Rajiv Lochan

There are histories that people still remember despite historians not writing about them.

In India such histories feature, among others, the Bijamandal mosque at Vidisha and the Bhojshala at Dhar, the Bhagyalakshmi temple at Hyderabad, the Bhadrakali and the Mahalaya issues in Gujarat, and of course the large number of temples in Kashmir and the ongoing matter of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi.

Each of them represents a grievous injury done to symbols associated with Hindus, done with seriously bad intent by Islamist supremacists.

The history establishment of India tried hard to stop any scientific investigation into these histories. Frequently the history establishment, with full support of the then governments in India, tried to spread wrong information about these histories, and accuse Hindus of being oppressors of dalits and buddhists.

Despite serious efforts by the history establishment, the memories remained alive. They were rendered even more strong given the resurgence of a supremacist Islam associated with the ISIS and Taliban. Non-Muslims, especially Hindus in India, are scared that this supremacist Islam which had caused so much harm to their ancestors will come back to cause even more harm.

Already the Islamist supremacists have shown in Kashmir that they can drive out with impunity an entire community, the Kashmiri Pandits.

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Rajiv Lochan is an acclaimed historian, scholar and columnist. We have reproduced this write-up from a social-media post.