"This caravan loaded with synthetic merchandise has, however, continued to move forward. Eight years later , it was reported that “History and Language textbooks for schools all over India will soon be revised radically. In collaboration with various state governments the Ministry of Education has begun a phased programme to weed out undesirable textbooks and remove matter which is prejudicial to national integration and unity and which does not promote social cohesion. The Ministry of Education’s decision to re-evaluate textbooks was taken in the light of the recommendations of the National Integration Council of which the Prime Minister is Chairman. The Ministry’s view was that history had often been used to serve narrow, sectarian and chauvinistic ends."

“I am placing this book before our people, as I did so many others, simply because I want to be true to my own impulse for action in terms of my own lights. Rest is in the hands of Him who sends Saviours as well as Scourges according to His own inscrutable Law.”

“A few years ago, a Muslim spokesman had demanded that 20 percent seats in the Parliament and the State Assemblies should be reserved for members of his community. He also recommended that the remaining 80 percent seats should be filled only by those persons whose selection before elections had been cleared by the same community!”

“India had never known a theocratic state till the advent of Islam in this country in the first quarter of the eighth century AD. Hindu Dharma has always been a pluralistic religion. Hindu culture and society too have been pluralistic throughout their hoary history. It was, therefore, impossible for the Hindus to erect an established church or to proclaim a state religion and call upon the State to impose it by force. The Hindu state extended its patronage to all religious sects equally, even when a king and his courtiers adhered to a particular sect in their private lives. Religious strife followed by bloodshed had never blackened the fair face of Hindu society. ...The Hindu experience of a theocratic state was a very painful experience, spread as it was over several centuries. Even so, the Hindus did not learn any lessons in theocracy. The Hindu states which re-emerged under the Rajputs, the Marathas, the Sikhs, and the Jats were secular states....”

“The metropolitan magistrate,... pronounced on 31 July 1986, “With due regard, to the Holy Book of ‘Quran Majeed’, a close perusal of the Ayets shows that the same are harmful and teach hatred and are likely to create differences between Mohammedans on one hand and the remaining communities on the other.”

“The significant point to be noted about the Syrian Christians, however, is their sudden change of colour as soon as the Portuguese arrived on the scene. They immediately rallied round the Portuguese and against their Hindu neighbours, and when the Portuguese started pressurizing the Hindu Rajas for extraterritorial rights so that their co-religionists could be “protected”, the Syrian Christians evinced great enthusiasm everywhere.”

“...except for the NCERT experts who specialise in making molehills of mountains, and vice versa.”