The derivation of a judgment on the Urheimat question from the alleged motives of the proponents of the contending theories is all-pervading and viti… - Koenraad Elst

In the West, secularism implies pinpricking religious fraud and arrogance, but in India, secularists are the most eloquent defenders of myth and theocracy.

What are the facts? The official court chronicle, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, fills many pages with items like this “His majesty proceeded to Chitor on the 1st of Safar. Temples to the number of sixty-three were here demolished. Abu Tarab, who had been commissioned to effect the destruction of the idol temples in Amber, reported in person on the 24th Rajab, that threescore and six of these edifices had been levelled with the ground.”2 It says in so many words that Aurangzeb “ordered all provincial governors to destroy all schools and temples of the Pagans and to make a complete end to all Pagan teachings and practices”. Moreover, it records: “Hasan Ali Khan came and said that 172 temples in the area had been destroyed”, etc. Aurangzeb’s supposed intolerance can be deduced from his actual policies, known to us through his own chronicles as well as other sources. ...About Benares/Varanasi, we learn from the Maasir-i-Alamgiri: “News came to court that in accordance with the Emperor’s command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishvanath at Banaras”.

He doesn’t find it difficult to show that the term “Hindu” is fairly recent and introduced by Muslims in the catch-all sense of “any Indian non-Muslim”.