PATRIOTISM WITHOUT PEOPLE 5 found in any part of the country.'3 Jain chose to equate ethnicity and culture in a somewhat bewildering manner. And he refused to countenance any suggestion that Islamic culture could have been integrated into the cultural matrix of India. The years of Islamic rule, in his perception, were a prolonged period of 'civilisational stalemate*. He scornfully dismissed accounts of how different cultural elements were harmonised into a syncretic ethos through Indian history. The two polar opposites could not merge and did not. What prevailed was an uneasy truce, a disengagement that preserved and perhaps deepened mutual exclusivities. Girilal Jain's theoretical exertions highlight a defining feature of the ideological project of Hindutva. This is best described as a foreshortening of historical memory. Inspiration is drawn from a dim and distant past about which little is known, while immediate history is either forgotten or tendentiously interpreted. This is a circumstance of some convenience, since ignorance is a fertile breeding ground for social prejudice. Indian history yields generously of events, anecdotes and episodes. The ideological programme of Hindutva proceeds selectively in its choice of historical facts, and having picked those that are consistent with its predilections, proceeds to embellish them with concoctions. The whole is then knitted together in a skein of social prejudice. The project, to cite a phrase derived from the historian Eric Hobsbawm, is the invention of tradition.4 But if the social acceptability of an invented tradition is to be taken as an index of its authenticity, then Hindu nationalism clearly is a counterfeit ideology. An invented tradition establishes its social legitimacy through symbols that invoke popular allegiance, that strike a responsive chord in the popular masses. The depth of resonance that a symbol achieves could vary with social class, ethnicity or with linguistic and religious allegiance. Symbols undoubtedly are an essential ingredient of political mobilisation. But the choice of symbols by Hindu nationalism—most notoriously so in the case of Ayodhya, but also in certain less conspicuous instances—betrays a preference for exclusionary rather than universal criteria, for stampeding an unwilling religious minority through threats and cajolery into a cultural realm that they view as alien. Proponents of Hindutva never tire of drawing attention to the recalcitrance of the Muslim religious community towards the cultural symbols that in their view represent the national identity. This is one among many stratagems that has been deployed to suggest that the Islamic presence within India is an alien intrusion—an obdurate hold-out against the cultural resurgence of the nation. A major dignitary on the side of Hindu nationalism—Arun Shourie—has suggested a small experiment to find out how far we are in tune with our cultural heritage. Take the poem Vande Mataram, he