ABSTRACT
The old history textbooks transmit a national history just like their NDA counterparts. However, each narrative conveys a different representation of history, which builds a different nation. But even though the two historical discourses adopt opposing stances when depicting the nation, we cannot ignore the fact that they have developed in the same context, that they are based on the same categories and that they share the same foundational assumptions. In other words, the two discourses fit into the same framework; both secularist and Hindu nationalists are a part of the grand narrative of the nation-state, of modernization and progress, but they propose two different versions of it.
