Why can’t Hindu-Muslim live in peace in Indian subcontinent?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, last Sunday (January 11), invoked the history of the Somnath Temple, stating that “flag hoisting at Somnath Mahadev Mandir shows the power of India and its capabilities to the entire world”. He added that, in the cycle of time, “those fundamentalist invaders are now reduced to pages of history, but the Somnath Temple still stands tall”.

Nearly two months ago, when Prime Minister Modi resolved to free India completely from the Macaulayite mindset, I argued in this very column (December 4) that what Modi said was correct but incomplete. India’s entrenched intellectual paralysis is not merely the legacy of Thomas Macaulay; it is equally the product of Karl Marx’s ideological descendants who dominate our political, academic, and social elite.

Even now, at the ‘Somnath Swabhiman Parv’, Prime Minister Modi once again stopped short of articulating the full truth. He rightly observed that “those fundamentalist invaders are now reduced to pages of history, but the Somnath Temple still stands tall”.

But has the vicious mindset of Babur and Aurangzeb been laid to rest with their physical departure centuries ago? Or has the virus of bigotry and hate merely mutated? The answer lies not in abstraction but in contemporary global reality.

From the devastating 1993 Mumbai blasts and the destruction of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, to America’s watershed 9/11, the deadly jihadi attack on the Indian Parliament, and the terrifying 26/11 terror assault on Mumbai — each event is a harrowing chapter in a long list of crimes against humanity, purportedly inspired by Islamic theology.

Even recent events — from the 2024 Magdeburg attack in Germany and the October 2025 terror incident in Britain (Jihad al-Shami), to the April 2025 Pahalgam killings, the November 2025 Delhi blast, and the December 2025 Sydney attack in Australia — underscore the grim reality that this metastasising ideology is far from eradicated. Why this senseless violence in the name of Islam? Why did Islamic invaders repeatedly attack India and pulverise its magnificent temples, including the famed Somnath? Leftist historians would have us believe that these looting expeditions had no religious dimension and were driven only by a lust for wealth accumulated in these places of worship.In Tuzuk-e-Taimuri, Timur (who invaded India in 1398) stated:

“My principal object in coming to Hindustan… has been to accomplish two things… war with the infidels, the enemies of the Mohammedan religion, and by this religious warfare to acquire some claim to reward in the life to come. The other was… plundering the wealth and valuables of the infidels: plunder in war is as lawful as their mothers’ milk to Musalmans who war for their faith.”According to historian Abraham Eraly (The Age of Wrath):

“Mahmud had, during the solemn ceremony of receiving the Caliphate honours on his accession to the throne of Ghazni, taken a vow to wage jihad… every year against the idolaters of India… He led more than a dozen campaigns in India during his 32-year reign. The sultan had two motives - to slaughter heathens and to gather plunder. These were, however, interconnected motives, each reinforcing and energising action in the other.”

Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India repeatedly. When offered a vast ransom by a vanquished Hindu king, Mahmud replied: “In the religion of the Musalmans, it is a meritorious act that anyone who destroys the place of worship of the heathen will reap great reward on the Day of Judgement, and I intend to remove entirely idols from the cities of Hindustan…”

Hindus and Muslims together constitute almost ninety-five per cent of residual India’s population. India and Pakistan are neighbours. Both Hindus and Muslims come from the same racial stock. They have no option but to live together in peace and as equals. Yet they do not, because the baggage of history often tears them apart.

Followers of indigenous faiths encountered Islam in India not as a parallel faith but as a politico-military force that arrived through conquest, subjugating the vanquished and stripping them of dignity, identity, and faith.

For nearly eight centuries, large parts of India were ruled by Islamic dynasties whose legitimacy rested on Islamic theological injunctions, including concepts such as kafir and kufr. Temple demolitions, the killing of infidels who refused conversion, jizya, and the systematic persecution of non-Muslims were part of state policy across successive regimes.

Hindu civilisation stands unique - pluralistic, non-proselytising, and inclusive. In contrast, Islam, by its very doctrine, is driven by exclusivity and expansion, dividing humanity between believers

and infidels.

Although many Muslims live peacefully, their theological framework makes coexistence with followers of non-Islamic religions difficult, as accepting other faiths as equally valid runs counter to core Islamic beliefs.

This doctrinal stance creates a deep memory divide: Hindus recall struggles for survival and endured indignities, while many Muslims cling to a misplaced pride in that turbulent past, often adopting an offensive posture. Without a shared and nuanced understanding of history, coexistence remains elusive.

Harmony in India is not about mutual understanding but about one-sided tolerance. Twisted historical narratives crafted by the Left fuel chaos among communities. While the injustices of the past cannot be undone, why glorify and celebrate them?

One cannot allow the past to destroy the present and the future. India is not alone in facing such dilemmas; worldwide, nations struggle with historical burdens that cast long shadows over contemporary relations. Many have attempted reconciliation. India has not.

What prevents Hindus and Muslims in India from embracing reconciliation? Despite the potential, division persists. Meanwhile, in Europe, Christianity has undergone reform, embracing secularism, post-religious politics, and self-reflection. Hinduism has evolved similarly. Islam, however, has yet to experience a comparable theological and historical reassessment.

In India, there has been no official rejection by Islamic institutions of religious conquest, no apologies for iconoclasm, and no recognition of India as a cradle of civilisation rather than merely a land of invasion. Instead, Islamic zealots and Leftists continue to provoke Hindus and Sikhs by glorifying figures such as Ghazni, Ghori, Babur, Aurangzeb, and Tipu Sultan.

The Partition of 1947 was meant to settle the civilisational question. It did not. Pakistan became an Islamic state, yet the two-nation theory survives in residual India — not as formal politics, but as a divisive mindset that keeps the communal cauldron boiling.

Communists, driven by an ideological agenda to balkanise India, promote and rationalise this bigotry. Other political parties, particularly the Congress, claiming to be ‘secular’, use Muslims as a vote bank and systematically promote Muslim fundamentalists within the community.Where does one begin the process of reconciliation? Without closure, the past continues to intrude upon the present.

An honest investigation is required to uncover the ideological and theological paradigms that fuel hatred and divide humanity into believers and non-believers. This must be followed by dismantling the false narratives and historical distortions spread through denial and sophistry.

The writer is an eminent columnist, former Chairman of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), and the author of ‘Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India’ and ‘Narrative ka Mayajaal’; views are personal