India Doesn’t Have a Shared National Narrative

India Doesn’t Have a Shared National Narrative

India doesn’t have a shared national narrative.
It has a geographically biased script—and the cow belt is the lead character.

Everything else? Supporting cast. If that.

We don’t just “prefer” certain histories—we repeat them until they become the only history people know.

The Gupta Empire and Maurya Empire are branded as India’s “Golden Age.”
Branded—because that’s what it is. A label that stuck because it was repeated enough.

Meanwhile, the Vijayanagara Empire—with comparable wealth, urban planning, global trade, and cultural depth—is treated like a regional success story, not a national one.

Why?
Because it doesn’t fit the dominant geography.

We romanticise Kanishka and Harsha as symbols of expansion.
But empires like the Rashtrakuta Empire, Pallava dynasty, Pandya Kingdom, and Chera dynasty—which shaped trade networks and culture across regions and beyond—are rarely given the same narrative scale.

We’ve turned Maharana Pratap vs Akbar into a national obsession.
Yet the Ahom Kingdom—which resisted Mughal expansion for centuries—is practically erased from popular consciousness.

Not forgotten.
Erased.

We’ve reduced bravery to a template: Rani Lakshmibai.
As if Tarabai, Rani Chennamma, and Rani Gaidinliu don’t qualify unless they come from the “right” geography.

We selectively celebrate Maratha power, but avoid fully acknowledging how Shivaji and the Peshwas reshaped power across India.

We claim to discuss reform—but Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and Gunabhiram Barua barely make it into national conversations.

We talk about caste—but selectively ignore uncomfortable realities like the Breast Tax.

And then comes the most telling bias: whose pain gets amplified.

The 2013 Kedarnath floods became a national emotional moment.
But disasters in the East or violence in the Northeast? Brief outrage. Then silence.

Partition is remembered loudly through Punjab.
Bengal’s trauma? Under-told. Under-acknowledged. Inconvenient.

At this point, let’s drop the polite language.

This isn’t just bias.
It’s narrative gatekeeping.

A system—across textbooks, media, politics, and pop culture—that keeps centring one geography until it quietly becomes “India” in people’s minds.

And here’s the uncomfortable question no one wants to answer:

Who benefits from a version of India where large parts of its history, heroes, and suffering remain invisible?

Because invisibility isn’t accidental.
It’s produced.

India is not a cow belt with extensions attached to it.
It’s a network of equally powerful histories—unevenly amplified.

Until we fix that, every time we say “Indian history,”
we’re not describing the country.

We’re describing a bias.

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Image Credit: AI
© Dr. Pratik P. Surana