Colonial Indology is the first extended critique of the premises underlying the Western study of ancient Indian history and archaeology and, as such, fills a major gap in the history of archaeology. It complements Ronald Inden's Imagining India (1390), a general critique of Western Indological scholarship, which asserts that it has portrayed India in terms of static essences in a way that minimizes the creativity of the Indian people.

Colonial Indology 's author, the renowned Indian archaeologist Dilip Chakrabarti, who has long been interested in the history of archaeology in his homeland, argues that views of Indian history that were created to serve the interests of Western colonialism are still accepted not only by Western scholars but also by many prominent Indian archaeologists who wish to associate themselves with the international archaeological community, as well as by India's modernizing establishment who prefer to emphasize their country's mystical, rather than its historical, past. More recently world attention has been drawn to Indian archaeologists who have been using their discipline to promote the cause of Hindu nationalism.