North India Destruction Temples Quotes

“A.K. Warder, Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, University of Toronto, who has no interest in whitewashing either side of the conflict, writes: ‘The Turkish conquests of more than half India between 900 and 1300 were perhaps the most destructive in human history. As Muslims, the conquerors aimed not only to destroy all other religions but also abolish secular culture.’2 Will Durant, the well-known chronicler of civilisations, is as categorical: ‘The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history … its evident moral is that civilization is a precious thing whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians.’3 The degree of physical destruction is vouched for by noted art historian Heinrich Zimmer too, who laments that in north India ‘very little survives of the ancient edifices that were there prior to the Muslim conquest: only a few mutilated religious sites remain.’4
Amartya Sen concedes that ‘the slash and burn culture of the Muslim invaders … devastated several cities and ruined many temples, including particularly famous ones in Mathura, Kanauj, and (Somnath).’5 He also acknowledges the account of the Arab–Iranian traveller Alberuni who accompanied Mahmud to India, of this carnage. ‘Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed these wonderful exploits, by which Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions.’6 However, he believes that the Hindutva movement is deliberately highlighting Muslim destruction ‘through motivated selection and purposefully designed emphases as well as frequent exaggeration’.7 He is in a hurry to move away from the barbarism of the Muslim invasion to the undeniable and welcome syncretic elements of Hindu–Muslim culture that developed much later and over time.
It is possible that some politically affiliated sections of Hindu society are seeking to deliberately dwell on Muslim atrocities of the past in order to create religious divisions and exploit them for their own benefit. Such an approach is wrong and needs to be countered. However, it is equally wrong to gloss over history and falsify it for present-day ‘secular’ imperatives.”
― Pavan K. Varma, The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward