just 210 pages long? It is rather like an ambitious bus tour of Europe which promises to take you to 9 countries in 7 days – and you later realise that the number of countries includes the one where you had merely stopped to stretch your legs for a few minutes in middle of the night!

Must read book for history loving people.... Books cover main empire and people which influence bharat....

A book on history of India, clear perspective and presentation.

Maybe meant for western audience.. details were obvious to me, maybe since I already have read quite a lot of history

Just finished reading this book.A good book written sadly by a French historian rather than an Indian.A few issues I have with this book. Although it has been researched well covering Indian history right from the Prehistoric times, River Saraswati, Indus civilisation, etc. the author has not covered the times of Chattrapati Shivaji and the Peshwas. He has dedicated chapters to the Mughal Kingdom even the Portuguese invasion but just a mention or two of the Chattrapati, let alone Bajirao and the Peshwas and the third Panipat war.Secondly he has dedicated chapters to Gandhi, Nehru, The Italian waitress, PM Modi but has not mentioned leaders like Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak or Veer Savarkar or the Rebellious Bhagat Singh.Overall a good read but yea again the leaders who badly need to be projected have just found some mentions in the book and many not even that.

The book is very well written. Almost 5000 years of Indian history has been concisely compressed in a single book. Francois Gautier delights us with lot of unknown and interesting facts about ancient India and it's people. I feel the book should have covered few topics in greater details.

Every Indian should read this book to understand our history

This is an amazing book and informs so much about the TRUE history of India, can't wait to finish reading the entire book. As Indians, I feel it is our duty and responsibility to know the true history of India based on facts and researches and free of the colonial version of the history. This book exactly does that! I love it and would strongly recommend it to each and every Indian !!

The true history of India spanning thousands of years is narrated in this book. It covers all parts of India and is a fresh look at this ancient civilization.