Manmohan's daughter won't get into Left, Right row

New Delhi: Sitting in a quiet corner of St Stephen's College, Upinder Singh flips through her new book. This archaeology enthusiast has been digging up new material for the last five years to describe life in ancient India.

U Singh , as she popularly called by her students at Delhi University, is in many ways her father's daughter. Upinder believes one shouldn’t be strictly to any ideological group—so does her father, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“I see myself as neither aligned to the Left or the Right. I am a liberal historian and do not adhere to either the Marxist or the right wing school of history writing,” says Upinder.

Upinder is fascinated by archaeology because she believes only it one can write history if the people who did not produce texts.

While remaining tight-lipped on the present political crisis that her father is facing, Upinder does acknowledge that the liberal space for debates is shrinking in India. Last year her name was dragged in the multiple Ramayan controversy. Her new book deals with period in history that has divided historians and society alike: ancient and early medieval India.

“There should be more debate, more discussion and more disagreement. Certainly I do not want my book to settle all debates. I think debates are good as long as they done within the academic and intellectual space,” she says.

Upinder also brings new insights in the lives of women in her history of ancient and early Medieval India. “Through out the book I have tried to incorporate the women's perspectives, gender relations and also the family as part of the social history of that time,” she says.

Daughter of India's Prime Minister has certainly written history that is not just about kings and their conquests, its about the aam aadmi who lived in another time and another age.

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