"As newly converted Hindus, Meiteis were genuinely more committed to religion as is seen with the ‘born again’ Meitei Sanamahists with the celebration of ‘Ima Imoinu’ and Lai Harauba."

"We were also told by our elders that the king looked upto Santidas Gosai and hailed him to the level of a real god in flesh and blood by ignoring and taking into granted all about his roots and went on a rampage of converting the Sanamahists i.e. those worshipping the millennium old deity of the Meiteis into Hindu Vaishavaites tilted towards Brahmanisation thereby creating a rift between our hill brethrens and those residing in the valley areas, resulting into a colossal original cultural loss with emergence of a fusion culture of Hinduism among the Meiteis."

"You won't expect a Sanamahist or a Christian to be taking part in Yaoshang festivals, but they do, at least in thabalchongba. The Sanamahists are accepted by the majority Hindus, who are half-Sanamahists, like the Japanese who profess Buddhism and ancient Shinto religion."

"Real uniqueness if a nation has a Zoroastrian Minority with the Parsis and their language (in this case) Avestan revived by the state and a Sanamahist Minority with the Manipuris and their language, Manipuri, preserved and protected by the state - in short, the more unique a composition of the civilization, the more authentic and enriched the civilization becomes, as it fosters an environment where diverse ontological perspectives and cultural narratives coexist without erasure or forced assimilation...."

"God, as a being that is abstract and unseen one that governs all Totality - has been the subject of ideation and thought by many civilizations across the world that produced different types of theism in order to interpret his or her existence. Sometimes, he can be many, like the Sanamahists of the Meitei civilization; sometimes, he can be one, like Waaq of the Oromo civilization..."

"The study of Sanamahi religion may be termed as "SANAMAHISM" and the followers as SANAMAHISTS"..."

"In the early part of the quarrel, the Mussalmans, in order to be revenged on the Hindus for the defeat they had sustained, had taken a cow, and killed it on one of the holiest ghats, and mingled its blood with the sacred water of the Ganga. This act of double sacrilege was looked on, by the Brahmans, as having destroyed the sacredness of the holy place, if not of the whole city, so that salvation in future might not be attainable by pilgrimage to Benares. They were, therefore, all in the greatest affliction; and all the Brahmans in the city, many thousands in number, went down, in deep sorrow, to the river side, naked and fasting, and with ashes on their heads, and sat down on the principal ghats, with folded hands, and heads hanging down, to all appearance inconsolable, and refusing to enter a house or to taste food…. But the British functionaries went to them, expressed their sorrow for the distress in which they saw them, and reasoned with them on the absurdity of punishing themselves for an act in which they had no share, and which they had done all they could to prevent or avenge. This prevailed, and after much bitter weeping, it was resolved that Ganga was Ganga still; Mr. Bird … who was one of the ambassadors on this occasion said that ‘the scene was very impressive and even awful. The gaunt, squalid figures of the devotees, their visible and apparently unaffected anguish and dismay, the screams and outcries of the women who surrounded them, and the great numbers thus assembled, altogether constituted a spectacle of woe such as few cities but Benares could supply’."

"As a mission-field, Benares is not so fruitful as many other places, yet it is, no doubt, one of the first in importance; for Benares is the heart of Hinduism, and, if that be pierced, Hinduism receives its death-blow."

"A few of them, as shown before, of more courage than the rest, whose hearts the grace of God has touched, honestly avow their disbelief in idolatry and belief in Christianity, and, in spite of all opposition, cast in their lot with the small hut continually increasing body of native Christians. Others, — but how large a class I cannot say, — abandon their idols, yet do not become Christians. Others, again, — a considerable number, I believe, — worship idols reluctantly, from feelings of respect to their relations and acquaintances, and, if possible, solely on public occasions and at festivals. They^re not yet ready to give up everything for their principles; they are not ready to sacrifice property, position, family, and friends, for what they have been brought to feel is the truth."

"The fact is, all this class are beginning to be scandalized by idolatry, and somewhat ashamed of it. They know too much to be honest and conscientious idolaters. They cannot willingly prostrate themselves before an image of stone or clay. Some have deeper feelings than others; and some are too frivolous and thoughtless to distress themselves much about the matter. But, I believe, very few, indeed, of the educated class,—that is, educated on the English model, — are thorough and hearty idolaters; and I am satisfied, that there is not one who does not hold Hinduism with a lighter and looser grasp than formerly, or than would have been the case, had his mind not been expanded and benefited by the education he has received. Let it be well understood, that education de-Hinduizes the Hindu, breaks down idolatry, and inspires him with a distaste for it, and a latent desire to be free from it."

"In consequence of this, a fight took place in which the Muhammadans had the worse ; but in , revenge, they threw down a pillar called the Lat — or Mohadeo’s staff, held in reverence by the Hindoos as sacred. This pillar was about forty feet high, and covered with ancient carvings. It had originally stood in the Hindoo temple, destroyed by the Emperor Aurungzebe. A Muhammadan mosque had been erected on the site of this temple, enclosing this antique pillar ; but for a share of the offerings, the Muhammadans had winked at the idolatry of the Hindoos, and for long permitted them to go in to reverence this object of their devotion. The Hindoos had a tradition, that the pillar was gradually sinking, it having, according to report, been once twice its present height, and it was also prophesied, that when its top should become level with the ground, all nations should be of one caste. The throwing down, therefore, of this pillar was regarded as most ominous and dangerous to Hinduism. The whole Hindoo population, headed by the Brahmans and devotees, rose in fury on the Mussulmans, and attacked them with every sort of weapons within their reach. One mosque was pulled down, and they determined to destroy every other in the city ; but the civil authorities, with all the military force that could be collected, interposed, and by putting guards to defend the mosques, succeeded in saving them. It was difficult indeed, to trust to the native soldiers ; hut they did their duty well, for though many of them were Brahmans, they kept guard manfully on the mosques, in fidelity to their military oath, though doubtless it would have been more agreeable to their own feelings, to have joined in pulling them down. Yet they kept .off the Brahmans, as well as others, at the point of the bayonet. Two Brahman soldiers, keeping guard where the pillar was lying prostrate, were overheard thus conversing on the subject ; “ Ah !” said one, “ we have seen what we never thought to see Sheo’s Lat has its head level with the groupd. We shall all be of one caste shortly ; what will be our religion then ?” “ I suppose the Christian, answered the other — for after all that has passed, I am sure we shall never become Mussulmans.” A sagacious remark, as persecution and voilence are never likely to produce conviction, either of the truth or goodness of the religion of the persecutor, though it may occasionally lead to a temporary, or false profession of it on the part of the persecuted, to be changed into the most virulent opposition, whenever an opportunity is obtained."

"A cow was dragged out from a neighbouring house and killed at the foot of the pillar. Its blood was taken into every corner, till all the sacred place was splashed with it, and then the carcass was flung with shouts of exultations, into the holy tank of Bhairo. Firewood was heaped round the Lat and lighted, to destroy no doubt the metal appendages of the pillar; and finally, amidst cries of triumph, the Lat itself was overthrown, shattering in its fall into many pieces."

"Previously to this outbreak, the Hindus must have cherished, for a prolonged period, very bitter feelings against the Mohammedans, on account of the insult which, ever since the time of Aurungzeb, had been heaped upon their religion in this locality. The pillar was once situated in the enclosure of a Hindu temple ; but that ruthless monarch destroyed the temple, and, in its place, erected a mosque, leaving the curiously carved pillar either as an ornament to the grounds, or under a wholesome dread of provoking to too great a pitch the indignation of his Hindu subjects. The Hindus, however, continued to pay divine homage to the pillar^ which, although repugnant to the feelings of the Mohammedans, was, nevertheless, endured by them, especially as they were permitted to receive a portion of the offerings. The natives say, that, after the serious collision between these two great sections of the people in the city, the pillar was removed to the banks of the Ganges, and thrown into the river."

"In their memorandum to the government, dated 20 November 1809, the Hindus of Varanasi under the leadership of Rattan Singh pleaded: From the personal bigotry of Aurungzebe Alumgeer, mosques were erected on the site of our place of worship; the four principal are Bisseysur and Gyanbaffi [Vishweshwara and Gyan Vapi], Kirrit Baseysur [Krittivaseswara], Bindho or Beynee Madho [Beni Madhav]; Caul Bhyro Koolusthum [Kal Bhairav]. That emperor in his zeal introduced his religion in common with ours at these places. It is prayed that these may be restored to us for the purposes of our worship … that the Musalmans be not allowed to come to the places of worship, or to kill cows, or for recreation and pleasure to pass along the roads frequented by the Hindus in order that by this method a line may be distinctly drawn between us."

"The Benares Gazetteer notes: ‘The city experienced one of those convulsions which had frequently occurred in the past owing to the religious antagonism of the Hindu and the Musalman sections of the population. The chief source of friction was the mosque built by Aurangzeb on the site of the old temple of Bisheshwar, the most sacred spot in the whole city.’"

"To the north of the road leading from the Eaj Ghat Fort to the cantonments, at a distance of from three quarters of a mile to a mile from the former place, is the Kapilmochan Tank. It is also called Bhairo ka Talao, or the tank of Bhairo. This is a strong and well- built structure, the stairs and foundations being of solid stone. On the high ground to the north of the tank stands a pillar, from seven to eight feet in height, and three in thickness, situated in the midst of a slightly- elevated stone chabutra or platform. This is the Lator pillar of Siva. It is representative of an ancient pillar, which formerly stood on this spot, and was thrown down by the Mohammedans, in a struggle between them and the Hindus, some sixty years ago. The original Ldt was famous among the Hindy. population, both for its antiquity and for its sanctity. There is some ground for supposing that the present pillar is a fragment of the ancient one; and that it, very likely, bears a portion of the carving known to have been on the original column. The probability is increased by the circumstance that it is encased in copper, and is carefully watched over by the Brahman priests. It would be interesting to examine it, and to determine the age of its carvings, or of any inscription which may be upon it."

"After the riot had been suppressed, the worst difficulty still remained. In the early part of the quarrel, the Mussulmans, in order to be revenged on the Hindoos, for the defeat they had sustained, had taken a cow and killed it, on one of the holiest ghats, and mingled its blood with the sacred water of the Gunga. This act of double sacrilege was looked on by the Brahmans, as having destroyed the sacredness of the holy place, if not of the whole city, so that salvation in future might not be attainable, by pilgrimage to Benares. They were, therefore, all in the greatest affliction; and all the Brahmans in the city, many thousands in number, went down, in deep sorrow, to the river side, naked, and fasting, and with ashes on their heads, and sat down on the principal ghats, with folded hands, and heads hanging down, to all appearance inconsoleable, and refusing to enter a house, or to taste food. Two or three day’s abstinence, however, tired them, and a hint was given to the magistrates, and other public men, that a visit of condolence, and some expression of sympathy would comfort them, and give them some excuse for returning to their usual course of life. Accordingly the British functionaries went to the principal ghat, and expressed their sorrow for the distress in which they saw them ; but reasoned with them on the absurdity of punishing themselves, for an act in which they had no share, and which they had done all they could to prevent, or avenge. This prevailed, and after much bitter weeping, it was resolved, that “ Gunga was Gunga still,” and that a succession of costly offerings from the laity of Benares, the usual Brahmanical remedy for all evils, might wipe out the stain which their religion had received, and that the advice of the judges was the best and most reasonable. Mr. Bird, who was one of the ambassadors on this occasion, said, “ that the scene was very impressive, and even awful. The gaunt, sqnallid figures of the devotees — their visible, and apparently unaffected anguish and dismay — the screams and outcries of the women who surrounded them, and the great numbers thus assembled, altogether constituted a spectacle of wo, such as few cities but Benares could supply.”"

"It is strange but true that the type and style of bangles that women wear in Rajasthan today, or the vermilion that they apply on the parting of the hair on the head, the practice of Yoga, the binary system of weights and measures, the basic architecture of the houses etc. can all be traced back to the Indus Civilisation. The cultural and religious traditions of the Harappans provide the substratum for the latter-day Indian Civilisation."

"That the Shri Ram Chandra Mission, a highly respected organization in India, has been at all included among the groups accused of “cultic deviances” (and in the infamous French “list of cults” of 1995) is in itself evidence of the arbitrariness of the system of “saisines.” The Sahaj Marg, or Natural Way, is a system derived from with a long tradition in India. It was rediscovered and simplified by Shri Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh (“Lalaji,” 1873–1931), born in Fatehgarh, Uttar Pradesh. From 1914 he established the first regular Satsang, or group meditation, and after 1929, the date of his retirement from his job as a court clerk, he devoted himself totally to spiritual teaching. …The Shri Ram Chandra Mission operates quietly and peacefully in 160 countries. In France, however, a few “saisines” made it into a “cult” whose “cultic deviances” should be controlled in secret."

"Draconian laws like the Places of Worship Act, 1991, prevent Hindus from even seeking peaceful, legal reclaim of what has been forcibly snatched from them. Which justice-abiding democracy in the world would have such provisions? Even when there are visible signs of broken temples atop which domes were erected (like in Kashi), to promote social harmony the minority is never asked to have a generous heart and hand over these sacrosanct spaces that are as holy as Mecca or Jerusalem to Hindus."

"History that is written by the victors, I had remarked earlier, is peddled by the vanquished, and as far as I am concerned, one of the most barbaric legislations ever peddled in India is the 1991 Places of Worship Act. But in 2019, the virtue-signalling Supreme Court in its Ayodhya Judgment wilfully ratified this Act that obligates maintaining all religious places, except Ram Janambhoomi, as they were on 15 August 1947—a 75-year-old date in an 8,000-year-old civilisation. Historical injustice of Kashi or Mathura can now never be addressed unless the Parliament overrides not only this barbaric act but also the Supreme Court’s perfidious ratification of it. A legal recourse to correct historical injustices cannot be denied in a democracy. And this is not a Hindu issue."

"Sultan Firuz Shah composed a book also in which he compiled an account of his reign and which he named Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi'...He writes in its second chapter:Muslim and infidel women used to visit sepulchres and temples, which led to many evils. I stopped it. I got mosques built in place of temples."

"During the 1891 census in Punjab 1,344,862 Sikhs declared themselves Hindus. When the decennial census was carried out in Gujarat in 1911 a total of 200,000 people in the province declared themselves Mohammedan Hindus. The community of Mole-Salam Girasia Rajputs had two names for its members, one Hindu and the other Muslim. Bengali Muslims invoked the Creator as ‘Sri Sri Iswar’ instead of the Islamic ‘Allahu Akbar’, and it was not uncommon for them,right into the nineteenth century, to have Hindu names.In Tamilnad when the most celebrated of the local Muslim writers, Umaru Pulavar (born c. 1655), composed a biography of Prophet Muhammad, he based it on a Tamil version of the Ramayana—this was quite similar to the Bengali anthologies on the lives of the prophet and his grandsons, Hasan and Husain, which were framed in terms of Hindu narratives. Many popular Muslim saints and their shrines in south India displayed features—particularly in terms of mythical episodes, religious objects and cultic practices—that were directly acquired from Saivite, Vaishnavite and goddess traditions. And in Punjab when the head of one of the foremost Muslim centres of pilgrimage was installed, those attending and participating in this key ceremonial included Hindus.” All these materials, I believe, are significant historical indicators that should make us rethink any simplistic usage of the categories Muslim, Sikh and Hindu. In the case of the subcontinent, the either/or dichotomy is not to be taken for granted, for the religious life of the people, particularly in the pre-colonial period, was characterized by a continuum. There was much interpenetration and overlapping of communal identities."

"'The Islamic sentiment (in him) was so strong that he demolished all temples in his kingdom and left no trace of them. He constructed sarais, bazars, madrasas and mosques in Mathura which is a holy place of the Hindus and where they go for bathing. He appointed government officials in order to see that no Hindu could bathe in Mathra. No barber was permitted to shave the head of any Hindu with his razor. That is how he completely curtailed the public celebration of infidel customs."

"The primary fact in India's religious conflict is that Hinduism is fighting for its survival in its only homeland, while the "minorities" (in fact the Indian branch of powerful and wealthy multinationals) are only angling for additional conquests."

"Moreover, on top of this undeniable political and legal discrimination, Hindus perceive a serious threat to the very existence of their culture and society, when they look across the borders and into the future. Their acute sensitivity to minorityism is strengthened by the perception that the minorities indulge in aggression against the Hindus wherever they get the chance, and that they are also growing stronger by the day... Moreover, the so-called minority is in fact the Indian department of a world-wide movement, from which it effectively gets moral and financial support... However, as a citizen of a fully secular state, I strongly object to Mr. Abrahams minorityist statement. I have never heard of minorityism either as a term or as a concept somehow functional in our secular system. We do not give religious minorities a veto against decisions enacted by a democratic majority... In a secular democracy, the veto right of a religious minority is limited scrupulously to those decisions that directly the exercise of their religious freedom."

"'He was a stout partisan of Islam and made great endeavours on this score. He got all temples of the infidels demolished, and did not allow even a trace of them to remain. In Mathura, where the infidels used to get together for bathing, he got constructed caravanserais, markets, mosques and madrasas, and appointed there officers with instructions that they should allow no one to bathe; if any Hindu desired to get his beard or head shaved in the city of Mathura, no barber was prepared to cut his hair."

"For all its Muslim appeasement and anti-Hindu discriminations, the Indian state is not aggressively anti-Hindu: the Hindu-born ruling class may sell itself for petro-dollars, but it does not organize the kind of oppression which exists in Pakistan. It does not support Hinduism, but at least it passively allows Hindu culture to flourish on its own strength."

"India consists only of minorities. Hinduism is a commonwealth of many communities, each a minority. One has to be very gullible (or so absorbed by “development”, as the present BJP team claims to be) to swallow this notion of “minority” with all the privileges that go with it. So, of course a Hindu government means no harm to the minorities, and should not. As an old VHP slogan said: “Hindu India, secular India”. It is only secularist propaganda that claims an equivalence between Hindu activism and trouble for the minorities: the more Hinduism, the more oppression for the minorities. This is a false projection of the Pakistani situation: the more of the dominant religion, the more the Hindu minority suffers."

"[Thus, the Nishi tribe in the North-East finds that in Christian mission schools] “a good many Nishi youths have been converted to Christianity. This in itself need not have created any difficulty, for Nishis, like most tribals, are not greatly concerned about the beliefs of their fellow-tribesmen, and if the Christian converts had been equally tolerant, their rejection of traditional Nishi religion might have been ignored by the great mass of conservative tribesmen. However, the converts seem to have been lacking in tolerance and tact, and educated young men of villages affected by the ideological split to whom I spoke in 1980 complained bitterly that Christians deliberately disrupted the harmony of community life. They allegedly refuse to share the houses of adherents of the old faith, and this meant that old parents were abandoned by their converted children, who claimed that they could not stay in dwellings where ‘devils’ were worshipped. … My informants insisted that the missions encouraged the establishment of separate settlements for Christians, and that the Christians refused to participate in village festivals, thereby demonstrating their dissociation from the tribal community. It was alleged, moreover, that converts, not satisfied with this symbolic withdrawal from village life, went a step further by abusing and physically attacking priests as they invoked the gods in the performance of traditional Nishi rituals.”... “Nishi teachers at the government high-school in Yazali, who were members of a youth organization formed to promote traditional tribal culture, told me how frustrated they were because they could not match the large sums lavished by the missions on propaganda which is undermining the old Nishi life-style.”"

"In another example, Buddhists of Arunachal Pradesh were threatened by Christian Naga terrorists, as reported by Assam Tribune: The twin militant outfits NSCN (IM) and NSCN(K) have demanded annexation of land from the Buddhist and other indigenous faith followers of Rima Putak, Thikhak Putak, Motongsa and Longchong villages in Tirap-Changlang district in Arunachal Pradesh, and have issued a decree for their conversion to Christianity. The militant outfits have left the villagers two options – embrace Christianity or face capital punishment. With death staring at their face, most of the adult members have fled the villages to escape torture from both sides, resulting in disruption of agricultural activities."

"Within the Portuguese territories, physical persecution of Paganism naturally hit the Brahmins hardest. Treaties with Hindu kings had to stipulate explicitly that the Portuguese must not kill Brahmins. But in the case of Christian anti-Brahminism, these physical persecutions were a small matter compared to the systematic ideological and propagandistic attack on Brahminism, which has conditioned the views of many non-missionaries and has by now been amplified enormously because Secularists, Akalis, Marxists and Muslims have joined the chorus. In fact, apart from anti-Judaism, the anti-Brahmin campaign started by the missionaries is the biggest vilification campaign in world history."

"Besides attacking Brahman [sic] hearths and homes [in Nagpur], attempts had been made to set fire to the buildings housing Brahman [sic] educational institutions. When a municipal fire-brigade tried to save the Joshi High School it was forced to beat a retreat by the mob . . . in the rural areas orange trees in Brahman [sic] plantations were uprooted and their owners harassed . . . The Nagpur incidents were not isolated as more harrowing scenes of violence against Brahmans [sic] were enacted in many parts of Marathi-speaking areas, particularly in Southern Maharashtra. Those who indulged in these unlawful activities also included a large number of Congressmen belonging to non-Brahman [sic] communities. In fact, in Nagpur and Berar the troublemakers were mostly Congressmen, some being even office bearers of the various Congress Committees. Among those arrested by the police, there were more than a hundred Congressmen and I was immediately subjected to pressure for their release. In a meeting of prominent Congressmen of Nagpur, I had to face severe criticism. When they threatened to take their complaint to Home Minister Patel that I had to tell them to bring a directive for me from Delhi . . The assassin of Gandhi was a Brahman and as such, no Brahman, be he a Maharashtrian, Gujrati, Marwari or from UP could be entrusted with the responsibility of governance... [that the] CP was being governed by Brahman Ministers is a challenge of the purity of the Congress."

"One immediate consequence of the murder which is usually left unmentioned in the numerous hagiographies of the Mahatma is the wave of revenge which hit the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS and most of all, the Chitpavan Brahmin caste. It seems that most hagiographers were embarrassed with the way the apostle of non-violence was mourned by his fans as well as by others who merely used the opportunity for, as in Red Fort Trial (p. 4) P.L. Inamdar puts it, ‘the manhunt of Maharashtrian Brahmins irrespective of their party allegiance by non-Brahmins in Poona and other districts.’ Offices and houses were burnt down, numerous people were molested and at least eight people were killed, according to an official tradition. However the article ‘Gandhi is killed by a Hindu’, published by The New York Times on 31 January 1948, puts the number of mortal victims in Bombay (now called Mumbai) alone, and on the first day alone, already at fifteen. Locals in Pune (where of course the Hindu Rastra office was set on fire, along with the offices of other pro-Hindu papers) told me they estimated the death toll in Pune alone at fifty. One of the rare studies of the event, by Maureen Patterson, concludes that the greatest violence took place not in the cities of Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, centres of Hindu nationalism, but in ‘the extreme southwest of the Deccan plateau—the Desh—of the Marathi linguistic region’, including Satara, Belgaum and Kolhapur. Then, as now, press reporting on communal rioting was under strict control, and Maureen Patterson reports that even decades after the facts, she was not given access to relevant police files. So, we may not know the exact magnitude of this ‘Gandhian violence’ until all the records are opened, but the death toll may well run into several hundreds.... But unlike in the case of the anti-Sikh pogrom, where a few local Congress leaders were brought to trial after a long delay, and where references to the events keep on being made in studies of ‘communalism’, the Mahatma riots had no consequences for the perpetrators and were flushed down the memory hole, probably because the accused in the latter case did not have a high profile."

"Godse’s act, which first set off anti-R.S.S. attacks, before long became the opportunity non-Brahmans [sic] had been waiting for to retaliate against Chitpavans for long years of real or imagined domination. Crowds in lorries reportedly owned by leading Maratha politicians and hundreds on foot surged through Brahman [sic] wards bent on revenge . . . In February 1948, one thousand of their houses were officially reported as having been burnt down, and an unspecified number were killed . . . one family named Godse was said to have lost three male members.28"

"Although hardly half a dozen Maharashtrian Brahmans were involved in Godse’s crime, a very large number of them had to pay for it. The murder of the Father of the Nation provided non-Brahmans with an opportunity to vent their wrath upon the Brahmans, who, though a mere four per cent of the population, had come to dominate every sphere of life in Maharashtra. No sooner the news of the Mahatma’s murder was flashed than they protested that the murderer, Godse, should have been described as a ‘Maharashtrian’ [which in those days meant a Brahman only] and not a ‘Maratha’, a word exclusively used for the numerically largest section of the non-Brahman community, which claims a Kshatriya origin and into which Shivaji had been born."

"The anti-Brahmin feeling in the State, which existed for a long number of years was brought to a head in the speeches of Madhavrao Bagal29 and the activities of his immediate followers . . . although it is on record that the initial outburst, in the sense that the first attack was made on the Hindu Mahasabha office and some members . . . of the R.S.S. were also objects of attacks, a scrutiny of the evidence . . . shows that this was only on a very small scale [and] that the opportunity was taken by the mobs for a concerted and general attack on the Brahmin community as a whole . . . the object was in fact to attack the community of Brahmins residing in the city of Kolhapur and in the State.30"

"He was averse from shedding human blood, though he destroyed many idolatrous temples, and erected mosques in their stead. He held conversation neither with Nazarenes nor with bramins; nor would he permit them to hold civil offices under his government."

"Vijaya Gupta, one of the eulogists of Husain Shah, gives a gruesome detailed description of the outrage on Hindus by the Muslim qazis, Hasan and Husain. These two made a pastime of baiting the Hindus in all possible ways. Anyone found with the sacred Tulsi leaf on bis head (an obligatory Vaishnava custom) was taken to the qazi with hands and feet bound, and heavy blows were administered to him. The piyada () tore away the sacred thread from a Brahman and spat saliva in his mouth..."

"The Third Concilio Provincial which met in 1585 passed the following resolution : ‘His Majesty the king has on occasions ordered the vice- roys and governors of India that there, should be no Brahmins in his lands, and that they should be banished therefrom together with the physicians and other infidels who are prejudicial to Christianity, after taking the opinion of the Archbishop and other religious persons who have experience in the matter. As the orders of His Majesty in this regard have not been executed, great impediments in the way of conversion and the community of New Christians have followed and continue to follow. Having regard to this, this Concilio orders that from now onwards at certain times in each year the Archbishop should obtain information regarding Brahmins, physicians and any other infidels who might be prejudicial to the conversion to Christianity, and in consultation with the Christian priests prepare a roll of their names which should be signed by him. This should be presented to the viceroy or the governor in order that the latter might issue orders for banishing them from the lands of the king, as His Majesty has ordered. The Prelates should do the same in their respective bishoprics as well as their ministers in consultation with the captains of the fortresses, and in case the local secular authorities do not comply with their requests, as His Majesty has ordered, they should send the rolls of the prejudicial infidels to the Archbishop in order that he may secure orders for the banishment of such infidels from the viceroy or the governor."

"In the wake of Gandhi’s murder, the violent repercussions were felt by organizations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS and particularly the Brahmin community of Maharashtra. Within a few hours of the assassination, the details of the murderer and his caste too miraculously trickled down to different parts of the country. While the press in India did not divulge too many details about the wave of communal violence that erupted the very night of the murder, the New York Times of 31 January 1948 reported through its journalist Robert Trumbull that ‘communal riots quickly swept Bombay when news of Mr. Gandhi’s death was received. The Associated Press reported that fifteen persons were killed and more than fifty injured before an uneasy peace was established’. The death toll in the hometown of Nathuram and Apte, Poona, stood at around fifty. The office of the Hindu Rashtra was obviously set on fire. ... Scholar Maureen L.P. Patterson who was researching on the aftermath of Gandhi’s murder on the Maharashtrian Brahmins, especially the Chitpawans to which sub-caste Nathuram and even Savarkar belonged, notes that she was refused access to relevant police files when she began her research in the 1950s. ‘Even today,’ she says, ‘scholars cannot get access to Maharashtra’s archival material for period since independence. So, the definitive study is yet to come.’ Consequently, the exact numbers of the Brahmin casualties might have been lost in history forever."

"The Brahmans, says Ibn Batitah, “are revered by the infidels and inspire hatred in the Muslims” (p. 188)."

"There also came the news of the manhunt of Maharashtrian Brahmins, irrespective of their party allegiance by non-Brahmins in Poona and other districts of Maharashtra. Some of my close relatives living in southern districts of Maharashtra were being made the victims of this manhunt only because they were Maharashtrian Brahmins. They escaped being lynched only by the sheer chance of not being found in their houses at the time of the raids. Gwalior also did not lag behind. Apart from the mass arrests of persons belonging to the Hindu Mahasabha or the R.S.S. the Maharashtrian Brahmins were generally looked down upon. Even in the Bar Room of Gwalior, we were insulted as Godsewallas! Leaders and workers of the Gwalior Hindu Mahasabha, prominent or otherwise, were arrested en bloc . . ."

"The Chaitanya-mangala of Jayananda describes as follows the plight of the Brahmans of Navadvipa, the birth-piace of Chaitanya, shortly before his birth (A.D. 1485): “The king seizes the Brahmanas, pollute their caste, and even take their lives. If a conchshell is heard to blow in any house, its owner is made to forfeit his wealth, caste and even life. The king plunders the houses of those who wear sacred threads on the shoulder and put sacred marks on the forehead, and then bind them. He breaks the temples and up- roots Tulasi plants, and the residents of Navadvipa are in perpetual fear of their lives. The bathing in the Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of sacred Aésvattha and jack trees have been cut down. The numerous Yavanas (Muslims) who reside in.the Piralya village ruined the Brahmanas. The feud between the Yavanas and the Brahmanas is everlasting, and the terrible village of Piralya is close to Navadvipa. Misled by the false report of (the people of) Piralyz that a Brahmana was destined to be the king of Navadvipa...the king (of Gauda) ordered the destruction of Nadiya (Navadvipa). Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya left Gauda with his family and kinsmen and fled to Orissa where he was honoured by its ruler Prataparudra.” Some time later, the king of Gauda changed his attitude and had the broken houses and temples repaired, but the Brahmanas whose caste was polluted remained for ever outside the fold of Hinduism.”’"

"By the morning meal not one soldier, not one Brãhman, remained unkilled or uncaptured. Their beads were severed by the carriers of swords. Their houses were levelled with the ground with flaming fire"

"The Brahmans who were custodians of the idols and idol-houses, and “teachers of the infidels”, also received their share of attention from the soldiers of Allãh. ... [it is] a chapter which has yet to be brought out in full. The Brahmans are referred to as magicians by some Islamic invaders and massacred straight away. Elsewhere, the Hindus who are not totally defeated and want to surrender on some terms, are made to sign a treaty saying that the Brahmans will be expelled from the temples. The holy cities of the Hindus were “the nests of the Brahmans” who had to be slaughtered before or after the destruction of temples, so that these places were “cleansed” completely of “kufr” and made fit as “abodes of Islam”. Amîr Khusrû describes with great glee how the heads of Brahmans “danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet”, along with those of the other “infidels” whom Malik Kãfûr had slaughtered during the sack of the temples at Chidambaram. Fîrûz Shãh Tughlaq got bags full of cow’s flesh tied round the necks of Brahmans and had them paraded through his army camp at Kangra. Muhmûd Shãh II Bahmanî bestowed on himself the honour of being a ghãzî, simply because he had killed in cold blood the helpless Brãhmana priests of the local temple after Hindu warriors had died fighting in defence of the fort at Kondapalli. The present-day progressives, leftists and dalits whose main plank is anti-Brahminism have no reason to feel innovative about their ideology. Anti-Brahminism in India is as old a the advent of Islam. Our present-day Brahmin-baiters are no more than ideological descendants of the Islamic invaders. Hindus will do well to remember Mahatma Gandhi’s deep reflection--“if Brahmanism does not revive, Hinduism must perish.”"

"In short, it was the holy place of the Hindus, which the Malik dug up from its foundations with the greatest care… and heads of the Brahmans and idolaters danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet,’ and blood flowed in torrents."

"When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced…"

"The missionaries had sensed from the very first that it was the Brahmin who stood in their way of breaking the barriers of Hindu society. But it was St. Xavier who made anti-Brahminism the central theme of his missionary thrust. ... After that, the killing and persecuting of Brahmins became the principal programme of the Portuguese. It became such a scandal as to be noticed specifically in the treaty which the Nayakas of Keladi in Karnatak signed with the Portuguese in 1671. The treaty laid own that the Portuguese shall not force conversions, nor take orphans, nor kill Brahmins. (64)"