In the grand theater of nation-building, history is never just the past. It is a foundational story, a source of identity, and, most potently, a political weapon. In contemporary India, few forces demonstrate this more powerfully than Hindutva ideology—the right-wing Hindu nationalist movement that has become the dominant political and cultural force under the ruling BJP. Its project to reshape India’s past is not a niche academic debate; it is a systematic, state-backed endeavor with profound implications for education, social cohesion, and democracy itself. This deep dive explores the mechanisms, motives, and dangerous consequences of Hindutva’s revisionist history.

What is Hindutva? The Ideological Blueprint

To understand its use of history, one must first grasp Hindutva’s core tenets. Hindutva, meaning "Hindu-ness," is a form of ethno-nationalism formulated in the early 20th century by ideologues like V.D. Savarkar. Its central argument is simple yet radical: India is a Hindu Rashtra (a Hindu nation), and its true citizens are those who consider India both their "fatherland" (pitribhumi) and "holy land" (punyabhumi).

This definition deliberately excludes Muslims and Christians, whose sacred sites lie outside India. History, within this framework, is not a record of change and diversity but the story of a primordial, indigenous, and continuous Hindu civilization that has been under siege, first by Muslim "invaders" and then by Western colonizers and "leftist" historians.

As scholar Audrey Truschke points out, this ideology is fundamentally ahistorical: "Hindutva ideologues... deny historical change. They want to advocate a stark and entirely negative assessment of people like the Mughals because they want to say that Muslims can never bring anything good to India in either the past or the present."

The Toolkit of Rewriting: How Hindutva Reshapes the Past

Hindutva’s historical revisionism employs a multi-pronged approach, targeting education, public discourse, and the physical landscape.

1. Erasure and Demonization of Indo-Muslim Rule

The most prominent target is the Mughal Empire and the broader period of Indo-Muslim rule (c. 1200-1750).

1. Textbook Revisions: Government bodies like the NCERT have systematically purged chapters on the Mughals, downplayed their architectural and cultural achievements, and re-cast them as solely "foreign," "brutal," and "temple-destroying" tyrants. Battles are rewritten (e.g., claiming Rajput victory at Haldighati), and empires are invented (e.g., a fictional "Rajput Empire").
2. Renaming Places: The symbolic landscape is altered to erase Muslim associations. Allahabad (a name given by Mughal emperor Akbar) becomes Prayagraj; Mughalsarai junction becomes Deen Dayal Upadhyay junction. This is a deliberate break from post-independence renaming that replaced Anglicized names (Bombay to Mumbai); here, the target is the Indo-Persian layer of history itself.
3. Denying Syncretism: The rich, hybrid culture of the period—exemplified by Sanskrit-Persian translations, composite architecture, and multilingual poetry—is ignored or dismissed as a facade over oppression.

2. The Myth of Indigenous Purity and Scientific Glory

To counter any perceived civilizational inferiority, Hindutva promotes an inflated, often pseudo-scientific, ancient past.

1. Out-of-India Theory: The well-established Aryan Migration Theory is rejected because it suggests Hindu ancestors came from outside. It is replaced by the Indigenous Aryans Theory, claiming Hindus are the original inhabitants of India, creating a "pure" lineage.
2. Vedic Science Fantasies: Figures within the ruling establishment have claimed that ancient Hindus invented airplanes, plastic surgery, genetic science, and the internet, citing the Vedas as proof. This "ancient glory" narrative serves to foster pride but also a deep-seated shame about the actual pre-modernity of the past, as Truschke observes: "Underlying that... is a deep shame on the part of Hindu nationalists in their own heritage."

3. Claiming Monuments and Suppressing Dissent

1. Taj Mahal as Tejo Mahalaya: A persistent myth, promoted by some ideologues, claims the Taj Mahal is an ancient Shiva temple. This attempts to Hinduize one of the world's most famous symbols of Indo-Islamic architecture.
2. Intimidation of Scholars: Historians like Audrey Truschke, Romila Thapar, and the late D.N. Jha have faced relentless online harassment, death threats, censorship, and legal battles. The goal is to create a chilling effect, deterring rigorous scholarship that complicates the nationalist narrative. Truschke notes the stark difference in backlash: in Pakistan, disagreement is calm; in India, from Hindutva quarters, it manifests as "virulent angry pushback... and threats of violence."

Why Does This Rewriting Work? The Political Payoff

This project is not an academic folly; it is politically astute.

1. Creating a Unifying Victim Narrative: By painting a thousand-year history as a period of unremitting Hindu victimhood under Muslim rule, it forges a powerful, grievance-based Hindu political identity that transcends caste and regional divisions.
2. Otherizing Indian Muslims: By linking modern Indian Muslims to "foreign invaders" and "tyrants" like Aurangzeb, it frames them as perpetual outsiders, justifying discriminatory policies like the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and vigilante violence.
3. Displacing Colonial Blame: It shifts the primary historical blame for India's problems from British colonialism (which drained wealth and engineered divide-and-rule) to "Islamic invasions," allowing for selective amnesia about collaboration with the British Raj and focusing anger on an internal "other."
4. Legitimizing Majoritarian Rule: If India is, and always has been, fundamentally a Hindu nation, then majoritarian dominance in politics and culture is merely the restoration of a natural order, not a violation of a pluralist democratic contract.

The Real-World Cost: Beyond the History Books

The consequences of weaponizing history are devastating and tangible:

1. Academic Decline: Funding cuts, ideological appointments, and fear have corroded the independence of Indian universities and research institutions. Truschke’s advice to young historians in India is tragically telling: "The best standard advice... is to leave India."
2. Erosion of Social Fabric: This historical narrative directly fuels communal polarization, providing a "historical" justification for discrimination and violence against minorities.
3. Loss of a Complex Heritage: India's genius has historically lain in synthesis—in the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (composite culture). Denying the Muslim contribution to Indian food, language, music, art, and governance impoverishes the national soul and creates a sterile, monolithic cultural identity.
4. Global Reputational Damage: Watchdogs like USCIRF now list India among countries of particular concern for religious freedom, partly due to the majoritarian historical narrative that legitimizes persecution.

Conclusion: Defending History in an Age of Myth

The battle over India’s past is a battle for its future. Hindutva’s project reveals that history, when stripped of nuance and evidence, becomes a dangerous tool for identity politics and authoritarian control. The work of professional historians—committed to archives, multilingual sources, and context—is thus not a mere intellectual exercise. It is a form of resistance against the flattening of human experience into political propaganda.

As Truschke argues, the fight is also about human rights: "Aurangzeb comes into this because he's a dog whistle. You hate on Aurangzeb as a way of saying it's okay to hate on present-day Indian Muslims." Defending a complex, evidence-based history is, therefore, essential to defending the pluralist, democratic ideals upon which the modern Indian republic was founded. In the end, a nation confident in its present does not need to forge myths about its past.