However, what is important is what happened after the letter was published. Entirely consistent with its brand of "journalism," the Times of India did not publish a single rejoinder by scholars who challenged Romila Thapar and her club of Stalinist distorians. After about two weeks, it unilaterally declared that the controversy was closed.

That was when Sita Ram Goel swung into action. He not only wrote an exhaustive and scholarly rebuttal that delineated the history of the Keshavadeva Temple at Mathura which Aurangzeb had so heartlessly demolished, he also provided unassailable evidence why Aurangzeb had done so.

Among other qualities, Sita Ram Goel's dogged persistence is worth emulating and imbibing. Five years later, he combined his writings on Ayodhya, the Muslim history of medieval India and other topics in his magnum opus, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, in two volumes. For a full discussion of the Keshavadeva Temple, see Chapter 3 of the second volume.