"The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history.  It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilisation is a precious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within." Those are the words of Will Durant, a Western scholar who was not a "Hindu communalist".  Its basic statement is but a summary of the massive testimony given by the Muslim invaders and their chroniclers themselves.  It is also confirmed by the "silent witnesses", all the leftovers of destroyed temples which have been incorporated in mosques.  It is therefore not a "prejudice" or "communal distortion of history", it is just factual.

There is a convenient contention these days, that the "communal" view of history, which sees the Islamic onslaught as the materialisation of a constant Islamic doctrine rather than as a diffuse coincidence of economical and other secular factors, is merely a British concoction in order to "divide and rule".  Thus, R.S. Sharma attributes to the British scholar H.M. Elliot "the best example of British communal historiography", because Elliot "denounces the Muslim rulers in the most severe terms".  (Communal History and Rama's Ayodhya, p.11) Yet, that tirade does not explain away the fact that Elliot's classic (along with Dawson) History of India as Told by its Historians, is entirely based on authentic records by mostly Muslim historians.  It is not a concoction or a distortion, but a synthesis of the Muslims' own testimony to the crimes as well as the motives of Muslim conquerors and rulers.

So, when Indian historians have recognised Islamic doctrine as the largest single factor of communal strife in India, it was not because they "were caught in the communal trap laid by British historians", as R.S.  Sharma wants us to believe.  It was because, as historians, they had to take the authentic testimonies into account.  By contrast, the "secularist" historians have glossed over a mass of authentic information in order to impose their secular explanation on the unwilling facts.

One may always come up with conflicts that have occurred between this sect and that, at some point in time.  Of course, any two groups, ethnic, religious, occupational, may at some point develop a conflict between them.  But it is temporary and ultimately gives was to a renewed peaceful co-existence.  But there are a few ideologies, notably Islam and Marxism-Leninism, that entertain a doctrine of deliberate aggression on and intolerance of other societies.  In their case, conflict emanates from an ideological backbone.  And instead of conflict situations always gravitating back to a peaceful modus vivendi, we see that in their case, strife becomes the rule.  That is how Hindu society came to suffer under the systematic onslaught of invaders who had been taught to take pride in killing and oppressing the Pagans, and to emulate the example of desecration of Pagan temples, set by the Prophet.

It is not a communalist concoction that Mohammed took the Kaaba from the Pagans of Arabia, and destroyed all the idols in it.  This act, described in detail and glorified in Islamic scripture itself, set the tone for Islamic behaviour all through the conquest of North India.  It cannot be wished away now, no matter how many "secularists" the AIBMAC may invite to shout abuses at the top of their voice against those who restate these simple and well-attested facts.