Counterview: India’s past deserves more than apologia or amnesia

The article “India’s complex history cannot be wished away through textbook revisions – it must be confronted”, by Hasnain Naqvi published in Scroll on May 3 claims to defend the complexity of Indian history from ideological tampering. But behind its rhetoric of “confrontation” and “complexity” lies a deeper discomfort with the idea of India as a coherent civilisation. What it actually defends is not history per se, but a specific historiographic orthodoxy: one that emerged in the postcolonial decades and became hegemonic in our textbooks, universities and public discourse.

This orthodoxy has long been shaped by Marxist and secular-liberal frameworks, which treat religion, civilisational continuity and cultural symbolism with suspicion. It tends to see India not as a civilisational whole but as a fractured political entity patched together by modern secularism. Ironically, while it accuses others of whitewashing or politicising the past, it has long indulged in its own forms of selective erasure and ideological flattening.

Yes, the present round of textbook deletions – especially if done without scholarly deliberation – is problematic. And possibly before the critics jump the gun, let us wait and see if between classes 8-10 textbooks whose new editions are yet out, do bring in Mughals and Delhi Sultanate or Bahamani or...

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