However, the fact that Mushrif has to apologise for giving his community good news from Gujarat, gives us an idea of the kind of intellectual terror … - Madhu Purnima Kishwar

But they never fully understood the forces that caused the cataclysmic Break-Up of India through genocidal violence. I began to comprehend the meaning of the epic-scale tragedy only after I began to study and come to grips with the foundational doctrines of Islam following the Kathua case. The Nehruvian ecosystem has not only prevented Hindus from knowing the reality of Islam, but it also forced the post-Partition generations to shut their minds to the traumatic reality of this Genocidal Cult, lest we become "intolerant" towards this murderous ideology that has inflicted countless woulds on our civilization, culture and people"

The first phase of violence that began on February 28, 2002 and lasted until March 3, 2002 was characterised by anti-social politicians of all hues exploiting mass outrage against the Muslim community for the Godhra train burning. However, the worst was over in 72 hours due to a swift deployment of the army. By mid-March, the situation started cooling down.

This is a classic example of conflicts arising not out of ignorance but surfeit of knowledge combined with the unconsciously imbibed arrogance of Western academia which assumes that its tools of analysis and value systems enable them to understand and pass judgment on the experiences and heritage of all human beings including those who operate with very different world views. Instead of dealing with the criticism leveled at their intellectual tools, many Western Indologists treated the conflict as a case of ‘academic freedom’ versus the intolerance of Hindu community leaders, thus leading to a bitter stalemate.