Most studies on nations and nationalism argue that history, or
more precisely a 'common past', is crucial for the process of
national identity building. However, the existence of one or more
concurrent narratives for the construction of this identity is
often not accounted for, and there are cases where the ?common
past? or a ?collective memory? is no longer shared.
This book centres on the construction, elaboration and
negotiation of the narratives that have become official history in
India. These narratives influence politics and the representation
of the nation. Depending on the chosen definition of the nation,
over 160 million Muslim Indians are either included or excluded
from the nation, and considered as ?foreigners from inside?. The
author shows that beyond the antagonism of two representations of
history, two conceptions of the Indian nation ? secular and Hindu
nationalist ? confronted each other during the history textbook
controversy between 1998 and 2004. The diverging elements of the
two discourses are underlined, and surprising similarities are
uncovered. Yet, in contemporary India this convergence remains
overshadowed in political debates as the definition of the
political has been shaped by the opposition between these two
visions of the nation. This book analyzes and questions the
conception of the school?textbook as a tool of national
construction and more generally highlights the complexity of the
link between historiography, nation-state and nation-building.
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