Thus far neither Dr. Roy, nor Professor Prasad, nor Professor Irfan Habib have responded to the publication of the photograph of the Treta Ka Thakur … - Meenakshi Jain

What the BJP government claims to offer, what all scholarly historians want, and what is loathed by the Marxists who have dominated the cultural and educational establishment since decades, is glasnost: openness, an end to the dead hand of Marxist dogma in Indian history-writing. However, it is quite wrong to say that the Sangh Parivar takes this job “very seriously”. It took three years before relieving leading Marxists of their influential positions (Prasar Bharati, NCERT, IHC). Most of its new nominees were not up to the job, some because of ill-health (e.g. K.S. Lal and B.R. Grover, both now deceased), some because they had never functioned in an academic setting. It should not be forgotten that for decades, at least since ca. 1970 when the Marxists led by P.N. Haksar and Nurul Hasan were given a lot of effective power in this sector in return for their support to Indira Gandhi, distinctly non-Marxist young historians found their access to an academic career blocked by the Marxist hegemons. Of the new textbooks, some are impeccable and are welcomed as undeniable improvements, e.g. Meenakshi Jain’s presentation of the Muslim period, arguably the most sensitive and controversial part of the series. Some of the others, by contrast, have been criticized or ridiculed even by fair-minded observers.

After coming to power in 1998, the BJP-dominated government has made a half-hearted and not always very competent attempt to effect glasnost (openness, transparency) at least in the history textbooks. They ordered the writing of new history textbooks for the schools. This led the Marxists to start a furious hate campaign against the so-called “saffronization” (hinduization) of history. Most of the new textbooks have rightly been criticized for being written in poor English and riddled with errors,-- the result of both the Hindu movement's long-standing anti-intellectual prejudice and the systematic exclusion of aspiring pro-Hindu scholars from the institutions by the ruling Marxists. The one major exception, however, is precisely the volume on the Muslim conquest and rule, Medieval India (class XI) by Prof. Meenakshi Jain, an impeccable text systematically based on primary sources.

Several other sacred sites in Rajasthan suffered severe assault. D.V. Sharma, who excavated in the Sikri region (ancient Seka), established that it had been a major temple-town and cultural centre like Osian, Gwalior, Vidisha, and Khajuraho. He reconstructed the sacred culture of several temple towns in the area, like Chichana, Chauma-Shahpur, Imlaoda, Churyari, Rasulpur, Jautana, Kiraoli, Dura, and Kagarol on the periphery, and Sikri at the nucleus. p 125