Quote by Pavan K. Varma

“Sen’s concerted attempt to puncture the claim of Hindu civilisation sometimes assumes laughable proportions. Panini, the great grammarian, who lived in the fourth century BCE was, he says, an Afghani, because his village was on the banks of the Kabul River!46 Does Sen not know that at that time, large parts of modern Afghanistan were part of an Indian empire and closely integrated with Hindu civilisation? By using current political frontiers to categorise one of the greatest Sanskrit scholars as a foreigner seems to be a desperate attempt to devalue our indigenous culture merely because it would enable the ‘Hindutva movement’ as he calls it, to ‘glorify’ it. He considers it ‘convenient’ for Hindu zealots that even cultural theorists like Samuel Huntington describe ancient India as a ‘Hindu civilization’, but is adamant in maintaining that India was not a ‘Hindu country even before the arrival of Islam’.”

Quote by Pavan K. Varma