Appreciating Indigenous Culture: A Critical Study of Rahul Sankrityayan’s Volga to Ganga

Abstract

Indian culture experienced profound transformations during the Mughal and British colonial periods, largely due to systematic attempts at cultural suppression through domination and ideological distortion. These forces often depicted Indian civilisation as mysterious and exotic rather than historically grounded and dynamic. In the twentieth century, Rahul Sankrityayan’s Volga to Ganga emerges as both a significant literary work and a political statement advocating cultural resurgence. Through a creative reconstruction of human civilisational history, Sankrityayan constructs a narrative that highlights the richness, diversity, resilience, and continuity of Indian culture. This paper integrates literary analysis with historical contextualisation to explore how the text reclaims indigenous traditions, knowledge systems, and spiritual philosophies through twenty interconnected stories spanning from 6000 BCE to 1942 CE.