In all the debates about the ruling establishment’s resurrection of history as an instrument of its majoritarian politics, many of us are guilty of not looking beyond the Hindutvavadis’ obvious political misuse of the past to further their interests in the present. In fact, history plays a profoundly important role in the Hindutva conception of Indian nationalism, and it is worth delving into its ideological underpinnings to understand its present significance.

The concept of nationalism arose around the world, as I pointed out in my book The Battle of Belonging, when the absolute power of the traditional ruler became untenable in more complex societies, and power began to be diffused. At that stage, people began to relate to each other by identifiable and unchanging common features that could be considered the attributes of a nation—a political entity broadly understood to be united by a defined geography, ethnicity, language, religion, and culture, common (and idealised) heroes, and a shared identity and sense of community for all its constituent people.