The Present colonizes the Past by Romila Thapar - third Kapila Vatsyayan Lecture -2026

In a time when any form of critical interrogations are bulldozed and penalized, well-researched and thoroughly evidenced histories are replaced by pop, fictionalized and manipulated histories, and educational institutions are violently attacked and reduced to breeding grounds of fascist propaganda, this book by Prof. Romila Thapar, an extended version of her Third Dr. Kapil Vatsayana Memorial Lecture that was delivered in 2025, in a very simple and straightforward way explains why celebrating unevidenced pop histories at the cost of erasing evidenced-based histories is not only dangerous, but is also a form of recycling the colonial patterns of expropriations and appropriations. Written in a very simple and lucid way, this book speaks to all.