History or tradition? Exploring Adivasi pasts in 19th century Jharkhand
Scholars of colonial and post-colonial India have widely agreed that the earliest Indian manifestation
of history as a rational-positivist discipline occurred in the nationalist historiography of the late-19th
and early-20th centuries. The British colonizers’ use of history as a tool of self-legitimation rested on
the stereotypical assumption that India lacked a proper historical consciousness. This should not,
however, erase other possible forms of historical memory which existed even in pre-colonial times.