Historian Romila Thapar argues that dissent is neither uniquely Indian nor an idea imported from Europe under colonial rule. In a 2020 interview about her book Voices of Dissent: An Essay, she describes questioning as a recurring force in intellectual and religious life, from debates over Vedic Brahmanism to modern political protest. Her examples show how dissent could reshape ideas and society, while also warning against treating India’s past as one seamless tradition.
How Thapar defines dissent—and why it matters
Thapar uses dissent broadly: questioning ideas, theories, practices and beliefs. She treats it as part of the pursuit of knowledge, not simply as opposition to authority or a modern political right. As she puts it, “Dissent is not specifically Indian but is present in India as it is elsewhere.”
That point challenges two opposing simplifications: that dissent is foreign to Indian history, or that Indian culture has always been a unified, unchanging whole. Thapar instead presents questioning and debate as forces that have helped produce cultural and religious change. She points to the Upanishads as “a superb example of the creativity of asking questions.”
Historical examples across periods
Shramana traditions and Vedic Brahmanism
Thapar identifies Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas as Shramana traditions that questioned Vedic Brahmanism. In her account, their challenges prompted extended discussion. She points to Ashoka’s inscriptions and sections of the Mahabharata as evidence of a wider environment of debate.
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Bhakti as religious language for social criticism
Thapar cites the Bhakti poet Ravidas’s vision of a society without caste hierarchy as an example of dissent expressed through religious thought. She also notes that some Muslims participated in Krishna bhakti. The qualification matters: her example concerns some individuals, not a uniform position held by an entire community.
Anti-colonial action and Gandhi’s satyagraha
In discussing modern dissent, Thapar describes Gandhi’s satyagraha as drawing on the moral value of the renouncer figure. The example links a modern political method to older ethical ideas without implying that the traditions involved were identical.
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Shaheen Bagh and citizenship rights
Thapar treats the women-led Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act as a secular articulation of citizenship rights and inclusive dissent. The example places political protest within her broader account of questioning, rather than presenting dissent as belonging to only one religious or social tradition.
Discontent, dissent and revolt are not the same
Thapar distinguishes spontaneous discontent from organized revolt. “Discontent leads to sporadic and spontaneous outbursts,” she says; revolt, by contrast, generally requires organization, leadership, finance and a willingness to use violence.
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She suggests that migration might sometimes have served as an alternative to revolt, but presents this as a possibility rather than a settled explanation. The interview leaves open whether peasants actually moved in such circumstances or used the threat of migration as leverage. That uncertainty cautions against treating every episode of discontent as an organized challenge or assuming a single explanation for why revolt did or did not occur.
Why Thapar resists monolithic accounts of Indian history
Thapar criticizes histories that reduce India’s past to the story of its majority community or explain medieval events solely through Hindu-Muslim religious hostility. She calls for attention to new sources, methods and more complex explanations. The point is not to replace one simple story with another, but to recognize that historical actors and traditions did not always fit a single communal narrative.
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She also explicitly distinguishes Hinduism from Hindutva. Those terms should not be treated as interchangeable: the interview places them within a debate about how history is interpreted and how modern political categories are applied to the past.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The interview and its historical claims
These examples and interpretations are Thapar’s argument as presented in Rohan Venkataramakrishnan’s Scroll.in interview, published October 31, 2020, on the occasion of her book Voices of Dissent: An Essay from Seagull Books. The interview is a useful account of her framework, not an independent survey of the historical scholarship or a comprehensive account of every tradition and period she discusses.
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