"Nevertheless, it was quite clear, at least to the BJP and its supporters, that India had housed the world’s first civilization. It had not only been responsible for all manner of inventions and advances long before all others but it had civilized the rest of the world. The Chinese may have been startled to learn that they were in fact the descendants of Hindu warriors. Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, was, it was claimed by the Hindu nationalists, the mother of all other languages. The Vedas, the oldest texts written in Sanskrit, were the foundation of most modern knowledge including all of mathematics. To make sure that Indian students absorbed all this, Joshi introduced new textbooks which stressed such “Indian” subjects as yoga, Sanskrit, astrology, Vedic mathematics, and Vedic culture. He packed schoolboards and research centres with Hindu nationalists whose credentials as historians mattered far less than their adherence to a simplistic view of India’s past and culture. The respected Indian Council of Historical Research in Delhi was told that its historian for early India was to be replaced by an engineer. That appointment at least did not go through because there was a public outcry both about the appointee’s credentials and his attacks on Christians and Muslims. Behind these often laughable attempts to remake Indian education lay a more sinister and political agenda. The BJP and its supporters conceived of India as a Hindu nation and, moreover, one that reflected the values of upper-caste Hindus, including their reverence for cows and their hostility to beef-eating. Their India had little room or tolerance for the large religious minorities of Muslims and Christians, and precious little for lower-caste Hindus."