In a word, denunciation, condemnation, calumnizing the gods and goddesses, pouring ridicule on our scriptures, sowing hatred in the followers is the … - Arun Shourie

A contributing factor certainly must have been the contempt that Mao, Chou En-lai and others felt for India and Indians. This comes through again and again in conversation after conversation of the Chinese leaders. Chou and Kissinger agree on how India is the one that is causing the troubles in East Pakistan; on what China and US should together do to halt India in the tracks; they agree about not just what is ‘the Indian tradition’—deceit, blaming others—but just as much about the Indian character—marked by ingratitude.⁴ The contempt and coordination show through even more dramatically in the conversations that Kissinger later has with the permanent representative of China at the UN, Huang Hua, during which he asks Huang Hua to assure Chou En-lai that, should China take military action against India to divert it from pursuing its assault on Pakistan, the US will hold the Soviet Union at bay. Nixon, Pompidou and Kissinger are exchanging views about the state of the world. Nixon summarizes the Chinese assessments: ‘...the attitude of the Chinese towards their neighbours can be summed up in this way. The Russians they hate and fear now. The Japanese they fear later but do not hate. For the Indians they feel contempt but they are there and backed by the U.S.S.R.’

Predictably, in Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan’s reckoning the Shias are not Muslims at all. Their ‘mosques’ are not mosques—and remember, as Mir Baqi and his descendants, the mutwallis of the mosque were Shias, the ‘Babri masjid’ was a Shia mosque.

To put the blame on Muslim journalism and leadership is in a sense to beg the question. After all, why do Muslims prize this kind of journalism, why do they follow such leaders? The answer is in the psychology which the ulema and their fatwas have drilled into them.