The Perversion of Thought-Crime: Historical Revisionism, Nationalism, and Religious Divide in the Indian Subcontinent
To many, the secession of the British Raj was a weight lifted off the shoulders of the residents of a newly independent subcontinent. The subjugation under English authority had long been considered entirely exhausted without the mutiny of its laborers laid out to dry under the same sun which baked the clay of their buildings. But the simmering warmth which once scorched the surface of the skin of India was beginning to emanate from underneath. Growing pressure surrounding the emergence of the Muslim bloc of Pakistan had already been faced with debates over its legitimacy, fueling the migration of 15 million across borders drawn by their former settlers. In a final attempt to secure authority in the Global North, the wardens of the Empire handed over their keys to what would soon become the new ruler of the South Asian psyche: separatism. As the dynamic between Pakistan and India continues to be barraged with statements of ‘conflict,’ ‘tensions,’ and ‘violence’ for the 77th year since their independence, the notion of peace has become increasingly difficult to conscribe, often by virtue of the difficulty of ascribing an antecedent dilemma. Responses from impassioned citizens will often give the impression that the archetypal Pandora’s box which has erupted into the social fabric of the diaspora today may very well be just that- an artifice constructed from the traumas of the Partition for those profiting and in charge.
As emerging states, the creation of a secure national identity has its roots in the revision of history textbooks. Often, arguments surrounding the Mughal Empire’s subjugation of Hindu subjects will arise as the foundation of Muslims as a characteristically foreign demographic within India. This notion of an alien status has been extended by the efforts of both the paramilitary group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindutva (‘Hindu-ness’) political entity which it spurs forward. Through the BJP and their growing presence under PM Narendra Modi, the ideal of the secular state becomes co-opted by conspiracy regarding the history of revolutionary movements. US-based think tank Freedom House has recorded the degrees to which the BJP and Modi have infringed on human rights on the bases of systemic religious discrimination and erasure: the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019 granted special access to Indian citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants and refugees from neighboring Muslim-majority states alongside the creation of a national register of said citizens, which observers believe is meant to disenfranchise Muslim voters within India by effectively classifying them as illegal immigrants while simultaneously providing refuge for vulnerable religious minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh to assimilate within Indian society. Nowhere has this become more pressing than in the state of Assam, where the citizenship of over 1.9 million was contested after a register was established in 2019. In accordance with the teachings of cultural and religious homogeneity within Hindutva circles, new editions of political science textbooks have been recorded as depicting Mahatma Gandhi in a white-washed manner due to his views on Hindu-Muslim unity, alongside the removal of references towards the RSS’ banned status after an aligned member of the organization orchestrated his assassination. As Abidi (2018) summarizes, ‘Removing bits that frame [the] RSS as a radical militant organization that opposed Gandhi- who is lauded as an Indian freedom fighter- not only helps to sublime its image and make it more acceptable but also moves away from the narrative of a pluralistic, multicultural India that Gandhi and Nehru had propagated.’. These attempts towards legitimacy have been underscored with the BJP’s implementation of a ‘Hindu first’ version of Indian history, under the assumption that the entirety of India, alongside its modern-day religious minorities (which comprise approximately one-fifth of the population), are the direct descendants of the initial inhabitants of the subcontinent. The dominant theory postulated by the British Empire of India as a population of migration is overthrown in the name of both self-determination from Western influence and the nationalistic rewriting of curricula. According to Reuters Investigates, Balmukund Pandey, the head of the historical research wing of the RSS, said he meets regularly with Culture Minister Sharma, who has expressed plans for the implementation of the narrative to enter not only textbooks, but the academic sphere of India as a whole. In the past year, BJP-associated groups have engaged in violence on campuses across the country, including attacks on students and professors. University administrators and faculty have been investigated and pressured to step down on the assumption of perceived political views or the discussion of topics deemed sensitive by the BJP government, particularly India’s relations with Pakistan and conditions in Indian Kashmir. (Freedom House, 2024).
As an Islamic republic, Pakistan’s rewriting of pre- and post-colonial histories has garnered large amounts of attention and criticism from the global community, possibly by merit of the extended legacy it has held throughout its inception as a state. Since the 1950s, the mythos surrounding ‘Pakistan’s First Citizen,’ Muhammad Bin Qasim, has similarly extended into the promises of religious fundamentalist parties and Prime Ministers. British colonists initially reignited interest in Qasim in the 19th century through the publication of The History of British India by James Mill in 1817 (Paracha, 2015). Mill’s work was a success in the United Kingdom, and became foundational in creating the narrative of Qasim’s alleged invasion as the moment of pre-colonial India’s decline amongst its colonized population. An Arab military commander in service of the Umayyad Caliphate, Qasim was briefly recorded as having invaded the province of Sindh during the 8th century as part of a larger attempt towards securing profits from local port cities, an event which allegedly sparked the notion of a separate Muslim state amongst the local residents. Incidentally, the invasion serves as the point of departure in many of Pakistan’s history books covering the premodern age. Directly preceding the infamous military dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq in 1978, the Jamaat-e-Islami took the event to the streets in celebration of the Yom-e Bab ul-Islam, which roughly translates to ‘The Day of the Gateway to Islam.’ In the same decade, as a result of the secession of what is now Bangladesh from the Pakistani state over concerns of cultural erasure and ethnic cleansing, the myth was aggressively propagated during martial law, with the aim of claiming ancestry to a larger Arab world in contrast to the realities of legitimacy in the South Asian zeitgeist. Ultimately, as Yvette Claire Rosser states in her research on the use of curricula in forming national identity, ‘The broad expanse of South Asian history is a tabula rasa upon which Pakistani historians and policymakers have created the story of a new nation replete with cultural roots and ancient socio-religious trajectories’ (Rosser, 2003, p.73), where the bloodshed of the surgery of a subcontinent has become the impetus for the endowment of a historic destiny to be fulfilled by its once-united populace.
The extent to which state-sponsored history is intertwined with aims of legitimacy in the global and domestic sectors cannot be ignored or separated. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been recorded as expressing Pakistan’s ties to a Turkish lineage, with calls to showcase Turkish dramas on national television during the holy month of Ramadan (AlJazeera, 2020), while the Mughal names of streets in Uttar Pradesh are being erased with those of right-wing nationalists. The journey from historical revisionism to the legacy of colonial powers has made its indelible mark on the Indian subcontinent. What matters now is for how long, and to what extent, their respective mythos can be contained.
Disclaimer: All translations, unless stated otherwise, are my own. My aims in translation aim to parse the most literal meanings of the terms included.
Works Cited
Abidi, A. (2018, March). By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists lay claim to India. By rewriting history, Hindu nationalists aim to assert their dominance over India. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/
Faisal, M. (2023, April). India and Pakistan are weaponizing history textbooks to manufacture religious nationalisms. India And Pakistan Are Weaponizing History Textbooks To Manufacture Religious Nationalisms. https://www.thegazelle.org/issue/247/erasure-in-pakistan-and-india
India: Freedom in the World 2024 Country Report. Freedom House. (2024). https://freedomhouse.org/country/india/freedom-world/2024
Khan, I. (2020, May). Analysis: Ertugrul and the lure of Turkish dramas in Pakistan. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/5/14/analysis-ertugrul-and-the-lure-of-turkish-dramas-in-pakistan
Paracha, N. F. (2015, April). The first Pakistani?. DAWN.COM. https://www.dawn.com/news/1175127
Rosser, Y. C. (2003, August). Curriculum as Destiny: Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/a3a45987-5c99-4409-ab00-e7f611587da3/content
