Dr. Arjun Dev had explained to me a few weeks earlier that it is forbidden to write negativly about Islam in NCERT textbooks because it can foment co… - Yvette Rosser

This comment is added as a caveat for scholars seeking to learn more about the Sangh Parivar. Don’t rely on secondary and tertiary sources, but have the document in your hand, rather than reading “critical analyses” about such politicized and sensitive issues.

Several years ago, I was told by a leading professor of "South Asian Studies" at a major University that I "should never report anything positive about the BJP" (Sangh Parivar combine) or I "would never find a job in American academia". A colleague of mine submitted a manuscript for publication to Oxford University Press, Delhi and the then editor of OUP informed her that it was a good manuscript but since it had passages that reflected positively on the Sangh Parivar they could not publish it. He said if she would remove the passages that were not critical of the Hindu Mahasabha and the BJP then OUP would consider publishing her book – otherwise it was against their policy. Amazing isn't it?

The new editions have re-embraced the view of Bangladeshi nationalism that was promoted by the military regimes. However, the BNP's efforts to vindicate the perpetrators of genocide have gone considerably further than even the former textbooks of Zia and Ershad's periods where the word "razakar" still appeared in reference to the murderers of the intellectuals on December 14, 1970. In 1996 era textbooks, the Awami League added "al-badars" and "al-shams" to the list of collaborators, specifically naming the "Jamaat-i-Islami" as culpable in the murder of the intellectuals. The new 2001 genre textbook leaves all of these names out of the narrative and simply blames the deaths of the intellectuals on themselves and on the Pakistani Army. After October 2001, eliminating references to razakars and certainly the Jamaat-i-Islami was an imperative since former razakars and members of the Jamaat are now part of the ruling coalition. ... An important impact of the omissions and extractions is that the genocidal excesses of the infamous collaborators, the razakars are ignored and thereby excused. This deflection of guilt by the Jamaat-i-Islami was one of the first orders of business for the BNP/Islamists political dispensation that came to power in October 2001.