The Big Lie is that (1) they didn’t happen and (2) they weren’t horribly consequential for the Hindus.

(1) Not one person says that they didn’t happen – even you agree that disputes are about motivations, not facts, and (2) things that were consequential for Hindu subsects were happening all the time pre-invasion, and those internecine conflicts aren’t talked about either. Also, the notion that Hindus are a monolithic unchanged mass over several centuries is ridiculous – one only needs to look at the textual analysis of various Hindu epics to realize how they mutated over time to reflect the politics and conflicts of their time, surely those too were consequential and should be examined, rather than the descriptions of noble emperors, and antiseptic dynasties with borders, and trade relations, that gullible kids are fed in their textbooks.

Fine, nobody should be naive enough to think it was all peaches and cream pre-Muslim invasion(s). . . .

So, what was the big lie again? That Muslim invasions are not treated with more extreme prejudice than non Muslim conflicts given that it was by “foreigners”?

Fine, nobody should be naive enough to think it was all peaches and cream pre-Muslim invasion(s). . . .

(particularly at a certain school in Hartford, CT).

Vijay Prashad has no relevance beyond a few academics, and the vast right wing conspiracy theorists who obsess with him. His name, work, and ideas are not even marginally popular among the average Indian or Indian American, and not even necessarily among influential businessmen or other elites. One doesn’t need to buy into Prashad’s theories to dislike the Sangh or Modi. As for Indian schoolchildren, I agree – they should definitely study more about what Hindu rulers did, rather than be subject to the big lie.

Apparently (1) Indian schoolchildren and (2) anyone who takes South Asian studies courses here in the US (particularly at a certain school in Hartford, CT). But, yes, the truth is out there! I’m glad you’re on board contra the Big Lie.

As long as the Sufi Muslims is understood to mean DESI Sufi Muslims.

It is the straight-up denial of this sort of point that I am terming the Big Lie.

I don’t see Oster denying it or being ostracised for his statements; rather his book and his scholarship are very well respected, so I am not sure what exactly is being suppressed and who is being kept down as a result of this lie.

The diversity and variations across regions are certainly large, however the commonalities are plentiful too if you care to look for them. Let’s take two extremes…Punjabi Hindus and Tamil Hindus. Even there the two communities, while differening widely, would have significantly overlapping mythologies, and certain overlapping rituals and spiritual concepts. I’m talking even at an organic, folk level. People worshipped Shiv/Shakti in both regions. The Shiv Ling was common in both. Even the Guru Granth Sahib (which is not even a Punjabi Hindu document) makes reference to a lot of Hindu mythology that would have been familiar to people in Tamil Nadu as well. I think the basic act of puja and aarti would have been common to both. There were significant civilizational connections between farflung regions. All this was very organic and unselfconscious until recent times. This larger civilization MUST be seen as diverse and with regional flavors and NOT as one monolithic entity; but I do think there were some things there that cut across vast distances and disparate ethnicities in the sub-continent; part of a process that occured over centuries and millenia. Why do Sindhi Hindus and Tamil Hindus share (some) common first names? It’s the general larger civilizational commonalities at work (very analagous to “European Civilization” as opposed to French or Greek cultures/civilizations).