https://thewire.in/history/india-ancient-history-modi-era-hindutva-nationalism
Two projects of yoking ancient India to nationalism and national identity have been attempted. One carried the seeds of self-critique within it, the second one, that has Indians in thrall now, refuses to look at the ravages wreaked upon the people by so-called Hindus.
For the past few years, the political discourse that has emerged from the corridors of power is dominated by Hinduism and yet more Hinduism. Our power holders have restored temples, called into question the existence of mosques, catapulted environmental disaster in the Himalayan region to facilitate pilgrimages, and terrorised minorities. Now they are trying to rewrite history to focus on the glories of ancient India without verification and sans methodology.
At the same time there is uneasiness and insecurity in the corridors of power. Scholars with debatable credentials are on the selection committees of prestigious universities. Their task is to ensure that no one, but no one, who possesses the gift of critical scholarship is appointed to faculties. Dissenters are jailed. Above all we have begun to hear the chant that India is the ‘mother of democracy’.
Today we are, once against caught up in an era of hyper-nationalism based on the presumed glories of ancient India. This is, of course, not the first time that ancient India has been yoked to the creation of a national identity. The leaders of our national movement skipped 500 years of history; a history marked by a remarkable fusion of ideas, language, architecture, painting, and music, and went back to Vedic India. This was a historical mistake because it laid the seeds of animus and exclusion against minorities.
19/01/2023
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