William Dalrymple has long been a celebrated historian of India, known for his deep dives into the country’s colonial past and Mughal history. His works, such as White Mughals and The Last Mughal, painted nuanced portraits of cultural syncretism, exploring the intersections between British and Indian identities. However, his recent remarks at the India Today Conclave reveal a shift in his intellectual focus.
Dalrymple’s latest enthusiasm is for India’s intellectual and philosophical influence on the world, particularly through Buddhism and ancient Indian universities like Nalanda. He passionately described Nalanda as the “Harvard, Oxbridge, and NASA of its day,” situating it as the world’s foremost centre of learning.
He highlighted how Chinese monk Xuanzang journeyed to Bihar with scrolls in hand, knowing that Nalanda was the pinnacle of knowledge. Moreover, Dalrymple noted that the architectural layout of modern Western universities—quads surrounded by scholars’ rooms—originated in India, specifically at Nalanda.
This framing is a departure from Dalrymple’s earlier works, which often focused on India’s colonial and Mughal histories, where British-Indian hybridity and Persianate culture took centre stage. Now, he is placing ancient Indian civilisation at the heart of global intellectual history, highlighting its influence on China, Southeast Asia, and beyond.
Dalrymple’s evolving narrative aligns with a growing movement in India that calls for a more comprehensive understanding of the country’s past. Prof. Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, in a recent op-ed, argued that Indian history as taught in schools has long suffered from ideological bias, selective narratives, and regional imbalances.
Prof. Pandit pointed out that history textbooks have glorified the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and the British Raj while marginalising equally significant civilisations like the Cholas, Vijayanagar, Pandyas, and Ahoms. According to her, this distorted focus limits a proper understanding of India’s civilisational diversity and weakens national consciousness.
“A history that ignores half its population is inherently incomplete. The urgent need for course correction cannot be overstated. Indian history must break free from ideological and regional biases, embrace the richness of its diverse past, and acknowledge the contributions of all communities and genders. Only then can it be a foundation for an informed and united society.”
Dalrymple’s new emphasis on India’s intellectual and cultural contributions—rather than just its colonial encounters—echoes this broader call for historical recalibration. In fact, as I said above, Dalrymple’s shift from chronicling Mughal grandeur to championing India’s civilisational legacy marks a significant evolution in his scholarship. Whether this is a genuine intellectual realignment or a strategic adaptation to contemporary discourse remains debatable.
Prof. Om Dwivedi aptly puts it, “It is refreshing to see Dalrymple acknowledging the urgency to reinforce the ‘lost centrality of India’ in the global narrative of misinformation, mired as it is in racial and hierarchical formulations of geopolitics. Evidently, there is a need to stretch our analytical gaze, as both Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit and Utpal Kumar have repeatedly emphasised.”
“History is always dialogical; it is another matter that it has been coded for a long time with a particular ideology and color. Only time will tell if Dalrymple’s move is a step in restoring India’s rich history or a gimmick to get noticed for self-serving reasons.”
Interestingly, Dalrymple’s narrative now overlaps with intellectual positions held by figures like Prof. Rajiv Malhotra and Koenraad Elst—scholars he has previously been at odds with. Malhotra, who has long argued that Western historians have downplayed India’s contributions, noted that Dalrymple seems to have adopted many of his positions after years of resisting them. Similarly, Elst remarked that “the White Mughal has become a real Indian chauvinist” and suggested that Dalrymple should extend his focus further back to Takshashila, the great Vedic-era university of 500 BCE.
This shift in Dalrymple’s perspective raises more questions than answers, prominent being: Is it a genuine intellectual evolution or a strategic response to the changing discourse on India’s history?
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