According to the ideological worldview of the current RSS-BJP establishment, Indian Muslims are treated as the villains of Indian history. Labelled as Babar zade—children of the first Mughal ruler—they are held responsible for every crime attributed to rulers with Muslim names, beginning with the Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim’s conquest of Sindh in 711 CE.
The narrative insists that Muslim rule was inherently Islamic rule, aimed at cleansing India of idolatry and destroying Hindu civilisation. This theme is repeatedly invoked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and members of his government, who have been trained within the RSS ecosystem.
The latest iteration appeared on 11 January 2026, when inaugurating the Swabhiman Parv in Somnath. Modi declared that “every particle of the soil of Prabhas Patan” symbolised valor and sacrifice, and that “countless devotees of Shiva” had died defending Somnath. He bowed “to every brave man and woman who dedicated their lives to the protection and reconstruction of Somnath.”
He further stated that “invaders from Ghazni to Aurangzeb attacked Somnath believing their swords were conquering eternal Somnath,” but failed to grasp its immortal essence—Som, the nectar that survives poison. Somnath, he said, embodied the fierce and benevolent power of Mahadev.
Two days earlier, the government’s senior-most security advisor, Ajit Doval, sounded an overt call for retribution while inaugurating the Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue. India’s ancestors, he asserted, “endured humiliation and helplessness,” villages burned, civilisation damaged, “temples looted while we watched helplessly.” Doval added that although the word “revenge” may be unsuitable, the sentiment was necessary; India must “take revenge for our history” and “build a great India based on our rights, ideas and beliefs.”
The clear message in both speeches is that Muslims destroyed Hindu temples, and present-day Indian Muslims must now bear responsibility—implicitly guilt, and implicitly punishment—for what past rulers allegedly did. This is both historically flawed and morally dangerous. It also amounts to signalling against the largest religious minority of the country.
Somnath: The Forgotten ‘Hindu’ Role
No one denies that Mahmud Ghazni desecrated Somnath in 1026 CE. But an inconvenient truth—suppressed in contemporary rhetoric—is the involvement of Hindu chieftains who facilitated the attack.
The RSS’s own ideologue, M.S. Golwalkar, writing in the Organizer (4 January 1950), admitted that Mahmud’s assault succeeded with Hindu assistance. He described how local chieftains believed Mahmud’s false claim that Saurashtra planned expansion against them; “they joined him,” Golwalkar wrote. When the temple was struck, “it was the Hindu—blood of our blood—who stood in the vanguard.” Somnath was desecrated “with the active help of the Hindus.”
Swami Dayananda Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, writing in Satyarth Prakash, also rejected modern claims of heroic resistance. He accused the priests and astrologers of misleading kings into inaction, praying instead that Mahadeva would miraculously intervene. The defenders “fled in disgrace,” he recorded.
These accounts reveal a history far more complex than the Hindutva claim of an eternal Hindu resistance. If Mahmud crossed almost 2,000 kilometres to plunder Somnath and returned laden with loot, the obvious question remains unanswered: who allowed him a safe journey back?
Desecration Beyond Islam: Buddhist and Jain Temples
The destruction or appropriation of temples was not exclusive to Muslim rulers. Swami Vivekananda bluntly acknowledged that the Jagannath Temple was originally Buddhist, “re-Hinduised” later. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, iconic for Hindu nationalism, confirmed that the Rath Yatra closely mirrored Buddhist processions, and that Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra resembled depictions of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
The conversion of Buddhist monasteries into Hindu temples accelerated after Pushyamitra Shunga—a Brahmin ruler—overthrew the Mauryan dynasty in 184 BCE. Bankim Chandra’s Anandamath, revered by Hindu nationalists, casually describes a Buddhist monastery repurposed as a Hindu one.
Jain temples fared no better. Swami Dayananda, admiring Adi Shankaracharya’s campaigns, wrote that Jain idols were broken, and those preserved were buried by Jains themselves to avoid desecration.
Hindu Armies Against Hindu Populations
Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s account of the Maratha invasion of Bengal in the 1740s is devastating: “wanton destruction,” rape, mutilation, slaughter of civilians, looting of gold, kidnapping of women. Eyewitnesses called the Maratha forces “slayers of pregnant women and infants,” showing that brutality was neither communal nor confined to Muslim rulers.
Demography That Refutes the Narrative
If Muslim rulers spent centuries eradicating Hinduism, why did Hindus still constitute nearly three-fourths of the population by the first census of 1871–72? Because large sections of Hindu society served, partnered with, and intermarried into Muslim ruling establishments. India’s demography contradicts Hindutva mythology.
Applied Consistency Leads to Absurdity
If today’s Indian Muslims must bear responsibility for Ghazni, must today’s Hindus bear responsibility for Ravana’s crimes against Sita? Or the Pandavas and Kauravas who, in Mahabharata, slaughtered millions of fellow Hindus? Such logic collapses under its own weight.
Conclusion
History is filled with human greed, power struggles, and opportunism—not civilisational-religious purity. Linking medieval violence to modern religious identity is incendiary and selective. A truthful engagement with history requires acknowledging the role of Hindu collaborators, Hindu armies, and Hindu rulers in temple destruction and persecution—alongside Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, tribal and colonial actors.
Instead of weaponizing the past to intimidate citizens of the present, leaders should confront history honestly, recognise shared culpability, and safeguard India’s plural inheritance.
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*Link for some of S. Islam's original writings and video interviews/debates:
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/shamsul.islam.332.
Twitter: @shamsforjustice.
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/.
Link for procuring Shamsul Islam’s books:
https://tinyurl.com/shams-books
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