Historian Manu Pillai interview on hot history debates & colourful stories| Shoma Chaudhury@IGNITION 

Manu is a brilliant young historian. Wish Shoma had used some amount of restraint and restricted her interjections/interventions to short questions. Instead she went into long monologues about what she had read etc which kinda felt that she was showing off her supposed understanding and reading of history. Anyways, kudos to Manu for maintaining a calm demeanour throughout despite repeated comparisons with another authors who writes on history.

Shoma is my favourite anchor. I like her introductions and it’s simply beautifull. Her comments and interferences make this event special and move on the right track. Love you Shoma ❤

I have a feeling she should have instead interviewed Vikram Sampath 😂 Goodness! This lady really likes him 😄

Shoma has done grave injustice in putting Manu and Vikram in the same sentence. Manu is a historian, Vikram is a propagandists who uses history in his books.

Great interview. Some of the comments show why people need to come out of their own cages.

Manu just brushed off Amit shaws idea of history!

A thought and a knowledgeable interview.

... interesting...!!!

0:49 Thank you... thank you.... thank so much Manu. My sentiments exactly though I am student of Philosophy and not a historian but I have relied on works or R.S. Sharma and Romila Thapar to study concepts of justice and well being in ancient India

45:08 wow... absolutely correct.... we have a huge history of indologists who have studied many native kings and kingdoms... their stories have always been in the mainstream indology.

Am a huge enthusiast of Shomaji 's work !!!! 🌎🇮🇳🌟⭐✨💯🥇🔝🏆

Amazing delivery Manu

A good perspective on history. Unfortunately nowadays people writing on history or evaluating isues become advocates rather than academicians

Hi Shoma, it would have made sense to include someone from the other side like Vikram Sampath. Otherwise, there is nobody to counter the points raised in this 'debate'.

Manu..choose the right and logical path, because I believe all are smart..😢😢

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

14:13 Plundering temples as in ransack of its wealth Vs defiling statues due to maxims of a religious doctrine - are they alike?

Manu said that Nehru and Gandhi made Jail as a fashion ,yes really it was an inspiration too and Savarkar's metamorphosis from a secular to a Hindu preacher also have to have a rethink why so? May be during that period Jail might be torturing that much even the character be changed even the person himself!

Have some shame Shoma Ji. You shouldn't have spoken so much about Vikram Sampath when he was not on stage. It is ok when we speak about done and dusted historians as they are not available to explain but referring to contemporary historian in round about critical way when is absent, is utterly being dishonest. Just trying to propogate your world view

Its very sad that anchor has compared the killings of Hindus and Christian and conversion to resurrection of temple.

37:27 PRECISELY.... AGENCY... NATIVE RESISTANCE

Manu Pillai, ... you ask the question, why is it that where stories about women are concerned, we only value stories of valour. That is a question that you should have answered and helped us understand why we are that way..

Shoma, please could you call Shiv Nadar as शिव नाडार (it's not नादार or नादर).

The fact that people consider a talented patriotic young historian like Manu Pillai who praised Shivaji in the very beginning as a propagandist, tells how much brainwashed they are by the Hindu taliban.

Argments? You might get more views if you didn't have a TYPO in your THUMBNAIL!!

Manu: dont look for hyper masculinity in history Also Manu: why do you glorify hyper masculine like Johar, glorify who stood against people like Janabai.. And this in his mind is not hyper masculinity 😂

Manu pilai❤🌹

Adil Shaw loved kathakali? Getting confused there?

Last of the pseudo seculars .....

Ashok Pandey(The credible history) has written book in Hindi,Niranjan takle(journalist) has researched in western world,can talk to them,if u care to read this.,'Masculine assertion is an ego defence born out of low self esteem., as for khilafat ,Ali brothers went to Gandhiji asking for support for unseating their caliphate after destroying Ottoman empire, political issue not areligious one(Prof. Ishtiaq ahmed,stockholm),got support of Muslims at large for effort in swaraj,he was critical of violence,religious conversion,seems ploy of an envious man seeking to displace Gandhi,the other sat in the lap of the British to partition INDIA I.E. BHARAT😅,those on that side r talking about him in open .

Sreejith ips😁

I/ We agree with what he says which is appropriate for the time. However politicians especially right or left wing politicians often use their own interpretation of history be it the social milieu, the cultural past or alliances in war and peacetime as stance of the day Morever history itself is often narrative of interpretation of right or wrong or good versus evil, irrespective of situation.

He is definitely good at trivialising anything controversial, whitewashing with...oh but look they also did something good/something useful was also done. The end result is the dilution of crimes by pushing false equivalence and bringing up irrelevant complexity where not much exists.

Mappila, formerly anglicised as Moplah/Mopla, the same Mopla that massacred people 22:41.

After seeing manu s pillai i am coming to conclusion that he is some how trying to tell that muslim are good hearted people ..he may be true at some level may be ..but cherry picking muslim in his books is very doubtful 😊

A smart intelligent person. But not overloaded with modesty. The way he referred to JN Sircar generation’s lack of feminine perspective . Was there much scope of adopting a feminine perspective in the kind of history Sircar was writing? On many issues he has a tendency to generalize too quickly. For example, about the sacred geographic and consciousness of a civilizational unity. For a common Keralte Kashi was just a concept. The Pandas (the traditional priestly families catering to the ritual needs of pilgrims) maintained meticulous records of visiting pilgrims. There is record of considerable pilgrims from Kerala visiting Kashi. Any pilgrim returning to the village would narrate his experience to scores of other eager villagers. Kashi to them wouldn’t be just an idea, but something real; flesh and blood reality. In Moplah Ramayana Surpanakha’s evocation of Shariat is as important as their adoption of Ramayana. It’s a neither here nor there kind of evidence. Sanskrit and Brahmanas is another issue not adequately probed. Sanskrit or Sanskritic knowledge tradition was no monopoly of Brahmanas. This popular perception is not borne out by facts and needs to be abandoned. And, then, there’s is the question of folk vs written. Folk just by virtue of being folk doesn’t become more authentic. Truth evaluation doesn’t always conform to democratic norm. The fact of the matter is that most of the historians, particularly the present ones in our country, have political agenda to promote.

Hehe.. Clearly shows how much Romila brigade is triggered due to the scholarship by the likes of Vikram 😄 Most of the points by Manu are just vague statements and conclusions without discussing much on any particular topic...

I found the anchor, Shima quite irritating . Like she was feeling a little powerless and constantly wanted to make irrelevant or at times redundant injunctions, (just my opinion). Reminds me of the psuedo intellectuals I had to endure... save that, it was a great one hour , worth every minute.

shomaji is enjoying ego massage by calling useless historians and writers like this one.. good luck .. continue bashing and ignoring the real history

Sickular licking up each other 😂

Pseudo secularism

He is talking strangely and doesn't have any idea of Islam. Even to begin with prophet of Islam, it has been an imperialistic cult. In Islam, religion and politics / imperialism are two sides of same coin that divide humans into Momin and Kafir.

Muslim bad Hindu good is such a bad way of looking at history. But sadly that is what Is famous because they don't have to think much. Well junk food is what is famous among the masses I guess.

His surname is pillai itself shows the caste system of the past, and he is sponsored by the travancore royal family

Nothing more than a Sickular propagandist !

Propagandists working overtime after Indians have woken up due to people like Sai Deepak and Vikram Sampath.