Below is a post on the RM discussion forum by Vedic Desi
Curry smells, eating with hands, not using toilet paper, squat toilets, public defecation, pollution, caste system, accent, 33 million gods, driving in India, Paan spitting, vegetarianism, reincarnation, British gave you everything, and other clichés.
Astonishing! When people hear about India this is all they will get to know. As if somebody carefully trains them. Although there are many facts on India readily available thanks to the development in couple of years, the “Third World” image is carefully crafted and nurtured.
There is another set of people who are totally in love with India. They love yoga, and they want this "SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE" from India. In between the spectrum there are the people, who are still formulating an image about what is India. These form the think tanks, universities who know the reality on ground and know how to spin it, wherever and whenever needed.
At some point, if you feel you need to correct these stereotypes and get a true picture, you need to understand who you are in the first place to present yourself and the facts. Sadly most Indians neither have the depth of knowledge nor interest to explain about themselves. History is distorted. Media is biased. Cultural festivals have ended up being all about bollywood song and dance.
It is Rajiv Malhotra who brought it all together. Nobody has integrated the current geopolitics and its effects on India as done by Rajiv. He authored Breaking India, which is a seminal book that explains the role of US and European churches, academics, think-tanks, foundations, government and human rights groups in fostering separation of the identities of Dravidian and Dalit communities from the rest of India. The research tracked the money trails that start out claiming to be for education, human rights, empowerment training, leadership training, but end up in programs designed to produce angry youths who feel disjointed with their Indian identity. More importantly everyone should think about what it takes to put this together. When the problem is explained in such clarity, 50% of it is solved.
Rajiv Malhotra ji is unique because the integrated understanding his works provide is unparalleled. Dr. Subhash Kak's work is creditable when it comes to Myths of Aryan Invasion and others for other specialties in Indology. But to understand the full spectrum of Indology, you have to come to Rajiv Malhotra.
On why the West works on specialization?
Simple, America has a goal of global dominance. If the traditional scholars and their pawns understand the foreign policy of US, they would just be glad that someone like Rajiv exists and would put their force behind him to save our Sanskriti.
Not just study of religions regions and languages, do look up, US has an expert on almost everything imaginable on earth. Experts on Science, geopolitics, Religion, regions, languages, cultures, sports, Mathematics, Space, etc list goes on and on. Recently there was an alarm in The US on dwindling Russian experts and this was seen as responsible for hampering the policy decisions.
In US Universities, at the top level the research direction is determined by National Science Foundation and the topics are split into small sections for research by different universities. This may be seen as a mundane practice by the uninitiated, but it is effective to obtain mastery. Do our traditional scholars know this?
It is the US which is the only country in the world that can print currency continually to fund its needs. As a supplement of the global dominance agenda, there is the goal of some to have Pan Christian world. If you want to dominate the world, you need to understand it thoroughly, only then you can control it. So where are the traditionalist doing the Purva Paksha to understand the US?
Rajiv in his new book – The Battle for Sanskrit has laid open all his years of work and encourages the traditionalists to know the battlefield and join in to save Sanskriti.
In such a complicated situation, if someone like Rajiv is offering a way to fight back, why are traditionalists attacking him? This whole outcry about not crediting previous Indologists is just comical. It is Rajiv Malhotra’s humble attempt and request that others have to take it forward. What more do the critics want? The attacks on Rajiv are unwarranted. All Dharmic minds need to help stop these illogical attacks by traditionalists and start contributing to save our Sanskriti.
In my personal view, an even bigger aim of Swadeshi Indology, as Rajiv Malhotra suggests we work on (not Indology, which is a western view) is to help in spiritual advancement.
In a world, where Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatham are totally distorted, imagine what lies ahead for the future generations to tackle and develop faith and understanding of Dharma. Today it’s Sheldon Pollock, tomorrow someone else, but the battle has to be fought with a unified front. And the battlefield is best studied and explained by Rajiv Malhotra. Let’s stay on the path of Dharma, let’s unite to support and contribute to The Battle for Sanskrit.
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