Historical purity is unrecoverable through backward projection of an invented origin.

Evidence

One cannot reject English now, on the basis of its initially colonial insertion, any more than one can boycott the railways for that same reason. There is reason to believe, in fact, that even the linguistic formation which was eventually shaped into Sanskrit came, in its own time, from elsewhere, as did, wave after wave, the ancestors of the vast majority of the people who now inhabit at least the Gangetic plains. History is not really open to correction through a return passage to an imaginary point centuries ago, before the colonial deformation set in, or before the insertion of Islam before that, or, earlier still, before the invasion of what are generally called the ‘Aryan’ tribes. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 300

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the strategic essentialism bind: Ahmad’s rejection of the imagined pre-colonial origin point parallels Spivak’s own eventual wariness of grounding identity claims in a recoverable authentic past — connects to Society Must Be Defended’s critique of counter-history romanticism. — connects to: History is distorted chiefly through invention backed by fabricated evidence — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1834; Return to authentic origins is impossible for modern subjects — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 822; Nations fabricate biographies backward in time because they lack natural origins. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 747 (+5 more)
• ADDENDUM: Not a direct match to existing articles, but a strong caution against nostalgic origin-grafting that could complicate an argument about trees/bark/dress as ‘authentic’ indigenous infrastructure.

Broader Connections

• History is distorted chiefly through invention backed by fabricated evidence #corroborates (0.85) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1834
• Return to authentic origins is impossible for modern subjects #corroborates (0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 822
• An invented past cannot serve the present; only an honest one can be used. #corroborates (0.85) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 130
• The past cannot be constructed from present elements alone #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 411
• Nations fabricate biographies backward in time because they lack natural origins. #corroborates (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 747
• Pre-colonial past cannot be faithfully represented at all #exemplifies (0.80)
• The past is an in-itself whose content can neither be changed nor added to #corroborates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 427
• Well-intentioned historical revisionism still fails rigorous evidentiary standards #qualifies (0.75) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 937