Yet, in 1989, all this evidence was brushed aside by a group of 25 academics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (Delhi), mostly declared Marxists, who … - Koenraad Elst

The concluding paragraph of A.K.Sinha's rebuttal to Irfan Habib's speech points out the contradiction between the earlier work of even Marxist historians about ancient India (in which they treat the epics as sources of history, not mere fable) and their recent Babri-politicized stand: "Today, even taking the name of Mahabharata and Ramayana is considered as anti-national and communal by the communist leaders, Babri Masjid Action Committee historians and the pseudo-secularists. What do they propose to do with all that has been published so far in [this] context by the Marxists themselves, notably D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma, Romila Thapar, K.M. Shrimali, D.N. Jha and others? I have been thinking about the behavious of our Marxist friends and historians, their unprovoked slander campaign against many colleagues, hurling abuses and convicting anyone and everyone even before the charges could be framed and proved. Their latest target is [so] sobre and highly respected a person as prof. B.B. Lal, who has all his life (now he is nearing 70) never involved himself in petty politics or in the groupism [which is] so favourite a sport among the so- called Marxist intellectuals of this country. But then [slander] is a well-practised art among the Marxists."

At least since the Bombay blasts of 12 March 1993, bomb attacks against Hindu Nationalist targets have been a regular fact of life, though I know of no Western paper or academic publication which has cared to mention the phenomenon.

Once this Marxist-inspired myth of Buddhism and Jainism as social reform movements gets debunked, the authority of those who publicly identify with this myth will also be questioned. The same counts for other such myths, artificially created by politically motivated people : once the myth goes its proponents lose their aura of authority. While a scrutiny of the individual record of the big-mouth secularists may be useful as long as this debate remains as nasty as it is now, it is the issue- centered criticism which will blow the secularists' authority away very soon. The myth of Brahmin oppression, the myth of Buddhism as a social reform movement, the myth of the Buddhist-Brahmin power struggle, the myth of the economical motives for the Muslim conquests and destruction, the myth of the non-existence of an indigenous and nation-wide Hindu culture, the myth of the social reforms brought by Islam, the myth of Hindu-Muslim amity, the myth of Nehru and of India as a a nation in the making, the myth of the Composite Culture, the myth that communalism is a British creation, all these myths are bound to give way once a substantial number of Hindu intellectuals apply their minds to them in a serious and scientific way, and then use the available channels to speak out.