James Mill produced his three-volume ‘History of British India’ in 1817, which is a momentous year in the relationship of Britain with India. The Marathas lost their third and final war to the British the same year and a large part of the Indian subcontinent came under the British dominion. Ronald Inden in ‘Imagining India’ says that Mill’s ‘History’ is a hegemonic text. And indeed, it is because Mill used the text to describe Indians, in particular the Hindus, as savage and barbarian from as many vantage points as possible. His twisted and distorted narrative, set in motion 200 years ago, is the primary paradigm in which the history, culture, politics, governance, and sociology of Hindus are described in academia even today. This talk gives a brief biography of James Mill and an overview of the ways in which his hate-filled enunciation have become an integral part of the mainstream discourse on Hindus in academia and media.
