The existence of that temple had been a matter of consensus among Muslims, Europeans and Hindus, both nationalist and anti-nationalist, until the JNU… - Koenraad Elst

It is not unfair to conclude that some of the pro-BMAC authors have committed serious breaches of academic deontology. For me personally, seeing this shameless overruling of historical evidence with a high-handed use of academic and media power, was the immediate reason to involve myself in this controversial question.

Incidentally, in Nepal the breakt­hro­ugh of Islam (nearly non-exis­tent in the 1970s) is simply spectacular, and is again due in large meas­ure to im­migrat­ion from Banglad­esh. In Sri Lanka, the Muslim per­centage is slowly rising by demograp­h­ics alone.

This is very clear when we take a long-term perspective: in the fifty years between 1941 and 1991, their per­cent­age has risen 5.64% (from 24.28% to 29.92%), substan­tially more than the 4.31% gain in the sixty years bet­ween 1881 and 1941. At this rate, the Muslims in the Subcon­tinent must have passed the 30% mark in the mid-1990s and will pass the miles­tone of becoming more than half the num­ber of Hindus (ca. 32% to ca. 64%) before the census of 2011.