Showing posts with label George Hart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Hart. Show all posts

RMF Summary: Week of June 6 - 12, 2011

June 6
Venkat writes an open letter to George Hart (Berkeley Tamil chair. George appears to be serving Tamil much like how Sanskrit prof Mike in Harvard in serving Sanskrit").
Breaking India: an open letter to George Hart
Please disseminate this open letter.

June 8
Superpower or Balkanized War Zone? - Extract from 'Breaking India'
Excerpted with permission from Malhotra, Rajiv and Aravindan Neelakandan, "Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines," Amaryllis...

June 8
The myth of Jesus, Christ and Jesus Christ
Interested Indians should first know about "The myth of Jesus, Christ and Jesus Christ". They can also read some of the following books:...Therefore, Indians should know the "Christology" before dealing with the
Christian issues.

June 8
A new anti-blasphemy law for Hindus?
An article by Arun Jaitley on the proposed Communal Violence bill: ...

June 9
Indian online bookstores
Was checking where all can I buy the Breaking India book online in India. It is available on flipkart.com and ebay.in.

June 10

Atrocity Literature as a Genre - Excerpt from 'Breaking India'
Excerpted with permission from Malhotra, Rajiv and Aravindan Neelakandan, "Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines," Amaryllis...

RMF Summary: Week of March 29 - April 4, 2011

March 29
Commentary on Breaking India on Indian Realist
*Authors of the just released book *Breaking India *allege that Christian organizations are engaged in a divisive program to expand in countries like India ... Here is the link.

March 29
Asian Studies Review paper on Rajiv Malhotra in 'Mythology Wars'
A draft of McComas Taylor's paper on Rajiv Malhotra in 'Mythology Wars' can be seen here [pdf]. This thread elicited a lot of responses, with Taylor's work generally receiving a lot of rotten tomatoes.


Karigar was the first to comment on the contents:
"..The 30+ page paper seems like a scholarly trivialisation of the critiques offered to Wendy & her childrens' works. The author essentially contradicts himself, when he titles his tract "Mythology Wars", thereby classifying the subject under discussion (Hindu texts & practices) as "mythology", and then proceeding to defend western academia for creating fresh overlays of mythology on top of traditional "mythology"..."

N.S.Rajaram does not beat around the bush and gets to the point:
"The author also makes no mention of the fact that Indology including what its present day practitioners are putting out is steeped in racism. In language and spirit it is similar to the anti-semitic literature of the Nazi era.

I plan to do a couple of columns on it highlighting both the racism and the anti-science of these Indologists. I will not engage in their kind of abusive, pornographic language but it will be no holds barred. Western Indology must be destroyed."

Meanwhile, Koenraad Elst adds:
" ..Taylor never really addresses the truth claims in the Hindu criticism of the truth claims by Wendy c.s. Thus, Vishal and Venkat's "fault-finding" with Courtright's Sanskrit translations does not question his integrity as a scholar (though that has been done too, but on other grounds), but his *competence*.
Views, which in Taylor's view are outside the scope of criticism, are inevitably related to data, and it makes a big difference if an academic is shown to have no proper command of the data. V & V have also dug up virile Ganesha references from the literature that completely refute Courtright's limp image of Ganesha. So, before  psychologizing the critics, Taylor ought to have acknowledged that they have proven Courtright's thesis *wrong*. If people insist on maintaining a thesis demonstrated to be wrong, one might start looking for psychological motives...


... most Westerners don't care one way or the other, and this includes many India-watchers and most of the old Orientalists, to whom, in their study in Vienna or Leiden, Hinduism was just a museum object on a par with ancient Greek religion. Courtright's book is of just that type ...

... It is like the Christian missionaries: when I was asked, during a lecture at Balagangadhara's conference on Religion in India (Jan. 2009), why the missionaries are out to destroy
Hinduism, I had to answer in truth: "Because they love you." With their limited knowledge, they believe that by converting you, they are freeing you from evil spirits and opening the road to salvation for you ....

... Subjectively, their love for Hindus (though not for Hinduism) is genuine and heartfelt. At the same time, its objective quality is indeed best summed up in Vishal's spot-on quip that "Wendy saying she loves Hinduism is like a pedophile saying he loves childen".

Vjiaya Rajiva has the final word in this thread:
"The Hindu diaspora is concerned with the effect this type of garbage has on their children. One of the books, I believe it is Courtright's work, is not just being delicately discussed in the genteel halls of the academy. It was being used as the basis of a textbook for children.

Secondly, although both Jewish and Christian authors have attacked their tradition, none of this is brought out to the schools, where the tradition is held up as pious and righteous thinking. Clearly a double standard where the Hindu faith is concerned."
 
April 1
Iain Buchanan - The Role of Evangelicals in U.S. Imperialism

Iain Buchanan - The Role of Evangelicals in U.S. Imperialism from TV Multiversity on Vimeo.

Iain Buchanan's presentation on 'Unholy Crusaders: The Role of Evangelicals in US Imperialism' at the International Meeting on Resisting Hegemony held 2-5 August 2010 in Penang, Malaysia.

April 1
Breaking India: Fire works start at Tamil Net world


In a discussion about the latest book on Gandhi, I introduce 'Breaking India'to the group members. I show how people like Jaffrelot have tried to depict Gandhi in a bad light and how 'Breaking India' shows such deconstruction of Indian
culture and state icons is an institutional activity in the west in order to depict Indian culture as inherently deficient or flawed seeking western intervention. (http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=13680)

Kumar reacts: He states that the book has distorted the facts. It has slandered the Berkeley Tamil chair. He denies any Western influence or support. (http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=13757) He also produces the related portion from the book.

I respond: I give the full context as well as the related citations. Comparing Thiruvachagam with Mormon scriptures by one of these 'professors' who adorned the Tamil chair, the Telugu chair of the South Asian Studies of the University being given to a declared evangelist etc. are also mentioned by me in the passing. Puncturing George Hart who has been paraded by Dravidianists as a great authority on Tamil literature, reallys hurt their agenda. http://www.jeyamohan.in/?p=13821


 

 



RMF Summary: Week of March 15-21, 2011

March 15
Moving backwards - Yogesh Atyal
"Moving backwards"

The above article by former Principal Director of Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO, shows how the wars to claim "lower caste" privileges are fragementing India in violent ways ...

March 15
Berkeley's Tamil Chair (Breaking India, chapter 10)
One of the chapters in "Breaking India" discusses, in the context of Dravidian Academic-Activist Network Outside India, the role of the Berkeley Tamil Chair held by Professor George Hart. The book brings out many facts that Indians (Tamils and ardent Hindus in particular) have not been aware of:
- Hart has disseminated the Dravidian propaganda exemplifying the "cunning Brahmin responsible for all social evils."
- He has claimed that early Sangam literature was composed before Aryan influence had penetrated the South....

Another commentator adds: "...So powerful was Karunanidhi's clout over Tamil Nadu during the 90's that he even allowed shooting of films inside temples..."

March 15
Council on Foreign Relations promotes Timothy Samuel Shah's prejudiced works
Rajiv Malhotra: I just got notified today that the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations is holding a worldwide conference call on March 29 to promote a new book that is innocently titled, "God's Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics." (http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Gods-Century/.) But what appears like objective and balanced scholarship has a long hostory of anti-Hindu bias and venom. Timothy Samuel Shah, one of the coauthors, is described in Breaking India (pages 243-5)...

March 16

Re: Afro-Dalit Project
Vijaya Rajiva adds : "Shri Loganadan should please watch the video below which at the end speaks of the Tevaram music in the first millennium." ...

March 17
This debate below had 37 excellent comments, including discussions between noted scholars of Hinduism, and will be covered by a separate post. The link is provided below for completeness.
Fw: Tribe and caste(jati)
Tribe and jati are both endogamous, but the jati is integrated with the shreni (guild) and the tribe is not. Dear Dr. Elst, Strictly speaking those Hindus who...

March 18 
Re: Dalit/Dravidian identity in light of Rwanda's Hutu/Tutsi history
N.S. Rajaram notes: " .... The terms, India, Hindu(ism), Hindi all are from Sindhu (the river), which is indeed a Samskrt word. Just like the word Asura becomes Ahura in Old Persian, Sindhu became Hindu. The word "Samskrtm" has direct meaning in Samskrt, whereas "Tamil" does not have meaning as-is in Tamil. Same goes for Dravid(ian) as well.
Their sloppy etymological gymnastics is beyond silly when they desperately try to justify their claims..."

The Afro-Dalit Movement
Aravindan Neelakandan, co-author of 'Breaking India' makes some very important observations about the so-called Dravidian movement, which subsequently led to a brief discussion:
...of the important aspects of the book 'Breaking India' is its research into the new faultlines fabricated by Western scholars and their Indian collaborators. The Afro-Dalit movement is one example.

Rajiv Malhotra discovered this in the office of an western academic where he saw the map of India balkanized into Dalitstan and other 'stans' which in turn set him in a quest to investigate who were behind this discourse. (The map is on the book's cover.) Those familiar with modern Tamil literature also know that various Dalit writings increasingly mimic American Blacks' writings. There is a well-organized attempt to shape Dalit experience as a variant of American Black
experience, and to make them feel like slaves of other Indians....

This message was posted in the Afro-Dalit site, and an AD representative Clyde Winters responded thus:
".. There is nothing wrong with the Afro-Dalit Movement. You see many Dalits were sold into slavery during the Atlantic Slave Trade. As a result, Afro-Americans (AA) have a direct genetic and historical relationship with Dalits.

AAs have recognized a relationship with the Dalits for years, beginning with W.E.B. DuBois and Malcolm X. Since the 1960's, with the creation of the Dalit Panthers, Dalits have been modeling there protest movement on AAs..."

After a few excellent comments that call CW's bluff, A. Neelakandan came up with a scholarly rebuttal:
"Indian Dalits do not have any special 'genetic relation' with African Americans any more than other Indians do. Dr.Ambedkar vehemently repudiates classifying Dalits as non-Aryans and Brahmins as Aryans. Modern genetics proves Ambedkar's thesis. (Please see: Appendix-A in the book). So the question arises: Whose frame of reference should we use to explain the Dalit experience? W.E.B.Dubois
and Malcoim X, or Dr.Ambedkar, Ayyan Kali and Sri Narayana Guru ...?" 
  
For brevity, we have only included excerpts. Read the original thread for the complete debate.

March 21
"European Misappropriations of Sanskrit led to the Aryan Race Theory
Please read my latest Huffington Post blog, "European Misappropriations of Sanskrit led to the Aryan Race Theory,"
 
Re: European obsession, not Indian-- read COLONIAL INDOLOGY
N. S. Rajaram comments: "In the forthcoming series *A People's History of India, * I (as General Editor) will have a significant section on the evolution of Indian writing, tracing it to the Harappan and pre-Harappan of which a handful of examples are known. It is a fascinating story..."

Rajiv Malhotra adds: "Dr.Rajaram wrote: "I strongly recommend Dilip K. Chakravarti's book ColonialIndology (Munshiram Manoharlal). It is heavy going but eye opening about how race and language were mixed up right from the start."
I am glad to say that I have enjoyed knowing Prof. Chakravarti (CambridgeUniv.) for several years and we have shared ideas..."