The Taj Mahal is in the news again but not for its breathtaking beauty but as a site of political and religious dispute with some historians and political groups claiming that it's not representative of the Indian culture and that it's been built on the site of an erstwhile Shiva Temple. The controversy rose to the national and international stage when the UP tourism department's brochure chose to leave the UNESCO heritage site out. On this episode of We The People, we ask: can history be held hostage to political and religious ideologies? Should history textbooks each change with governments? In a multicultural country like India, who decides which parts of the subcontinent's history are indeed representative of 'Indian culture'?
