Is Indian History Being Falsified? Public Interest Trends of Historical Figures, 2004-2023

ABSTRACT

Since the ascent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, concerns have been raised regarding the appropriation or undermining of the legacies of India's prominent leaders and the promotion of specific figures to reshape historical narratives by promoting right-wing Hindutva ideology. The study investigates these claims by examining changes in public perception of three significant historical personalities, Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Vallabhbhai Patel. Information seeking behavior is used as the theoretical basis to explain any change in public interest, measured using Google search volumes from 2004 to 2023. The data is split into two 10-year subsets centered around 2014 corresponding to BJP's rise to power. Welch's t-test is applied to the data to measure if there is any change in search volumes after 2014. Results show an increased interest in Sardar Patel during the period 2014 to 2023 and possible reasons are analyzed. However, no statistically significant changes were observed for Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. There is no evidence to suggest that the legacies of these personalities are being suppressed or appropriated to align with a Hindutva narrative, or that such actions, if any, have had any statistically significant impact on public interest.

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Keywords: Hindutva, information seeking behavior, public opinion, Google trends

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Cite Article (APA):

Mukhopadhyay, S. (2024). Is Indian History Being Falsified? Public Interest Trends of Historical Figures, 2004-2023. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), 8(6), 664-671. https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.806051

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