Taking on such charged and sensitive topics in this series also means that almost everyone will find something to dislike in it. Informed disagreement is of course fine and necessary for better scholarship.

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The story of India is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamic of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence, and cooperation. In this ten-part web series, I’ll tell the story of Indians and our civilisation by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which were lost to memory and were dug out by archaeologists. These sites include the Harappan city of Dholavira, Mauryan Pataliputra, the Ikshvaku capital at Nagarjunakonda, the Buddhist centre of learning at Nalanda, enigmatic Khajuraho, Vijayanagar at Hampi, Delhi of the Mughals, and historic Varanasi. I’ll also focus on ancient and medieval foreign travellers, such as Megasthenes, Xuanzang, Alberuni, Marco Polo, François Bernier and others, whose idiosyncratic accounts conceal surprising insights about us Indians.