That is definitely worth a chuckle or two. But it is also terribly worrying. We do not subscribe to the view that there is or even that there should be only one kind of history. Let ideas and ideologies contest. But let that battle be informed by minimum standards of scholarship and competence. The religious Right in India has a problem in this regard, although it will never admit it, not even after being led up a mythical bridge by a very ordinary fraudster. The Left, on the other hand, has produced most of India’s good historians. Rather sadly, India hasn’t produced any historian of note who is an uncompromising economic liberal and intelligently politically conservative.

Such laments, of course, are not a luxury policymakers tasked with planning the Sethusamudram project can afford. Their job is unenviably tough — not even the most solid geological explanation can dissuade those mixing mythology and science. And of course the BJP, which enthusiastically did survey work for the project when in power, can’t now see facts. Puneesh Taneja, ex-pracharak, would approve.