Praise for the Book

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“Namit Arora brings an enquiring mind, a clear head and a light touch to bear on a miscellany of Indian history’s foundational texts and most significant sites. Indians is illuminating, absorbing and a joy to read. I defy anyone to peruse it and not feel richly rewarded by its insights.”

        —John Keay, India: A History, The Spice Route

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“Namit Arora is one of the most acute observers of contemporary India, and in his new book he extends his gaze to the past. Resourcefully researched and elegantly written, Indians deepens our sense of the wonder that was India.”

        —Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger, An End to Suffering

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“Namit Arora is the finest kind of travel companion: curious, well-read, even-tempered, and imaginative. Touring India's oldest cities with him is an acute pleasure. Arora dissolves the time between the past and the present, revealing how complex and diverse India has always been, and how, by misunderstanding our history, we run the danger of mismanaging our present. Indians is both timely and necessary.”

        —Samanth Subramanian, A Dominant Character, This Divided Island

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“Options: spend a decade thinking and reading deeply about the early history of India, and going to all the key places. Or read this 250 page book, Indians, by someone who has done the work. An extraordinary feat of imaginative framing, achieved through close observation.”

        —Patrick French, India: A Portrait, The World Is What It Is (on Twitter)

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“Namit Arora researches like a scholar, travels like an adventurer, and tells the story of a civilization like a born storyteller. India has been written to death. Indians shows us that it can yet be written about in new and revealing ways.”

        —Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, poet, translator, anthologist

 

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“Namit Arora has created a gem of a book that is a joy to read. It defies categorisation, as it seamlessly combines travelogues, historical accounts and biographies. This approach brings alive ancient, medieval and modern India in such a way that you can almost touch and feel the centuries and millennia as they pass by. It takes a remarkable feat of insightful writing to cover such a long period within a single volume while also avoiding a top-down perspective. An easy, entertaining and engaging book.”

        —Tony Joseph, Early Indians

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“Possessed by wanderlust, Arora takes the reader on an intricate and perceptive journey through India, against the weight of the past and challenges of the present. In this beautifully crafted travelogue, Arora celebrates the momentous and the everyday in India’s history, offering astute observations on its cultural fabric, illuminating its richness and frailty with insight and compassion. A brilliant and original achievement.”

        —Assa Doron, Life on the Ganga, Waste of a Nation

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“Namit Arora takes us on a delightful journey through six magnificent archaeological sites and offers eloquent accounts of several major travelers of India. A gripping read with scholarly rigour, this book will interest both general readers and scholars.”

        —Devangana Desai, The Religious Imagery of Khajuraho

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“Indians is a wonderfully evocative book. I loved how Namit Arora invites the reader to reflect on the past, without overwhelming her with dry historical facts but luring her in with vivid human stories. Though not an academic historian, he is besotted with history, as I am, and has the rare and marvellous ability of humanising it for us. I particularly loved the astute way he gently, yet firmly, demolishes Hindutva readings of our past, which of course are fantasy with dire consequences for the present and indeed the future.”

        —Mohan Rao, former professor, School of Social Sciences, JNU

Book Reviews  |  Reader Reviews:  Amazon  /  Goodreads

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“[A] mega-ambitious project ... assumes added significance as it comes at a time when so much about India's present, politics and everyday conversations is an angry shouting match about its history ... The author is clearly not shy of discussing contentious issues ... [His] ability to compress a complex discussion on people, places, things across thousands of years and yet never let the reader once think of it as a shallow journey is a hallmark of the book.”

        —Seema Chishti, journalist and writer, The Hindu (PDF)

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“Painstakingly researched, Indians is a pleasure to read. Significant arguments accompany the utterly fascinating information showered by it. Any rival history that wishes to refute this book’s conclusions had better find credible dates and solid evidence, for Namit Arora has set a high bar.”

        —Rajmohan Gandhi, historian and biographer, Scroll.in (PDF)

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“A conducted tour [that] illuminates the enchanting history of India ... admirably demonstrates that a pride in one’s past can be invoked quite effectively by making it intelligible and bringing it alive, without having to needlessly glorify it.”

        —Salil Misra, historian, The Tribune (PDF)

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“[W]ell-researched ... aligns [on the Aryan migration] with the findings of research papers across various scientific disciplines by reputable scientists.”

        —Ram Kelkar, columnist, The Wire (PDF)

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“A very well put together snapshot of India’s long history ... Arora’s writing style is crisp, concise and well-reasoned. His keen observations, a sympathetic understanding of human nature and sense of humor make the reading of the book an enjoyable experience”.

        —Ruchira Paul, columnist, 3 Quarks Daily (PDF)

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“Ambitious, and audacious … deals with complex and knotty questions with confidence and elan.”

        —Somak Ghoshal, writer, Mint Lounge

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“If you like Indian history, I’d really recommend this book ... It’s sort of a travelogue mixed with historical research and a lot of myth-busting.”

        —Karan Madhok, editor and podcaster at The Chakkar

 

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“आज भारत में इतिहास-लेखन काफी अकादमिक और बोझिल-सा है. पर नमित अरोरा की यह पुस्तक बड़ी रोचक [और] अपने में एक उपलब्धि है जो भारतीय सभ्यता के लंबे इतिहास को जानने ओर समझने के लिए प्रश्नाकुल करती है ... इस पुस्तक में वह सब कुछ है जो आगे की यात्राओं के लिए प्रेरित करती है.”

        —Ravindra Tripathi, journalist, critic, author, Samalochan (PDF)

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“Arora is a deft writer: his excellent descriptions of the places he visits bring the reader along with him. Ancient is leavened with modern; the arcane made relevant ... [He pushes] back against what he sees as manipulation or even fabrication of India’s history for contemporary political ends.”

        —Peter Gordon, editor, Asian Review of Books (PDF)

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“A book about belonging; about walking in ancient places in search for an authentic identity ... Written in evocative, often ecstatic, prose, it fills the growing demand to draw a new narrative about being Indian ... replacing the dull, untrue or often motivated historical narrative with a more open, evidence-based and empathetic perspective on shaping the idea of India.”

        —Sudhirendar Sharma, writer, Outlook Magazine (PDF)

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“[E]ngrossing ... possesses both intellectual substance and popular appeal, and is difficult to slot in any one category ... an ambitious book ... with a clear thrust if not an agenda.”

        —Harish Trivedi, author, Biblio: A Review of Books (a response)

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“Arora’s gracious empiricism is the through line … His “lost worlds” have been excavated by others, yet no one has submitted them to such collective, enlightened inquiry.”

        —Max Carter, art specialist, Air Mail (PDF)

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“Indians offers [the reader] a place in the first row, where history is happening just in front of his/her eyes, and stories of the past are alive and full of meaning, even today.”

        —Mihaela Gligor, editor, Romanian Journal of Indian Studies (PDF)

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“Paints a vivid picture of the bygone days … very well researched and immensely engaging.”

        —Kumar Shree, writer, Discover India Magazine

Media Events

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07 Nov '24: A conversation at Jajam Cafe, Udaipur (info, pic)

28 Mar '24: Interviewed by Karan Thapar (video)

24 Mar '24: Interviewed by Pervez Hoodbhoy (video)

25 Oct '22: A lecture re: Indians at the Mountain View Public Library, CA (info, pic)

23 Apr '22: A lecture in the MasterClass series at Abhyankar's IAS Academy (info, tweet)

09 Oct '21: In conversation with Abdullah Khan, hosted by Kalinga Lit Fest (info, video)

24 Jun '21: An interview by Nicholas Gordon for the Asian Review of Books (audio)

09 Jun '21: In conversation with Cyrus Broacha on his live comedy show (audio, video)

25 Feb '21: A lecture re: Indians, hosted by Avid Learning and Bangalore Lit Fest (video)

13 Feb '21: In conversation with Vivek Menezes, co-curator of Goa Arts & Lit Fest (info)

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Email Interviews: Scroll, Frontlist

Excerpts: The Wire, ThePrint, Scroll, Live History India,

Himal Southasian, Open Magazine, The Dispatch,

SheThePeople, Impact News, Penguin India

Mentions: The Caravan, Mint, Mid-Day, The Hindu, FE, IANS, The Daily Guardian, etc.

Book Trailers

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Official Trailer (3:00 mins)

 

Musical Trailer (1:25 mins)

About the Author

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Namit Arora chose a life of reading and writing after cutting short his career in the Internet industry. Raised in the Hindi Belt, he lived in Louisiana, the San Francisco Bay Area, Western Europe, and travelled in scores of countries before returning to India over two decades later in 2013. He is the author of three books: (1) Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization, (2) The Lottery of Birth; On Inherited Social Inequalities, and (3) the novel  A California Story (US) | Love and Loathing in Silicon Valley (India). For more about him, visit shunya.net.