IN SPEECHES TO supporters, to parliament and to the nation,
Narendra Modi has repeatedly invoked India's centuries of slavery.
Soon after taking power in 2014, he lamented that
"the mentality of 1,200 years of slavery continues to haunt us.
It is often a challenge for us to hold our heads high
when speaking to someone of even slightly elevated stature."
The chief target of the grievance is the series of Muslim empires that came before British colonialism.
The Mughals were the longest-lasting of those.
April 21st marked exactly 500 years since the Battle of Panipat,
when Babur, a Central Asian descendant of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan
(hence "Mughal", from "Mongol"), defeated the last sultan of Delhi.
The empire he established was, at its height, one of the world's richest and most powerful.
Its rulers adopted customs of Indian kingship, married locally and in effect became Indian (unlike the Brits).
Their achievements are Indian achievements.
Yet the quincentenary of the empire's founding passed without note.
The Mughals, Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) insists,
destroyed temples (which is true) and humiliated Hindus (which is contested).
They took everything India had and what, the ideology asks, did they ever give us in return?
Language, for one thing.
Mr Modi's speech in 2014 was delivered in Hindi, India's most spoken tongue.