In the last couple of hundred years of the syncretistic tradition and perception have been challenged and undermined at times by various contesting ideologies. First, the 'orientalist'. Scholarship constructed and helped to perpetuate exclusive and competing, if not conflicting, models of religious-cultural traditions in the region ... The second serious challenge came, at a somewhat later stage, from the Islamic 'essentialists' and the champions of Muslim separatism. The third, which emerged and almost ran parallel to that of the Muslim separatists, is represented by the proponents of Hindu nationalism (which) has gained political momentum and stakes in India.

... The colonial context of the imperialists' denigration and opposition to Indian nationalism, prior to the internal challenge and direct intervention on a serious scale, provided a congenial political climate for the persistence and growth of the 'composite culture' as reflected in the shared experiences of millions of Indians. Many nationalist leaders, writers and thinkers as well have contributed to rearing the edifice of this culture:

... It is not surprising that the year before Indian Partition saw the publication, in 1946, of powerful expositions and defence of the composite culture by Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Asok Mehta and Achyut Patwardhan and Humayun Kabir. After a brief lull in the wake of the stunning reality of the Partition, the debate was revived in the early 1960s as a part of the struggle against the communal uses of history from both the Hindu and Muslim viewpoints..

The concept of the 'composite culture' ... has been politicised all around. The liberal and Marxist critique, has found it expedient to use it politically to combat communalism and other forms of sectarian strife, while the Muslim separatists and the champions of political Islam as well as their saffron-robed counterparts of 'Hindutva' or political Hinduism have targeted it to undermine this notion for their own political reasons ... The argument of pseudo-secularism' has been deployed by them to sap the foundation of a multi-cultural state. They have appropriated the British divide-and-rule paradigm of Hindus and Muslims as separate civilisational entities that cannot survive together in peace. Also, doubts have already been expressed in these circles concerning the historical legitimacy of the syncretistic process in the making of India's 'composite culture', with the corresponding claim made for are constructed and exclusive Hindutva ...

... The making and development of the composite culture', from ancient through medieval to modern and contemporary times, and the nature, form, content meaning and symbolism of the syncretistic traditions at the elite, popular and regional levels ... The historical relationship between the syncretistic and other rival traditions in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial stages (and) the critical relationship between India's cultural formulation and its political future, with particular reference to democracy and federalism, must command our immediate attention.