DC Edit | Modi’s Emphasis On Heritage Appropriate

Castigating the previous governments and leaders, who he alleged were “ashamed of their own culture”, Mr Modi said those in power after India became an independent nation could not appreciate or understand the significance of our own places of worship and therefore started a “trend of being ashamed” of their own rich culture and glorious past.

Besides the lack of pride in one’s own culture being a hangover of colonialism and lack of confidence characteristic of the conquered race, the Prime Minister also laid bare and exposed the politicisation of colonialism of those who linked it to their electoral fortunes and, in turn, created an atmosphere where it would feel wrong to take pride in one’s own past.

Often, Indian politics has been split between those who preached modernity and secularism, which were but often merely euphemisms for a collective shame, to obliterate and neglect our own culture and to “correct” memories through the alteration of narratives of history through controlled selective narrations of history through our education and all popular channels of discourse dissemination.

No country can progress by neglecting its history, Mr Modi expounded, which he linked to the change during the last decade, in which, the BJP government led by him ensured the country could rediscover its own past and understand and take pride in its glorious ancient and medieval history.

Our double engine governments, he said in Assam, have been focusing equally on “development and protection of heritage”. In the context of the euphoria across the country over the grand consecration ceremony at Ayodhya, most Indians would agree. And with pride.