Rohan Basu
@1eyedpessimist
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PhD in Comparative History @CEU British Empire in South Asia, Jesuits, Science and Religion in the 19th century.
Vienna, Austria
Joined January 2014
"All that is solid melts into thin air" Peer-review is not gatekeeping. Academia is not 'gate-kept' by academics - 'inaccessibility' is not in 'difficult papers', but in the neoliberal reorganisation of knowledge. 'Science' is public facing, but that doesn't discount peer review.
Hate to be that person but this is a perfect plug-in for my last piece (yet again). Every other piece of podcast, reel, shortform video and naming all art/films/reportage as “#content” now….All of it and the rise of anti-intellectualism + RW capture. https://t.co/eWWKgapeYf
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This person is such an embarrassment, she thinks that YouTube and a serious public history project is the same. Oh well.
@1eyedpessimist Yes, Arunava translated it in English, that'll get it readers outside of Bengali speaking population (widen its reach) but its reach is still very limited. Like I said, Debarati is aware of this. Especially given how a lot of it is aimed at school children. Unlike your dúngbrain
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Good list for those who want to look into this stuff.
Before people start pointing fingers at the less senior academics for not doing Public history work, listing some ongoing projects: Delhi’s oral histories, The ownership of Public history in India, Itihashe hatekhori, an in prep graphic novel on migrant labourers and food culture
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"Itihase Hatekhori' (History for beginners) is a project conducted jointly by academics from the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata @IDSKolkata, and the Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung South Asia. It's an accessible series for anyone interested in understanding Indian history.
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Oftentimes, people accuse historians of not acknowledging and engaging with the public: they are either uninformed, or they lie. This is what serious public history looks like: https://t.co/nuSibaVgvY
ruralindiaonline.org
First History Lessons: The Languages of Our Country is the English language translation of the book Itihase Hatekhari: Desher Bhasha. The Bengali original was written by Debarati Bagchi, a senior...
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Thank you @kunalkamra88! It was lovely talking to you. Trade unions, labour movements, solidarity, education, constitution: lots of things came up within the space of just an hour!
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Probably a good time to reshare this article co-wrote with my friend @SGuha03 People need to understand why Indians at large feel a gulf with academic historians, it's linked to their sense of identity, which doesn't match rigorous research.
deccanherald.com
Throughout India’s history, there have been attempts to reinforce a simplistic communal perspective that erases historical nuance and complexity.
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This idiot doesn't understand that ISI is the Indian Statistical Institute. Then again, I guess I'm the fool for expecting this idiot to get it.
@1eyedpessimist YouTube gives stats on who watches my video with age, place, preferences, will not be sharing it publicly, so much of the info is extremely sensitive. But more than that I've plenty of emails and DMs of people telling me how my videos have helped them change their views. Anyone
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'Progressive' people though will CELEBRATE a woman who confirms their intellectual moorings for doing exactly that WHILE being a woman because it's 'brave'. Not saying you're not brave, but your audience is set, by how people perform politics and how the algorithm feeds on that.
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What is popular is that which confirms existing biases of whoever is engaging with it. A right winger will NOT engage with content that they perceive as 'left wing'.
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Popular historians' really need to think why popular history is popular in the first place and who it's popular with. There's no intersection between those who will read a Dalrymple book and those who read their history from The Organiser/Gita Press.
"Recording a video inside 4 walls is easy for a woman in India". Dúngbrain here doesn't know how extremely difficult it is for a woman to be anti authoritarian in India, practice her craft, while showing her face. Bruv, my reach and the effect of my work on YouTube is 100k times
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@tishasaroyan thinks stylistic narration, AV, and accessibility is the reason why history as a discipline is going to be saved in India. She thinks that her YouTube videos will fix the problem of universities, and she's gonna talk communalism away.
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"Because acads are letting it die" no it's because of neoliberalism. Education is still fine for the few who can afford it, it still has jobs for those who are rich enough to run that gauntlet smoothly. You are saying that a company like Google is opposing neoliberalism?
@SGuha03 Of course I am a fantastic historian. Classroom is dying because acads are letting it die by literally doing nothing about it. And I don't think all was good before 2014, which is why I said people in this country hate history, find it boring, useless. That is way before the RSS
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"Women have made all spaces more democratic" I'm sure Margaret Thatcher agrees. You do know that it's she who was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the dismal state of British unis and public education in general in the UK, right?
@SGuha03 No space is automatically democratic, it has to be made democratic. As a woman I swear by this, all women have made spaces more democratic, none were democratic to begin with. Acads these days don't read, do they?!
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That isn't how it works though, because the real fight isn't against 'untruth', it's about power - and truth doesn't displace that.
@AnjaliMody1 Venting to what purpose. Popular historians are simply taking serious history to masses using pop route. In a world under such grave threat of untruth, the more ways and more voices to tell real history the better.
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Imagine saying this to Voltaire after he finds out that the source he used, the 'Ezourvedam' was a Jesuit forgery written to critique Hindu superstition: Voltaire's only interest was in undermining the authority of the Catholic Church by using India to disprove Biblical history.
Our PM @narendramodi ji have declared "Pãnch Pran". One of them is to get rid of Colonial mindset. It is a deep seated problem.
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In dealing with such nitwits, scholars must not make knowledge based rebuttals. Cede to them their superiority and tell them that they will still go unacknowledged. The Sangh cannot be fought with empirica and theory, they will simply keep crying victimhood - feed that complex.
@1eyedpessimist @GhoshSamyak @PannalalChakr11 না, আধুনিক কালের ইতিহাসবিদরা আমার উল্লেখ করা কারোর সাথেই engage করেন নি। সুশোভন সরকার বিশ্বভারতীতে অল্প কয়েকদিনের জন্য প্রশাসনিক পদে ছিলেন। সেটা engage করা নয়। আধুনিক কালের ইতিহাসবিদরা বরং ওনাদের সম্পূর্ণ শিকেয় তুলে দিয়েছেন। রবীন্দ্রনাথের দু একটা বাছাই করা লেখা ছাড়া
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When you see puffed up buffoons celebrating Orsini's deportation, don't try to defend her on scholarly grounds. They don't care. They think only Indians should study on India. Just tell them about the extensive Indian archival material abroad and watch the meltdown.
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Sneak peek into my ongoing PhD research on Jesuits in colonial Calcutta. https://t.co/E5f58aLPqd
indianexpress.com
Eugène Lafont arrived in Calcutta in 1865 as a Catholic missionary with a deep commitment to scientific education, and his vision aligned more closely with Indian aspirations for intellectual...
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had to unblock grok for this. totally worth it
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