Comments by "M Shastri" (@libshastra) on "Did Civilization Begin in India?" video.

  1. People like Frawley are a result of the Indian academic system. India never invested much in tertiary education particularly when it comes to subjects like liberal arts and history - basic sciences was the priority. This left a huge vacuum in this space for Frawley to come and capture the discourse. Let us back up a bit. So in India, history is taught as one single truth of dates rather than as a science that evolves based on archeology, artefacts and analysis. The other issue is the entire academic foundation is built on rote learning rather than subjective analysis or critical thinking. So any interpretation outside of word to word reproduction of textbook would get you a failing grade. The entire teaching system is geared towards passing exams based on memorization. It is a criminal way to teach any subject especially history. So this system dictates one interpretation and doesn't let the student explore their subject and test out ideas. The system also hasn't updated itself in a long long time. The grade 8 history textbooks are still the same as they were 25 years ago when I was in grade 8. My university syllabus and it's textbooks hasn't changed much in the past 15 years. So that should you give an idea of what it's like to study in India. :-/ So when new evidence doesn't present itself in textbooks as one would expect, they blame the historians on top. And to add more fuel to the fire, some of these historians openly stated that they will interprete it in a Marxist manner. This is where the notion that Indian history is written by Marxists comes from. It is very unfortunate because a rich history which needs due attention gets mired in nonsense because the Indian State never bothered to invest in education. Good video.
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  2.  @WorldofAntiquity  no problem. I think you are doing a good job. Just thought I'd share, why do many Indians believe in a lot of basement theories. It might help you understand some of the comments too.
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  3.  @WorldofAntiquity  check out the article titled, "Babri, Saraswati, Aryans – There are rival Indian histories now and campuses are the warzone" published on the Print.
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