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By:

Ajay Pathak

16 March 2025 at 11:05:14 pm

History: The New Frontier of Ideological Warfare

The battle over the past is ultimately a battle over how a civilisation understands itself. AI generated image It is a celebrated maxim that history repeats itself—first as tragedy, second as farce. Yet, the deeper one peers into the abyss of antiquity, the further one can project into the horizons of posterity. Lessons extracted from the annals of time have perpetually served as guiding beacons for political statecraft, both ancient and contemporary. Historically, India was defined by...

History: The New Frontier of Ideological Warfare

The battle over the past is ultimately a battle over how a civilisation understands itself. AI generated image It is a celebrated maxim that history repeats itself—first as tragedy, second as farce. Yet, the deeper one peers into the abyss of antiquity, the further one can project into the horizons of posterity. Lessons extracted from the annals of time have perpetually served as guiding beacons for political statecraft, both ancient and contemporary. Historically, India was defined by high-spirited intellectual combat, a realm where the ancient tradition of Shastrartha—rigorous, multi-faceted philosophical disputation—was reverentially harboured. The prerequisite for Shastrartha demanded not only profound erudition from the interlocutors but also an adjudicating jury of exceptionally evolved minds, acting as epitomes of intellectual rigour. These elevated deliberations did not merely sharpen the analytical acumen of dissenters; they fundamentally elevated the cognitive matrix of the populace as a whole. Foreign chroniclers of the ancient epoch—Megasthenes, Faxian, Xuanzang, and Deimachus—extensively documented a society thriving at the absolute zenith of cultural and intellectual maturity. Given India’s unbroken civilisational continuum spanning over five millennia, mastering the vastness of its historical expanse presents a daunting enterprise. Over the centuries, distinct historiographical layers accumulated: mediaeval chroniclers recorded events through dynastic lenses, British colonialists introduced deliberate ideologically driven distortions, and Marxist scholars subsequently dominated the academic citadel. Nevertheless, history long remained an arena where divergent schools of thought actively debated to secure their legitimate footing within academia. In recent decades, however, an insidious paradigm shift occurred: the realisation that history is not merely an objective academic pursuit but an instrument capable of uprooting a civilisation. The continuity of Bharatiya thought and its quest for ultimate truth were progressively marginalised within mainstream pedagogy. In their stead, distorted narratives, filtered through foreign ideological lenses, were distributed to the masses, deliberately nurturing fissiparous tendencies within the body politic. Political opportunists exploited these revisionist histories to orchestrate emotional mobilisation for immediate electoral leverage, fundamentally fracturing the nation’s socio-cultural fabric. This psychological warfare required substantial intellectual ammunition. A network of Western Indologists and foreign scholars—figures like Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock, Stanley Wolpert, and Audrey Truschke—came to the fore. These individuals positioned themselves as the ultimate repositories of truth, dictating the trajectories of an ancient land, evaluating its sacred texts, and decreeing what was politically and culturally acceptable. Operating within the secluded corridors of elite liberal arts academia, this hegemony remained largely unchecked, as the broader public remained oblivious to the subtle subversion underway. Scholars who dared to consult primary sources and present counter-narratives based on authentic archives were systematically hunted down, discredited, and banished to academic obscurity as a deterrent to future truth-seekers. When social media began democratising information, challenging their rationale and debating their scholarship, these self-proclaimed authorities routinely retreated behind narratives of victimhood. Consequently, a secondary wave of psychological warfare was unleashed through media influencers, political entities, and non-governmental networks. Concepts like "Brahminical patriarchy" and simplified critiques of the Manusmriti suddenly became vogue—deployed like a swarming attack to continuously undermine civilisational foundations. Despite severe institutional hostility, a new cadre of formidable researchers, historians, and thinkers—exemplified by figures such as Meenakshi Jain, Vikram Sampath, J. Sai Deepak, and Rajiv Malhotra—emerged, wielding unyielding primary evidence to reclaim the historical narrative. Amplified by independent media, podcasts, and digital publishing, these intellectual contributions provided the public with the requisite ammunition to challenge decades of historical distortion. Today, an awakened populace actively interrogates long-standing historical fallacies. In alignment with ancient Bharatiya allegory, this profound intellectual churning—the Samudra Manthan of history—inevitably releases initial toxins before yielding the ultimate nectar of truth. The battle for historical integrity and Bharat's rightful civilisational stature remains fiercely contested; yet, in the final reckoning, victory belongs unequivocally to truth. (The writer is a political commentator. Views personal.)

Civic Lines

Correspondent
3 hours ago
2 min read

The Eiffel Tower is an unlikely place for a quarrel about religion, gender and multiculturalism. Yet, a private visit by a BAPS delegation has managed to turn one of France’s most recognisable symbols into the setting for one. The controversy deserves neither the reflexive defensiveness of some Indian commentators nor the temptation to turn the conduct of one religious organisation into a verdict on India.


During the visit this week by around 100 people associated with BAPS, Eiffel Tower employees claimed their female colleagues were asked to leave their posts or limit their presence as the delegation passed. The tower’s operating company, SETE, subsequently acknowledged that the delegation had requested arrangements limiting interactions with women and admitted that such conditions should not have been accepted. Staff protests then forced the landmark to close temporarily. BAPS, while expressing regret for the distress caused, has said nobody was denied access to the tower.


If a religious delegation asks a public institution to remove or conceal female employees because they are women, the request is plainly at odds with the egalitarian principles governing public life in France. BAPS, as an organisation operating in France, has a responsibility to understand that its religious practices cannot automatically be transplanted into every public setting. Private religious observance is one thing; asking a public institution to rearrange its workforce along gender lines is quite another.


But the Eiffel Tower management deserves at least as much scrutiny. SETE had the authority to say no. Instead, it accommodated a request that it now concedes should never have been accepted. The subsequent strike was therefore not simply a protest against an awkward religious request. It was also a rebuke to an institution that failed to uphold its own rules and values.


This is where the larger argument about multiculturalism becomes relevant. A confident pluralist society does not require every cultural or religious preference to be accommodated. It requires minorities to enjoy freedom of belief while accepting the common civic rules that govern everyone else.


At the same time, it would be equally foolish to inflate one extraordinary incident into a judgement on BAPS, Hinduism or India. BAPS operates across several continents, and its women participate in the organisation’s activities, including its international women’s conferences. One controversial request during a half-hour visit cannot erase that broader record any more than the misconduct of a Christian organisation abroad would automatically become a failing of Italy or the Vatican.


The Ministry of External Affairs is right to treat the matter as one between the organisations concerned rather than as a diplomatic embarrassment requiring governmental intervention.


BAPS France should acknowledge more forthrightly why the request was unacceptable and work to repair the trust it has damaged. The Eiffel Tower management, meanwhile, should explain why it agreed to it in the first place. A pluralist society works only when the boundaries of tolerance apply to institutions as much as to visitors.

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