The VHP-mandated scholars have, in their argumentation, pointed out no less than four attempts where scholars belonging to the anti-temple party have… - Koenraad Elst

In 1994, the Churches created a similar stir, on the occasion of a very small incident in the Chennai area. After reading Ishwar Sharan's book The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple, which argued that a number of churches including the one commemorating Saint Thomas's alleged martyrdom had been built on destroyed Shiva temples, a back-bench member of the RSS-af­filiated Tamil organization Hindu Munnani went to a church in Pon­dicherry, equipped with the parapher­nalia for puja, and inquired where the Shiva lingam was, so that he could worship it. He had learnt that the Cathedral had been built on the site of the Vedapuri-Ishwaran Temple after the temple had been destroyed in 1748 by the Jesuits aided by the them French governor of Pondicherry. Immediately, the Catholic Church was alarmed and warned that the Hindu fundamentalists were trying to create a second Ayodhya affair... Though focusing on conflictual chapters in history has been decried and condemned in the strongest terms when Hindus did just that during the Ayodhya campaign, it is a per­fectly respectable activity in other parts of the world.

In Gielen’s opinion, the main difference between the Abrahamic and the Dharmic religions is it “for every one of the Indic religions it is very difficult to arrive at a minimum definition because of the internal diversity”. (p.40) He doesn’t mention Christianity’s or Islam’s ambition of world conquest nor their history-centricity (followers have to believe in certain historic events around Jesus c.q. Mohammed in order to be real members), which Hindu scholars would consider far for fundamental differences.

While one should always be vigilant for traces of totalitarianism in any ideology or movement, the obsession with fascism in the anti-Hindu rhetoric of the secularists is not the product of an analysis of the data, but of their own political compulsions.