Prof. Romila Thapar delivers the Prof. Satish Chandra Memorial Lecture
Oct 13, 2020
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Historians in earlier years had tended to neglect the subject of migration but now it is receiving attention. Migrations are being differentiated from the other forms of the movement of people, such as invasions and settlers. The questions we now ask are, what are the differences between these various categories, and which are the social categories that migrate, and what impact do migrants have on the host society – the society in which they come and settle ?
The lecture will discuss two categories of migrants, the pastoralists and the traders and will be confined to the early period of Indian history, namely up to about the fourteenth century. The geographical areas will be migrations from Central Asia to northern India in the first case and from west Asia to the west coast of India in the second. A fundamental difference between the two categories is that pastoral migrants tend to come to a new area, set up scattered settlements and tend to not return to their homelands. Traders tend to do the reverse since they stay in the cities where they have their trading partners. Even when they settle in the host societies there is a minimum connection between their homeland and where they have settled.
The interface between the host society and the migrant settlement frequently results in elements of new cultures. These can be changed versions of a language, new social customs and new deities or forms of worship.
