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{{short description|Hindutva approach to historiography}}
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[[File:Swatyantra Vir Savarkar.jpg|thumb|[[Vinayak Damodar Savarkar]] who published the 1923 pamphlet ''[[Essentials of Hindutva]]'']]
[[Hindutva]] is a [[Far-right politics|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".<ref>{{cite book |last=Jaffrelot |first=C. |title=The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-231-10335-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2buDDwdgIsC |access-date=2024-12-04 |page=77}}</ref> Hindutva organisations treat events in [[Hindu mythology]] as history.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Ramachandran |first=R. |title=Science circus |magazine=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]] |date=2019-01-17 |url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/article26004777.ece |access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Salam |first=Ziya Us |title=Age of unreason |magazine=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]] | date=2018-06-20 | url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/age-of-unreason/article24200525.ece |access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |first=Meera |last=Nanda |date=2 January 2004 |magazine=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]] |url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30220434.ece |title=Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and 'Vedic science' |access-date=4 December 2024 |archive-date=12 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812120255/https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30220434.ece |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Truschke" >{{cite journal |last=Truschke |first=Audrey |title=Hindutva's Dangerous Rewriting of History |journal=South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |publisher=OpenEdition |issue=24/25 |date=2020-12-14 | issn=1960-6060 |doi=10.4000/samaj.6636 |doi-access=free |page= }}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Nanda |first=Meera |title=Hindutva's science envy |magazine=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]] |date=2016-08-31 |url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/hindutvas-science-envy/article9049883.ece |access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Daniyal |first=Shoaib |title=From dissing Darwin to yogic farming: A short history of the BJP's brush with pseudoscience |website=Scroll.in |date=2018-01-21 |url=https://scroll.in/article/865872/from-dissing-darwin-to-yogic-farming-a-short-history-of-the-bjps-brush-with-pseudoscience |access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{cite book | last=Parel | first=A. | title=Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | year=2006 | isbn=978-0-521-86715-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQhz0fW0HZUC | access-date=2024-12-04 | pages=42–43}}</ref> 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 [[Indo-Aryan migrations|migrations into India]], which is "anathema to the Hindutva construction of early history".<ref>{{cite news | last=Thapar | first=Romila | title=They Peddle Myths and Call It History | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=2019-05-17 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/opinion/india-elections-modi-history.html | access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref>

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 [[Sarasvati River|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."<ref>{{cite news | title=By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists lay claim to India | work=[[Reuters]] | date=2018-03-06 | url=https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/ | access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref>

==Examples==
Distortion of history in [[National Council of Education Research and Training]] (NCERT) textbooks has been frequently observed under the BJP governments.<ref name="l272">{{cite news | last=P'Rayan | first=Albert | title=Why we need to fight the distortion of history in NCERT textbooks | work=[[The Hindu]] | date=2024-06-22 | url=https://www.thehindu.com/education/why-we-need-to-fight-the-distortion-of-history-in-ncert-textbooks/article68306861.ece | access-date=2025-02-15}}</ref><ref name="y602">{{cite magazine | last=Das | first=Suchintan | title=Narendra Modi's Government Is Falsifying Indian History | magazine=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] | date=2024-04-29 | url=https://jacobin.com/2024/04/narendra-modi-falsify-history-authoritarianism | access-date=2025-02-15}}</ref> [[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."<ref name="t893">{{cite news | last=Devy | first=G N | title=The Hindutva challenge to the historiography of India | work=[[Deccan Herald]] | date=2023-04-22 | url=https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/the-hindutva-challenge-to-the-historiography-of-india-1212105.html | access-date=2025-02-15}}</ref>

[[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 [[Indigenous Aryanism|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."<ref name=" Truschke"/>

According to Truschke, [[California textbook controversy over Hindu history|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.<ref name=" Truschke"/><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Truschke |first=Audrey |date=2023-10-06 |title=How India's Hindu Nationalists Are Weaponizing History Against Muslims |url=https://time.com/6320003/india-weaponizing-history-against-muslims/ |access-date=2025-01-29 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|TIME]] |language=en}}</ref>

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.<ref name=" Truschke"/> 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.<ref name=" Truschke"/> French journalist and Hindutva ally, [[François Gautier]] has in past proposed the idea of a "Hindu Holocaust Museum"'.<ref>{{cite book | last=Chatterji | first=Angana P. | title=Violent gods: Hindu nationalism in India's present: narratives from Orissa | publisher=Three Essays Collective | publication-place=Gurgaon, India | date=2009 | isbn=978-81-88789-45-0 | page=43|quote=In 2003, the idea of a 'Hindu Holocaust Museum' was proposed by French journalist and Hindutva - ally, François Gautier.}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sarkar |first=Tanika |title=When Politics are Sacralized: Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2021 |editor-last=N. Rouhana |editor-first=Nadim |chapter=7 - Hindutva: The Dominant Face of Religious Nationalism in India (from Part II – India) |doi=10.1017/9781108768191.008 |editor-last2=Shalhoub-Kevorkian |editor-first2=Nadera |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/when-politics-are-sacralized/hindutva/CF515B7FB786C2DF490B6AD24F879899 |pages=172–173}}</ref>

The BJP government has taken the initiative to "[[Saffronisation|saffronise]]" history textbooks ever since taking to power through exclusion of Muslim rulers and their contributions from Indian history.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Bhattacharya | first=N. | title=Teaching History in Schools: the Politics of Textbooks in India | journal=History Workshop Journal | volume=67 | issue=1 | date=2009-03-01 | issn=1363-3554 | doi=10.1093/hwj/dbn050 | pages=99–110}}</ref> 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 [[Anti-Mosque campaign in India|attempting to claim centuries-old mosques as Hindu religious sites]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Singh |first=Amit |date=2024-02-02 |title=Hindutva is at war with secular democracy in India |url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2024/02/hindutva-is-at-war-with-secular-democracy-in-india/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602193742/https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2024/02/hindutva-is-at-war-with-secular-democracy-in-india/ |archive-date=2024-06-02 |access-date=2024-12-18 |work=Religion and Global Society |language=en-US |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Tharoor |first=Shashi |author-link=Shashi Tharoor |date=2023-06-26 |title=The main chapter of how Hindutva sees the past |url=https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-main-chapter-of-how-hindutva-sees-the-past/article67012655.ece |access-date=2025-01-27 |work=The Hindu |language=en-IN |issn=0971-751X}}</ref>
[[File:Sanjeev Sanyal Image.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|[[Sanjeev Sanyal]], a popular historian who publishes works of Hindutva revisionism.<ref name="Prakash"/>]]
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.<ref>{{cite web | last=Sharma | first=Kritika | title=In engineering courses soon: Wright brothers didn't invent plane, batteries existed in Vedic age | website=ThePrint | date=2018-09-26 | url=https://theprint.in/india/governance/in-engineering-courses-soon-wright-brothers-didnt-invent-plane-batteries-existed-in-vedic-age/124540/ | access-date=2024-12-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=The Modi Government's Pseudoscience Drive Is More Than an Attack on Science | website=The Wire | date=2018-03-30 | url=https://thewire.in/the-sciences/the-modi-governments-pseudoscience-drive-is-more-than-an-attack-on-science | access-date=2024-12-05}}</ref> 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" <ref>{{cite web | last=Thomas-Alexander | first=Tiya | title=Mandatory 'Indian knowledge' course seen as 'indoctrination' | website=Times Higher Education (THE) | date=2023-06-27 | url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mandatory-indian-knowledge-course-seen-indoctrination | access-date=2024-12-05}}</ref>

[[Shivkar Bapuji Talpade]] was an Indian instructor who has been claimed to have flown a [[Aircraft#Heavier than air|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 [[Hindutva|Hindu-nationalists]], who claimed that Talpade had "invented the modern aircraft".<ref>{{cite web | title=The aviator? | website=Business Standard | date=2015-01-10 | url=https://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-aviator-115010901145_1.html | access-date=2024-12-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last1=Mazur | first1=E.M. | last2=Taylor | first2=S.M.F. |editor-first=Wendy|editor-last=Doniger|chapter=The Myth of Ancient Indian Airplanes| title=Religion and Outer Space | publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] | year=2023 | isbn=978-1-000-90469-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TBi-EAAAQBAJ | access-date=2024-12-04 | pages=25–33 |doi=10.4324/9781003088264-4 |publication-place=London}}</ref>

[[Popular history|Popular historians]] like [[Sanjeev Sanyal]] are notable for writing books on [[Historical revisionism|revisionist]] Hindutva history.<ref name="Prakash">{{cite book |editor-first=Amrita|editor-last=Pande |first=Devika |last=Prakash |series=Governing Intimacies in the Global South |chapter=Racialising ancient skeletons: How haplogroups are mobilised in the re-writing of origin stories in the Indian media |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |date=14 June 2022 |title=Birth controlled - Selective reproduction and neoliberal eugenics in South Africa and India |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7765/9781526160553/html |isbn=978-1-5261-6055-3 |doi=10.7765/9781526160553.00013 |chapter-url=https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526160553/9781526160553.00013.xml |page=96 |quote=Sanjeev Sanyal, an economist who writes popular books on revisionist Hindutva history}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[NCERT textbook controversies]]
* [[2015 Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
* {{Cite journal |last=Jha |first=D. N. |date=October 1998 |title=Against Communalising History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3517941 |journal=[[Social Scientist]] |volume=26 |issue=9 |pages=52–62 |doi=10.2307/3517941 |jstor=3517941 |issn=0970-0293 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite book | last=Nussbaum | first=Martha C. | title=The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future | publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-674-02482-3 | jstor=j.ctt13x0k4v | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0k4v | chapter= The Assault on History| pages= 231–284| doi=10.2307/j.ctt13x0k4v }}
* {{cite book | title=Hindu nationalism: a reader | publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |first=Christophe|last=Jaffrelot|publication-place=Princeton, N.J | date=2010 | isbn=978-1-4008-2803-6 | language=en | pages=269, 361|chapter =Education 'The Diaspora and Hindu Nationalism'}}
* {{cite journal | last=Thapar | first=Romila | title=Fallacies of Hindutva Historiography | journal=[[Economic and Political Weekly]] | volume=50 | issue=1 | year=2015 | issn=0012-9976 | jstor=24481243 | pages=68–69 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24481243 }}
* {{cite journal | last=Humes | first=Cynthia Ann | title=Hindutva, Mythistory, and Pseudoarchaeology | journal=Numen | publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] | volume=59 | issue=2/3 | year=2012 | issn=0029-5973 | jstor=23244958 | pages=178–201 | doi=10.1163/156852712X630770 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/23244958 | url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite web | last=Devy | first=G N | title=The Hindutva challenge to the historiography of India | website=[[Deccan Herald]] | date=2023-04-22 | url=https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/the-hindutva-challenge-to-the-historiography-of-india-1212105.html }}
* {{cite web | last=Dahiya | first=Himanshi | title=Viral Fake News on Social Media Networks – Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter: Fake News on Internet Is Helping Hindutva's Retelling of History | website=[[TheQuint]] | date=2021-04-06 | url=https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/fake-news-on-internet-is-helping-hindutvas-retelling-of-history#read-more }}
* {{cite journal | last=Bhagavan | first=Manu | title=Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary: Exploring the Cartography of Hindu Nationalism in Colonial India | journal=[[The Journal of Asian Studies]] | volume=67 | issue=3 | date=2008 | issn=0021-9118 | doi=10.1017/S0021911808001198 | doi-access=free | url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-asian-studies/article-pdf/67/3/881/1783155/s0021911808001198.pdf }}
* {{cite book | last=Kingston | first=Jeff | title=The Politics of Religion, Nationalism, and Identity in Asia | publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] | publication-place=Lanham Boulder New York London | year=2019 | isbn=978-1-4422-7688-8|chapter= Hinduism and Hindutva|pages=27–29|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHahDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA27}}
* {{Cite book |last=Sarkar |first=Tanika |title=When Politics are Sacralized: Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2021 |editor-last=N. Rouhana |editor-first=Nadim |chapter=7 – Hindutva: The Dominant Face of Religious Nationalism in India (from Part II – India) |doi=10.1017/9781108768191.008 |editor-last2=Shalhoub-Kevorkian |editor-first2=Nadera |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/when-politics-are-sacralized/hindutva/CF515B7FB786C2DF490B6AD24F879899}}
* {{cite journal | last=Mishra | first=Atul | title=Locusts vs. the gigantic octopus: the Hindutva international and 'Akhand Bharat' in V.D. Savarkar's history of India | journal=India Review | volume=21 | issue=4–5 | date=2022-10-20 | issn=1473-6489 | doi=10.1080/14736489.2022.2131121 | pages=512–545}}
* {{cite book |first=Vinay|last=Chaturvedi|editor-first1=Vinayak |editor-last1=Chaturvedi | title=Hindutva and Violence: V. D. Savarkar and the Politics of History | publisher=[[SUNY Press|State University of New York Press]]|url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781438488783/html#contents| year=2022 | isbn=978-1-4384-8878-3 | doi=10.1515/9781438488783 }}
* {{cite web |title=The Risks of Looking at India's History Through the Eyes of Pseudo-Historians |website=[[The Wire (India)|The Wire]] |date=18 March 2019 |url=https://thewire.in/history/india-history-pseudo-historians-risks}}
* {{cite web | last=Visvanathan | first=Meera | title=Sanjeev Sanyal's attempts to rewrite India's past | website=[[The Caravan]] | date=30 September 2021 | url=https://caravanmagazine.in/books/history-sanjeev-sanyal-attempts-rewrite-india-past}}

[[Category:Historical revisionism]]
[[Category:Fake news in India]]
[[Category:Hindutva|Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Historiography of India]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Pseudoarchaeology]]
[[Category:Archaeology and racism]]
[[Category:Propaganda in India]]

Hindutva pseudohistory - Revision history

Showbiz sportlight at 14:52, 31 March 2026