Author Manu S Pillai at SALA 2025 On The Politics Of History

"Young historian"

Manu S. Pillai is a historian and author whose work reimagines Indian history through vivid storytelling and contemporary perspectives on power and empire. At a panel at SALA 2025 in Menlo Park, he spoke to author and journalist Salil Tripathi about his work and role as a historian.

Moderator Tripathi began by positing that Pillai was wrongly labeled “one of India’s best young historians” when, in fact, Pillai was “one of India’s best historians.” Manu Pillai responded that, being in his mid-30s, the moniker was a “little irritating.” Only in his mid-30s, I thought! Several years from now, he may well look back on those moments of irritation and remember that he was in the flush of youth at the South Asian Literature and Art Festival in 2025.

The humor that marked the session’s start was sustained throughout with nuggets of valuable insights, engagingly laid out and carefully explained, with particularly compelling advice to youngsters.

Republic of Hurt Sentiments

Is rational discussion of history even possible asked Tripathi, to which Pillai replied that after his first book, The Ivory Throne (HarperCollins, 2016), the royal family of Travancore slammed him with a Rs 5 crore defamation suit for what they perceived as a portrayal critical of the family. Their lawyers recommended hundreds of changes, but amusingly, also sent the editor a note saying “Loved the book!”

In response to Tripathi’s comment that India is “a republic of hurt sentiments,” Pillai revealed that the royal objection was directed at his depiction of the Maharaja of Travancore as a human being with faults. The Maharajah was viewed as “Pratyaksha Padmanabhan,” the embodiment of Vishnu, god of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. Such reactions are commonplace, said Pillai; his job is to understand people, not to judge them. But this hypersensitivity also led to Pillai being trolled for referring to “Shivaji” without adding the honorifics “Chhatrapati” and “Maharaj.”

He suggested that historians should utilize social media to reach younger generations, given the influence of technology and the widespread use of social media over reading books. Pillai’s strong presence on various social media platforms serves him well, said Tripathi.

How Generations Perceive History

Pillai urged that historians should keep in mind that each generation perceives history through its own prism and the only way to counter disdain for accomplished historians is not to ‘whitewash the past’. For instance, there has been religious strife and violence through the ages, with some promoting Islamic violence and others promoting Hindu violence. But places of worship were also peaceful embassies of commerce where rulers would invite traders to build mosques to worship; Tipu Sultan may have ransacked temples, but he also sent a Shivalingam and offerings to some temples. Outside the Kandiyoor Shiva temple, a Buddha statue was found in the field, likely a relic from the destruction of a Buddhist place of worship in ancient times.

Attacks on history are not uncommon; in the US, for example, exhibits at the Smithsonian, and critical race theory are being attacked said Tripathi, quoting Milan Kundera, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” Similar attacks have taken place in Singapore leading Tripathi to ask if this was a global phenomenon, Pillai quipped he was glad this was happening not just in India, adding that the dynamic of memory versus history is not just restricted to our time.

If we are condemned to repeat history, said Pillai, the one thing you can count on is human stupidity.

Mixed-up Element of History

Pillai talked of his interest in the “mixed-up element of history.” In Maharashtra, where he grew up, there were black military slaves such as Malik Ambar, who married local women, and two black queens in the 16th and 17th centuries in Ahmednagar.

He spoke of the Chinese influence in the names of commonly used items; in Kerala, the Chinese wok is referred to as a Cheena Chatti, and some Indians may have Chinese DNA because of interracial mingling during the trading years. On a trip to the US, Pillai took a DNA test that revealed that he had a Malayali Christian ancestor. There is no such thing as a pure bloodline, he surmised.

Pillai’s latest book Gods, Guns and Missionaries (Penguin Random House / AllenLane, 2025), said Tripathi, provides a distinction between Hindu thought, Hinduism, and Hindutva. According to Pillai, religious practices change due to various influences. The Islam that existed in Kerala is now changing with the Persian Gulf influence, while Hinduism is being swayed by northern Indian practices. In some temples, Brahmins and non-Brahmins run the show at different times of the day; there is a clock offering to the gods, while in Alappuzha, Munch chocolate is the standard offering to the deity who is now called “Munch Murugan.”

India before 1947

One audience member asked Pillai to comment on a statement he had heard that “there was no India before 1947.” Referring to William Dalrymple’s recent book, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, Pillai explained that while India was not called India at the time, there was a broad sense of one cultural zone. To another comment that Hinduism was invented by the British, Pillai wryly pointed out that Indians were not passively sitting around being invented.

Speaking Truth to Power

Pillai had sage words of advice on speaking truth to power and reading habits for young readers. He urged the audience not to depend only on social media. “Read as widely as you can, diversely. Then make an educated correlation: who has connected the dots best.” He encouraged young children to cultivate reading habits and critical thinking, “Never swallow/believe everything you’re told,” he said, “Always ask questions. Asking questions is pushing back.”

He believed that people are afraid of comedians when they feel insecure; when they cannot take a joke and want to control the media, the disempowered resort to “weapons of the weak.” For example, said Pillai, the field workers who were employed on property owned by his great-grandparents Kalyani and Madhavan, were not allowed to use their owner’s names, but with the communist influence, they named cattle after his grandparents.

Another example of resistance by parody that Pillai shared was a Telugu play written by Shivaji’s relative, Shahuji Bhonsle, a Maratha prince, who wrote Sati Dana Suramu (Take My Wife), about a Brahmin who becomes infatuated with a woman he encounters. Pillai suggested that language TV news channels and movies in Malayalam and Marathi were more likely, for example to stand up to power. In his view, one of the best regional films in recent years was The Great Indian Kitchen (a 2021 Malayalam language film), which addresses menstrual taboos.

Lighting many small lamps

In response to an audience member’s query about his generation’s anxiety about how to counter rights being taken away, Pillai said, “Fight small battles every day. In a dark room, light many small lamps. At the right time, they will come together. Eventually, it will all add up.”

This article was published in India Currents on September 26, 2025.