Edited by Anwesha Sengupta and Debarati Bagchi
Translated into English by Arunava Sinha
Reviewed by Diksha Chodankar
The People of India: A Remarkable History in Nine Chapters offers young readers a fresh and engaging way to explore the past.
| Publishing Date: 19 July 2025
ISBN: 978-9363365315 Page Count: 229 Publisher: Talking Cub, an imprint of Speaking Tiger Review Posted Online: June 2026 QBR Reviews Issue: Q2 2026 Categories: Sociology | Culture | Political Science |
 |
The People of India: A Remarkable History in Nine Chapters is edited by Anwesha Sengupta and Debarati Bagchi. The book began as a project called “Revisiting the Craft of History Writing for Children,” organised jointly by the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung South Asia. The editors invited historians from different fields and time periods to contribute to this project. The chapters were first published as separate booklets, which were later carefully edited and brought together into one complete volume.
The book’s nine chapters each focus on a different topic. Rather than covering kings, battles, or famous leaders, it explores subjects such as the Partition of India, language politics, river systems, the socio-cultural history of clothing, food and diet, labour, and sports history, including the story of one of the first Adivasi hockey teams. These topics help readers understand that history is woven into everyday life, not confined to landmark events, alone.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its focus on ordinary people, Adivasis, Dalits, refugees, and workers who are often absent from traditional history books. Through their stories, readers encounter struggles, feelings, and experiences that rarely make it into the curriculum. The chapter on tea, for instance, traces how something as simple as a cup of tea is connected to colonial rule, hard labour, and global trade. When writers from outside marginalised communities write about groups such as refugees or labourers, they often portray them solely as helpless victims. Sengupta and Bagchi resist this tendency, foregrounding the strength, kindness, and resilience of ordinary people alongside their hardships.
The chapter on Partition, for example, does not dwell only on violence and suffering, it also shows how families supported one another and rebuilt their lives, and how women emerged not merely as victims of tragedy but as people who took on work and gained new forms of independence. A similar attention to dignity runs through the food chapter, which explores the lives of plantation workers in Assam, many from tribal and poor communities, whose culture, traditions, and daily rhythms were bound up with the tea industry. The chapter on rivers, meanwhile, describes the fishing communities of the Ganga–Brahmaputra Delta and their dependence on the water for food and livelihood. We are still wondering whether the book questions existing inequalities and power structures strongly enough. It might have been interesting if the book had included more discussion about how these systems can be challenged or changed.
The language throughout is accessible to young readers. When we shared the book with a child reader, she described it as “a breath of fresh air compared to the heavy history textbooks we all grew up with.” The writing has a simple, curious tone, like a child asking questions , yet it does not shy away from serious subjects such as caste discrimination and the pain of Partition. The child reader also shared that she found the book genuinely informative and engaging because it connects the past to how we live now and helps to understand a bit more.
Although the nine chapters are written by different historians with different areas of expertise, the English edition, translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha, feels cohesive and smooth throughout.
Another distinctive feature is the use of short poems between some chapters, offering readers a moment to pause and absorb what they have just read. These include Khap Chhara by Rabindranath Tagore and other various folk poems. After heavy or emotional chapters, these interludes provide welcome breathing room.
Another reservation worth noting: despite being titled The People of India, many chapters focus primarily on West Bengal, Assam, and Bangladesh. This may reflect the editors’ own research backgrounds, or it may be a deliberate move to centre eastern India’s histories as a counter-narrative, but either way, the book does not feel fully representative of its title.
The book also includes a bibliography, author notes, and acknowledgements. Overall, it offers a fresh and valuable way of looking at history, one that belongs not only to the famous but to ordinary people and everyday life. It is a meaningful and engaging read for young people, even if a broader geographic scope would have made it more complete and we look forward to it being on our library shelf.
Further Recommendations
- A Children’s History of India by Subhadra Sen Gupta, Rupa Publications, 2015
- A Children’s History of India in 100 Objects by Devika Cariapa, Penguin Random House, 2023
- The Constitution of India by Subhadra Sen Gupta, Penguin Random House, 2020
- We the Children of India: The Preamble to Our Constitution by Leila Seth, Penguin Random House, 2019
- Painters, Potters, Cooks and Kings by Subhadra Sen Gupta, Scholastic, 2018