Abstract
Abstract This article analyzes how the Bharatiya Janata Party crafts a narrative of history in line with its ideology of Hindutva by decontextualizing and omitting information. Using school history textbooks prescribed by its state government in Rajasthan from 2013 to 2018, it uncovers how historical events and personalities are reinterpreted to craft a master narrative of belonging and exclusion. It examines how figures such as the Mauryan emperor Ashoka and the twentieth-century Dalit political leader Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar are “Hinduized” in order to ensure their appropriation into the Hindutva narrative. Further, looking at the 1576 Battle of Haldighati it assesses how antagonistic identities of the “local hero” and “external villain” are created by evoking the religious homogenization of communities and ignoring contradictions. This ensures that belonging to and the defence of the “Indian” nation is a privilege of the unified “Hindu” community, which fights “Muslim” aggression.
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