Last week, Amit Shah was at Banaras Hindu University to inaugurate a seminar on Skandagupta Vikramaditya, the 5th century Gupta emperor. Addressing a gathering of academicians, the home minister said there was a need to rewrite India’s history from a new perspective. Why? Because history, as it’s taught today, doesn’t recognise contributions of people like VD Savarkar, the founding father of Hindutva whom the Bharatiya Janata Party, in its election manifesto for Maharashtra, has promised to award the Bharat Ratna. Shah exhorted new historians to rewrite the story of India’s “glorious past”.
Shah’s speech didn’t impress any student group on the campus, except for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which is affiliated to the BJP. They denounced the programme and Shah’s visit as “propaganda politics of the BJP”.
