In regard to matter after critical matter – the Aryan-Dravidian divide, the nature of Islamic invasions, the nature of Islamic rule, the character of… - Arun Shourie

High priority must be given to work among Hindu women, they say, "since they are the custodians of the faith"... (62)

To even say, ‘What is shariah? Does anyone go by shariah today?’, is kufr, declares the Fatawa-i-Rizvia. Even if the words have been uttered to taunt others, they constitute a grave sin. To say, ‘We do not recognize shariah, we go by custom,’ is kufr, it declares. The ulema issue a fatwa prohibiting Muslims from joining processions of polytheists. A man says, ‘Issuing a fatwa not to join processions of polytheists, etc., is sheer lathbazi.’ The utterance is reported to the ulema. The utterance constitutes denigration of shariah, the Fatawa-i-Rizvia rules, and denigration of shariah is kufr. The man’s wife is free of his nikah. ... To question ijma (consensus) or taqlid (literal adherence) is kufr, they declare. ... Not to believe in Fiqh is kufr, they declare. He who does not accept Fiqh is Satan, they declare.

Once they had occupied academic bodies, once they had captured universities and thereby determined what will be taught, which books will be prescribed, what questions would be asked, what answers will be acceptable, these historians came to decide what history had actually been! As it suits their current convenience and politics to make out that Hinduism also has been intolerant, they will glide over what Ambedkar says about the catastrophic effect that Islamic invasions had on Buddhism, they will completely suppress what he said of the nature of these invasions and of Muslim rule in his Thoughts on Pakistan,3 but insist on reproducing his denunciations of ‘Brahmanism’, and his view that the Buddhist India established by the Mauryas was systematically invaded and finished by Brahmin rulers.
Thus, they suppress facts, they concoct others, they suppress what an author has said on one matter even as they insist that what he has said on another be taken as gospel truth. And when anyone attempts to point out what had in fact happened, they rise in chorus: a conspiracy to rewrite history, they shout, a plot to distort history, they scream. But they are the ones who have been distorting it in the first place – by suppressing the truth, by planting falsehoods.