Decolonisation is not erasing history, says Amit Shah at Asiatic Society event

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday that decolonisation of the country's history and knowledge does not involve erasing the past, but presenting historical truth to the world in an authentic manner and from an Indian perspective.

Speaking after inaugurating a manuscript exhibition at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, he said Indian knowledge, history, traditions, languages, manuscripts and archives must be preserved and carried to people both within the country and abroad.

Mr. Shah noted that Indian knowledge had long been interpreted through a colonial lens, which he said fostered an inferiority complex among Indians. The British, he added, had intertwined knowledge with power, and the task now was to free knowledge from that framework. "Today, we are moving forward to liberate knowledge from that and towards decolonisation," he said.

He argued that a nation unable to protect its memory, history, traditions, culture, languages and archives cannot endure for long, regardless of its power. By contrast, a country that safeguards these elements cannot be enslaved, however long it remains under foreign rule, with India cited as an example.

Referring to attempts to destroy India's knowledge traditions, he said knowledge preserved in people's memory and oral traditions could not be eliminated. He cited the burning of the Nalanda library, saying the knowledge embedded in people's minds through memory and oral traditions survived.

On the discipline of Indology, Mr. Shah said it draws together history, archaeology, linguistics, philosophy, literature, religion, grammar, anthropology, epigraphy and numismatics. He observed that Indian knowledge was not being written in India's own voice and was instead recorded from a colonial perspective. During the colonial period, he said, the study of Indian society was aimed not at the welfare of the world but at understanding the country's systems to facilitate long-term rule. The situation had changed after independence, he added, expressing confidence that institutions such as the Asiatic Society would now use preserved knowledge for the welfare of the country and the world.

Founded in 1804, the Asiatic Society of Mumbai is among the city's oldest non-governmental institutions, established to encourage study and research in language, philosophy, arts and the natural and social sciences in relation to Asia in general and India in particular.

Mr. Shah asked the Society's newly elected committee, headed by BJP leader Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, to expand access to its vast collection. He suggested identifying scholars from Maharashtra and elsewhere in the country and bringing them to the Society to research its holdings, and called for digitisation of its collections and electronic sharing with libraries and similar institutions nationwide. He also proposed a common platform linking institutions and libraries that preserve India's heritage, with the Asiatic Society playing a leading role.

The Home Minister urged that manuscripts and ancestral documents lying in homes in villages across Maharashtra be identified and brought within the ambit of the Gyan Bharatam National Manuscript Mission. Such manuscripts, he said, contain immense knowledge that requires research and can provide strength for the country's progress, potentially contributing to economic and strategic advancement.

He referred to collections preserved at the Society, including illustrated copies of the Mahabharata, the Jain Kalpasutra and Buddhist texts, and said such material should be accessible to students and researchers across the country. He said he had requested Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to facilitate use of the library and to strengthen the Society, and advocated connecting knowledge-preserving institutions in villages, cities and states with the Asiatic Society to create a common repository.

Mr. Shah said he had come to the Society not merely as Union Home Minister but as a participant in the movement to carry the Indian knowledge tradition forward. "I have come here as a campaigner for taking the Indian knowledge tradition forward for thousands of years," he said, extending his best wishes to the new committee and urging it to advance that tradition and use Indology for the welfare of the world.