"So history has to be studied, it is very painful history. But it is not more painful than most countries have had. ...It isn't India alone that has had a rough time, that has to be understood. But the rough time has to be faced and it cannot be glossed over. There are tools for us to understand the rough time. We can read a man like Ibn Battuta who will tell you what it was like to be there in the midst of the fourteenth century, terrible times. An apologist of the invaders would like to gloss that over. But it would be wrong to gloss that over, that has to be understood. ...But I would like to see this past recovered and not dodged. And I wouldn't like the version of history that tells you: “Ibn Batuta came to India at this time and made interesting observations”."