"The great invasions spread very far South, spreading to, you know, even Mysore. I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th Century or earlier time disfigured, defaced, you know that they were not just defaced for fun: that something terrible happened. I feel that the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions. And I would like people, as it were, to be more reverential towards the past, to try to understand it; to preserve it; instead of living in its ruins. The old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. The ancient Hindu India was destroyed. .... So new people come up and they begin to look at their world and from being great acceptors, they have become questioners. And I think we should simply try to understand this passion. It is not an ignoble passion at all. It is men trying to understand themselves. Do not dismiss them. Treat them seriously. Talk to them.... I think it will keep on increasing as long as you keep on saying it is wicked and that they are wicked people. And if we wish to draw the battleline, then of course, you get to battle. If you try to understand what they are saying, things will calm down."
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V.S. Naipaul "The truth governs writing", an interview by Sadanand Menon, The Hindu, July 5, 1998 (also in V.S. Naipaul [https://web.archive.org/web/20070208090601/http://www.hvk.org/ram/a16.html Interview with V.S. Naipaul)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests_in_the_Indian_subcontinent
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Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent
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