The Aligarh school has been emulated on a large scale. Soon its torch was taken over by Marxist historians, who were building a reputation for unscru… - Koenraad Elst

To be sure, economic and political dimensions of religious activity also exist, and may present legitimate objects of study. We can’t hold it against Jacobsen individually that he chose this theme, but having followed the scene for decades, we know that the academic authorities in this field do channel all scholarly energy towards this reductionist view of Hinduism. This is much less true for other religions: it is Hinduism that is very disproportionately targeted for reduction to its external dimension.

In the forties, they opposed Partition, together with the Hindu Mahasabha. Everyone else ended up agreeing to it. Yet, in articles written then and today, you find that they are being accused, without any proof, of "provoking" Partition by "frightening" the Muslims into support for the Muslim League. Unbelievable: the only innocent ones are being made the culprits by the united front of culprits.

The figures for Kerala exemplify a general rule: at any given level of literacy and economic status, Muslims will have a marked­ly higher birth rate than their Hindu counterparts, even to the extent of having a higher birth rate than Hindus in a lower educa­tional or income brack­et. A secularist journalist, Pranay Gupta, estimates that in Hyderabad, which has a large Muslim middle-class, a typical Muslim family has eight child­ren while a Hindu family has four.