lucknow political violence has existed throughout indias history is inherent to the state and is worryingly escalating in todays times said upinder singh historian and daughter of former pm manmohan singh at the lucknow literature festival on sundaytodays thinkers need to dwell on the problem of political violence just as their counterparts in ancient india did political violence is escalating in todays world and needs to be controlled singh said during a discussion on her book political violence in ancient india at the festivalsingh cautioned against labelling eras as golden and nongolden and identifying historical figures as heroes and villains this kind of simple storytelling isnt what history is about indian history is replete with diversity debate and differences of opinion where a variety of religious traditions including atheism existed she saidnow a major problem is that there is a divide in the history being written by historians and the history floating in the public domain often there is no connection between the two this is happening partly because historians sitting in ivory towers have been unable to communicate effectively with the public she saidthough nonviolence is deeply embedded in indian psyche india like every other part of the world has seen violence throughout its history including the period between 600bc and 600ad which she maps in her book the bestknown mascots of nonviolence in india ashoka buddha mahaveer and later mahatma gandhi spoke so strongly in its favour because they lived in societies full of violence she said