Abstract

Any sense of the past is deeply political. In the contemporary historical juncture, one witnesses a concerted effort to rewrite the history of India and reimagine the past. This effort is both initiated and supported by the state in a clime where scant regard is given to serious scholarship and professional historians. Emotive hyperbole governs public discourse. And the rich writings of modern Indian scholars, activists and artists are forgotten. It is in such a backdrop Ananya Vajpeyi’s book Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India, published by Harvard University Press in 2012, as a text comes to say to the world, out and loud the grounded norms and values that once shaped the republic India, and which has stood the test of times.