India: 5,000 Years of History of the Subcontinent
By Audrey Truschke
Princeton University Press
ISBN: 978-0691221229
712pp.

Almost a fourth of the world’s population, or nearly two billion people, live in the South Asian Subcontinent, which encompasses Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Is it possible to compress its history into 500 pages?

Professor Audrey Truschke of Rutgers University does exactly that in India: 5,000 Years of History of the Subcontinent. She had previously gained fame by authoring a biography of Aurangzeb Alamgir. She studied Sanskrit at the University of Chicago and wrote her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University on Sanskrit, Persian and the Mughal Court. She also knows Hindi and Urdu.

Truschke makes it clear that the book is a high-level introduction to the history of the Subcontinent, not a deep dive. The narrative is lucid and not cluttered with jargon. It begins by distinguishing the terms Indian Subcontinent, which has existed for millennia, and India, the republic, which has existed since 1947. The term ‘South Asian Subcontinent’ is a modern coinage.

However, she does delve into the etymology of India. The region which now forms Pakistan and northwest India was once called Meluhha. That was during the time of Sargon, who created the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, and who made his mark with his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BCE. As for the word India, it originates from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, meaning ‘river’, which referred specifically to the Indus River. The name was passed through Old Persian as Hindu, then to Ancient Greek as Indós (Indus River), and finally into Latin as India.

Professor Audrey Truschke’s high-level introduction to the long history of the Indian Subcontinent is not just a lucid reference book for amateurs and experts alike but also a great public service

In the first 180 pages, the book discusses the first 2,500 years of history. It discusses the Indus Valley Civilisation, which existed for 700 years from 2600 to 1900 BCE, and says that it collapsed probably due to climate change. Not much is known about it, since its language remains undeciphered. She is pessimistic that the language will ever be deciphered. It may never speak to us, unlike the civilisation of the Pharaohs, which had remained mute for millennia until the Rosetta Stone was discovered.

The book discusses the recent discovery in the mid-1980s of Lakhan-jo-Daro, which predates Mohenjo-Daro. It is located some 100km south of Sukkur in an industrial area and has not been subjected to much excavation. It discusses how Aryans arrived from the Caucus and Persia and ultimately created the Vedic culture in the Subcontinent around 1000 BCE. The caste system is their tragic legacy.

The book explains how, in the fourth or fifth century BCE, a man who was born into an important family in Nepal turned into the Buddha. But it does not explain why Buddhism spread far and wide to China and Japan but never developed a foothold in India. It also does not explore how Indian culture spread through much of what is now called Indochina and which extends to places as far away as Indonesia.

There is a good discussion of Emperor Ashoka, who ruled from 268-232 BCE, and of his philosophy of nonviolence toward men and animals, which created a passion for vegetarianism.

While discussing the Mughals, it shows how they ruled through force and through diplomacy, successfully recruiting the Rajput into their administration. The Persian language was introduced in the late 16th century, and with it came the development of a multilingual culture. Sanskrit texts were translated into Persian. But there is no discussion of how Urdu developed.

The end of the Mughals is attributed to infighting, corruption and inefficiency. The Persian Emperor Nadir Shah put the tombstone on the Mughals in 1739 when he plundered and looted Delhi and took the Peacock Throne with him.

Then came the British. They ruled surreptitiously for a century through the East India Company, from 1757-1857, and then explicitly through the British Raj, from 1857-1947. British rule, despite the intelligence and discipline that came with it, was marked by arrogance, with one imperialist claiming that India would not be ready for self-rule for another six centuries.

The English language was by far the most visible manifestation of their arrogance. “The British Raj promoted English in higher education, thus producing an elite Indian upper class positioned to mould their own English-medium public sphere.” Linguistic colonialism was injected into South Asian culture. Today, we hear many people talking in Hindi or Urdu but randomly inserting English words, and sometimes entire sentences, even paragraphs, in the conversation, even though perfect substitutes exist in the native languages.

In the book, there is some discussion of the Hindutva movement, which has hit a peak under Indian PM Narendra Modi. But the book does not provide any insights into whether that was a natural counter-response by the native Hindu population to being governed for a millennia by a Muslim minority who invaded India and governed it by sheer dint of arms.

Gandhi’s philosophy of self-rule, or swaraj, is highlighted. He wanted Indians to first gain independence from the English at a personal level before seeking it at the societal level. Gandhi said that Indians want English rule without the English. He did not want India to become a powerful state and questioned those who wanted the same powers for India as any other nation, including a navy and an army and “our own splendour that could make India’s voice ring through the world.” He said such views reflected a desire to “want English rule without the Englishman” and stated, “This is not the swaraj that I want.”

Towards the end, the author admits that historians are killjoys at times who shatter myths and show people for what they were, not the idols that they had been made out to be by their acolytes. “Historians must follow the evidence, even when it shatters a beloved illusion… history is not a glory story, nor is it a line-up of wonderful things we all like, but it is even darker, since the sublime and horrific often coexist.” Thus, it does not even spare Gandhi, and his mixed track record on the caste system is cited.

Truschke has done a great public service by writing this book. It will serve as a great reference for amateurs and experts alike.

The reviewer is the author of Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan: The Price of Strategic Myopia. X: @ahmadfaruqui

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, November 2nd, 2025