10 "Presenting" the Past
Hindutva history for a closer analysis, we will probe if there is any con-
nection among the national history, popular mythification, and political
socialization and governance.
The modern nation today consists of constructs that are "fairly recent
symbols or suitably tailored discourse," such as "national history."^15 As
history is the continual interpretation of the past for the ever-changing
needs of the present, it is primarily a writing practice.^16 Writing history,
however, does not happen in a vacuum but in a particular historical and
social environment, as contemporary historians only retell the old tales in
the mood of their times. At any given time, there exists a high degree of
implicit consensus among a people on the essential features of their his-
tory. There also exists a "common and relatively coherent interpretation"
of history among the politicians, officials, intellectuals, journalists, and so
on. And there is the product and property of academic and popular social
scientists and historians that builds upon and feeds into popular con-
sciousness. Mick Moore calls the above three versions of history "popular
myth," "nationalist myth," and "intelligentsia's myth."^17
Similarly, Robin Jeffrey identifies three kinds of history practiced in the
modern world: Popular History (or Folk History), which is the "elders'
explanations of why we are as we are"; Rhetorical History (or Politicians'
History), which is "versions of the past to suit specific, political purposes";
and Academic History (or Scientific History), which has been developed
over the last 200 years in Europe. Jeffrey compares Popular History with
Clifford Geertz's "metasocial commentary" and Rhetorical History with
Leonard Thompson's "political mythology." These three types of histories
interact and influence each other but coexist.^18 Although Moore and Jef-
frey derive interesting conclusions in their rather brief studies of Sri Lanka
and Punjab, respectively, the intricate connections among the three types
of histories and the complexities involved in their interaction have not
been subjected to any thorough and in-depth analysis. In order to execute
a close scrutiny of this trilogy and the interactions among them, the three
types of histories may be augmented to broader concepts of national his-
tory, popular mythification, and political socialization.
National history assumes that history is ultimately founded on and
representable through the nation-state identity, and that the metanar-
rative it employs is quite unproblematic. Such a national history need
not be the nation-state's official version of its past, as there can always
be other national actors, such as the Sangh Parivar in India, with their
own interpretations. Popular mythification, the widely accepted "truth"
about their own past among a people, explains how a people construe the
world, invest it with meaning, and infuse it with emotion. The congru-
ity between national history and popular mythification is facilitated by
various manifest and latent political-socialization processes. In a predomi-
nantly rural country such as India with a substantial number of illiterate