At a conference where India’s top archaeologists announce one after another that the excavations in the sites where they work, keep on throwing up mo… - Koenraad Elst

It is quite certain that some of these Austronesians must have landed in India, some on their way to Madagascar, some to stay and mix with the natives. Hence the presence of some Austronesian words in Indian languages of all families, most prominently ayi/bayi, "mother" (as in the Marathi girls' names Tarabai, Lakshmi-bai etc.), or words for "bamboo", "fruit", "honey". More spectacularly, linguists like Isidore Dyen have discerned a considerable common vocabulary in the core lexicon of Austronesian and Indo-European, including pronouns, numerals (e.g. Malay dva, "two") and terms for the elements. Oppenheimer doesn't go into this question, but diehard invasionists might use his findings to suggest an Aryan invasion into India not from the northwest, but from the southeast.

I am aware that the following verdict is extremely unpopular among both politicians and intellectuals, but they should learn to face facts at last. The division of guilt for India's Hindu-Muslim conflict is extremely uneven. Hinduism may be guilty of social inequality, superstition and other evils, but intolerance of differences in religion is not one of them. It is unambiguously Islam which has brought religious persecution to India. It is Islam and Islam alone which has caused the Hindu-Muslim conflict with its many millions of mortal victims. Even when individual Hindus strike at Muslims... they are merely playing a part in a drama which Islam alone has inflicted on India...

To say Mahmud patronised Alberuni is a bit of a stretch - for Alberuni was a captive from one of Mahmud’s western campaigns and, while he travelled in Mahmud’s train, he enjoyed no special privileges. (his bitterness towards Mahmud is quite explicit in his Kitab-al-Hind.)