No other slogan has proved more mischievous for Hinduism than the mindless slogan of Sarva-dharma-samabhAva vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam. - Sita Ram Goel

This was the Swadeshi Movement led by Sri Aurobindo. It was renascent India’s first experiment in mass mobilization. Powerful mantras such as svadeshi and svarajya, first invoked by Maharshi Dayananda, came to the fore and fired the people’s imagination. The struggle against Western imperialism in all its forms including Christianity became linked with the earlier struggle against Islamic imperialism. Maharana Pratap, Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh and Banda Bairagi resumed their full stature as national heroes after having suffered an eclipse in the national memory.

Gandhi's sarva-dharma-samabhâva did not stop at equal respect for all religions; it went much further and stood for equal validity of all religions. The Mahatma had spared no ink or breath to inculcate the belief that all religions embody the same truths, pursue the same goal, and lead to the same spiritual fulfilment.

Similar inscriptions are known to exist in some mosques which are still in use. But they cannot be copied because they have been covered with plaster. Years ago, Dr. Bloch had seen an inscription in the Patthar-kî-Masjid at Patna, the capital of Bihar, stating that the materials for the mosque were obtained from a Hindu temple at Majhauli (now in the Gorakhpur District of Uttar Pradesh).11 The temple was demolished in AH 1036 (AD 1626) by Prince Parwiz, a son of the Mughal emperor Jahãngîr. “I made the car stop,” writes Syed Hasan Askari, “and took my friends to the upper part of the historic Patthar-ki-Masjid. One of my American friends was an Arabist, but there was nothing for him to read, for the demoralised custodians had the inscription plastered with cement, considering that it contained provocative references.”12 Some friends of this author who visited the Jãmi‘ Masjid at Sambhal in the Moradabad District of Uttar Pradesh had the same experience when they expressed a desire to have a look at the inscriptions. This mosque was built in AD 1526 by an officer of Bãbur on the site and from the materials of the local Hari Mandir.