How Marxist History Approach broadened the dimensions of History writing in India...

Marxist history writing in India is a recent phenomenon when you compare it with other schools of history writing such as the Oriental or the Nationalistic schools. But it was nothing short of a revolution when it breached the conservative or ideological driven history writing in India.

As per western scholars we indians didn't know the art of history writing right from our ancient times. And our historical texts such as the Puranas, Mahabharat or Ramayana,Vedas does not pass the litmus test and cannot be called an authentic source of history.

But if something is different from yours conventions doesn't always means that you should out rightly cast it away, it may have different connotations attached to it or it may have other information that are yet to be deciphered. In India the most ancient source of literary writing is the Harrapan script but as it is still undeciphered we are yet to know the background and perspective of those records.

Then comes other ancient texts such as the Puranas or the others epics mentioned above. But as in history writing chronology is given utmost importance and we can see that in our ancient text the concept of time is different in compare with the west. The west follow the linear timeline but our ancient texts follow cyclical timeline of four Yugas(Satyug, Treta, Dwapar and Kaliyug) which makes it difficult to timestamp any important event in ancient time. Further the western ancient history writers such as Herodotus, Pliny write with  a cause effect relationship which was missing in our ancient history writers who were more tilted towards theology , hagiography and spritualism.

But we also have to see that our ancient society was culturally different from the west. Our focus or aim from life was more tilted towards spritualism or Mokhsha unlike western aim of materialism. So to compare the ancient western history writing to ancient indian history writing would not do justice to the latter.

How the other Schools started and why Marxist approach is the most secular

When British won the Battle of Plassey in 1757, they gained a huge chunk of land of which they became the absolute ruler. But it is one thing to win and totally another thing to govern. When the British initiated the administration of its subjects, they were at their wits end. For a same crime there would be different punishments depending on the religion or caste of the subject. A pandit and a Maulavi decrees different degree of penalty to the subject as per there religous texts. The Brits quickly understand that this can't continue for long if we want to live here for long.

So they tried to first learn the local laws, lingos and languages. Many research institute such as Asiatic Society in Calcutta and Bombay were established for translating ancient texts into english. In this way Brits started imperialistic approach to Indian history writting.

But this approach was agenda driven and only twisted facts and happenings as per their convenience and always tried to justify the perpetuity of British rule in India. It divided indian history on religious lines