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Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them is a book in two volumes by Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie, Harsh Narain, Jay Dubashi and Ram Swarup. (Volume 1: ISBN 81-85990-49-2, Volume 2: ISBN 81-85990-03-4) The first volume was published in spring 1990.

The first volume includes a list of 2000 mosques that it is claimed were built on Hindu temples, which it is asserted is based primarily on the books of Muslim historians or the inscriptions of the mosques. The second volume excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu (including Jain and Buddhist) temples. The authors claim that the material presented in this book are only the tip of an iceberg.

The book contains chapters about the Ayodhya debate. The Appendix of the first volume contains a list of temple-destructions and atrocities that the authors claim took place in Bangladesh in 1989. The book also criticizes "Marxist historians" and one of the appendices of the second volume includes a "questionnaire for the Marxist professors" that the authors sent to well-known Indian historian Romila Thapar.

In August 1990 while releasing the book "Hindu Temples - What Happened To Them", Bharatiya Janta Party leader L. K. Advani chided Goel for using strong language. There were proposals in November 1990 in Uttar Pradesh to ban the book. .

Koenraad Elst's book Negationism in India - Concealing the Record of Islam contains a lengthy review of the book.

Koenraad Elst claimed that "None of the negationist historians has come forward with a reply or with the announcement that a mistake has been discovered in Mr. Goel's list of monuments of Islamic fanaticism. Manini Chatterjee, reviewer for The Telegraph, could do no more than calling it a "very bad book". Very bad for the negationists, indeed." And Elst further claimed: "Of the hundreds of secularist historians who have signed statements denouncing "communal history distortion", not a single one has been able to challenge even one of the 2000 claims in the list."

Cynthia Talbot in 1995 claimed that Goel's list of destroyed temples is "greatly inflated", but also called for a systematic and unbiased study of the subject, without which it is very difficult to gauge the extent of damage wrought on Indian temples. Cynthia Talbot noted that in the decades after 1565 temple desecration were on the rise in Andhra Pradesh, which is in accord with the dates in Goel's list of temple destructions (in Goel's chapter "Let the Mute Witness speak"). Reflecting on Goel's list, she says: "Five date from the fourteenth century (phase one), six come from phase two, and nineteen date from 1565 to 1650 CE (phase three). The remaining thirty or so cases stem from the century after 1650, with a notable bunching of incidents in the late 1600s, when the Mughal empire was absorbing the former Qutb Shahi Kingdom of Golkonda."

References

1. Goel, Sita Ram, "How I became a Hindu", Chapter 9
2. Cynthia Talbot. Inscribing the Other,Inscribing the Self:Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.37,No.4 (Oct. 1995).
3. Cynthia Talbot. Inscribing the Other,Inscribing the Self:Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.37,No.4 (Oct. 1995).

• Koenraad Elst: Negationism in India Concealing the record of Islam (1992)

External links

• Online version: Volume 1, Volume 2
• Comments on the book,
• Comments
• Destruction of Hindu temples by the Portuguese

• 1990 books
• Books on Hindu history
• Books by Sita Ram Goel
• Hinduism studies books
• Hindu temples
• Books critical of Islam
• Anti-Hinduism
• Hinduism-related controversies