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Book Reviews : UPINDER SINGH, Ancient Delhi, Delhi

Article  in  Indian Economic & Social History Review · January 2002

DOI: 10.1177/001946460203900415

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Sunil Kumar
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This is not to suggest, of course, that the book is without considerable value.
Jalal has given us detailed reconstructions of important (and understudied) Punjabi
political movements, such as the Ahrar; she has provided much new information
drawn from hitherto not commonly used sources; and she has underscored the
critical importance of the tortured dynamics of Punjabi popular politics in shaping
the events leading to partition. All of this will prove very useful to historians. But
she has structured her arguments not as a contribution to scholarly dialogue on
the history of Indian Muslims in this period, but simply as an answer to polemicists
who have seen modern Indian history as shaped by a monolithic Muslim com-
munity driven by communalism. Unfortunately, given its length and mass of detail,
this book is no more likely to succeed as an intervention in polemical debate than
as an effective contribution to scholarly dialogue

David Gilmartin
North Carolina State University

UPINDER SINGH, Ancient Delhi, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 114.

In the conclusion of her book, Upinder Singh remarked:_ ‘.... When we lose the
signs of our past we lose the past itself’ (p. 107). This is certainly an apt observation,
especially when we take into account how modernist teleologies of state formation
and different varieties of nationalist interpretations have circumscribed Delhi’s
past largely to that of an ancient and medieval capital. Upinder Singh’s book
breaks away from this limited script. For a study of Delhi’s ancient history, Dr
Singh stresses, scholars are reliant primarily upon the skills of the archaeologist
and the epigraphist; there are few material remains, and the information in ancient
literature is scanty and difficult to date. ’The story of Delhi’s ancient past,’ she
notes, ’lies mostly underground, concealed by layers of accumulated soil and
debris’ (p. 3). And it is this past, obscured not just by the soil but also generations
of myth and folklore, that Upinder Singh focuses upon in her eminently readable
book.
Dr Singh’s book is organised chronologically in eight chapters. The book, there-
fore, travels through a discussion of Stone Age sites, late Harappan settlements,
PGW finds at Indraprastha, Asoka and the Mauryas, the age of small political
formations, the Guptas and ends with the Rajputs. As Dr Singh traverses the history
of Delhi, she gently takes the reader through a basic explanation of archaeological
methods and discusses how its conclusions are often at variance with the written
record. For instance, opulent descriptions of the Pandava city in the Mahabharat
epic are deliberately contrasted with the meagre archaeological evidence on
urbanisation. The meagre finds of Painted Grey Ware sherds (roughly 1000-500
BC) from the Indraprastha excavations in the Purana Qil’a do not suggest the
presence of an important political centre; in fact, excavations in the neighbouring
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regions of Tilpat, Sihi and Bisrakh were richer in yield. For that matter the dearth
of material remains and the nature of the humble dwellings at various sites from
the Gupta period does not suggest the presence of a complex urban settlement in
Delhi, a moment that some historians would mark as India’s ’Golden Age’.
The stress on the study of the past through its material remains also means that
Dr Singh writes the history of Delhi differently from the way historians might.
The archaeological evidence, correctly in my opinion, underlines the relatively
long duration of human habitation in the Delhi region, but it also serves to stress
the relatively short history of the city itself. The city, properly speaking, was
constructed by the Tomaras only in the middle of the eleventh century when there
was some temple construction and the establishment of [at least] one fort.
While archaeological evidence certainly complicates our understanding of
Delhi’s ancient history, I wonder if the use of some other evidence-numismatic,
for example-may have helped to nuance some of the author’s conclusions, espe-
cially in the chapter on the Rajputs. Delhi did, after all, lend its name to a billion
coin, the dihliwala, which had a considerable circulatory ambitus over a huge
time period. As textual references and the ruined temples from the region confirm,
Delhi also possessed a sizeable Jaina population whose origins, role and influence
in the urban economy still remain unclear. Under the Chauhans, whose primary
headquarter was in Ajmer, Delhi was evidently an outpost, but a frontier town
whose remains suggest an intriguing level of economic activity. Moving way
from the narrative of the mythical origins of the capital, the contribution of Rajput
heroes and Sultanate iconoclasts, one wonders if archaeological evidence can
provide further information on commercial exchange and production within the
larger ’Delhi region’?
Dr Singh consistently tries to relocate the contexts of the residents in the Delhi
plain before the first millennium CE. Some of the most interesting accounts in the
book relate to the manner in which ancient artefacts are reinterpreted and reworked
by modern residents outside scriptural, cosmological Brahmanical norms. These
are fascinating accounts even if they are not always historically contextualised or

integrated theoretically into an argument concerning intersubjective readings and

[oppositional] identity formations. Shail Mayaram’s Resisting Regimes and other
writings would provide useful directions for a further development of these
insights. Be that as it may, the integration of oral evidence with the archaeological
allows Upinder Singh to further question the conclusions of a textually based
historiography.
As this book brings out forcefully, if one follows Delhi’s history carefully it
can open questions that can interrogate the manner in which we read our present.
In the present iconography of Delhi, the Pandavas, Indraprastha and now Prithviraj
Chauhan play important roles in marking a new identity for the capital of the
nation. In Dihli-i Kuhna, the old capital of Iltutmish, Balban and ’Ala al-Din
Khalji, a new statue of Prithviraj Chauhan has been placed. By the banks of the
southern course of the Jumna, where the sufi Nizam al-Din Awliya taught, where
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qawwals participated in sama sessions, a new park with dancing fountains et al. is
envisaged. And if you have not guessed it, the new park will be called Indraprastha.
Indeed, in the contexts of what is happening in Delhi today, Upinder Singh’s
warnings about losing the past in this book are salutary.
Sunil Kumar
University of Delhi

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