In the face of all this those who continue to assert, ‘Shariah has safeguarded the rights of women like no other system of law has,’ do so only becau… - Arun Shourie

Now, this is a favourite phrase of Panditji—‘the long-term view’—as is ‘the larger considerations’. Whenever he deploys the former, you can be sure that he is preparing the case for ceding ground. Whenever he deploys the latter, you can be sure that he is preparing the case for ceding specifically the country’s interest.

First, our scholars have not spared time for this vital material for the same reason on account of which they have not spared time for other things vital to our existence as a country. Most of the intellectual work in India consists in writing footnotes to work being done in the West—this has been so in the case of Marxist intellectuals even more than it is in the case of the others. And when our intellectuals are not engaged in writing these footnotes, they are busy following the fashion of the day in Western circles, busy ‘applying’, as the phrase goes, to Indian material the notion or ‘thesis’ which has become fashionable in the West. In a word, our scholarly work is derivative. So the first reason there has been no substantial study of the fatwas in India is that they have not yet caught the eye of the West.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of India is the hightest body engaged in attempts to coordinate the work of different Catholic churches in India and to engage in dialogue with other religions. ... To celebrate the 50th anniversary... the CBCI convened a meeting in January 1994.... And it was an important gathering: it was only the second time in fifty years and the first time in twenty five years that such a comprehensive review was being undertaken... The organizers were so kind as to ask me to give the Hindu perception of the work of Christian missionaries in India.