Nationalism seeks legitimacy from the past and history therefore becomes a sensitive subject. - Romila Thapar

The history of India was constructed in accordance with nineteenth century European views on what history should be and what was thought to be Indian history.

Nations are not easily forged since many identities have to be coalesced.

Dayananda Sarasvati, seeking to return to the social and religious life of the Vedas, used the Vedic corpus as the blueprint of his vision of Indian society. But he argued that the Vedas are the source of all knowledge including modern science, a view with which Max Mueller disagreed. He underlined the linguistic and racial purity of the Aryans and the organisation which he founded, the Arya Samaj, was described by its followers as 'the society of the Aryan race'. The Aryas were the upper castes and the untouchables were excluded.