Koenraad Elst Quotes

Another reason for not relying too much on the theories of the linguists is that Austronesian linguistics is a very demanding field, comprising the study of hundreds of small languages most of which have no literature, so the number of genuine experts is far smaller than in the case of IE, and even in the latter case linguists are nowhere near a consensus on the homeland question. Linguistic evidence is very soft evidence, and usually the data admit of more than one historical reconstruction, so I don't think there is any compelling evidence against a Sundaland homeland hypothesis. Conversely, archaeological and genetic evidence in favour of the spread of the Austronesian-speaking populations from Sundaland seems to be sufficient.

Gandhi was gravely mistaken in thinking that you can make the enemy disarm by first disarming yourself. Yet, he was right in setting his sights on peace. Being prepared for war was the right tactic, but its target should have been a bloodless crisis management, not war. Strength should be mustered not to make but to avoid war, the source of many evils. (ch 2 Mahatma Gandhi’s Letters to Hitler)

Life is short, but longer than necessary to fathom Islam, which is a simple subject. I still read about the history of Islam on occasion, but actually this doctrine and its application offer me no intellectual challenge anymore. That does not mean it has lost my interest, but our knowledge of Islam is quite sufficient for basing action on. I remain available for formulating a policy regarding Islam based upon scientific knowledge, not the fairy tales and taboos of the current policies. But about Islam as a doctrine that motivates the actions of Muslims over the centuries, there is nothing new to understand anymore. There remain many people to convince, but mostly they have already heard the facts and simply decided to remain deaf to them. You can take a horse to the river but you cannot force it to drink. Some people are simply happier in their delusions, and only a rough collision with reality will be able to help them.

For those who still have a sense of proportion, it will be clear that Hindu acceptance of or complicity with or overreaction against Islamic aggression is but a secondary phenomenon, which on a scale of moral guilt comes nowhere near the primary phenomenon of Islamic self-righteousness and intolerance. The Muslim death toll in 20th century South Asian interreligious violence is much smaller than the Hindu death toll... at least one and possibly several million of Hindus killed in East Bengal... In fomenting so much hatred against the unbelievers as has been witnessed in action in the Subcontinent in the past decades and centuries, Islam has given a testimony of itself. (Preface)

At the initiative of the Scheduled Tribes, targets par excellence of the missionary efforts, several Indian states have enacted laws against forcible or fraudulent conversion (which according to the missionaries and their secularist allies are non-existent anyway). But these state laws can never acquire teeth as long as the Constitution guarantees the right to propagate religion. Thanks to this unshakable guarantee, the missionary apparatus considers these anti-conversion laws as but an impotent scarecrow, useful only to underpin its own internationally propagated image of hapless victims being persecuted by an overbearing Hindu majority.

The Aryan invasion of India has somehow gone missing from the archaeological record.

In spite of Sikand’s attempt to whitewash Aurangzeb, evidence remains plentiful that this Moghul emperor committed acts of persecution and iconoclasm which would generally be considered vicious (they certainly would if committed by Hindutva activists, witness the torrent of abuse after the demolition of the Babri Masjid).

The ideal of Pakistan was launched by Iqbal in 1930, and in 1940 it became the official political goal of the Muslim League. has often been described as the cradle of Pakistan. From their better knowledge of and appreciation for modern culture, the Aligarh thinkers accepted the modern value of religious tolerance. Not to the extent that they would be willing to co-exist with the Hindus in a single post-colonial state, but at least to this extent that they wanted to do something about the image of intolerance which Islam had come to carry. Around 1920 Aligarh historian Mohammed Habib launched a grand project to rewrite the history of the Indian religious conflict.

There are some cornerstones of the Indological worldview which tolerate no criticism nor alternatives, so these are to be carefully ignored. Thus, Shrikant Talageri’s case against the Aryan Invasion Theory, the bedrock of the “academic” view of ancient Hindu history, is painstaking, detailed, voluminous, factual and well-formulated, yet Truschke’s own entire tribe of “academics” simply goes on ignoring his case without bothering to refute it. (Well, there are two articles talking down to him, but we mean actual refutations, not mere denials.) If academics were to live up to the reputation they have among laymen, they would have set aside their current business to deal with this fundamental challenge to their worldview.

Instead, just like B. B. Lal’s report, this inscription became a skeleton in their closet, which they have to keep from public view as long as possible.

The true story has been explained threadbare long ago, but for poor listeners like Mr. Engineer, we may repeat that Lal’s excavation focused on the ancient period and that from the viewpoint of Ramayana studies, the medieval layer with its unmistakable temple foundations was indeed devoid of much interest. The discovery of temple remains was nothing unexpected or controversial at the time, given the consensus (still prevalent in the late 1970s) on the site’s known history of Islamic iconoclasm. Yet, after the normal bureaucratic and human-inertial delays, as the 1980s were advancing, the ASI started deliberately postponing the formal publication of Lal’s findings because secularist opinion had started mobilizing against the longstanding historical consensus. The reason for the endless procrastination must have been the same reason why the court case has been dragging on for decades: fear of getting involved in controversy, particularly one where the facts would force a stance favoured by the Hindu side. In other words, fear of being demonized by the secularist establishment with its bloodhound attitude towards dissent.

The neologism âdivâsi constitutes one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in modern history.

Foreign scholars might have played the role which the Supreme Court judges rejected: that of independent arbitrators. But as it turned out, the established Western academics, to the extent that they cared to look into the Ayodhya debate at all, have only looked through the glasses which the India’s Marxist-Muslim combine has put on their noses.

At any rate, if the name must be restored to its original form, why not go the whole hog and return to the name given to the capital by its founder Yudhishthira hero of the Mahabharata, probably ca. 1500 BC), viz. "Indraprastha"? That is what the Hindu-nationalist party Jan Sangh used to promise decades ago, and likewise "Karnavati" for Gujarat's metropolis Ahmedabad. And promises should be kept.

Mrs Gandhi invoked the "threat of fascism", meaning the RSS, as a justification for the suspension of democracy. On the strength of the evidence of 1975, the allegation of "fascism" and of anti-democratic intentions levelled against the Hindu movement is not that inccocent: it is a rhetorical preparation to anti-democratic measures of the "secularist" parties... We should also keep in mind that the amendment to the Constitution which declared India a "secular, socialist" republic was passed without proper parliamentary debate in 1976 at the height of the Emergency dictatorship. The facts of history do not support the linkage of "Hindu communalist" with "anti-democratic", nor that of "secular" with "democratic".