This is incredibly damning evidence.

An Indian citizen files an RTI (Right to Information) Application, which is protecting by law. The applicant is seeking source information about claims made in NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) textbooks (which are the ones used in schools).

They are looking specifically for the sources that prove the claim “even when [Hindu] temples were destroyed during war, grants were later issued for their repair - as we know from the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.”

They also ask for the number of temples that were repaired by Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.

The response from NCERT for both requests is:

“The information is not available in the files of the Department.”

In other words, Indian school textbooks are making claims that these marauders were actually benevolent, generous rulers and empathic to Hindus...but the organization that publishes these books is unable to provide any substantiating evidence.

This is a level of systemic, institutional gaslighting of Hindus that must be recognized by the international educational community.

Instead, white American “scholars” profit from this and that Indian “eminent historian” is celebrated for it.

No doubt, it emerges from the “talking about the past leads to communal discord” trauma-driven avoidance approach that has plagued Indian society for generations.

What’s even more unfathomable is that these lies remain a part of the alternate-reality making machinery while the Indian woke elite wail about systemic Islamophobia and the horrors of Hinduism to earn woke Western cookies.

Hindus are asking for the truth to be told and are branded as dangerous Islamophobic fundamentalists for it. Telling uncomfortable truths by dislodging lies is only dangerous to those who benefit from keeping embedded lies in place.

Suppression is not working. It only fuels contemporary inter-religious tension. Look around. These textbooks are violent and mechanisms of violence production in society.

Truth and reconciliation is the only way forward.

The evidence is NCERT’s lack of info AND the exchange itself. There is nothing more democratic than a private citizen holding a public institution accountable. NCERT felt this was a sufficient response to the query, with no indication of an investigation or change in the text.

This is incredibly damning evidence.

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