Review: India and the Pacific World

Summary

The reviewer discusses Kalidas Nag’s book India and the Pacific World, which seeks to correct the Eurocentric bias of early geography textbooks by demonstrating India’s historical connections with Pacific countries. Nag, a widely travelled professor, argues that the Pacific was presented to Indian schoolchildren as distant and irrelevant, whereas in reality India had long interacted with these regionsfile:///home/oai/share/whole.txt#:~:text=introduces%20his%20book%20to%20the,far%20away%20to%20have%20any. The book surveys the cultures of Polynesia, Maori land, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Indo‑China, Java, Sumatra, China and Japanfile:///home/oai/share/whole.txt#:~:text=He%20has%20dealt%20with%20almost,He. For each country Nag examines pre‑history, anthropology, archaeology and modern history, highlighting available materials for further studyfile:///home/oai/share/whole.txt#:~:text=Indonesia%2C%20%E0%A4%98%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9F%20Thailand%2C%20Indo,has%20appraised%20%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BE. He pays special attention to India’s role in disseminating cultural and religious influences across the Indian Ocean and into Southeast Asia and the Pacificfile:///home/oai/share/whole.txt#:~:text=%E0%AA%A4%20popular%20style%20the%20part,things%20ancient%20as%20an%20able. The reviewer notes that Nag’s narrative is enlivened by sympathy for the peoples he describes, sometimes leading him to express enthusiastic judgmentsfile:///home/oai/share/whole.txt#:~:text=modern%20with%20the%20sympathy%20of,%E0%AB%AB%E0%AB%AC%E0%AB%AB%E0%AB%AC%E0%AB%AF%20which%20sometimes%20surpasses. Nevertheless, the book remains valuable because it draws attention to neglected regions and underscores India’s historical contribution. The reviewer praises Nag’s effort to compile data on countries often omitted from mainstream histories and to present the information in a readable style. He hopes that the book will inspire greater interest in the Pacific world among Indian readers.