Sumit Sarkar

Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) is an Indian historian of modern India. He is the author of Swadeshi Movement.

Quotes

 * Central to Hindutva as a mass phenomenon (or for that matter to Fascism) is the development of a powerful and extendable enemy image through appropriating stray elements from past prejudices, combining them with new ones skillfully dressed up as old verities, and broadcasting the resultant compound through the most up-to-date media techniques. The Muslim here becomes the near-exact equivalent of the Jew. … Racist attitudes, finally, are neatly encapsulated in the very recent coinage of the formula 'Babar ki aulad'. Alleged descent from Babar is sufficient to damn, no overt misdeed is really required… just as once in fanatical Christian circles all Jews stood condemned because of what their ancestors had supposedly done at the time of the crucifixion of Christ.
 * "The Fascism of the Sangh Parivar." Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 5, 1993, p. 165.