Union home minister Amit Shah at an exhibition organised by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai
Distinguishing between German and British Indologists by specifically referring to the British colonisers, Shah said they used Indology to understand Indian systems so that they could rule over Indians for a long time.
Criticising the British Empire for instrumentalising Indology “in order to maintain and consolidate its power and to destroy the confidence” of the Indian people, Shah said the original purpose of Indology was neither enlightenment nor welfare. “Today, we are freeing knowledge from that grip to present the truth to the world,” he said. Mumbai: Decolonisation does not mean the erasure of history, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Sunday, asserting the need to free history from colonial-era fetters and rebutting allegations made against the PM Modi-led govt that it was trying to wipe out the past.
Shah’s comments came at a function at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai and could be seen as an unapologetic response to charges of “takeover of institutions” hurled at BJP and other ideological affiliates of the Sangh Parivar, especially so as the remarks came on an occasion at which he was invited to see the Society’s rare collections by its newly-installed committee said to be ideologically inclined towards BJP, with former party MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe as president and two other former MPs as key office-bearers. It means presenting history to people again with a complete, authentic, and Indian perspective,” Shah said, setting out the aims, as he sees them, of the Society’s new establishment. Shah made a distinction between an external power that “studies a civilisation” and “one that seeks to define a civilisation”. A study, if sincere, could even bring about a change in the thinking of such a power, he said. “Indian knowledge wasn’t being written in India’s voice but in the colonial power’s language,” Shah said. On how the entire approach to Indology—which “emerged as a study of archaeology, history, epigraphy, literature, linguistics, grammar, Darshan Shastra, Dharma Shastra, among other subjects”—was abused, he said, “When a people’s self-confidence is shattered, they do not offer resistance against this state of slavery for a long time. India’s treasure of knowledge had deliberately been defined to ensure such an outcome. ” India’s knowledge tradition, which has at its core the well-being of the universe, had survived despite repeated attempts to destroy it, Shah said. Citing Nalanda’s example, he said, “One can burn the library of Nalanda, but the knowledge that resides in people’s minds as Smruti (memory) and Shruti (tradition), no one can destroy. Earlier reporting noted: Decolonisation means presenting full authentic history with Indian perspective: Amit Shah Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday (September 13, 2026) said decolonisation of the country’s history and knowledge does not mean erasing the past, but presenting the “historical truth to the world in an authentic manner from an Indian perspective”. Shah said after inaugurating a manuscript exhibition at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai. Earlier reporting noted: Indian knowledge had, for a long time, been interpreted through a colonial perspective that contributed to creating an inferiority complex, he said and expressed confidence that institutions like the Asiatic Society would help preserve and use it for the welfare of the nation and the world.
“The process of decolonisation is a must. But India’s colonisers, he argued, had carried out their study for their own aims.
Earlier reporting noted: Indian knowledge, history, traditions, languages, manuscripts and archives must be preserved and taken to people across the country and the world, Mr.