In the last piece, this author had presented a broad summary of historian Radhakumud Mookerji’s book The Fundamental Unity of India to understand how indigenous scholarly voices, which existed well before 1947, saw Bharat. In reading and interpreting works of history, it is critical to understand that history has always been a fertile battleground because it could either make or break a people’s relationship with their past, which, in turn, affects their sense of self. Therefore, decoloniality demands that the political utility of history should never be underestimated, which makes it imperative to pay attention to the ebb and flow of politics and power structures surrounding a work of history. How is this relevant to the discussion at hand?
The fact that Mookerji and other such Indic voices operated in an extremely hostile colonial atmosphere, wherein Western-centrism was even more normative than now, is well-documented.