Hindutva pseudohistory

Short description: Hindutva approach to historiography

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who published the 1923 pamphlet Essentials of Hindutva

Hindutva is a far-right political ideology that seeks to justify Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing a Hindu hegemony. Hindutva ideologues and figures have engaged in numerous instances of disinformation since the Hindutva movement began.

According to Jaffrelot, the Hindutva ideology has roots in an era where the fiction in ancient Indian mythology and Vedic antiquity was presumed to be valid. This fiction was used to "give sustenance to Hindu ethnic consciousness".[1] Hindutva organisations treat events in Hindu mythology as history.[2][3][4][5] Hindutva organisations have been criticized for their belief in statements or practices that they claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method.[6][7]

According to Anthony Parel, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his 1929 work Hindutva, Who is a Hindu? regarded as the fundamental text of Hindutva ideology, presents the "Hindu culture as a self-sufficient culture, not needing any input from other cultures", which is "an unhistorical, narcissistic and false account of India's past".[8] Writing for the New York Times, Romila Thapar states that Modi's government and the BJP have "peddled myths and stereotypes", such as the insistence on "a single uniform culture of the Aryans, ancestral to the Hindu, as having prevailed in the subcontinent, subsuming all others", despite the scholarly evidence for migrations into India, which is "anathema to the Hindutva construction of early history".[9]

An investigative report by Reuters, based on testimonials from scholars, including Mahesh Sharma, the creator of the committee, claimed that the Modi government had established a committee of scholars to promote certain narratives, such as linking evidence of Indian history with ancient scriptures, establishing a view that Indian civilization is older than currently believed, proving the existence of the mystical Saraswati river, mapping and excavating sites of battles mentioned in the Mahabharata. Sharma also stated that his ministry had organised workshops and seminars to "to prove the supremacy of our glorious past."[10]

## Contents

* 1 Examples
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 Further reading

## Examples

Distortion of history in National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks has been frequently observed under the BJP governments.[11][12] G. N. Devy writes, "the discipline of history is so rich now in its knowledge of the past that Hindutva’s speculative historiography, though imposed upon learners through the NCERT, can hardly make a dent in it."[13]

Audrey Truschke states that Hindutva followers have fabricated evidence such as the Indus horse seal in order to equate the Indus valley civilisation with the Vedic culture and that they have also propagated the Out of India Theory (OIT) which claims that Aryans originated in India and spread out to the rest of the world. According to Tony Joseph, OIT lacks support from even "a single, peer-reviewed scientific paper" and that it is nothing "more than a kind of clever and angry retort."[5]

According to Truschke, Hindu nationalists in the U.S. have attempted to censor historical references to Hindu practices such as the caste system and untouchability from history textbooks. In India, they have also attempted to erase references to Muslim figures, such as Akbar the Great, or secular figures, such as Nehru, replacing them with icons such as Shivaji whom they falsely imagine "to have been seeking to establish a Hindu Rashtra in premodernity". Truschke concludes that Hindutva efforts at altering history textbooks have been successful in the US and India and with their attempts at subverting academic views to political narratives, they have succeeded in limiting dialogue on Indian history.[5][14]

Truschke further elaborates that Hindutva ideologues want to promote a view that Hindus alone are indigenous to India and therefore Hindu as a social group can be considered as the definition of Indian, in an attempt to exclude groups such as Muslims from said definition.[5] She also states that Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist claims that Islamic rule of India was “1,200 years of slavery". Hindu nationalist websites also propagate a narrative about a “Hindu Holocaust” perpetuated by Muslim rulers.[5] French journalist and Hindutva ally, François Gautier has in past proposed the idea of a "Hindu Holocaust Museum"'.[15]

According to Tanika Sarkar, Hindutva narratives portray Hindus as the sole victims of violence during the partition of India, despite both sides being "equally combative". These narratives also depict Indian Muslims as "perpetual aggressors, invaders, and agents of terror", despite their significant "social, educational, and economic disadvantages" after losing electoral power following the partition.[16]

The BJP government has taken the initiative to "saffronise" history textbooks ever since taking to power through exclusion of Muslim rulers and their contributions from Indian history.[17] This is part of a larger effort to promote and reshape Hindutva, often leading to actions that sideline minorities. Examples include changing the names of places to Hindu ones and attempting to claim centuries-old mosques as Hindu religious sites.[18][19]

Sanjeev Sanyal, a popular historian who publishes works of Hindutva revisionism.[20]

According to The Print, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has revised the engineering curriculum to introduce an Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) course textbook which makes claims about ancient Indians pioneering aviation and credits the Vedic period for inventing batteries, electricity production, maritime engineering and discovering the phenomenon of gravity based on certain interpretations of Hindu scriptures such as the Vedas.[21][22] Critics such as Jaheer Mukthar, an assistant professor of economics at Kristu Jayanti College in Bangalore, have stated that "One can say that the government is clearly using the textbook as a tool for propagating the Hindutva agenda" [23]

Shivkar Bapuji Talpade was an Indian instructor who has been claimed to have flown a heavier-than-air aircraft in 1895, before the first successful flight by the Wright brothers. The contemporary evidence about a successful flight does not exist and no reliable sources report this account. The pseudo-historical narrative about Talpade was propagated in the early 2000s by the Hindu-nationalists, who claimed that Talpade had "invented the modern aircraft".[24][25]

Popular historians like Sanjeev Sanyal are notable for writing books on revisionist Hindutva history.[20]

## See also

* NCERT textbook controversies
* 2015 Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy

## References

1. ↑ Jaffrelot, C. (1996). The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India. Columbia University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-231-10335-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2buDDwdgIsC. Retrieved 2024-12-04.
2. ↑ Ramachandran, R. (2019-01-17). "Science circus". Frontline. https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/article26004777.ece. Retrieved 2024-12-04.
3. ↑ Salam, Ziya Us (2018-06-20). "Age of unreason". Frontline. https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/age-of-unreason/article24200525.ece. Retrieved 2024-12-04.
4. ↑ Nanda, Meera (2 January 2004). "Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and 'Vedic science'". Frontline. https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30220434.ece. Retrieved 4 December 2024.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Truschke, Audrey (2020-12-14). "Hindutva's Dangerous Rewriting of History". South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (OpenEdition) (24/25). doi:10.4000/samaj.6636. ISSN 1960-6060.
6. ↑ Nanda, Meera (2016-08-31). "Hindutva's science envy". Frontline. https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/hindutvas-science-envy/article9049883.ece. Retrieved 2024-12-04.
7. ↑ Daniyal, Shoaib (2018-01-21). "From dissing Darwin to yogic farming: A short history of the BJP's brush with pseudoscience". https://scroll.in/article/865872/from-dissing-darwin-to-yogic-farming-a-short-history-of-the-bjps-brush-with-pseudoscience.
8. ↑ Parel, A. (2006). Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony. Cambridge University Press. pp. 42–43. ISBN 978-0-521-86715-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=MQhz0fW0HZUC. Retrieved 2024-12-04.
9. ↑ Thapar, Romila (2019-05-17). "They Peddle Myths and Call It History". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/opinion/india-elections-modi-history.html.
10. ↑ "By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists lay claim to India". Reuters. 2018-03-06. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/.
11. ↑ P'Rayan, Albert (2024-06-22). "Why we need to fight the distortion of history in NCERT textbooks". The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/education/why-we-need-to-fight-the-distortion-of-history-in-ncert-textbooks/article68306861.ece.
12. ↑ Das, Suchintan (2024-04-29). "Narendra Modi's Government Is Falsifying Indian History". Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2024/04/narendra-modi-falsify-history-authoritarianism. Retrieved 2025-02-15.
13. ↑ Devy, G N (2023-04-22). "The Hindutva challenge to the historiography of India". Deccan Herald. https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/the-hindutva-challenge-to-the-historiography-of-india-1212105.html.
14. ↑ Truschke, Audrey (2023-10-06). "How India's Hindu Nationalists Are Weaponizing History Against Muslims" (in en). TIME. https://time.com/6320003/india-weaponizing-history-against-muslims/. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
15. ↑ Chatterji, Angana P. (2009). Violent gods: Hindu nationalism in India's present: narratives from Orissa. Gurgaon, India: Three Essays Collective. p. 43. ISBN 978-81-88789-45-0. "In 2003, the idea of a 'Hindu Holocaust Museum' was proposed by French journalist and Hindutva - ally, François Gautier."
16. ↑ Sarkar, Tanika (2021). "7 - Hindutva: The Dominant Face of Religious Nationalism in India (from Part II – India)". in N. Rouhana, Nadim. When Politics are Sacralized: Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism. Cambridge University Press. pp. 172–173. doi:10.1017/9781108768191.008. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/when-politics-are-sacralized/hindutva/CF515B7FB786C2DF490B6AD24F879899.
17. ↑ Bhattacharya, N. (2009-03-01). "Teaching History in Schools: the Politics of Textbooks in India". History Workshop Journal 67 (1): 99–110. doi:10.1093/hwj/dbn050. ISSN 1363-3554.
18. ↑ Singh, Amit (2024-02-02). "Hindutva is at war with secular democracy in India" (in en-US). Religion and Global Society. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2024/02/hindutva-is-at-war-with-secular-democracy-in-india/.
19. ↑ Tharoor, Shashi (2023-06-26). "The main chapter of how Hindutva sees the past" (in en-IN). The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-main-chapter-of-how-hindutva-sees-the-past/article67012655.ece.
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Prakash, Devika (14 June 2022). "Racialising ancient skeletons: How haplogroups are mobilised in the re-writing of origin stories in the Indian media". in Pande, Amrita. Birth controlled - Selective reproduction and neoliberal eugenics in South Africa and India. Governing Intimacies in the Global South. Manchester University Press. p. 96. doi:10.7765/9781526160553.00013. ISBN 978-1-5261-6055-3. https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526160553/9781526160553.00013.xml. "Sanjeev Sanyal, an economist who writes popular books on revisionist Hindutva history"
21. ↑ Sharma, Kritika (2018-09-26). "In engineering courses soon: Wright brothers didn't invent plane, batteries existed in Vedic age". https://theprint.in/india/governance/in-engineering-courses-soon-wright-brothers-didnt-invent-plane-batteries-existed-in-vedic-age/124540/.
22. ↑ "The Modi Government's Pseudoscience Drive Is More Than an Attack on Science". 2018-03-30. https://thewire.in/the-sciences/the-modi-governments-pseudoscience-drive-is-more-than-an-attack-on-science.
23. ↑ Thomas-Alexander, Tiya (2023-06-27). "Mandatory 'Indian knowledge' course seen as 'indoctrination'". https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mandatory-indian-knowledge-course-seen-indoctrination.
24. ↑ "The aviator?". 2015-01-10. https://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-aviator-115010901145_1.html.
25. ↑ Mazur, E.M.; Taylor, S.M.F. (2023). "The Myth of Ancient Indian Airplanes". in Doniger, Wendy. Religion and Outer Space. London: Taylor & Francis. pp. 25–33. doi:10.4324/9781003088264-4. ISBN 978-1-000-90469-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=TBi-EAAAQBAJ. Retrieved 2024-12-04.

## Further reading

* Jha, D. N. (October 1998). "Against Communalising History". Social Scientist 26 (9): 52–62. doi:10.2307/3517941. ISSN 0970-0293. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3517941.
* Nussbaum, Martha C. (2007). "The Assault on History". The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future. Harvard University Press. pp. 231–284. doi:10.2307/j.ctt13x0k4v. ISBN 978-0-674-02482-3. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0k4v.
* Jaffrelot, Christophe (2010). "Education 'The Diaspora and Hindu Nationalism'" (in en). Hindu nationalism: a reader. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. pp. 269, 361. ISBN 978-1-4008-2803-6.
* Thapar, Romila (2015). "Fallacies of Hindutva Historiography". Economic and Political Weekly 50 (1): 68–69. ISSN 0012-9976. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24481243.
* Humes, Cynthia Ann (2012). "Hindutva, Mythistory, and Pseudoarchaeology". Numen (Brill Publishers) 59 (2/3): 178–201. doi:10.1163/156852712X630770. ISSN 0029-5973. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23244958.
* Devy, G N (2023-04-22). "The Hindutva challenge to the historiography of India". https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/the-hindutva-challenge-to-the-historiography-of-india-1212105.html.
* Dahiya, Himanshi (2021-04-06). "Viral Fake News on Social Media Networks – Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter: Fake News on Internet Is Helping Hindutva's Retelling of History". https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/fake-news-on-internet-is-helping-hindutvas-retelling-of-history#read-more.
* Bhagavan, Manu (2008). "Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary: Exploring the Cartography of Hindu Nationalism in Colonial India". The Journal of Asian Studies 67 (3). doi:10.1017/S0021911808001198. ISSN 0021-9118. https://read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-asian-studies/article-pdf/67/3/881/1783155/s0021911808001198.pdf.
* Kingston, Jeff (2019). "Hinduism and Hindutva". The Politics of Religion, Nationalism, and Identity in Asia. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 27–29. ISBN 978-1-4422-7688-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=rHahDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA27.
* Sarkar, Tanika (2021). "7 – Hindutva: The Dominant Face of Religious Nationalism in India (from Part II – India)". in N. Rouhana, Nadim. When Politics are Sacralized: Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108768191.008. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/when-politics-are-sacralized/hindutva/CF515B7FB786C2DF490B6AD24F879899.
* Mishra, Atul (2022-10-20). "Locusts vs. the gigantic octopus: the Hindutva international and 'Akhand Bharat' in V.D. Savarkar's history of India". India Review 21 (4–5): 512–545. doi:10.1080/14736489.2022.2131121. ISSN 1473-6489.
* Chaturvedi, Vinay (2022). Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Politics of History. State University of New York Press. doi:10.1515/9781438488783. ISBN 978-1-4384-8878-3. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781438488783/html#contents.
* "The Risks of Looking at India's History Through the Eyes of Pseudo-Historians". 18 March 2019. https://thewire.in/history/india-history-pseudo-historians-risks.
* Visvanathan, Meera (30 September 2021). "Sanjeev Sanyal's attempts to rewrite India's past". https://caravanmagazine.in/books/history-sanjeev-sanyal-attempts-rewrite-india-past.

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