The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c6.s5.4

c6.s5.4

Harold Laski could write in 1927 that the effort to read the problem of India in the set terms of Marxism is rather an exercise in ingenuity than a serious intellectual contribution to socialist advance.³¹ In the early stages there was no concerted effort by Indian historians to interpret Indian history in Marxist terms. M.N. Roy attempted to give a Marxist interpretation of the Indian National Movement,³² but it was not until 1940 that a serious Marxist history was produced by R.Palme Dutt entitled *India Today*. D.D. Kosambis *An Introduction to the Study of Indian History* (1956), is regarded as a substantial Marxist interpretation of Indian history from the earliest times to the rise of British power in India. During the post-independence period, there has been a tremendous proliferation of Marxism in Indian universities. It appeared to be a fashionable creed, as compared with Gandhism which appeared to be traditional and somewhat unmodern.