Temple Desecration & Historical Myths: What the Records Actually Say | Prof. Richard Eaton
What happens when a civilisation’s past is rewritten to serve the politics of the present?
In this episode of the Nous Podcast, we’re joined by acclaimed historian Richard M. Eaton, whose scholarship has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of Islam’s presence in South Asia and the nature of medieval Indian history.
Drawing from decades of research, Eaton challenges the reductive narratives that frame the spread of Islam as a story of conquest, forced conversion, or imperial imposition. Instead, he offers a deeply textured account of how Islam was woven into the fabric of South Asian society through agrarian change, Sufi networks, vernacular cultures, and the fluid identities of frontier zones like Bengal and the Deccan.
We explore:
Why the term “conversion” fails to capture the lived realities of religious change
The Persianate cosmopolis and how it shaped India beyond religious binaries
How Mughal rulers like Akbar and Aurangzeb governed not as religious ideologues, but as complex political actors within a plural society
The historical record on temple desecration, what does it really say and how it’s being manipulated today
In an age where India’s Muslim past is increasingly vilified, erased, or cast as foreign by rising Hindu nationalist discourse, Eaton's work becomes urgently relevant. His analysis reveals not only how the past is misunderstood, but also reminds us:
“If historians do not write clear, evidence-based history in language accessible to ordinary people, the vacuum will be filled by demagogues and myth makers.”
