"Indian history for the last 50 years or so has been the preserve of historians who were Marxists by conviction and who had come to occupy positions of influence in India's elite Universities. These historians have callously distorted past events and interpreted history to suit their political agenda. Their efforts were not an honest attempt at history writing but a warped exercise in social engineering. Nowhere is this as evident as in the case of the temple desecrations that occurred during the Muslim invasion of India. Opponents (even when evidence was forthcoming) were dubbed as fundamentalists and their views effectively suppressed.
John Keay, a British historian, in his recent book India had this to say about Mahmud of Ghazni's destruction of the Somnath Temple: "But what rankled even more than the loot and the appalling death toll was the satisfaction that Mahmud took in destroying the great gilded lingam. After stripping it of its gold, he personally laid into it with his sword. The bits were then sent back to Ghazni and incorporated into the steps of its new Jami Masjid, there to be humiliatingly trampled and perpetually defiled by the feet of the Muslim faithful."
Khuswant Singh in his book We Indians avers: "Mahmud of Ghazni was only the first of a long line of Muslim idol-breakers. His example was followed by Mongols, Turks and Persians. They killed and destroyed in the name of Islam. Not a single Buddhist, Jain or Hindu temple in northern India escaped their iconoclastic zeal. Some temples were converted to mosques; idols and figurines had their noses, breasts or limbs lopped off; paintings were charred beyond recognition."Read more...
Khuswant Singh in his book We Indians avers: "Mahmud of Ghazni was only the first of a long line of Muslim idol-breakers. His example was followed by Mongols, Turks and Persians. They killed and destroyed in the name of Islam. Not a single Buddhist, Jain or Hindu temple in northern India escaped their iconoclastic zeal. Some temples were converted to mosques; idols and figurines had their noses, breasts or limbs lopped off; paintings were charred beyond recognition."Read more...
