The Way History Needs To Be Told

RS Krishnan offers a critical view of Arvind N Das's documentary (some excerpts have been carried on this blog earlier). He also links to a documentary on the Mughals.

While it was commendable of Arvind Narayan Das to make D D Kosambi's seminal book into a documentary series, many episodes were made with lot of factual inaccuracies not to speak of the analytical errors in them. To me particularly episode six on South India was shocking! This documentary, given its rather sombre tone may not appeal to children or even adults for that matter. Maybe the seriousness of the issues and themes raised merited such an approach - where history is not merely telling you something very empirical or perceptible from the past but focusing more on the underlying forces and socio-economic processes that shape the more visible aspect of our past. But here we have this wonderful documentary on Mughals titled "The Mughal Empire" under the series called Warrior empires shown on the History Channel, which even as it focuses on empirical history makes for compelling viewing and offers very revealing insights into the way Mughals fought their war, their architecture and lifestyle.