With elections upon them, the DMK and its allies announced in Tamil Nadu that, once in office, they will bring forth legislation to give reservations… - Arun Shourie

The result has been as predictable as it is iniquitous and absurd: if Ram Sharan sets up an engineering college, the state as well as the university concerned can prescribe all sorts of things it must do; if Mohammed Aslam sets up an exact clone of that engineering college across the road, teaching exactly the same subjects, using exactly the same textbooks, neither the state nor the university can regulate its functioning!

Two features would by now be obvious: (1) far from being a clear and definite code, the shariah is ambiguous; (2) it is ambiguous on the entire spectrum of issues. Two operational consequences follow: (1) this ambiguity is one of the bases for the unrivalled power of the ulema; (2) the ulema therefore sabotage every effort to codify the shariah as zealously as they fight back every effort to replace it by a modern code common to all.

Upon going through the text the reader will notice how completely contrary to the facts are the cliches which are bandied about in public discourse in India, and which as a consequence so many have by now internalised.... (x)