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HomeTalk PointTalk Point: ​Does ​​the Rajatarangini narrative of ​5,000 years of Hindu history in Kashmir...

Talk Point: ​Does ​​the Rajatarangini narrative of ​5,000 years of Hindu history in Kashmir need challenging?

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Kashmir: Exposing the Myth Behind the Narrative (SAGE Publications, 2017​), a new book by a former Kashmiri state civil servant​,​ Khalid Bashir Ahmad, challenges​ what the author calls Kashmir’s popular​​ ‘Hindu historiography.’ According to Ahmad, the historical text Rajatarangini (by Kalhana) is inaccurate, a​s well as the popular​ narrative ​that​ ​Islamic settlers’ forced mass conversion o​n Kashmiri​ Hindus, e​xpelled local p​opulations​,​ and wanton​ly demolished non-Islamic religious symbols. The book also says that​ the region’s residents practiced​ Buddhism for over a millennium before ‘militant Hinduism’ obliterated the religion​.

Ahmad claims that a Kashmiri Brahmin minority ​and its progeny successfully perpetuated this fallacious narrative over centuries. Following the advent of armed insurgency and the subsequent ​mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990, the book claims, this communal narrative ​became ​the mainstream Indian view.

Does ​​the Rajatarangini narrative of ​5​,​000 years of Hindu history in Kashmir need challenging? We ask experts.


The gifted versifier Kalhana himself alludes to using his ‘mind’s eye’ in composing his work 

Khalid Bashir Ahmad
Author, ‘Kashmir: Exposing the Myth Behind the Narrative’

Kashmir is known to have an ‘uninterrupted’ recorded history of five millennia with the Rajatarangini, composed by Kalhana, a 12th century native Sanskrit versifier, recording the first 4,000 years. His narrative is strikingly precise to a couple of centuries prior to his own time, but incredibly fictional for the first 3,000 years. The narration of this period is a description of persons and events untraceable in other sources. The gifted versifier himself alludes to using his ‘mind’s eye’ in composing his work while trashing all the other 11 sources of history (that he had himself consulted) for ‘author’s misplaced learning’ or ‘no longer existing in complete state’ or having become ‘fragmentary in consequence’ or ‘lack of dexterity in the exposition of the subject-matter’ or ‘no part being free of mistakes’.

Did he construct prehistoric Kashmir with the same poor sources or purely with his poetic imagination?

The ruler Rinchana was himself among the first converts. The allegation of widespread destruction of temples disregard factors like the massive earthquakes Kashmir suffered in history, as mentioned in geological studies. Two hundred years after the alleged iconoclast Sikandar, we have Mirza Haider Doghlat (16th century) and Jahangir (17th) who describe more than 150 ‘lofty’ idol temples standing as ‘first and foremost among the wonders of Kashmir’ built ‘before the manifestation of Islam’.

The Kashmiri Hindus, as ‘eyes and ears’ of the successive rulers, have held important positions throughout the Muslim (Shahmirs, Chaks, Mughals and Afghans) rule and remained the preferred community for the positions of power and trust. Even Aurangzeb accorded them ‘very high place in the country and the local bureaucracy’. The Mughals even banned Muslims from recruitment in the army while keeping its doors open for the Pandits.


The truth is on our side in the form of the Sun temple in Martand, ochre mark behind the Shah Hamdan mosque

Rahul Pandita
Author, ‘Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits’

In 2015, Germany returned to India a 10-century Durga idol stolen from Kashmir Valley in the early ’90s. It became only possible because of a long struggle by a Kashmiri Pandit friend settled in the United States. After its return, we spoke for long. I told my friend that someday someone in Kashmir will write that there were no Pandits in the Valley. The cultural effacement is being perpetrated through the likes of Khalid.

It is a big, well thought-out project. On one end is the denial of the circumstances that led to the recent exodus of the Pandits in 1990. Gradually, they are gnawing, rat-like, at the troubled history of our land, creating false, fictional narratives masquerading as serious, academic work. This includes whitewashing atrocities of Islamist invaders and terrorists of 700 years and portraying the Pandit as the oppressor.

The Pandits do not have rap artists and ‘resistance’ singers; we do not have the support of tenured professors in Berkley. But the truth is on our side. It is there in the form of the Sun temple in Martand; it is there in the form of the ochre mark behind the Shah Hamdan mosque. Serious Kashmir scholars know Kashmir’s history and its tryst with Islamic invasions. Khalid’s book is not meant for them; it is meant for local consumption in Kashmir so that those who drove out the Pandits from their land and brutalised them can feel guilt free.


Kalhana’s Rajatarangini is an unbiased, clear historical writing without any pressure from the kings

Rajneesh Shukla
Sanskrit Scholar, Sampoornanad Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi

Rajatarangini (‘Flow of Kings’) is a historical chronicle of early India, written in Sanskrit verse by the Kashmiri Brahmin Kalhana in 1148, and is justifiably considered to be the best and most authentic work of its kind. It covers the entire span of history in the Kashmir region from the earliest times to the date of its composition. Kalhana is regarded as Kashmir’s first historian. Like the Shahnameh is to Persia, the Rajataringini is to Kashmir.

Kalhana is a renowned name in the world of history, not just because of his work on Kashmir, but also because of what he wrote about the process of historiography and introduces the qualities of a good historian. He argues why his Rajatarangini is better than the previous texts. Among his sources were a variety of epigraphic sources relating to royal eulogies, construction of temples, and land grants, coins, monumental remains, family records, local traditions.

Kalhana was able to write an unbiased and clear historical writing without any pressure from the kings because he didn’t get patronage from any king of his time.  His writing was devoid of rhetoric and praise, which was visible in the works of other writers under the patronage of the kings. Kalhan says, “A good history has the power to take the person into past and explore in a way like an eye witness. That history involves a superior kind of creativity which retains its relevance even after many centuries. That historian should be appreciated who honestly judges the past incidents; unaffected by his personal likes & dislikes.”

Kalhana delved deep into such works as the Harsacarita and the Brihat-Samhita epics, and used with commendable familiarity the local rajakathas (royal chronicles) and previous works on Kashmir as Nripavali by Kshemendra, Parthivavali by Helaraja, and Nilamatapurana.


Buddhism and Hinduism were never at loggerheads in Kashmir

K. N. Pandita
Former Director of the Centre for Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir

History of all ancient civilisations carries an important component of mythology. This is how humans have attributed supernatural powers to saints, prophets or angelic bodies. So, Christ can breathe life in a dead body, Muhammad can split the moon into two with the show of a finger and Hanuman can lift Sumeer Mountain on the tip of his small finger.

Buddhism and Hinduism were never at loggerheads in Kashmir. Their co-existence was proverbial. If the Hindu king ordered construction of temple consecrated to Vishnu, his queen ordered construction of a vihara consecrated to Buddha or Boddhisattava. Hindus never changed the nameplaces of Buddhists in Kashmir. The place-name suffix “yaar” or “haar” are actually the corrupted abbreviations of Sanskrit vihar.

Somyaar, Kharyaar, Naidyaar localities in Srinagar city or Kralhaar, Frestehaar localities are in close proximity of Kanispora (ancient Kanishkapora five kilometres south of Baramulla where probably fourth Buddhist conference attended by Hiuen Tsang was held) and are still called by the same nomenclature even by the Muslims of Kashmir.

Second, it is ignorance of ancient history of Kashmir to use the term “militant Hinduism”. This is the coinage of 20th century Indian Muslim League of the sub-continent to suit their political perception. Great humanism of Hindus of ancient Kashmir is proved by their Shaivite scholars taming the brute murderer Mihirkul of Hun descent and making him give up his killer nature and embrace Shaivism.


Exclusivist vision of Kashmir’s history is being used to suit a certain hegemonic account of the past

Noor Ahmad Baba
Professor in Political Science, Kashmir University

History cannot be understood from one lens alone. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, which chronicles rulers of Kashmir from about 19th century BCE to about 12th century, is not a professionally written historical account. It is an epic account of kings written in literary form covering a limited period and gives at best a partial and incomplete account of Kashmir history. Such a narrow account cannot be sufficient to construct a more comprehensive account of Kashmir’s past. We need to reconstruct the history in the light of archaeological and ethnographic evidences.

There is never one history of the past. History has always been written from the perspective of the dominant and victorious communities and races. Kashmir, as per more contemporary evidence, has had human habitations even before the arrival of Aryans and initiation of the Hindu period covered in Kalhana’s account. Such a history written from the one perspective cannot be an objective and complete account of history of any place and people. To equate a place with one people is a myth constructed to project a certain partisan narrative of history. Such an exclusivist vision of history has been and is being used to suit a certain hegemonic account of the past to force assimilation on the marginalised communities and people. Such notions need to be deconstructed and replaced by a more objective account of the past, drawing from more objective sources available today.

The narrative on forced conversion doesn’t hold much weight as the privileged (Brahmins) within Hindus continued to be intact in Kashmir in spite of mass conversions of people from lower caste people to Buddhism at one time and to Islam at a later stage.


The most graphic description of annihilation of the Hindu temples of Kashmir is given by a Persian biographer

Ashutosh Bhatnagar
Director, Jammu Kashmir Study Center, New Delhi

Any writing claimed as history may be challenged, if it has no supporting sources, references, evidences.

“But-shikan”, the iconoclast, is the sobriquet given to Sikandar (Alexander) by Muslim and not Hindu historians. Almost all Persian histories of Kashmir eulogise his campaign of destroying Hindu temples and shrines as great and laudable service to the expansion of Islam. This and his forcible conversion of Hindus to Islamic faith has been vividly told by the Muslim author of Baharistan-i- Shahi (A Chronicle of Medieval Kashmir translated by K.N. Pandita and published by Gulshan Publishers, Srinagar, 2017).

The most graphic and vivid description of annihilation of the Hindus of Kashmir, their temples and shrines and their civilisational symbols as well as their forced conversion is given by the author of Persian biography of Shamsu’d-Din Araki, an Iranian of Noorbakhshiyya sufi order who visited Kashmir twice – last time in about AD 1574. This work is titled Tohfatu’l-Ahbab and has been translated with exhaustive and valuable footnotes by K.N. Pandita under the title A Muslim Missionary in Medieval Kashmir.

An author, claimed to be an historian, must be humble enough to accept the realities of history. It seems that the idea behind the Khalid Bashir Ahmad’s book writing is not to reveal the truth but to produce a propaganda. It is very unfortunate that the author used his skills to deny the history of the land, to which he belongs.


The book tries to settle the 1990 debate by proving that Kashmiri Pandits lied since 8th century

Vinayak Razdan
Runs an online archive of cultural and visual history of Kashmir

The book is the latest fat brick from Kashmir that is going to be thrown at Kashmiri Pandits. It should have been titled “Kashmir Pandits: the race of liars”. Written by a former director of Libraries, Archives Archaeology & Museums of Kashmir, it basically tries to settle the 1990 debate by proving that Kashmiri Pandits have been lying since 8th century, around the time Nilmata was written. He writes that Kalhana hated Musalmaans, and does not use the word “musalmaan”, even though the word existed as proven by famous Lal Ded saying “na booz Hyund ti Musalmaan“. But the saying is of obvious later origin just doesn’t occur to the writer.

He goes on to say that Jonaraja, historian and Sanskrit poet, spread lies about Sikandar just because Jonaraja couldn’t reconcile to the fact that the Hindu era of Kashmir was over. Is the writer reading the past through the lens of present, and is unable to reconcile to the fact that Kashmir is partly ruled by Hindu BJP?

Why was this book written the way it was, rejecting Nilmata, Rajatarangini, 1947, 1967, 1988, 1990?

It was done so because Kashmiri Pandit now tell their story in that sequence. Pandits want to explain 1990 by explaining Sikander. Muslims wanting to negate 1990 by negating Sikander’s role.

But this is probably the first book that actually has the exact FIRs of Kashmiri Pandits who died and were raped. It is another matter that that are used to forward the usual: 1. Not enough died. 2. Pandits exaggerated the descriptions.


 

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5 COMMENTS

  1. “Khauldi Bashera Ahmedxa” how was that Mr. Khalid Bashir Ahmad ……Hahaha this is what the people like you are doing with the history . I think you have not read and research about the history but created it by your own imagination.
    Enjoy your days man The reality is going to expose of you like peoples .
    Jai Satya Sanatan, Ram Ram.

  2. Sikandar came to Bharat, through Kashmir to loot like any invader before or after him, and as invader destroyed, and later others converted the local population by force as invaders of those days did, some of them stayed back to enjoy the fruits of the great country and ruled, like the last of them the British. Do you want to say that the British did not destroy and loot india?. every invader did it and it is chronicled. Christian crusaders destroyed the middle east. Muslim and british invaders looted, destroyed and converted the native population. Europeons killed and decimated natives in Americas and Australia. I am sure you will be able to find references for all of them. Denying with a long article does not change the history.

  3. Reviewers’ Prejudice
    Of the several reviews of Khalid Bashir Ahmad’s – by now – well-known book, KASHMIR- Exposing the Myth Behind the Narrative that one had occasion to go through, two [Chitralekha Zutshi: This book claims to expose the myths behind Kashmir’s history. It exposes its own biases instead, Scroll.in, October 24, 2017, and Reapan Tikoo: Building a Flawed and Divisive Narrative, Kashmir Times, June 3, 2018] invite immediate attention for a poor analysis and writers’ prejudice. While Zutshi looks more aggrieved by the book finding an international publisher, thus attaining credibility, Tikoo has exposed his failure to make an impartial comment on a work of meticulous research.

    Zutshi, a US based academic and author, has chosen to mislead readers by pedaling a view that the book is an exercise in Kalhana-bashing, and almost shouts angrily “Who is the author to challenge Kalhana? How can he do that? She accuses him of labeling the 12th century chronicler as a Kashmiri Pandit when the designation has 16th century origin. Curiously, the book nowhere mentions Kalhana as a Kashmiri Pandit.
    Evident from her review, Zutshi’s outburst springs from her discomfort over the book finding a publishing house internationally reputed for bringing out highly academic titles. In view of the rigorous and exhaustive procedure of reviewing a manuscript at the SAGE before accepting it for publication, one can understand her unease, for the book does not conform to the position taken by her community on the Kashmiri Pandit Narrative. Criticising, without a single corroborating instance, the book for pointing out instances of Kalhana’s imagination working behind his reconstruction of the earliest history of Kashmir, Zutshi fails to counter facts and sources given out by the author except through making vague comments like ‘Archival Sources’ quoted in the book are either not identified by primary source or the archive or library in which these are located. By all probability, she has not bothered to go through the exhaustive ‘Notes and References’ accompanied with each chapter of the book, for, she appears in an unusual hurry to discredit it as “dangerous”, “tendentious’ and “a polemic”. All archival sources quoted in the book are mentioned with location. Here are some to confront the allegation: chapter 5: 40, 106, 127, 194, 197, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 236; chapter 6: 41, 88, 92, 115, 117 to 123; chapter 7: 2; and chapter 9: 8. Commenting on Zutshi’s outburst, BBC Correspondent Riyaz Masroor, in fact, considers it as “a badge of honour” for the author of the book, and I cannot agree more with him.
    Zutshi’s love and admiration for Kalhana is quite in place and understandable but what she would not concede is the fact that the chronicler is not a deity above criticism and Rajatarangini is not a scripture to be spared of critical analysis. If the two have escaped scrutiny so for it does not mean no one must ever try. Having said that, Kashmir- Exposing the Myth Behind the Narrative is not about Kalhana or his much acclaimed work. It is about a community narrative on victimhood, its sharp political overtones and its factual inaccuracies. Of the 11chapters, the shortest of all is related to the Rajatarangini where the author has pointed out many fictional and make-believe developments that Kalhana presents as historical facts. For instance, it highlights the fantastic description of the ancient city of Srinagar with, what Kalhana wants us to believe, “ninety-six lakh houses resplendent with wealth” or the 5th century ruler Mihirkula massacring three crore women of high birth with their husbands, sons and brothers or a ruler of Kashmir invading present Srilanka. Is this history or pure poetic imagination?
    In highlighting these impossible-to-believe developments, the book seeks to argue that such account of our earliest history cannot be relied upon, especially when it is sought to be presented in the 21st century as the cornerstone of a purely political (and patently communal) narrative. As regards the later period, the book gives due credit to Kalhana for his ‘graphic account’ of events and reckons the Rajatarangini as receiving “eminence of an inevitable reference on Kashmir and for its author an enviable position and such fame that refuses to fade with the passage of time.”
    The book raises an important question about Kalhana’s sources for reconstructing 4000 years of Kashmir’s history preceding his own time. The chronicler admits having studied 11 earlier works but debunks them all for one or the other reason. So what is the source of his information on ancient Kashmir if it is not his poetic imagination of which he makes a boastful mention? Another important question seeking an answer is if these 11 works were available to Kalhana why have not these passed down to us? Did these contain details that did not go along with Kalhana’s narrative?
    Zutshi’s review is a sweeping criticism of the book without any substantiating reference. The fact that she has wholly and only focused on Kalhana is an academic dishonesty and a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the real subject matter of the book – a flawed community narrative. The well documented and argued chapters on the so-called aborigine status of Kashmiri Pandits, their alleged forced conversion and mass destruction of temples, power and clout enjoyed by them throughout the history, propaganda about Muslim dominance, Pandit agitation of 1967, mass migration in 1990 and demand for a separate Hindu homeland do not seem to be of any significance for Zutshi.
    Zutshi has a problem with the sources of the book of which more than 90% are not, what is now a fashion to label as, Islamist. These include works like the Nilmatapurana, the Rajatarangini, A History of Kashmiri Pandits, The Valley of Kashmir, The Kashmiri Pandits, The History of Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir, Hindu Rulers Muslim Subjects, Buddhism in Kashmir, Majmoo-e-Tawareekh, Kashmir Then and Now, Wail of the Vale, and so on. Among the quoted individuals are Kalhana, Jonaraja, Srivara, Birbal Kachru, Prem Nath Bazaz, Kashyap Bandhu, J. L. Bhan, J. N. Ganhar, Shyam Koul, Neerja Mattoo, Arjun Dev Majboor, K. M. Pannikar, Jogesh Chander Dutt, Balraj Madhok, B. K. Nehru, Ved Kumari Ghai, Jialal Kilam, R. K. Parimu, R. C. Kak, B. N. Mullik, P. N. K. Bamzai, Harinder Baweja, Jagmohan, Devika Rangachari, Balraj Puri, Vijay Bakaya, B. G. Verghese, V. M. Tarkunde, Anuradha Bhasin, Krishan Dev Sethi, Sanjay Tikoo, Mridhu Rai, Jialal Koul, not to speak of M. A. Stein who brought to light Kalhana’s Rajatarangini by his English translation and exhaustive annotations, Tyndale Biscoe, Henny Sender, Victoria Schofield, Robert Thorp, Christof Heyns, and Walter Lawrence. Among faith-neutral sources are the Glancy Commission Report, Census Reports, official statistics and documents, academic studies, UNESCO literature and reports of human rights organizations. Which of these sources do Zutshi have a problem with?
    Coming to Reapan Tikoo’s review, it is a poor representation of the writer’s understanding of history. By opening his review with characterization of a thoroughly researched and referenced work as ‘open propaganda and divisive’ speaks very poor of the writer and his capacity to read, let alone review, a book on history. His knowledge of Kashmir history flows from tales told by community elders rather than taking the trouble of studying it himself. People like him feel offended by the viewpoint, even if deep rooted in logic, which runs counter to their carefully nurtured narrative. It is no surprise that Tikoo’s piece abounds in misconception and misrepresentation. The name Takht-i-Sulaiman of a hill in Srinagar according to him is “an attempt to disassociate Kashmir from its glorious past” that he alleges “is now part of the narrative in the Valley”. It takes a little effort, which he would not do, to go through history and discover that the name Takht-i-Sulaiman precedes by many centuries its present name Shankaracharya. Obviously, he has not read old texts on Kashmir like the Rajatarangini which although he sounds very emotional about. Kalhana, it may shock him, did not know of any shrine or hill by the name of Shankaracharya. The hill has been known by different names in different periods of time. During Kalhana’s time it was known as Gopadari. Its present name, Shankaracharya, is a later day development related to the post-Muslim rule.
    Likewise, Tikoo is ignorant about the history of the south Kashmir district and town, Islamabad. I challenge him to produce a single ancient or medieval text mentioning the place as Anantnag. Khalid Bashir Ahmad’s book has elaborately dealt with this aspect and established that no place or shrine by the name Anantnag existed in ancient Kashmir and that the place was named as Islamabad in the 16th century after a Mughal Governor, Islam Khan laid out a garden here and Auranzeb, the ruler, named it after him. Aurel Stein who in depth studied old texts like the Nilamatapurana, Mahatayamas and the Rajatarangini, writes, “Of the town [Islamabad], I cannot find any old notice, and it is in all probability, as its Mohammadan name implies, a later foundation”. By citing these instances, the reviewer has only exposed his pedestrian knowledge about the history of Kashmir. What he describes as ‘brainwashing of Kashmiri children’ are facts of history subscribed to by his own community sources but conveniently brushed aside.
    Tikoo has tried to play to the galleries by claiming that the book equates Sangrampura, Wandhama and Nadimarg massacres with those of “Gaw Kadal, Bijbehara etc.” That again shows the reviewer as a poor reader. Nowhere does the book equate the two sets of massacres. There can be no comparison between the two sets, for in the one case the killers are known while in the other the mystery persists. The Chhitisinghpora Massacre has cast a serious doubt on all brutal mass killings by ‘unknown gunmen’. Why the book mentions the two sets of massacres together is to bring home the point that alongside “a reference to Nadimarg, Wandhama and Sangrampora (places where Kashmiri Pandits were massacred by suspected militants), a mention of Gawkadal, Sopore, Handwara and Islamia College (places where Kashmiri Muslims were massacred by government forces) is imperative to complete the picture of Kashmir tragedy” and understand and recognize each other’s pain and suffering. What is ‘shameful’ and ‘divisive’ about it? The reviewer suffers from serious imperfection to count Shias and Gujjars as other than Muslims of Kashmir. It reflects a mindset.
    The reviewer describes the atrocities-driven mass migration of Kashmiri Muslims during the Dogra rule as “sequential natural catastrophe”. Where do deaths by famines, floods and epidemics fit in with the forced migration of a population? His claim that during the ‘pre-independence’ period, Kashmiri Pandits accounted for 19% of the total population of Kashmir is, to say the least, bizarre and a fantastic revelation. It mocks at the documented statistics and the successive Census Reports released under the Hindu Dogra rule over Kashmir. Such assertions make it easy for a reader to understand the reviewer’s shallow knowledge.
    A community narrative need not be the actual history of a place or a people. It is one thing to present perceptions and myths as history and an altogether a different thing to prove these as actual history. Kashmir history has long been burdened with a heavy load of fiction, myth and plain untruths. The fact that the book under review has bluntly, and for the first time, taken on long pedaled misconception and misrepresentation with a vast fund of uncontestable sources and references has not gone down well with some people whose narration of Kashmir history it reduces to a figment.
    Notwithstanding Zutshi’s and Tikoo’s criticism, the book is a serious read and presents highly researched material on a narrative hitherto considered inviolable. It has opened a new debate on historiography of Kashmir. Significantly, the book has been spoken about as “one of the more important books to have come out of Kashmir in recent years” [Hindustan Times], “a myth busting book” [Counter Currents], “a great contribution to Kashmir’s existing literature demystifying mythical but traditional narrative about Kashmir” [South Asian Journal] a book attaining “significance in the list of contemporary history books [Frontline], a “protestant movement in Kashmir historiography”/ a “scholarly chase” forcing readers “to think critically”/ ‘an important corrective to history handed down to us from the past several generations” [Wande Magazine], “the first scholarly critic of what has been told, retold and packaged in the name of three millennia of “recorded history” [Kashmir Life], ‘a paradigm shift in Kashmir narrative’ [Greater Kashmir], and a book that “makes it difficult to accept the fairy tales about the creation of Kashmir” [Kashmir Ink].

  4. Khalid Bashir Ahmad is not the first Kashmiri Muslim trying to distort history. Some other Kashmiri muslims before him have also tried to do so. Yes his attempt to denigrate Kalhana is definitely being done under a plan to negate the very history of Kashmir populated by Hindus prior to Mahabharata. His funny comment that Kashmir was populated by Buddhists prior to Hindus shows lack of his understanding and knowledge of history. It is true that most Hindus in Kashmir had become Buddhists during Ashoka’s reign. In fact it is they who spread Buddhism in Tibet and China. With the decline of Buddhism in India, Kashmir’s population too reverted back to Hinduism.
    No civilized people in the world try to denigrate their ancestors and in fact feel proud of their ancient history. They preserve their monuments and do not break them. Mr. Khalid in order to protect infamous Sikander the iconoclast says that the great ancient monuments were not destroyed by him but were an act of natural calamities like earthquakes. What an ingenious discovery!

  5. Why mass conversions of Hindus stopped after fall of Muslim rule?
    If Hindus gleefully converted to Islam with high octane enthusiasm, why it has stopped after fall of Muslim rule in India?

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