Indian politician, journalist and columnist
It is one thing of offer, as Mr. Advani has consistently done, a powerful critique of the prevailing political culture. But the problem lies in designing an alternative... How, for example, does the concept of Hindu Rashtra...square with the notion of 'justice for all and appeasement of none? The campaign for the Ram Mandir, while important in symbolic terms, is unlikely to be a substitute for a comprehensive, alternative philosophy. Having tapped the reservoirs of anti-status quo, the BJP is unlikely to progress if its critique stops at the secular-communal issue. Mr. Advani has struck a powerful blow at the shibboleths of Nehruvian consensus; his successor will be frittering away the advantages if a simultaneous assault is not launched on the other article of the reviled faith - socialism.
Many of those who read history at Delhi in the mid-1970s and later, still bear the ugly scars inflicted by the thought police of sarkari Marxism. 'There are two interpretations of history', a leading representative of the Red Cretin Brigade used to inform his students casually, 'the bourgeois interpretation and the Marxist interpretation, and the Marxist interpretation is the correct one.' ...Whereas the British Marxists established their reputation by crafting their radical concerns their Indian counterparts took cheeky short cuts. it may also explain why substantive research on Indian history has increasingly become the prerogative of British, and a few American and Australian universities. The presiding deities of Indian historiography have meanwhile devoted themselves to writing politically correct text books that present history as chapters of received wisdom. They have also drafted resolutions for the Indian History Congress and written articles in the press on the Ayodhya issue.