Book Available on Internet

[Voice of India]

Dear Indology-netters,

The first three chapters of the book "Negationism in India: Cocealing the 
record of Islam" are available for distribution on the Internet, with 
the permission of the publishers, Voice of India.

We can send you the book in a series of Emails, or post it on some 
newsgroup where it can be copied from.

This mail is being sent only to this specialised group, so as to keep the 
cacophony from the regular newsgroups out.

Please let us know if you want to us to include your name in our 
mailing-list.
	We request to repost this message (if you wish) only to 
specialised groups). We will be grateful if you suggest some relevant 
groups to us.

In the next couple of messages, we will send you the foreword, and some 
excerpts of the book, and you can make up your mind if you wish to read it.
	The missing fourth chapter deals with questions and answers. It 
is valuable, but not crucial to subject matter of the book.

Part of the motivation in making the book available was the arrival of 
the filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, and the concomitant misinformation that 
his movies will spread.
	As just one example of the way history is perverted in India, we 
can cite Patwardhan's claim that "Kabir was the saint of the working 
classes". You are invited to see how Koenraad Elst deals with the matter.

Thank You,

Volunteers of VOI


	FROM THE COVER OF
 "NEGATIONISM IN INDIA - CONCEALING THE RECORD OF
ISLAM" written by KOENRAAD ELST of Belgium; published by the VOICE
OF INDIA,  New Delhi, India; pp 176.

Negationism usually means the denial of the Nazi genocide of the Jews
and Gypsies in World War 2. Less well-known is that India has its own
brand of negationism.  A section of the Indian intelligentsia is still
trying to erase from the Hindus' memory the history of their
persecution by the swordsmen of Islam. The number of victims of this
persecution surpasses that of the Nazi crimes. The Islamic campaign to
wipe out Paganism could not be equally thorough, but it has continued
for centuries without any moral doubts arising in the minds of the
persecutors and their chroniclers. The Islamic reports on the
massacres of Hindus, destruction of Hindu temples, the abduction of
Hindu women and forced conversions, invariably express great glee and
pride.  They leave no doubt that the destruction of Paganism by every
means, was considered the God-ordained duty of the Moslem
community. Yet, today many Indian historians, journalists and
politicians, deny that there ever was a Hindu-Moslem conflict.  They
shamelessly rewrite history and conjure up 'centuries of Hindu-Moslem
amity'; now a growing section of the public in India and the West only
knows their negationist version of history. It is not a pleasant task
to rudely shake people out of their delusions, especially if these
have been wilfully created; but this essay does just that.

	This essay was started as an expanded translation of a
Dutch-language book review of Sitaram Goel's "Hindu Temples: What
Happened To Them", which could not be published in its original form
due to pro-Islamic pressure; and of an article on Islamic negationism
published in the Septemeber 1992 issue of the Flemish monthly
"Nucleus".

The author: 

Koenraad Elst (Leuven, 1959) grew up in the Catholic community in
Belgium. He was active for some years in what is known as the New Age
movement, before studying at the famed Catholic University of Leuven
(KUL).  He graduated in Chinese Studies, Indo-Iranian Studies and
Philosophy. He took courses in Indian philosophy at the Benares Hindu
University (BHU) and interviewed many Indian leaders and thinkers
during his stay in India between 1988 and 1992. He has published in
Dutch about language policy issues, contemporary politics, history of
science and Oriental Philosophies; in English about the Ayodhya Issue,
and about the General Religio-political Situation in India.