As with The Kashmir Files , as soon as one decides to go off the topic, something happens to bring it back into focus. The recent agitation in Delhi for renaming the Qutub Minar as Vishnu-sthambha, and replacing the names of roads named after the Mughal emperors, who were ‘foreign invaders’, with those of indigenous heroes, to say nothing of the Gyanvapi mosque controversy in Benares, seems to suggest that issues of historical justice are here to stay and should therefore be probed more deeply. One must begin by recognising the ethical importance of the righting of moral wrongs. In our popular imagination, a crime comes first, which is then followed by punishment. But the fact of the matter is that it is only after a punishment has been instituted for some act that it really becomes a crime. Once we realise this, the importance of rectifying historical wrongs becomes obvious, because until a penalty is laid down for a historical wrong it does not really qualify as a wrong, just ...
