“This is not an idealization but a firm reality : no matter what the "evils of Hindu society" may have been, subjecting the individual's freedom of religion to any public authority is not one of them. No wonder that Voltaire, who strongly opposed the Church's totalitarian grip over men's lives, and may count as one of the ideologues of secularism, mentioned the religions of India and China as a model of how religion could be a free exploration by the individual.”

— Koenraad Elst

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

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Koenraad Elst 144

orientalist, writer 1959

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