“Opinion | How INSV Kaundinya Is Reviving Memory”, News 18, March 04, 2026
“Much is justifiably made of India’s recent foray into space, but heritage is also important to rejuvenate a nation’s soul. Culture and knowledge spread in ancient times over land and sea, and the notion that India sat still as merely a trading destination not as an active explorer itself is unacceptable and contradicted by evidence. The recent discovery of 2,000-year-old graffiti in Tamil Brahmi script in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt is one proof of voyaging Indians.
But before the ‘stitched’ ship INSV Kaundinya was launched with fanfare last year, not many Indians knew or realised that India had a long maritime legacy. Most history textbooks skimmed over it for much of the 20th century, going only so far as to note the excavation of a large Indus-Saraswati era shipyard and port in Lothal in Gujarat. Most students presumed it was to service foreign trading ships and that ancient Indian traders. themselves mostly used land routes.
Back in 1912, historian Radhakumud Mookerji wrote Indian Shipping: A History of the Sea-borne Trade and Maritime Activity of the Indians from the Earliest Times, which remains the most magisterial work on this now-neglected aspect of India’s heritage. But the Leftist historians who commanded the heights of Indian academia from mid-20th century ensured that voices like Mookerji’s were silenced and key questions were left unasked and uninvestigated…….”
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