Friday, 6 November 2026
History

An Open History magazine

Theme

Ideas

3 articles

Tikkana Somayaji: When Words Became Weapons of Unity
Medieval World

Tikkana Somayaji: When Words Became Weapons of Unity

In the thirteenth century, when religious rivalries threatened to tear apart Telugu society, a poet-minister wielded his pen like a sword to unite a divided land. Born in 1205 into a Telugu-speaking Niyogi Brahmin family, Tikkana Somayaji emerged as the second poet of the legendary “Trinity of Poets” who translated the Mahabharata into Telugu. His life was a remarkable tapestry woven with threads of diplomacy, philosophy, literature, and statecraft a story of how one man’s vision transformed not

1 January 2026
Modern World

Sudharak: India’s First Dalit Voice and the Birth of Anti-Caste Journalism

In 1888, at a time when the vast majority of Dalits in India were denied basic literacy and their voices systematically erased from public discourse, a remarkable man named Gopal Baba Walangkar did something unprecedented. He founded Sudharak (सुधारक), meaning “The Reformer”—India’s first newspaper published by and for the Dalit community. This wasn’t merely the launch of another periodical; it was an act of profound defiance against one of history’s most entrenched systems of oppression.

29 December 2025
The Brahmo Samaj: A Critical Reexamination of India’s First Modern Reform Movement
Modern World

The Brahmo Samaj: A Critical Reexamination of India’s First Modern Reform Movement

The Brahmo Samaj stands as one of the most significant socio-religious reform movements in modern Indian history. Founded in 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy in Calcutta, it represented the first systematic attempt to reconcile Hindu tradition with Western rationalism and create a reformed religious framework for colonial India. Yet, nearly two centuries later, a critical assessment reveals a movement marked by profound contradictions—one that challenged orthodoxy while reinforcing certain hierarchies

28 December 2025