The mathematician, Manjul Bhargava, Fields Medal winner and professor at Princeton, delivered a lecture in India that has since stirred no small amount of controversy. Dressed in kurta-pyjama, a sartorial choice that some read as a subtle nod to the cultural politics of the far-Right, he argued that schools across the world should move away from teaching colonial history and, instead, highlight the history of science as it originated in Indian texts and scriptures.
Bhargava’s proposition precipitated a paradigmatic schism, dichotomising perspectives on the narrative of mathematical history. On the one hand, his advocacy for a recalibration of the dominant Eurocentric discourse, which privileges ancient Greece as the foundational locus of mathematical inquiry, resonated with those seeking to rectify historical injustices and acknowledge the substantial contributions of Indian mathematicians. Conversely, his suggestion was perceived by others, including myself, as perilously proximate to a right-wing ideological agenda that instrumentalises selective historical narratives to assert cultural hegemony. When intellectual assertions regarding heritage converge with the rhetorical tropes of political leadership, the distinction between impartial scholarship and politically expedient appropriation becomes increasingly tenuous.
None of this is to deny the extraordinary richness of Indian mathematics. From the Sulba Sutras, which contain sophisticated geometric rules, to Aryabhata’s (picture) work on the place-value system and trigonometry in the 5th century, which led to Brahmagupta’s formalisation of zero and negative numbers in the 7th century, Indian contributions are both foundational and profound. The transmission of these mathematical concepts to Europe via Arab intermediaries played a pivotal role in shaping the intellectual trajectory of the Renaissance and the ensuing scientific revolution. This historical dynamic underscores the antecedent and the influential nature of Indian mathematical contributions, thereby rectifying the historical narrative and providing a more nuanced understanding of the global genealogy of mathematical knowledge.
Yet the problem is not whether India should be given its due. The problem lies in how the story is told, who tells it, and for what purpose. Bhargava’s perspective of rejecting colonial history while privileging a mythicised lineage of Indian science risks collapsing global history into a nationalist narrative.
A more profound concern underlying this discourse is the dearth of rigorously trained historians of science in India which has resulted in a significant lacuna in the field. In contrast to the disciplines of history and literature, where postcolonial scholarship has effectively problematised and deconstructed the dominant Eurocentric narratives, the history of science remains notably underdeveloped. Consequently, the prevailing historiography of mathematics continues to adhere to a Eurocentric framework, privileging ancient Greece and Europe as the primary loci of mathematical innovation while relegating non-Western contributions to the periphery of the narrative.
What India urgently requires are scholars who are well-versed in both Sanskrit and advanced mathematics, a rare but crucial combination. Only such expertise can systematically recover, contextualise, and reinterpret the mathematical knowledge embedded in ancient texts. Without this intellectual labour, the vacuum is easily filled by political ideologues who cherry-pick cultural achievements to bolster chauvinistic pride. In this sense, Bhargava is both right and wrong: right that the story of science is distorted, but wrong in proposing simplistic remedies that play into the hands of the right-wing rather than building a rigorous, global, and plural history of science.
The disparity becomes increasingly evident when situated within the context of postcolonial studies in the humanities, a field that has undergone significant transformations through the critiques of imperialism advanced by thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Edward Said. Said’s seminal work, Orientalism (1978), paradigmatically exposed the manner in which Western discursive practices constructed the East as an exoticised and backward Other, while Césaire and Fanon’s analyses underscored the dehumanising effects of the colonial discourse on the colonised. Their collective scholarship has facilitated a profound reevaluation of national histories and cultural narratives across the Global South, challenging the entrenched assumption that European experiences and perspectives constitute the sole legitimate starting point for historical inquiry. This intellectual trajectory underscores the imperative for a more inclusive approach to understanding the complex dynamics of knowledge production and cultural exchange.
Yet in the history of science, this decolonising impulse has not been carried through with equal vigour. The Eurocentric story of mathematics as a Greek and European invention remains dominant, while the profound contributions of India, China, and the Islamic world are treated as mere preludes. The irony is striking: while literature, politics, and culture have undergone sustained decolonisation, science remains shackled to a Western master narrative.
This is precisely why the task is urgent. If postcolonialism has taught us anything, it is that recovering suppressed histories must be done through rigorous scholarship, not through political sloganeering. The absence of historians of science in Indian universities leaves the field vulnerable to precisely the kind of right-wing appropriation that Bhargava’s lecture risks legitimising.
Equally troubling is the politics of presentation. When Bhargava, a US-based academic, appears in kurta-pyjama to deliver his lecture, it cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence. Clothing, in India’s contemporary climate, is a signal. It evokes the visual language of the right-wing which deploys traditional attire to authenticate claims of cultural rootedness. Whether Bhargava intended it or not, his choice of dress played to the gallery of reactionary conformists who thrive on this form of symbolic validation. This is not to deny Bhargava the right to wear what he chooses, but to recognise how symbols matter in politics. In an era when everything from food to attire is weaponised in cultural battles, intellectuals must tread carefully to avoid feeding narratives that they may not fully endorse.
Bhargava’s call to foreground Indian science could have been an opportunity to demand more rigorous historiography, more institutional support for interdisciplinary training, and more international collaborations to reconstruct the global history of mathematics. Instead, it came across as a gesture of cultural revivalism, aligning too neatly with the rhetoric of a ruling establishment that seeks legitimacy in imagined golden ages. The danger is twofold. First, it risks alienating serious scholars, both Indian and international, who are wary of nationalist distortions. Second, it reduces India’s genuine mathematical inheritance to a political talking point, robbing it of the universal recognition it deserves.
The way forward, then, is not to reject colonial history outright, nor to glorify Indian achievements in isolation, but to demand a balanced, plural, and global history of mathematics. This means acknowledging India’s pioneering role, tracing its transmission to other cultures, and situating it alongside contributions from Mesopotamia, China, the Islamic world, and Europe. It means investing in the training of historians of science who can bridge the gap between textual scholarship and mathematical expertise.
Shelley Walia has taught in Panjab University