...this novel was written not to differentiate between Hindus and Muslims...In statesmanship Muslims undoubtedly were better than contemporary Hindus… - Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

Do not lose your reverence for the past; it is on the past that you must plant your foot firmly, if you wish to mount high in the future. You are not a race of savages who have no past to remember. You cannot dissever yourselves in a day from the associations and influences of a past which extends over at least five hundred centuries. You cannot annihilate in a day a past national existence which has survived the annihilation of hundreds of empires, of hundred systems of religion, and which has surveyed unconcerned the downfall and ruin of many kindred civilizations. I have to make my warning so emphatic because the general tendency of European scholars, who have so great an influence over you, is to decry your past history, to call for its virtual erasure from your memory, and to lead you in the opposite direction.

When a man is in doubt what to do, he goes wherever he happens to be first called.

[In the original edition of the novel Sitaram, the Fakir says:]
Son, I hear that you have come to found a Hindu dominion; but if you be a slave to popular prejudices you will fail to achieve your aim. If you don't consider Hindus and Muslims as equals, then in this land inhabited by both Hindus and Muslims you will fail to keep your kingdom intact. Your projected Dharmarajya will degenerate into a realm of sin.