New Delhi, December 23
Indian democratic traditions go back to Vedic times and evidence of structures of people’s self-governance including sabhas, samitis and khap panchayats, can be traced back to at least 5000 BCE.
These conclusions are part of “India: The Mother of Democracy”, a project the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) undertook as part of the Indian presidency of the G-20.
The book, which Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, ICHR chief Raghuvendra Tanwar and ICHR member-secretary Umesh Kadam, presented to PM Narendra Modi on Friday, features 30 research articles by historians and archaeologists who studied the nation’s past from what they call a “geo-cultural” rather than a “geo-political” perspective.
“The geo-political perspective came from colonial historians who sidestepped any stress on our civilisational democratic ethos and reduced everything to the Mughals and British history.,” Kadam said.
