Memory and Community in the Early Modern Deccan

In this presentation, I analyze a set of regional histories from early modern South Asia to explore two central questions. First, how were instances of religious and cultural “encounter” narrated before widespread colonialism? And second, what kinds of affinities were forged through the writing of regional histories for authors, readers, and audiences? I approach these questions by discussing three histories of the Deccan: a socially and linguistically diverse region of southern India ruled by local states with limited imperial ambitions. In doing so, I attempt to bridge two literary-historical traditions that arose in a shared geographical space yet have been considered in isolation: those of the vernacular, Kannada-Telugu karanam and the Perso-Arabic tārīkh. Examining texts in three different languages and historical genres, I observe that across linguistic and social divides, Kannada, Persian, and Dakkani authors drew clear connections between their narratives and the Deccan region, even as they suggested differing motives for doing so. In other words, all three understood their projects as writing a history of place. By focusing on resonances across texts written by Hindu, Iranian émigré, and “local” Muslim authors, I argue, building on recent work by Subah Dayal and Roy Fischel, that similarities across regional histories from the multilingual Deccan shed light on political processes shared by Hindu and Muslim states in this region following the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire. In my talk, I illustrate that historical writing—often cited as a hallmark of “early modernity” in and beyond South Asia—presents a useful site to shift from transregional connectivity to considering connections between local genres and forms: both those with clear ties to imperial projects and those aimed at communities on a smaller scale.